A Book that Changed Me: Kaitlyn Schiess on A Wrinkle in Time

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My third guest of the series is Kaitlyn Schiess, who has chosen to talk about the absolutely wonderful young adult novel, A Wrinkle in Time, by one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle.

Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023) and The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor (IVP, 2020). Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT, and Sojourner. She has a ThM in systematic theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in political theology at Duke Divinity School.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting platform of your choice.

A Book that Changed Me: Jason Baxter on Dante’s Inferno

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My second guest of the series is Jason Baxter, who has chosen to talk about Dante Alighieri’s descent into Hell, Inferno.

Jason Baxter is a college professor, speaker, and author of five books, including A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Comedy and, most recently, The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis. He now lives in South Bend, where he is teaching great books at Notre Dame.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting platform of your choice.

A Book that Changed Me: Joy Clarkson on Silas Marner

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Lent is traditionally a time of fasting, of reflection, and of remembering who we as humans are, what we have done, and what we have failed to do—and who loves us, in whose path we follow. Fasting or self-discipline, whatever shape these take depending on the tradition of Christianity to which you belong, provokes these remembrances of our limitations and spurs us on towards transformation. Lent is about truthfulness, and the places that truthfulness leads us. In Lent, we imitate Christ in his humility by rejecting easy ways to power, domination, and lies about ourselves and the way the world works.

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My first guest of the series is Joy Clarkson, who has chosen to talk about George Eliot’s wonderful tale about the avaricious weaver changed by love, Silas Marner.

Dr. Joy Clarkson is the author of Aggressively Happy: A Realist’s Guide to Believing in the Goodness of Life, and a research associate in theology and literature at King’s College, London. She received her doctorate in theology from St Andrews University, where she researched the ways we can use art to prepare ourselves for a good death. She hosts a podcast, Speaking with Joy, and is the Books & Culture editor at Plough Quarterly.

Listen on the podcasting platform of your choice, including Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Enjoying Elizabeth Goudge with Julie Witmer

Have you heard of the midcentury fiction writer, Elizabeth Goudge, author of classics like The Little White Horse or The Scent of Water? I had not until very recently, and now I just love her work. Julie Witmer, founder of the Elizabeth Goudge Book Club, comes on to Old Books with Grace to talk about Goudge’s life and writings with me, from her talent for writing children, to her love for her characters, to her mischaracterization as a romance writer!

Julie Witmer is a teacher, garden designer and the host of the Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub on Instagram, where she shares the joy she has found in the works of this less-known twentieth century British author. For four years, she has been committed to encouraging new Goudge readers through Instagram “readalongs,” and creating a global community of those who love Goudge’s writings.

Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethgoudgebookclub/

Modernism & T.S. Eliot with Tony Domestico

I’m really pleased to welcome Dr. Anthony Domestico to Old Books with Grace today to chat about modernist poetry including my favorite twentieth-century poet, T.S. Eliot. Warning: this episode is longer than my usual episodes because I lost track of time in my excitement about Eliot, and then, in further excitement about Eliot, I did not want to cut anything out.

Anthony Domestico is chair of the Literature Department at Purchase College, SUNY and the books columnist for Commonweal. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Baffler, Book Post, the Boston Globe, Lit Hub, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other places. His book, Poetry and Theology in the Modernist Period, is available from Johns Hopkins.

Check out the episode on the platform of your choice, including Apple & Spotify.

Dayspring: Advent 2022

Today, I conclude the Advent series with some very, very old poetry. Poetry, in fact, that you’re already familiar with. You likely sing a form of it, or listen to it each year. Today, I am looking at Old English and Middle English translations of the Great O Antiphons, better known to us today as the foundation of the wonderful Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Let’s look for the Dayspring, the Dawn, the Sun of Justice.

Listen now on the podcasting platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify. And as always, I deeply appreciate your reviews and ratings–they help other listeners to find Old Books with Grace and are a source of encouragement to me as well! You can also financially support the podcast through Buy Me a Coffee. I use the donations to pay for podcast equipment, fees, and books to keep these episodes fresh. Thanks for thinking about it!

Art is by El Greco, The Adoration of the Shepherds, at the Prado, Madrid.

Heaven Cannot Hold Him: Advent 2022

Welcome back to this year’s Advent series on Old Books with Grace. This episode meditates on Christina Rossetti’s A Christmas Carol, and William Langland’s Piers Plowman. An interesting duo, separated by 500 years–and you’ll find out why Grace pairs them in a contemplation on nature imagery and incarnational love.

Harke! Despair Away: Advent 2022

Old Books with Grace is in the middle of an Advent pilgrimage. Welcome to week two of an Advent series focusing on Advent and Christmas poetry.

Here we sit among an alien people. Even stranger, we recognize that we are unfathomably alien to ourselves, after T.S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi.” As pilgrims we wend our way to death, and via death, life itself in utter fullness. And here the seventeenth-century poet and cleric George Herbert breaks in and proclaims, “Away, despair!” Yes, today in this second installment of the Advent series, we are reading together one of my favorite poets, George Herbert, specifically his beautiful, winsome poem, The Bag. If your alien pilgrim status is wearing a bit heavy these days, like mine is, Herbert is here for you.

Art: “Christ as Savior and Judge”
by Petrus Christus (ca. 1450)

Were we led all this way for birth or death?: Advent 2022

In the first episode of the Advent 2022 series exploring Advent & Christmas poetry from the past, I meditate on T.S. Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi.

This week the ancient season of Advent has begun. Advent comes from the Latin word adventus, meaning a coming or arrival. Advent waits upon the coming or arrival of Jesus Christ. I’m going to shockingly quote Wikipedia here, because it actually states the meaning of Advent succinctly and well: “the season of Advent in the Christian calendar anticipates the “coming of Christ” from three different perspectives: the physical nativity in Bethlehem, the reception of Christ in the heart of the believer, and the eschatological Second Coming.” In other words, during Advent we wait for Christmas, the celebration of the birth of the Incarnate God, we anticipate his transformative entry into our hearts and our ongoing sanctification, and we declare our expectation that he will come again to judge the living and the dead, as we repeat in the Creed. Advent is multilayered.

This is my justification for kicking off this series with an Epiphany poem. Yes, that’s right—a poem about the wise men. But here’s why I am starting with T.S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi.” Christians are pilgrims, wanderers in the world, not at home but on a journey. Advent comes from the same root word as adventure, and we are these adventurers, pilgrims on a slow, meandering, strange trip home. “The Journey of the Magi” is not a cheery Christmas poem. It lacks joyful shepherds, the anticipation of a beautiful baby, beautiful Mary and trusting Joseph. This is your welcoming space if you’re not feeling particularly joyful in your preparations for Christmas, if you’re feeling far from home, like a broken wanderer, or if you’re on your own particular and confusing journey for the Christ child.

Puritan Prayers with Robert Elmer

As a medievalist, I must admit to being slightly suspicious of Puritans. So I was eager to chat with and learn from Robert Elmer, compiler of a beautiful selection of prayers by Puritan thinkers. In this episode, I welcome Robert, the editor of Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans and Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church, the first two books in the Prayers of the Church series from Lexham Press. We talk about the beauty of these prayers from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries and about Robert’s own process of finding and selecting these historical and powerful prayers.

Robert Elmer is the editor of Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans and Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church, the first two books in the Prayers of the Church series from Lexham Press. He’s also the author of more than 50 books of Christian fiction, devotion, and apologetics—for younger readers as well as adults. He and his family live in Lynden, Washington.

Listen on the podcasting platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify.