Faith crisis poetry

Why faith crisis?

In November 2015, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quietly unveiled a policy change that labelled its LGBTQ+ members as apostates and banned their children from participating in the church’s sacraments. As a parent of a pansexual child, I took this personally, both because of their approach to her sexuality and the punishment her future children potentially could face.

I felt hurt by this action, and it forced me to through a heart-wrenching wrestle with whether to stay with the church. I had experienced a faith crisis about 15 years or so ago, but retrospectively that seemed tamer. While I ultimately decided to stay after a week of working through the policy’s implications, I am still uneasy and angry about the policy.

Over the last year or so, much of my approach for dealing with that anger and hurt has been through sharing critical articles and posts about the church. Frankly, none of it was therapeutic and felt only revengeful.

Why poetry?

In September 2016, I somehow realized it had been a while since I had written a poem, and figured that this event might be a good topic for my foray back into poetry. I had used poetry to explore marriage, childbirth, and even miscarriage. Faith crisis seemed a good fit, too.

I originally planned on a single poem, which ended up being The Dying Fire. However, some of the themes I had hoped to cover didn’t seem to fit, so As Years Crawl By and Confrication explored those themes. As I wrote those two, a few other themes emerged that I wanted to flesh out.

Then, in early October 2016, an A Thoughtful Faith podcast interview between Gina Colvin and Lindsay Hansen Park inspired a pile of new themes to explore, many of which—as of this writing—I have yet to complete.

About the poems

One of the things I like about writing poetry is using imagery to describe events and ideas. It helps to make my thoughts more vivid than simply blogging about them does. Often, the imagery I use has subtle meaning, which can be challenging for people to pick up on. But that’s one of the reasons I like the writings in the books of Isaiah and Psalms in the Bible: they force the reader to look for the meaning, lingering longer on the writing.

While I have written prose, or free verse, I prefer traditional rhyming poetry. It forces me to consider my wording carefully, and I think it better facilitates the imagery I use.

My standby metre is iambic heptameter. It’s an old metre, common in 16th and 17th century England. I’m not sure what appeals to me about it, but I’ve been using it since I first learned about it roughly 30 years ago. I think it lends itself to storytelling, and when I use it, it’s often to tell a story; perhaps that’s the appeal.

That being said, I do use other metres from time to time.

My poems

Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Here are the poems. This is a living list; for the foreseeable future, I will have themes to explore, so you can expect a new poem or two here every week. Come back again, and see what else I’ve written.

Oh, these poems are Mormon-specific, but I think anyone who has experienced a faith crisis will probably find ideas and imagery that speak to them.

• The Dying Fire
• As Years Crawl By
• Confrication
• Flying to Space
• Familiar Dance
• Fall of the Mountain
• Black and White
• Digging
• Abandoned Strings
• After the Storm
• Beckoning
• Where will you go?
• Snagging Rainbows
• Hack
• Lost
• Nameless
• Opposition
• Deep Down Inside
• Numb
• Becoming the Conquered Beast
• The Silence
• The God Machine
• The Castle on the Hill
• The Breakup
• Lifeless
• Collision
• Yearning
• Down the Hatch

If you have a favourite, let me know in the comments below. Feel free to comment on the poem’s page, too, to let me know what you like most about that poem.