Profound Power of Poetry

Kasey Olander  

Welcome to The Table Podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology to everyday life. I’m Kasey Olander. I’m one of the hosts on the show, and I thank you for joining us today. I’m really eager for our topic today to be poetry, and we have with us two excellent guests who I will introduce here. But we’re going to explore just different dimensions of poetry, what it’s like. So for those of you who are like, “Oh man, I’m super interested in poetry!” I’m excited that you’re here. But then also for those of you who are like, “I’m not really sure what to do with this. I don’t really identify as a poet,” I’m really excited that you’re here, also. So, we have with us Jimmy Needham. He is a singer, songwriter, and teaching and worship pastor at Stonegate Church. So, Jimmy, thanks for being here today. 

Jimmy Needham  

So, so glad to be here. Yeah, for sure. Thanks. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah. We also have joining us online Christine Crawford. She’s a DTS alum and current student and founder of the Holy Shift Ministry. So, Christine, thanks for being here. 

Christine Crawford  

I’m so excited. This is going to be fun. 

Kasey Olander  

This is going to be fun. So, one of the reasons it’s going to be fun actually is we’re going to do something a little bit different. If you’re a regular listener to The Table Podcast, you’re probably used to our conversations, and fear not, we will get to that. We’re gonna, like I said, explore poetry, and we’re gonna go back and forth a little bit. But I also thought that we would be remiss if all we did was talk about it and didn’t let you experience it. So, first off, I’m gonna have Christine just read us one of her poems, so that we can actually get a taste for poetry before we dive into having our discussion about it. So, Christine, will you start us off? 

Christine Crawford  

Sure. Okay, this is a piece called “Remember That,” and it is a reflection after a trauma therapy session. So, we’ll go ahead and go there. 

Remember when your therapist guided you under that towering blue spruce in your imagination and meditation, and you sat atop the fallen needles and rested your back against the scabby trunk and plunged your fingers deep into the cool black soil, and inhaled that peaty musk and closed your eyes and felt Jesus settle in next to you, and when the tears fell and the snot gushed, he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close and pressed his lips to the top of your head. 

And when you said over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, “You never have to be sorry for being sad.” 

And remember when the six-year-old version of you, the one with the tiny turtle on her shirt and plastic sunglasses perched on her head between stringy pigtails, because she wanted to look cool for picture day, came to join you under that tree. And she said she was scared, and lonely, and hurt. So you scooped her up, and rocked her, and swept her sticky bangs back from her forehead and looked her in the eye and told her, “Life would be hard, and people would betray, and desert, and exploit, and neglect, and discard, and even you would abandon her for a while. But God never would.” And when you came to understand that she was worthy of safety and dignity and kindness, you would return to her, because you believed her, and loved her and celebrated her, because she was not invisible and she was not nothing. 

And remember when the current version of you, the one with the haggard eyes and weary soul and shattered spirit realized you had sacrificed your sacred core to please the unpleasable, and had remained scared and lonely and hurt. And when you looked over at Jesus, He smiled with such tenderness and scooped you up and rocked you and tucked your frizzy hair back behind your ear and looked you in the eye, and told you life has been hard, and people have betrayed and deserted and exploited and neglected and discarded, but he never did. And when you came to understand that you are worthy of safety and dignity and kindness, he would restore you back to yourself, because he believes you, and loves you, and celebrates you because you are not invisible, and you are not nothing. 

And remember when he took both little you and weary you, and set your yearning faces toward the sky, and he pointed to the gold leaves and the purple flowers and the red birds and the fat clouds, and he said, “Every time you feel betrayed or deserted or invisible, search for these reminders of my presence, my mercy, my love. I’ve placed them everywhere, tiny promises scattered like confetti over lonely valleys, and when you notice them, remember this: remember you. Remember me, remember that, remember that.” 

Jimmy Needham  

Awesome. 

Kasey Olander  

It is awesome. Thanks for sharing that with us, Christine. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, seriously, it’s great. 

Kasey Olander  

I feel like I want to leave it silent for like many minutes. 

Jimmy Needham  

And that’s the end, folks. Thanks for tuning in.  

Jimmy Needham  

I know this is your interview, not mine, but now I’m curious, Christine, how long have you been writing poetry? 

Christine Crawford  

So DTS is a big part of that story because I’m what I call an accidental poet. I did not—yeah, I did not know I was writing poetry. I took creative writing toward the end of my first degree with Dr. Glahn, and I wrote what I thought was very flowery prose and turned it in. And she and Jed, who was my TA, were like, “Oh yay, we have a poet.” And I’m like, “No, that’s not what that is. I don’t write poetry. I don’t like poetry.” And they’re like, “Well, you write it, so you better learn.” And so they have been encouraging me ever since. So I think that was 2019. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah. 

