The New Book: And Other Theologies
Ebook
In The New Book, poet and theologian Jonathan Bratt Carle explores the significance of Christian mysticism as it pertains to belief in a Divine Being and the aspects of human awareness which transcend time and space. Is the universe a creation? If so, are human beings loved? If so, can this love heal us … transform us? To what end? Drawing on imagery from classic Christian mystics and thinkers such as Emily Dickinson, C. S. Lewis, and Fr. Thomas Keating, the author wrestles with his own meditative experience of the reality of God and the necessity of reconciling that reality with our human ways of being in the world. These poems invite the reader into their own reflections, hoping that paths may open toward new revelation.
“Jonathan Bratt Carle’s imaginative poetry emerges from his own lived experiences: the joys, the sorrows, the struggles, and the effortless surrender to the flow of God’s grace. His often elegant, sometimes pithy words don’t merely describe, they also evoke a response from deep within. With great honesty and vulnerability, Bratt Carle explores and reveals the depths of the human condition and taps into the grace that is available to us all. The extensive appendix is an invaluable resource.”
—Mike Potter, hospice chaplain
“Jonathan Bratt Carle’s book of poetry illumines that which cannot be encompassed by words: love at the end of all things. And yet his words and the spaces between them speak—the voice of one working out salvation in fear and trembling and beckoning us to find ourselves within and among salvific words too.”
—Aimee Moiso, associate director, Louisville Institute
“The New Book offers a stirring collection of theologically saturated poems. Jonathan Bratt Carle’s poetry echoes the biblical text, Christian liturgy, and the church’s sacramental mysteries, providing an evocative companion for contemplation, theological reflection, study, or silence.”
—Sarah Jean Barton, assistant professor of occupational therapy and theological ethics, Duke Divinity School and Duke University School of Medicine
“Jonathan Bratt Carle’s poems are ‘poised on the needlepoint of breath,’ stitching the silent spaces between humanity and divinity, origin and ending. Sought in deep quiet, the poems in this collection move past easy certainty to embrace mystery and paradox, grappling with darkness and, ultimately, inviting in the light. Threading through them all is the apt declaration in the title poem: ‘It will be a book of yearning.’”
—Kristin Brace, author of Toward the Wild Abundance
- Title: The New Book: And Other Theologies
- Author: Jonathan Bratt Carle
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666752571, 9781666752564, 1666752568, 9781666752557, 166675255X, 1666752576
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666752571
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-04-27T22:42:17Z
Jonathan Bratt Carle serves as a hospice chaplain in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prior to this he enjoyed many years of parish ministry, having completed his theological training at Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2015. Jonathan is married to Jessica, and they have two boys, Elliott and Ian.