Forethought

Art: 'Moses Before the Burning Bush', Domenico Fetti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When the late writer and pastor Eugene Peterson was asked what advice he'd give to people considering becoming writers, he said, 'Do it. We need all we can get. There's never enough storytellers. There are a lot of people who want to write stories, but they don't want to go through the discipline, the agony, the immersion in life it requires to tell the truth with all of this. No, I think writing is one of the sacred callings.'

Forethought explores and defines the boundaries of Peterson's claim that writing -- and creating art more broadly -- is a vocation.

It also provides resources relating to Foreshadow's seasonal themes.

New resources are added on an ongoing basis. Within each section, resources are arranged chronologically, with the most recently added at the top.

You can find the resources below. External resources are those beyond Foreshadow; internal resources are those within it, including Forecast.

External Resources

Articles/Essays
Books
Events
Videos
Publications/Websites

From rock musician to Orthodox priest (Premier Christianity, 2022). Chris Foley describes how his love for making music (specifically alternative rock) led him to the Orthodox Church, where he discovered the presence of God in the midst of his creative process. 'Because of the incarnation, everything can become a means of communion with God if we have the eyes to see it,' Foley writes. 'This idea is articulated best by Fr. Alexander Schmemann when, in For the Life of the World (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press) he explains that man’s primary vocation is to be a priest of creation who offers up all of their life to God in thanksgiving.'
George MacDonald: A Life of Relationships (Radix Magazine, 2021). In this interview with Radix Magazine, Dr. Kirsten Jeffrey Johnson describes the depths of writer George MacDonald's thought, corrects some misperceptions about him and describes the importance of relationships in his life: 'MacDonald didn’t just know the people in his vocation,' she says, 'or those with whom he attended church, etc; he actively sought to know those he was placed amongst – his physical community, of all stripes and sizes. He was very given to hospitality – creating spaces in which people could talk as human beings, could get beyond talking about only politics or theology. That inspires me as something to strive for; when I achieve it, I am enriched.'
Josh Seligman: 'The Neighborhood Writes Itself' (Ekstasis Magazine, 2021). Josh Seligman describes what interning at a church while writing on the side taught him about vocation: 'Maybe God gave me those smaller vocations of interning and writing—and maybe God gives all of us a variety of smaller vocations, whether we are writers or not, whether we are married or not, whether we are ordained or lay, or whatever other situations in which we find ourselves—as gifts of varying significance to help us fulfill that greater vocation of becoming fully alive in Christ and thus embodying, to some degree, the new creation.'
Peter Wayne Moe: 'Writing Within the Whale' (Ekstasis Magazine, 2021). Author and English professor Peter Wayne Moe describes the centrality of reading in the act of writing, explaining how 'Saying something new isn’t a matter of inventing ideas from scratch but of composing those gathered.' He illustrates such a compositional process through the prayer of the prophet Jonah's from the belly of the great fish, a conglomeration of various psalms.
It's Not a Poem Until You Discover Something: An Interview with Scott Cairns (The Rabbit Room, 2021). Poet Scott Cairns describes his writing process as a dialogue with what he's reading: 'I always begin with my legal pad and my pencils and I read until something provokes a response. Then I chase that on the page until I run out of gas and turn back to reading. It really is a dialogue and conversation which you establish with the text.' In this interview, Cairns also defines the poem as a means through which the poet discovers something, and he explains the poet's vocation.
Interview with American Poet Scott Cairns about Poetry, Poetics, Art, the Church, and Climate Change (St Katherine Review, 2019)
Susan Yanos: 'Wielding Thor's Hammer: What It Means to Write as Ministry' (Friends Journal, 2010)
A Conversation with Scott Cairns (Image)
A Conversation with Eugene Peterson (Image)
Aidan Hart: 'Christianity and Sacred Art Today: The Icon and an Assessment of Western Art' (2005)
Harold N. Englund: 'Writing Is a Ministry' (Christianity Today, 1962)
T.S. Eliot: 'Religion and Literature' (1935)
J.R.R. Tolkien: 'On Fairy Stories' (1939)

Malcolm Guite: Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God (2021): Poet and theologian Malcolm Guite defends the imagination as a source of truth and appeals to artists of faith to 'kindle our imaginations for Christ'. For Guite, art enables us to live more fully in our world while also offering us glimpses of heaven: 'All great art is a bridge with one foot in the world of comprehension, the visible, the earth, and one in the realm of apprehension, the invisible, heaven.'
Flannery O'Connor: Mystery and Manners (2014)
Emilie Griffin (ed.): A Syllable of Water: Twenty Writers of Faith Reflect on Their Art (Paraclete Press, 2008)
Robert Inchausti (ed.): Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing (2007)
Anne Lamott: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)
Terrence Tilley: Story Theology (1985)
Madeleine L'Engle: Walking on Water (1980)

Doxacon: Faith & Fandom Convention

Cornel West: Writers Symposium by the Sea (2022): 'Provocation is the third movement. The first movement is vocation. What is your calling? Not your career, not your profession. Your vocation and your calling. What's your life task? Not the job you have, but what shapes who you are, your spirit and your soul. But there's no vocation without invocation. Because you have to understand yourself in a tradition that was in place before you arrived.'
Scott Cairns: King University Institute for Faith and Culture (2015)
Eugene Peterson: Writers Symposium by the Sea (2007)

Publications

Websites

Internal Resources

Articles/Essays
Forecasts
Creative Writing

Alice Wisler: Two Words Together (2022). Author and workshop leader Alice Wisler describes how she has helped grieving parents through writing.
Alina Sayre: Deep Gladness: Writing as a Vocation (2022). Author and speaker Alina Sayre describes the influences of her theology of vocation as a writer.
Susan Yanos: Getting Unstuck: The Personal Story and the Spiritual Journey (2021). Drawing on her experience as a writing teacher and spiritual director, Susan Yanos describes the power of story writing to help us understand ourselves, the world and God. 'Some have defined humans as creatures who think in stories', she writes. 'Others have said the basis of ministry is not to serve others but to enter into their stories. We could explain the Incarnation as God entering the story of humanity. Once we enter a story, nothing is ever the same.'

External Resources

Internal Resources

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