Christine Crawford  

It’s fairly new. 

Kasey Olander  

That’s awesome. 

Jimmy Needham  

That’s amazing. 

Kasey Olander  

I love that when your brothers and sisters are like, “Actually, did you know that this is what you’re gifted at?” 

Jimmy Neeham 

Yeah, this is in you. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, that’s so cool. So I’m curious then for each of you to talk about: what is your process for writing poetry? You know, how did that come about? You said that you were reflecting on a therapy session, but you know, okay, so I’ve had therapy sessions that I didn’t get poetry out of. So, Christine, what is that like for you? 

Christine Crawford  

So the thing about poetry and music is, for me, that’s the place I can process what I can’t process, like in prose or in public, really. So any of the big feelings—that’s what I like short form for. It makes me kind of have to take what just happened in my mind, or my head, or my body, or my soul, and try to make it a little more precise. And so for me, that particular piece was a little bit of what I call a vomit session. You know, the poem points to me having been in trauma therapy, and I recently have had to deal with a lot of grief, and getting—I call it my rage and grief poetry era. But sometimes I just need to get that out, and poetry kind of lets me fling it out on the page, and then I’ll sort it out and see. And sometimes it’s just for me. This is a pretty vulnerable piece for me to have out in public, but it’s been resonating, so I like to share it. But for me, it’s just kind of vomit it out and look at it, and that’s when it begins to make sense to me. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah. What about you, Jimmy? What is your process like, and then also how did you get started in writing it? 

Jimmy Needham  

Well, the second question is easier to answer. I just kind of have always grown up—maybe different than you, Christine—from my earliest memories, I remember writing, and writing poetically, and it was just something that I’d always been drawn to. Always been drawn to music, singing, all that. So the arts was just sort of a de facto part of who I was. I don’t really have a great reason for it. My dad’s an oil man, so I don’t know why that is in me. 

Kasey Olander  

That’s awesome. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, and maybe because of that, I don’t know that I have a, “This is my approach to it.” You know, this is me sitting down and writing poetry. Almost all of it begins at least with just a moment of inspiration, like it does for most of us. I hear a line or a sentence, but you know, when I’m trying to write poetically, more than a paper for Dr. Wallace, what I’m trying to ask is more questions that are sensory. You know, how does this thought sound, feel, smell? What I like about poetry is the wheels are off. You can just do whatever. You know what I mean? And I do think that’s the perk of poetry, and also probably why some people don’t like it. It’s like, well, there’s no right or wrong answer to it in a lot of ways. Even if you go hunting for definitions of poetry—and I’m sure we’ll talk about this in a little bit—it’s very hard to get a textbook “this is what it is,” because Christine, your poem didn’t rhyme, and yet all of us identified it as a poem. So, okay, I guess rhyming’s not part of it, right? 

Kasey Olander  

Right. 

Jimmy Needham  

Well, what is part of it, you know? And so, I actually thrive in the nebulousness of it because it means there’s a lot of room to roam. There’s a lot of permission, and that for me as a little bit more of a free thinker feels really nice and fun to explore. So... 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, I’m hearing from both of you guys that there’s a little bit of this like, “Oh, it just came out of me,” comes naturally. But also it seems like, because you didn’t both just start this morning, that there’s a craft that you’ve been honing. There’s some repetition as you do it more and more. 

Jimmy Needham  

For sure, for sure. And it’s not to say—and you’ve been taking classes in these spaces, so you could resonate with this too—it’s not to say that there’s nothing to learn about the craft of it. It helps when you can develop what are some of the poetic elements that make something beyond prose: simile, metaphor, analogy, metonymy, all these things. And when you can get some of that in your system, you’re like, “Okay, I’ve got more cards to play now.” So I don’t know, what would you add to that, Christine? What am I missing? 

Christine Crawford  

No, I want to just kind of echo back when you said the freedom that comes with poetry. What I like about it, especially if we’re going to be talking about hard things, but even just talking about beautiful things, you don’t have to set it up and create a whole character arc. You can immediately point to something beautiful, or slip the knife in immediately. You don’t have to, in whatever form that takes. But Jimmy’s right. One of the reasons I thought I wasn’t a poet is I thought poetry was super unapproachable, and maybe some of the poetry I read was a little pedantic, and like it had to rhyme and had a certain structure. And really just what I’m finding is: is it visceral to some degree? Because I feel like that’s a thing. And then my poetry, even though it doesn’t rhyme and is completely freeform—not everything is this freeform, but there is a cadence to it. Do you think that’s part of it, Jimmy? 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, yeah. I would say in lots of poetry, I think there is. 

