{"id":19967,"date":"2021-03-24T09:46:38","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T13:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19967"},"modified":"2021-03-24T09:46:38","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T13:46:38","slug":"prophets-as-poets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19967","title":{"rendered":"Prophets as Poets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wB_H7LJsVcI\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>One of the great scholars of the Jewish\nscriptures was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907\u20131972). In his in-depth study\nof the Hebrew prophets, he included this description of the prophets which is\nreally rather surprising. We often think of prophets as scolds, rather\njudgmental and cranky, but Heschel reminds us of their essential gifts of\ncreativity and imagination:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prophet is\na poet. His experience is one known to the poets. What the poets know as poetic\ninspiration, the prophets call divine revelation. . . . The inspiration of the\nartist is what is meant by \u201cthe hand of the Lord which rests upon the prophet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What makes the\ndifference between the prophet and the ordinary person is the possession of a\nheightened and unified awareness of certain aspects of life. Like a poet, he is\nendowed with sensibility, enthusiasm, and tenderness, and above all, with a way\nof thinking imaginatively. Prophecy is the product of poetic imagination<em>.<\/em> <em>Prophecy is poetry,<\/em> and in poetry everything is\npossible, [such as] for the trees to celebrate a birthday, and for God to speak\nto [humans]. The statement \u201cGod\u2019s word came to me\u201d was employed by the prophet\nas a figure of speech, as a poetic image. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most recent encounters I\u2019ve had\nwith \u201cpoetic prophecy\u201d occurred when Amanda Gorman, a young Catholic woman and\nUnited States Youth Poet Laureate, wrote and performed a poem for the recent\nPresidential Inauguration. It seems to me that many of her words connect deeply\nwith words from the Hebrew prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She begins her poem \u201cThe Hill We Climb\u201d by\nasking in the style of the psalms of lamentation, \u201cWhen day comes we ask\nourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?\u201d She then\nreferences the sign of the reluctant prophet Jonah: \u201cWe\u2019ve braved the belly of\nthe beast; we\u2019ve learned that quiet isn\u2019t always peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She transforms the seemingly unjust decree of\nExodus 34:7 that God will \u201cvisit the iniquities of the fathers on the children\nand the children\u2019s children, to the third and fourth generation,\u201d no longer\nholding God responsible for intergenerational trauma. Like the prophets of old,\nshe holds us accountable for our actions: \u201cwe know <em>our <\/em>inaction and inertia will be the inheritance\nof the next generation. . . . <em>Our<\/em>\nblunders become their burdens\u201d (emphasis mine).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like the prophet Micah, Gorman reminds us of\nGod\u2019s desire for mercy (see 6:8): \u201cBut one thing is certain. If we merge mercy\nwith might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our\nchildren\u2019s birthright.\u201d With the prophet Zechariah, she envisions a time of\npeace and plenty when \u201ceveryone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and\nno one shall make them afraid\u201d (3:10). I encourage you to read and ponder the\nwhole text of her poem. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know not\neveryone appreciates or even understands poetry. I will admit it needs to be\nwrestled with sometimes, but I hope poetry can help us learn to appreciate the\ncreative envisioning the prophets undertake through their relationship with\nGod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the great scholars of the Jewish scriptures was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907\u20131972). In his in-depth study of the Hebrew prophets, he included this description of the prophets which is really rather surprising. We often think of prophets as scolds, rather judgmental and cranky, but Heschel reminds us of their essential gifts of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19968,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19967\/revisions\/19968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}