Drawing Near: A Devotional Journey with Art, Poetry, and Reflection
Ebook
Allow the Spirit to stir your soul
Amid busy lives, Drawing Near invites you to slow down, to pause and ponder, and to explore the creative edges of your faith. This unique devotional brings together 40 stunning original artworks that illustrate a particular biblical text or story. Each image is paired with its related scripture text and an original poem by a contemporary Anabaptist writer, along with questions or prompts for further reflection and space for your creative response.
The 40 scripture texts, illustrations, and poems provide a starting point. But the biblical passage will come alive in surprising ways as you gaze at the image and allow the Holy Spirit to disrupt the text through the evocative power of art and the surprising insights of well-crafted poems.
This devotional includes plenty of white space for your own response to the Spirit’s nudging—whether your own reflections, doodles, drawings, or poetry. A perfect gift that will engage people of faith, seekers, and creative souls of every age. Savor the art; reflect on the poetry; allow the Spirit to stir your soul.
Foreword by Julia Spicher Kasdorf
Part 1: God’s Shalom Order
Part 2: Suffering and Grief
Part 3: Forgiveness, Memory, and Transformation
Part 4: Resistance
Part 5: Bondage and Liberation
Part 6: Women and Mothering
Part 7: The Body of Christ
Part 8: Visions of the Future
Scripture Index
The Artists
The Poets
The Editors
“How do we encounter Scripture? Scripture is the living Word, and so we respond to it with the interpretive gifts given to us as readers, artists, and thinkers. Drawing Near makes creative response to the living Word a palpable, invitatory experience for all."
“What a lovely thing: to reencounter resonant Bible narratives and blessings augmented by terrific creative imaginings. The Anabaptist artists and poets foregrounded in this volume, while invoking the productive reciprocity between visual art and poetry, suggest to us rich new ways to see and fresh ways to comprehend and remake what we’ve tended to embrace as familiar.”
“This devotional book, with its intentionally chosen scripture passages, evocative art, and original poems by forty Anabaptist writers, suspends the reader in contemplation.”
“For five centuries, the Anabaptist experience has been one of sturdy, deliberate, utilitarian application of our Christian faith. There has always been something practical and useful for us to do. But these five hundred years have also witnessed probing theological investigation, philosophical speculation, literary musing, and artistic imagination. The result has been a broadening of our collective experience and a deepening of our understanding of what it means to live a life of faith in the twenty-first century. Drawing Near is a welcome response to half a millennium of Anabaptist contemplation of the mysteries and verities that continue to enthrall, challenge, and inspire us.”
“The remarkable drawings and poems attractively curated in this devotional book shift the attention of Bible readers beyond the established and debated meanings of the biblical text to the trace of the divine voice in the ancient words of Scripture. While the visual art amplifies neglected details in key scripture passages, the poetry improvises startling new avenues of reflection that carry readers from the world of the Bible as envisioned in the drawings to the dramas and dilemmas of our own time. Drawing Near is a lively companion to the Anabaptist Community Bible, supplying provocative prompts for conversation in Bible study groups and startling sources of contemplation for personal spiritual renewal.”
“Five hundred years ago, the Bible inspired a group of Christians to understand discipleship, love, and peace in new and exciting ways. Now as the heirs of Anabaptism celebrate their history, they also discover, through art and poetry, that the Bible continues as a living document. This book goes deep and invites readers to go deep also.”
“Drawing Near illustrates the power of ongoing revelation as the provocative art and poetry add new meaning and urgency to foundational scriptures.”
“I am not a poet—but poetry is a source of inspiration for me. I am not an artist—but art always accompanies my research for sermons. I love words and organize them into letters, simple cards to the unwell, and even into writing books. Wonderfully, the combination of scripture, poetry, and linocut art in this devotional will grab your imagination and draw you into the Spirit’s tug toward justice, peace, and reconciliation.”
“A reflective journal like no other, Drawing Near invites at once both lectio divina and visio divina—divine reading and divine seeing—throughout its page-by-page pattern of scripture passage, artist illustration, and poetry composed in response. Reflection prompts follow, with ample space for new words and images to appear, as the divine draws near in newly revelatory ways. A living prayer book for our time, Drawing Near is a complementary companion to the Anabaptist Community Bible.”
- Title: Drawing Near: A Devotional Journey with Art, Poetry, and Reflection
- Authors: John D. Roth, Eileen R. Kinch, Julia Spicher Kasdorf
- Publisher: Herald Press
- Print Publication Date: 2025
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781513815152, 9781513815145, 1513815148, 1513815156
- Resource ID: LLS:9781513815152
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-02-05T02:41:12Z
Eileen R. Kinch is digital editor at Anabaptist World. She studied English at Chatham College and writing as ministry at Earlham School of Religion. She is the author of Gathering the Silence (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including Foreshadow, Topology Magazine, Convivium, Fledgling Rag, and Enlivened by the Mystery: Quakers and God. Her essays have appeared in the Journal of Mennonite Writing, CrossCurrents, and the Mezzo Cammin Women Poet’s Timeline. She and her husband Joel Nofziger live near Tylersport, Pennsylvania, with their two cats. She is a member of Keystone Friends Meeting in Lancaster County.
John D. Roth is project director of MennoMedia’s Anabaptism at 500 initiative. Prior to that role, Roth was a professor of history at Goshen College (1985–2022), where he also served as director of the Mennonite Historical Library and editor of the Mennonite Quarterly Review. Roth has published widely on topics related to Anabaptist-Mennonite history, theology, and church life. He is also the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism at Goshen College and is active in Mennonite World Conference. John and his wife Ruth enjoy spending time with their grandchildren and are members of Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship in Goshen, Indiana.