Poetic Theology

Today, my rector and I were formulating a plan for me to teach a special Lenten study on Christian Spiritual Classic Writers. We talked about Augustine (Hippo not Canterbury), Thomas a Kempis, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and (from the contemporary scene) Rowan Williams. I must admit my lack of familiarity of Rowan's theology except the bits I have gleaned since he's been ABC. But I have been able to gauge a bit of his spirituality. He is a deeply sensitive and grounded Anglo-Catholic. He is considered by some a "liberal," however that is construed, but most people I know and read agree he is incredibly thoughtful and definitely a voice in Anglicanism that must be grappled with. In my initial readings today, I sense he is very much a poetic soul, not simply by the fact he writes poetry. Hallmark Card writers write poetry, but most I contend are not so poetic. His is manner is more akin to a monk on Mt. Athos than an Anglican bishop. His prose contains a lyric sense of hedgerows and heaths and rocky coastal seascapes. His poetry is intensely personal, immersing his readers with him into an encapsulation of his moments of experiencing God in Holy Scripture. I hear clear reverberations of Lancelot Andrews and George Herbert in his meditations. And I am now beginning to see how this contemporary mystic will prove to be a seminal figure in spiritual theology, enough so to include him in a study of "Classic" Christian Spiritual Writers.