Christine Crawford  

Okay. 

Jimmy Needham  

That’s how I experience it. There’s a bit of a beat, even though it’s not a four-four meter. This is maybe me coming as a musician, but there is a rhythmic element to: how do these syllables land? That again is all in the space of the visceral, sort of feeling thing. Music is a feeling thing. So, if I’m trying to make a clever, playful point, I’m going to hit the beats really fast. And if I want some profundity, I’m slowing down the cadence and all that. And so, yeah, I think that all comes into play. It’s all on the table. 

You know, what you said reminded me of something that one of the professors here was talking about in one of my Psalms classes, just about how Psalms, before they’re meant to be understood, they’re meant to be experienced. And that was such a helpful notion for me, as somebody who loves Paul and loves a good Romans 1 through 8. It’s nice to go, “Okay, maybe the first thing I need to do when I come to Psalm 23 isn’t analyze the grammar, but experience the sensation of grass and the visual of still waters.” And those are not things that academic people tend to do. It feels silly or trite, but it’s like, no, that’s what it is meant to do. It’s meant to hit you here, you know, as much or more than intellectually. So, I like how transgressive it is in academia to even do poetry. It’s kind of fun. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, it almost makes it counterintuitive. It does. What you’re talking about really resonates because, as Christine is reading, I can feel it or I can visualize it so easily, what she’s describing. As opposed to just having an intellectual assent if she’s reading me a bulleted list or something like that. Just different than prose normally is. 

Jimmy Needham  

That’s right. Yeah, Leland Ryken, when he writes about poetry and that kind of literature, he’s like, “You know, if you want a really good commentary on the Psalms, you need to go find a picture book.” That’s the best way to do it because it’s just constantly saying, “He is like a strong tower, He is like...” Well, I need to see what that looks like! So I need to Google some images more than I need to go, “What is this verb placement?” So I thought that was helpful. It’s like, no, this is stuff to be seen, and smelled, and felt, and heard. Yeah. So... 

Kasey Olander  

Which is awesome. I don’t know if there’s this stereotype that the things that are sensory and visceral are like, “Oh, we have to move beyond that,” when really we should recapture it and go back to it because we’re all embodied humans and we all experience the world in our bodies with our senses. So that’s beautiful that poetry helps us to engage with that in a different way. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah. 

Kasey Olander  

So you guys talked about how there’s some cadence and there’s some freedom, and then obviously some stuff like simile and metaphor and stuff. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you’re like, “Oh, this is something that I would use to define what poetry even is”? It’s okay if we got it. 

Jimmy Needham  

Christine, you got something? 

Christine Crawford  

No, just one thing if I can circle back to what you just said though, Kasey, because I’m geeking out so hard about embodied faith right now. As a trauma survivor, initially the only time I could feel my emotions or be in touch with them because I was still living in my trauma was through songs, poetry, or art. So I think the favor that any sort of art can do is it will awaken things in us, like longings sometimes, grief sometimes, and also fulfill those things at the same time. But as I begin to feel those things, and also as I teach through my ministry, and now am leading trauma groups and helping other women who have been traumatized, we have been doing a lot of practices that help us with embodied faith. Because you know, as Jamie Smith says, we’re not “brains on sticks.” And so, not only are our emotions not just things that can be intellectualized, our faith shouldn’t be either. And I say this as a total geek who’s basically collecting master’s degrees right now—I love to learn—but a faith that lives here isn’t a faith that lives here. And so we’re doing a lot of contemplative prayer and helping people actually experience embodied faith, and it goes deeper. Then it’s an experiential thing instead of just a hyper-intellectualized thing, which we love to do in the West. So I just think that truth and art coincide, and one of the best ways to do it is to actually taste it, and that’s what Jimmy’s songs do. And I saw your chapel talk—fabulous. That’s something that I think art can do really, really well. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, agreed. 

Kasey Olander 

Yeah. 

Jimmy Needham  

Copy, paste. That’s right. 

Kasey Olander  

Did you have anything to add about that? 

