Except when I say our theological imaginations, I don鈥檛 always mean it. I mean yours. Even though, , my stance toward God is more open and active than it鈥檚 been in years, I still bristle at the word theology. In fact, when I was first moving to Seattle and people asked where I was going to school, I鈥檇 sometimes say 鈥溙烀朗悠� of Psychology,鈥� choosing to omit such a loaded little word. (I recently shared that with when I was in her office鈥攏ot something you anticipate confessing to your theology professor.)

But, as with so many other things in my first two years at this school, all of that is beginning to shift. As I hear that , that it鈥檚 not just about old men with beards arguing over archaic terminology, and as I hear friends share about how their theology deepens their love for people and their care for the world, that word is beginning to feel more relevant鈥攊nviting, even.

So I wonder: what are the texts that have shaped my theological imagination?

As a teenager, I Kissed Dating Goodbye along with all the other church kids. Wild at Heart made me feel like a man, and thanks to Lee Strobel鈥檚 The Case for _______ books, I never had any reason to ask questions.

A couple years later, Blue Like Jazz and Velvet Elvis made questions cool, and Shane Claiborne suggested that maybe not all Christians have to vote Republican鈥攁 novel idea for me. I read C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright in college, and I told everybody I was going to seminary to become a pastor. Meanwhile, I鈥檇 go home after leading a Bible study and read Christopher Hitchens and Bertrand Russell, secretly wondering if I was an atheist.

Eventually Richard Rohr and Henri Nouwen (among others) began to give me hope again, and I decided that, no, I鈥檓 probably not an atheist.

But after all that, none of those are the texts I think of when I consider my theological imagination.

I think of poetry: Wendell Berry鈥檚 , Robert Frost鈥檚 question about , and how T.S. Eliot鈥檚 helps me feel a little less lonely. I first read David Berman鈥檚 in college, and I still can鈥檛 figure out why it makes me cry so much. In fact, there鈥檚 a book called that I like to keep handy in case I鈥檓 feeling emotionally deprived, and what is theology about if not the desire to feel love and hope more fully, to feel truth in a way that sinks into our bones?

And then I think of nature essays and the way that John Muir leads me to silence, Annie Dillard leads me to curiosity, and Chet Raymo leads me to wonder. Because what is theology about if not deepening our capacity to see and feel and know the glory and tragedy of the world around us?

I think of fiction, too. As a teenager, Hemingway and Vonnegut showed me a world that was bigger, stranger, and more beautiful than I鈥檇 ever imagined, made me wonder if peace requires more courage than war, and William Faulkner and Flannery O鈥機onnor introduced me to the haunted holiness of place. These days, a good short story鈥攆rom David James Duncan or George Saunders, say鈥攐r a sprawling novel鈥攖hink Cormac McCarthy or Neil Gaiman鈥攚ill spark my imagination more than anything else. And what is theology without imagination?

Perhaps even more than poetry, essays, and fiction, I think of the true and semi-true stories we tell about our lives. writing about his father鈥檚 suicide, David Carr鈥檚 brutal stories of , Scott Russell Sanders and . Joan Didion, Tobias Wolff, Maya Angelou, David Sedaris, Anne Lamott, Philip Connors, and鈥攎ore recently for me鈥擬ary Karr and Ta-Nehisi Coates. This list, of course, could go on for pages, because when we look at our world with courage and curiosity, we never run out of stories.

Recently in 天美视频鈥檚 class, Dyana Herron said that storytelling allows us to ask new questions in new ways, by seeing the world and bearing witness to what we see鈥攊n all of its horror and absurdity. And really, I wonder, what is theology if not asking questions and bearing witness?

Seeing a month-long theme like 鈥淭heological Libraries,鈥� some of you might be surprised to not find more explicitly religious texts in these blogs. It鈥檚 a fair question, and I assure you there is no shortage of scholarly theological material in our library and lining the walls of our professors鈥� offices. But for me, as both a recovering fundamentalist and a recovering cynic, ideas ring hollow without the messy embodiment of stories.

Or, as Flannery O鈥機onnor said, storytellers 鈥渄escend far enough to reach those underground springs that give life . . . a descent through the darkness of the familiar. This is the beginning of vision.鈥�

By the way鈥攖hese days, when folks ask where I go to school, I say it鈥攁ll of it鈥攚ith honor.

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My favorite advice I鈥檝e given myself as a writer is this: 鈥淭he best reading of your poem is your poem鈥檚 best reading of you.鈥� It鈥檚 strange to give yourself advice. But it鈥檚 stranger to imagine that we aren鈥檛 being shaped by the stories we tell. The act of concretizing living stories into words is, in effect, a means of setting our bodies free to dance around the story. To read it backwards and forwards, catching our breath between the lines.

The stories that shape me theologically are the stories that invite me to see and tell my own story differently鈥攖o believe in a God and a world bigger than I could imagine on my own. The Christian story is grounded in the presence of God who breaks in on our reality, making spaciousness within and among us in the particular contexts of our human lives.

Theological shifts are as much a matter of the body and heart as they are of the brain, and stories that spark theological shifts do so by tapping into our lived experiences of our deepest dread and desire鈥攃ategories written in our bodies.

What follows are four of the categories by which I understand stories to shape us. In each category, I鈥檝e recommended texts and films that I鈥檝e found to be personally significant shapers of how I think theologically. If you鈥檙e near 天美视频 this month, I鈥檇 recommend that you stop by the library and take a look at all the books and films our staff and faculty have recommended in celebration of Theological Libraries Month.

Stories write us.

