Asking for Wonder

Writings & Works by John Jones

Category: POETRY Page 1 of 2

A Liturgy for Those Whose Plans Did Not Go How They Thought It Would

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On July 31, 2022

In POETRY, WRITINGS

The following is a liturgy I crafted by combining and adapting elements from Douglas McKelvey’s Liturgy for the Death of a Dream and Liturgy for Those Who Have Not Done Great Things for God from the book Every Moment Holy.

I had the opportunity to give a sermon during a Spring Break trip for Campus Christian Fellowship at Truman on my experience with graduate school applications and rejections, and I closed the sermon out with this liturgy. I thought it may be useful to others that have experienced similar feelings as I have.

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A Thousand Names

By

On May 29, 2020

In POETRY

I heard the news at the same time as everyone else

And I waited to see the remains of a fallout

Isolated in loneliness, I kept my thoughts to myself

And I tried to get rid of the lingering doubt

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A Dim Lightbulb

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On February 16, 2020

In POETRY

Sometimes a room is so dark that

to flood it with a beacon would blind all inside it

The room needs the light but

You don’t want to hurt those sitting silent within

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Blood and Juice

By

On January 19, 2020

In POETRY

I dipped the bread and waited 

And for the first time the juice

As it soaked the bread to where

A bead of juice rolled down my hand

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Down to the Wick

By

On December 15, 2019

In POETRY

Lights festooned, a sunless sky

A winter wind begins to blow

Flocking to the heat inside

Embers swirling – red ribbons glow

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A Haiku for Finals

By

On December 8, 2019

In POETRY

You know it’s finals

When you live off of stale chips

And Mountain Dew. Help!

Graven Hands

By

On November 24, 2019

In POETRY

His graven hands go offering life from Death

who thought Christ took more than He could bear.

Death rejoiced at the sound of the hammer’s clang

of the nail into the wood as the Son of God sang,

“Eloi! Eloi!” and it leaves us wond’ring to where

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An Ode to Kirksville Autumns

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On November 2, 2019

In POETRY

Yellow to green, skip red, then on to brown

Nothing seems to work right in this town!

Seasons come and go, then come again

And as the leaves on the trees begin to look thin

They are revived, a second, third and fourth fall

Will winter ever come? Is this all

A half-hearted, false-started farce?

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A Response to Christian Wiman’s ‘Every Riven Thing’

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On October 20, 2019

In POETRY, WRITINGS

Christian Wiman is a fantastic poet whose poetry has been the first in a while to make me stop and want to reread a poem to really internalize it. And then reread it again. And again. And again. His poem Every Riven Thing is a beautifully written poem (which you can read here) in which the line “God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made” is repeated throughout, but the syntactic structure changes each time, changing the meaning of the phrase and building upon itself in a linguistic and poetic crescendo. I highly recommend reading Every Riven Thing before reading on.

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Mopheth

By

On October 4, 2019

In POETRY

Flood waters rise and seas surround

Fighting wild waves in vain

And as I drown beneath the tide

I search for a drop of rain

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