Jimmy Needham  

No, I just want to sympathize with the fact that it’s not that poetry is anti-truth claims or propositions. It’s not that. It’s just that, like you said with the “brains on sticks” quote, and James K. A. Smith, which I mentioned in my talk, he talks about something similar: how we’re not mostly thinking beings, we are wanting beings, we are loving beings. And if that’s true, that means that there’s more going on than just propositional logic. Which is why I think you can listen to a song—and you guys have probably both felt like this before—you’re like, “I don’t even know what that dude’s talking about, and I’m crying. Why am I crying about something I couldn’t even explain?” But I think that is a testament to that sort of Ecclesiastes: God’s put eternity in our heart. There’s something more going on here, guys. There’s something more than just me understanding that A plus B equals C. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, and I find it’s so beautiful the way that God relates to us, because you see Scripture. Obviously, you see prose—like you just alluded to Paul. There’s very, “Okay, here’s some heavy theology, and here’s what I need you to understand about our salvation, about Christ.” But then the Psalter is not just a random chapter here. That is a substantial portion of what we believe is sacred God’s Word in Scripture. You talked about Psalm 23 earlier. And so there’s this other way that God is relating to us, in addition to the doctrinal things we need to know, which are both awesome and important. 

Jimmy Needham  

It is, yeah. 

Kasey Olander  

So, are there other things that come to mind as far as what the Bible says about poetry or how we should engage with it? 

Jimmy Needham  

Well, I would just say the Bible doesn’t say so much about poetry as much as it just does it, and it does it constantly. You know, most scholars and grammarians are looking at the first chapter of Genesis and going, “Yeah, that’s poetic in its structure.” Again, I mentioned in my talk, the first words a man ever speaks is a poem. Every time something awesome happens to the nation of Israel or to individuals in Israel, it’s poems. Anytime you get the most epic Christology in the New Testament, it’s a poem. So that should make our antennas go up: “Okay, apparently this is a meaningful way to capture what the Lord has done for me, or a way to communicate to people what the Lord is.” The whole premise of corporate worship is like, “Hey guys, say poems to each other’s faces; do that because it’s going to do something for your spiritual formation.” So I think the Bible just does it constantly. You can’t get enough of it. 

Kasey Olander 

Yeah, and that was a really good overview too. You’re picking from a ton of different places in Scripture. Again, it’s not just a one-off, one time. 

Jimmy Needham  

Totally. Yeah, the Psalms is a big book, but then every other book is full of poems. Even Paul will do it. He gets all amped up in Romans, and then in Romans 11 he has that poem sort of ending, or he grabs the Carmen Christi and does that thing. So, yeah, it’s just all over the place. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, Christine, anything to add about how you see Scripture and the poetry in Scripture? 

Christine Crawford  

Well, just that we have a very creative God. He started the world creating, and the story of Scripture is a story, and the entire Bible is full of art and invitations to notice truth and beauty and goodness and poetry and song. And so again, to the points that we were making earlier about Jamie’s work, if we are desiring people, I think we have this kind of—I call it new Gnosticism—this thing sometimes in Western church culture where we’re supposed to shut off our desires, we’re supposed to shut off our emotions. And I just think that cuts off our ability to live in the fullness of who God made us to be: as image bearers, as people who reflect His image, as a Creator, as a God who experienced anger and all the emotions. So I love that Scripture models it, Scripture gives it to us. 

And Todd, one of the things he said in the songwriting class—he had us writing songs, and of course—I wonder if he’s going to get mad if I give away one of his lessons—he doesn’t tell us ahead of time what we’re doing. But he said, “You know, a pastor can get up there and talk for 25 to 45 minutes; you might write down one point and remember it, but chances are people are going to walk away remembering the song.” So he had taken one of our songs and he read it as liturgy. He said we have to remember that when we are writing songs, we’re putting prayers in people’s mouths. And that has stuck with me: the responsibility of that, the privilege of that, to be putting prayers in people’s mouths, and how music does that. And again, when we create an image in somebody’s mind or let them feel something, that’s going to penetrate a little deeper than a fact about what happened sequentially in Exodus to Numbers and all that. So I just think that what art does is it tells us the truth, as Dickinson would say, slant. But I think it goes a little deeper. 

Jimmy Needham  

That’s great. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, and too, I like that you pointed it out. I don’t remember who said the quote about how nobody leaves humming the sermon. But there’s something in us that sticks with us in a way that we didn’t intend, or can’t help but have those things come up. I feel like I always wake up in the night and there’s a song in my head or something like that, and I’m like, “Oh, I haven’t heard that in a long time. Where did that come from?” But there are these things about art that captivate us in a different way. 

Jimmy Needham  

Totally. 

Kasey Olander  

Which is awesome. So I also liked that you, Christine, talked about the responsibility and privilege that we have. Whether you identify as an artist or not, there’s still a dimension of our humanity that resonates with what is artistic, or at least non-prose kind of truth and ways of experiencing the world and experiencing God. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, I’m glad you said that because you really don’t need to be a creative wearing a beret to have this in you. I mean, think about anytime you’re sharing a story with or trying to describe something to a person, what is the thing that we’re always going for? It’s “it’s kind of like...” That’s called a simile—a comparison using like or as—and that is poetics. It’s me going, “I want to give you something concrete to explain the abstract.” And so we all have this in us. It’s just an effective means of communication, and you don’t have to be a songwriter to get that. 

