| abstract |
Hammock is a collection of personal essays and poems which explore the meaning of faith. In this examination of what faith is and where can it be located, this text—which includes a memoir of my spiritual journey, a collection of my poems, and several of my personal essays—identifies how our ordinary moments can suspend a net of support, a kind of hammock, beneath the center of our lives. We can go inside ourselves and notice all the ways that we are held.
In the opening narrative about my spiritual guides, I describe the ways modern Christian writers, like Richard Rohr and Kathleen Norris, define faith, and I consider the ways these definitions echo the wisdom of many Buddhist teachers, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, and Tara Brach. In addition, this work examines the idea of faith through the lens of poetry: the making of poems and the wonder of our earthly existence bring us to an understanding of faith that grounds us in the dirt beneath our feet. My poet guides include Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, Emily Dickinson, Ada Limón and Mary Oliver.
As the sixth of eight children, raised in an Irish Catholic family, my understanding of faith developed in a rigid environment of sin and repentance. This dissertation explains my own journey from a Christian-centric idea of what faith should and must be to a more expansive and mature view of faith. A faith that recognizes the sanctity of our moment-to-moment experience.
The divinity of this moment—whatever might be occurring—is as true and palpable as the holiness of my neighbor's smile.
|
