Note: This is a guest post written by Tim Brown, pastor in the ELCA serving parishes in Chicago, IL and Raleigh, NC.  He currently serves in the ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop as Director for Congregational Stewardship Support where he creates and curates relationships and resources to help Synods and Congregations fuel their ministries. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife and two sons, and you can usually find him at a coffee shop or brewery reading or writing something he thinks is interesting. 

Saying Less with More

As we sat there around the table, thinking of possible themes for the upcoming conference, I piped up enthusiastically, “Poetry should definitely be a theme we riff off of.”

The silent stares of my colleagues spoke volumes as I disappeared into my chair for a second.  But then, in an act of unconscious courage, I sat back up.

“I’m serious,” I said. “We should think about peppering poetry throughout the plenary pieces.”

“Tim,” a colleague said, “this is a stewardship conference.”

“Yes,” I acknowledged, “and it’s in Baltimore. The home of Edgar Allan Poe, premier poet.”

Some eyes widened. As a poetry lover, I knew this little fact, but apparently it’s not widely known (even though Baltimore’s professional football team is named the Ravens as a nod to Poe’s most famous work).

“And,” I continued, “poetry is the stewardship of words. Saying less with more.”

With that I got some smiles.  Smiles that finally understood what I meant.

Stewardship of Words

Poetry is, at least for me, about the stewardship of words.  Not only saying less with more, but meaning more with less, a keen intersection with minimalism that I think is noteworthy.

Preeminent American poet Mary Oliver noted that the older she got, the shorter her poems became, which is something I feel deep in my bones, now having passed the veritable prime meridian of the average American lifespan.

I not only want to say less with more, I want to mean more with less. I find myself giving things away like I’m deleting sentences in an editing frenzy. I find my sentences shorter. My punctuation more pronounced.

Faith, Words, and Scripture

In my faith life I am starting to understand why, though I love systematic theology, I enjoy watching flowers grow more than explaining the Trinity.  The symbol of dancing life is more wonderful than any allegory or explanation out there. 

In my faith life I am starting to embrace that Mark truly is the Gospel for me.  The humanness and immediacy of the story– where brevity is a friend to the hearer and one sitting– is enough to get the whole gulp, suits me.

Matthew’s push to prove prophecy ties himself in knots. John’s beautiful prose becomes a philosophical burden.  Luke’s care for the margins is meaningful, but did he have to write a sequel?

Mark roars like a lion, and you understand the message.

In a similar vein, Oliver, Poe, O’Tuama, Waheed, Whyte, Collins, Hafiz… they, too, with their brave brevity, roar in my soul, and my need for more (words, things, explanations, all of it) shrinks.

Poetry is the stewardship of words. Poetry is minimalism for the page.

But more than that: it is minimalism for the soul, and for the faith, reducing the extraneous extrapolations offered around the sacred stories to the briefest of messages that speak to the heart of the human-divine dance:

“Father, forgive them.” (Luke 23:34)

“I am who I am.” (Exodus 3:14)

“What is truth?” (John 18:38)

“Go, your faith has made you well.” (Mark 10:52)

Amen.


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