Kasey Olander  

So, what would you say to the person who doesn’t identify as an artist—the quote-unquote unartistic layperson who’s like, “Well, I’ve never written poetry; I’ve not really been an artist ever since I stopped being five years old”? What encouragement would you have for this person on how to maybe stretch themselves a little bit, either with how they support poets in their lives or how they themselves go about experiencing poetry that they haven’t considered before? 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah. Well, I do think there is a tendency—knowing that this is a DTS podcast and we’ve got very bright people who probably listen to this—with folks in higher education to be a little bit more “brain on a stick” prone. So I do think this is an invitation. The Bible is a constant invitation to go like, “Hey, don’t despise these things. You might not get it, but know that God clearly cares about it because it’s everywhere.” So, be a person who can fight to treasure things like the Psalms. Master those in the same way you would the Book of Hebrews, because there’s gold there. It’s a different kind of gold, but there’s gold there. So I would say: fight the tendency to go, “Oh, because the borders feel blurrier, I’m not going to give it the rigor that I’m going to give other propositional parts of the Bible.” Don’t do that. That is not a godly pursuit. We need to lean into this with the same vigor we do the stuff that fits a little bit more into our boxes. 

Kasey Olander  

Especially if all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful. Turns out, it’s useful. 

Jimmy Needham  

Turns out it’s useful. Yeah, that’s right. 

Kasey Olander  

It’s not just the “pick your favorite book” kind of part. 

Jimmy Needham  

That’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. 

Kasey Olander  

What about you, Christine? Any tips for our laypeople / non-artists? 

Christine Crawford  

Okay, this is going to be kind of a sideways angle, but I think that everybody is a poet if they’re noticing God and they’re noticing beauty. I think poetry is just noticing out loud. 

Like when—is it Frederick Buechner that talks about paying attention to your life? And you go and read how visceral Mary Oliver’s poems are. She had a very complicated relationship with faith and that kind of thing, but her poems—she’s noticing things, she’s naming things. And so I feel like even if you’re not doing it out loud, faith and prayer, and poetry and prayer, are kind of the same thing. It’s bearing witness to the beauty and the brokenness of this world. And then poetry, if you’re doing it out loud, you’re just inviting somebody to witness that with you. It’s our way of pointing to the world and saying, “Do you see it? Isn’t it terrible, or marvelous, or magnificent, or whatever it is? Do you see it too?” Even if I can only connect with that person on a page, I think when we notice anything beautiful, when we notice anything broken, we are noticing God. And so some of us do it out loud, but I think all of us do it internally. 

And if you’re living a life that doesn’t allow you to do that—which I once was, so this is not finger-wagging; this is a hard-fought lesson—if you’re living a life that doesn’t give you the space to notice God and to pay attention to your life, I would encourage you to slow down. And you’d be amazed at just how rich faith can be, how rich prayer can be, and then you might actually have some room for something to fall out in the form of poetry, or music, or any other kind of art. 

Jimmy Needham  

I think that’s interesting that one of your action items is to slow down with respect to poetry, because I do feel like that is one thing you cannot do when engaging with the poetic: rush. You just can’t do it. Have you ever—I mean, poems are hard. Just get out of the Bible for a moment: have you ever read a poem like Robert Frost? You ain’t gonna just read that and move on. You have to sit and stare at a wall and go, “Okay, what...?” And so I do think poetry is an invitation to sit in this, and so I think that’s a really great connection. 

And maybe something else to add—and I stress this a lot at our church—is just the singing element of it. We don’t just have a duty to enjoy the poetry God gives us in His Word, but we have a duty to give it to other people as we worship. We have God as our audience, but we also have each other as our audience: sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another with thankfulness in your hearts to God. So I’m supposed to be giving poetic expressions of the beauty and worth of God, the nature of the cross to you. And there are lots of people at my church and at all of our churches that don’t sing, and that is wrong. We are commanded to do that, and it’s our contribution to the body. So, even if you’re not about this conversation right now, I got a verse that says you have to do this: you got to sing to me, you know. 

Kasey Olander  

What if I’m not a good singer? 

Jimmy Needham  

Oh, it’s the joyful noise thing, girl! Come on, let’s do it. Let’s be noisy together. But yeah, the point is the content at the end of the day. So yeah, I would just say: lean in, get screechy, but give me that truth. 

Kasey Olander  

And you make a good point about it being formative for all three of us. I’m singing because it forms me, but also it is formative for me to hear both of you guys. I’m remembering the people that are singing alongside me. We’re orienting our hearts to God. We’re orienting our bodies, our lungs as we sing, but we’re also pointing one another to look at Jesus. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, yeah. 

Kasey Olander  

Regardless of our variety of circumstances—we talked about trauma, we talked about rejoicing and happy stuff, which is cool too, but there’s a myriad of experiences, which obviously we see in the Psalms as well. A myriad of experiences that we can be expressing as we’re trying our best to fix our eyes on Jesus. 

Jimmy Needham  

It’s good. 

Kasey Olander  

Christine, you mentioned poetry out loud. I don’t know if you meant it metaphorically or not, but I do want to go there, because you just read us a poem out loud. What is the difference between when we engage with a book of poetry—we’re just reading it with our eyes—as opposed to listening the way we just did to poetry read out loud? 

Christine Crawford  

Well, we’re going to defer to Jimmy on this because reading it out loud is a new situation for me. Part of it I really like because then the emphasis is where the emphasis belongs; it’s just easier to tell the story. But most of the poetry, I don’t get to go with it. It goes out on its own. And then Jimmy, as a songwriter too, and the spoken word piece that you did at Chapel was just phenomenal. You are going to know a whole lot more about this. I just basically hold my paper with my little shaking hands and tell you about the things that live in my head. But Jimmy can talk about the actual performance. 

Jimmy Needham 

It didn’t feel like that, for what it’s worth. 

Christine Crawford 

Thanks. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, I’m just such a ham, guys. So I can only speak for me: I love sharing, I love persuading, those types of things. And so for me, that’s always been me. And I know for folks like you, Christine, it’s like, “I’m doing this as an act of faith.” That’s not me—I’m like, “Please put me in the center of the circle and let me do something!” But I love getting to share other people’s aha moments, other people’s emotional impact. That’s a special thing. That’s what makes performing for me so fun: seeing this thing that God has put in me come out of me and do the thing I was hoping it would do in you. It’s like, that’s beautiful. That’s amazing. So that motivates me to get it out of my mouth a lot. 

Kasey Olander  

And it’s cool. I mean, it’s beautiful that there are different ways of engaging with even the same poem. You could read it online, or you could hear it spoken out loud. And I think both of them may in different ways still resonate with the person who is hearing or reading it, that they are different sensory ways of getting at the same emotion or concept. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah. It’s funny how you could say the same piece of Shakespeare—three or four different actors could say the same piece, and it’s like, “Oh, I’m not getting a different message per se, but I kind of am.” What one was trying to capture about “to be or not to be” was not what another was trying to capture; they were emphasizing different things. So there is something that God uses in the performance of a piece that I do think is part of the communication. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, that’s a really good example because I don’t know how to read in iambic pentameter, and so—it’s a quirk about me, but my little fifth grade class didn’t either—and so that was my interaction with Shakespeare. It’s probably too young, but it was so different from getting to actually go to the Globe Theatre and see a performance. I was like, “This is amazing! This is what people have been talking about.” 

Jimmy Needham  

Did you do that? 

Kasey Olander  

I did actually. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, that’s amazing. I’ve always wanted to go. 

Kasey Olander  

It was beautiful and phenomenal, such a gift. But it was just that stark difference: it’s the same words, I’ve read that same play before, but it was a completely different experience. 

Jimmy Needham  

Oh my gosh! If you were on my Instagram feed, you would see that’s mostly all I follow: guys doing that kind of stuff at the Globe and places like that. I just want to be there. 

Kasey Olander  

Gosh, that’s awesome. So, you guys are both poets. I love, Christine, that you talked about how—I don’t know if there are non-artists, so even if you identify that way, sorry about you—but for those of us who just haven’t written very much poetry, are there ways that we can support you as your brothers and sisters as you are honing this craft or sharing it with the world? What are ways that you wish the church had encouraged you more? What are ways that you’ve seen it done really well?” 

Christine Crawford  

Great question. I feel like the church is getting better about understanding the power of art and creativity and the formational aspect of it in terms of how you can support our work. And I almost cringe when I say “art” when I’m discussing my stuff because I still feel like a fraud in that regard. But if we’re going to be supporting Jimmy—no, what we would want to do is, one, engage with it. Because if it’s good art, like perhaps Jimmy’s, that’s going to penetrate a little more deeply than even you understand. But two, when you engage with it, when you let us know what lands and what doesn’t land, it helps us hone our craft. 

Also, writing poetry, especially publishing it or reading it out loud, is a little bit like standing buck naked on a stage and being like, “Look at the deepest parts of me, and please don’t be gross and mean about it.” So, if somebody will say to you, “Oh my gosh, that part of your poem really touched me,” then it feels worth it to me. It feels worth it if it actually reaches somebody. And even if it’s not your jam, but you have a friend, point people to artists, because most of us are doing this as an effort of pointing to God. I think that art is great evangelism. But also, we’re human and we work really hard when we make something. It is a vulnerable thing, and also sometimes we’re giddy kids: “Oh, look what I made! Do you like it?” So tell us if you like it, or point somebody that you think might like it in our direction. But don’t be afraid to offer feedback and tell somebody what their work means to you, because most of the time—maybe not in Jimmy’s world at Jimmy’s level—but most of the time, for me, it feels like you’re just screaming into the void. I feel a little bit like I’m throwing confetti into the black hole. And so, if something resonates, let us know. 

Jimmy Needham  

Let us know. That’s great. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, that honest feedback, because you’re doing something vulnerable. Sharing whatever kind of art—especially poetry—is vulnerable in a really unique way. So I appreciate you sharing that. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, I’m right there with her. I think that’s all good counsel. I was also just thinking about ways that churches could be involved in this. I don’t know how to answer how a church would be involved in sort of the support of poets in the church necessarily, but I do think there are ways that a church can be supportive of poetry in general in the Scriptures. Sunday morning is for the rehearsal of the gospel through the means of His Word and all these various channels, and I think there are better and worse versions of that at churches. One of the ways that we love to lean into that at our church is not by doing poetry skits all the time and stuff like that. Sometimes, if the piece fits, I’ll insert it into the actual sung worship set, and I’m glad to have a lead pastor who gives me the bandwidth to do that. 

But even when we have our public reading of Scripture—we’ll have Scripture readers at our church get up and read the passage for the day—taking seriously the tone and tenor and texture of what you’re reading that day, and sharing it in a way that matches the content. We really vet our Scripture readers at our church to go, “These are not just dead words. If you’re reading Psalm 27: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?’—give it to me, girl! Say it!” And so, I think that’s one way that churches can honor poetics in Scripture: by reading it in a way that matches what it is. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah. That makes sense with taking it seriously, like we alluded to: responsibility and privilege. Obviously, we have that with Scripture and with poetry as well, that we’re being stewards of it. So get excited, because we are in fact going to hear from Jimmy—I should have mentioned that earlier—we are going to hear from some of his work, of course. But before we do that, I do want to offer each of you guys the chance to do a brief closing thought. Anything that you would want our listener to walk away with that we haven’t already talked about? 

Christine Crawford  

I’m going to latch onto your word stewardship. The way we steward our lives: if we’re going to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then we need to steward our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And for different people, that’s gonna look different. But I would say that for most of us, art helps steward parts of us that maybe regular things just can’t get to. And so as we were talking earlier about reading poetry: you have to slow down. Writing poetry: you have to slow down. I love Wendell Berry—that’s my literary boyfriend—he’s got a poem called ‘How to Be a Poet,’ and he’s like: turn everything else off, and sit down and notice. 

So I just want to point out that art—sometimes in the past it’s been treated as this abstract thing that maybe we tack on as part of worship, other than congregational singing. But again, art helps us tell the truth in ways that sometimes the regular truth can’t get in. And so whether we are slowing down to make it, or slowing down to even notice the things that belong in a poem—I feel like poetry is like holding a picture frame up to that moment in time and paying attention to the way the light slants through that window onto the hardwood floor. I feel like that is worship. 

So slow down. Notice your life. Slow down for the purpose of being able to write poetry, to read poetry, to notice beauty. And I think that that is so much more formational. And I know for people who maybe aren’t in that practice, that might feel daunting or a little ethereal. But put some legs and feet on it, park your heinie in a chair, and spend 20 minutes noticing beauty. And I think you’ll discover that you are a poet and you are an artist, and that is a form of worship. 

Kasey Olander  

I love that you’ve brought up so many things that we actually have other episodes about. So if you’re interested in more conversations like this, we have “Why Christians Care About Art and Beauty,” “Appreciating the Arts,” “Beholding Beauty,” and a whole slew of resources like that. So Christine, I appreciate you bringing those up. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, that’s all so great. I would just add maybe that the church needs poets. The church has always needed poets. And I think about your story, Christine, even just hearing it today: you discovered later in your life, “Hey, this is in me,” and then you were obedient enough to go, “I’m going to steward that.” And there may be folks listening that are kind of like you, Christine, going, “I had never known that about myself, but come to think about it the way you guys are talking, something’s bubbling up in me.” I would just encourage you: the church needs you and those giftings. We need more Davids. We need more Asaphs. We need those people. And I just think about Jesus’s parable of the talents. Could this be a talent that God doesn’t want you to bury? Now that you’re curious about that in your own life, what would that look like for you to leverage that for the glory of God? So this may be a good jumping-off point and a starting place for somebody who, like Christine, is maybe just now discovering, “Hey, this is something I should explore.” If you’re feeling some of that, I would say go look into that. Go read some Wendell Berry. Go try your hand at writing about an object for 10 minutes and see what comes out of that. Who knows what’s there? The Lord might surprise you, and you might have a gift to offer your church that they really need. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love that encouragement for the people listening. So, Jimmy, would you mind sharing one of your poems with us? 

Jimmy Needham  

All right, here we go. You know what’s cool about this: so, Christine, yours was called “Remember That.” And the poem that I just dug up from the archives that I’m going to share is called “Remember.” 

Kasey Olander  

Stop! That’s awesome. We didn’t even know that. 

Jimmy Needham  

Yeah, it’s almost like God is sovereign. Sometimes you get that feeling. Anyways, could just be me. So I wrote this a long time ago and haven’t done it in a minute, but we’ll see what happens. Okay, do I have this committed to memory? Do I have to look at it? We’ll find out. Here we go. 

When I was a kid, all I did was forget things. 

“Where are my socks at?” “Who hid my He-Man?” 

I could never find it, though I was standing right behind it. 

Mom always said if it was a snake, it would have jumped up and bit me. 

And now, I’m 40, and same old story, 

Because now all I do is forget things, 

Because somehow I’ve managed to misplace all those mountains you’ve moved in my life. 

See, I suffer from what they call spiritual amnesia, 

A chronic condition affecting the whole of my soul. 

Symptoms include mild panic when things don’t go as I planned, 

Anger when I don’t get what I’m owed, 

Doubt about the firmness of the sea beneath my feet. 

Though I know I used to walk on this water with you so many times, 

I stiff-arm belief despite the anaconda of evidence coiled around my feet, 

Waiting to jump up and bite me. 

You have fed the 5,000 of my heart with a sack lunch. 

So why do I panic when my pantry’s low? 

You have raised so many Lazaruses in my life I could start my own militia. 

You have happily parted the Red Sea of my sin, 

Made the only way into the promised land of your presence through the red I see on Him. 

You have piled my past with Ebenezers. 

So why am I such a Scrooge? 

Because I forget. 

But I don’t just forget things, Father. I forget You. 

God, have mercy on me. 

Make me a collector of your kindnesses. 

Make me a memorizer of your mercies. 

Plant me in your garden of forget-me-nots and graft me into the vine of your promises. 

Let me mean what I sing when I sing, “Great is Thy faithfulness.” 

Give me an Alcatraz memory to imprison forever Your goodness to me, 

And as my song goes up to You in worship, may it not be in vain when I sing: 

“O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be!” 

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. 

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. 

Prone to leave the God I love. 

Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it; 

Seal it for Thy courts above. 

Kasey Olander  

That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I have been so encouraged, one at the relationship between the poems that you guys shared, which is really, like you said, a fun moment of God’s sovereignty. But also, I feel like when each of you were reading that, I had the privilege of experiencing these things—resonating with each of these lines, being able to almost feel it like I was there. Hearing you guys put into words things that I have felt has been so rich and profound. So I want to say thank you to each of you. 

Jimmy Needham  

Thank you, Kasey. Your turn. 

Kasey Olander  

All right, here we go: “Roses are red, violets are blue...” 

Jimmy Needham  

That’s amazing! 

Kasey Olander  

But we’re out of time! 

Jimmy Needham  

Oh, that's what it was. That’s what it is, guys, we’re out of time. 

Kasey Olander  

Yeah, it’s a bummer. Sorry about that. But seriously, I’ve really enjoyed our conversation today. You guys have given us a good exploration of what it’s like—kind of your inner world as poets—but then also how we as believers can engage with it, and some practical takeaways about slowing down and noticing things, and then also worshiping together with one another. I think treating these as discipline and stewardship, but also having the freedom to be like, “Hey, there aren’t rigid rules and you don’t have to be legalistic about it.” So I hope that you are encouraged. I hope that you feel the freedom and excitement to dabble in some poetry, whether it’s supporting some friends’ poetry or dabbling in it yourself, even if it’s new to you. I hope that you feel encouraged to do that. So, Christine, Jimmy, thank you so much for your time today. 

Jimmy Needham  

You bet. 

Christine Crawford 

Thanks, Kasey. 

Kasey Olander  

And thank you guys for sharing your works with us. Also, that was so valuable and enriching, encouraging to my soul. So, we also want to thank you for listening. If you like our show, go ahead and leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. It’s a great way to support the show and help other people discover it. And we hope that you join us next time when we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology to everyday life.