What I鈥檝e learned is that careful, thoughtful, and spirited theologians share a sensibility understood implicitly by the best authors and filmmakers鈥攖hey know that stories shape our imagination. Instead of choosing one text to recommend in this category, I鈥檝e chosen a collection.

An anthology, like the collected stories of scriptures, offers many narratives that follow their own internal arcs. But the stories also play together to invite a reading of the whole in light of the parts and the parts in light of the whole.

For an anthology about the inbreaking of God, I can do no better than of Flannery O鈥機onnor. But to remind us that God鈥檚 inbreaking isn鈥檛 all apocalypse and thunder, I鈥檝e paired it with my favorite film about Christmas, saints, and imagination. , the 2004 film directed by Danny Boyle, invites us to let sacred stories write us through the power of imagination and hope.

Stories also right us鈥攏ot in a moral sense, but in the sense of setting aright that which has been upended.

Some stories have the power to turn what we have known on end in such a way that we realize what we have always known is truly the thing that was upside down. One way that we notice stories righting us is in the response of our bodies鈥攖he inner-ear equilibrium-spinning that makes us pause and take inventory before we can take our next step.

For this category I鈥檓 offering a documentary film double-feature: and (both released in 2014). When I saw these two films at the Seattle International Film Festival, each one left me with a deeply visceral response, and each left me with greater clarity surrounding how I think about what is good news in the context of competing masculinities in USAmerica.

Another way that stories shape us theologically is that stories rite us.

In a real way, the best stories are ones in which we undergo a transformation through participation. Be it , or the series, there are stories (often from childhood) that we鈥檝e experienced that invite us into bigger communities, narratives, and worlds. These are stories we undergo, and they capture our imaginations by naming truth and naming us in inarticulable ways. Like liturgical symbols, these stories don鈥檛 disclose doctrine, but they offer glimpses into mystery that pull us deeper in our journeys into God.

One book that captured me in just such a way was Sara Miles鈥檚 spiritual memoir . This story gave me a taste for sacrament that left me hungry and satisfied enough to keep coming back to a eucharist table that was more hospitable than I could ever have imagined. And again, it鈥檚 through waking our imaginations that these stories become rites whereby we enter deeper into God and our own stories; whereby we experience what it is to be beloved.

For me, the recent film (2014) has similarly awakened my imagination, inviting me to more. Its beauty and story open space to experience a world where the gift of our whole humanity is truly welcomed.

And finally, in a profound way, stories wright us.

It鈥檚 an archaic term to be sure, related to the old English word for work. In its best sense, literature works us. It works liturgically鈥攖he work of the people drawing us into the narrative patterns and structures of story that are bigger and older than us. These patterns are deeply enculturated ways of seeing the world and imagining who God is and who we are. Stories鈥攅specially old, culturally and theologically important stories鈥攁re like people. That is to say, each one self-discloses, teaching us how they want to be read.

The best of films always unfold in this way, teaching us how to watch them as we watch them over and over. One such readily available film is (2014). This film asks you to allow yourself to enter the fantastical world of this suspense story, extending an invitation to the parts of you most in need of kindness.

And for a final text, I recommend a book that has taught me much about learning to pay attention to the patterns that shape how we live in and see the world. is a classic architecture text that invites us to believe that what has come before might lend a way forward for the challenges we face as we try to live well together. It鈥檚 a book that teaches us about how to read stories by teaching us how to pay attention to how stories want to be read鈥攊f you let this book work on you, you won鈥檛 ever be able to see the world the same.

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The librarian’s request was the simplest invitation down a rabbit hole:

For Theological Libraries Month, please reply with books or films that are meaningful to you theologically or that have been formative in your theological education or imagination.

An inundation of titles began to flash through my mind. Gertrud Mueller Nelson’s Here All Dwell Free, a psychological read of a fairy tale that deeply informs . Song of the Sea (2014) opened up the magic of the incarnation. The Book of Symbols, which continuously invites me into the mystery of the tangible everyday. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Rabih Alameddine’s The Hakawati and Guus Kuijer’s The Book of Everything, both of which weave the mundane with the mythical until questions of “what really happened” are irrelevant. David Eagleman’s Sum: 40 Tales of the Afterlife exploded everything I had been taught about heaven and hell. Away We Go . The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss . Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

As the wave of titles slowed, I looked over the list that sat in my drafted email reply, and it began to strike me what a strange list this was. In the last few years, I have read thousands of pages of theological material, and I have been formed by beautiful, intelligent, well-researched theological prose. Yet when asked what has been most formative for my theological imagination, my answers are immediately, overwhelmingly fictional narratives. Stories.

From fairy tales to science fiction to “serious” literature, it is stories that fundamentally shape my understanding of God, my awareness of the Kingdom, my insight into the human condition, my imagination for what makes a good life. It has been stories that mirror my own beauty and brokenness back to me. We talk a lot at 天美视频 about a person’s story: the way you understand your story shapes the way you understand yourself. In reflecting on my own life, it seems to be just as true that my identity has been shaped by the stories I have engaged about princesses and orphans, robots and prophets, detectives and diviners.

Of course, God’s own self seems to prefer to communicate through story. Some laws, letters, and poems aside, Christian scripture is largely a collection of stories. Stories, early on, about this profoundly messed up family trying to figure out how to live with one another and what to do with the hurt they can’t seem to keep from causing one another. Stories about a young nation trying to find its place in the world. Stories about suffering and anger and betrayal; stories about comfort and love and hope. Stories about a man who himself told stories that confronted previous theologies and invited a new imagination. Stories about a man who lived and died and lived again, and in doing so, changed the way we read all the stories that came before and shaped the stories that have been told since.

Perhaps the scriptural authors knew what they were doing, when they chose to record narratives. Perhaps they chose to forego a written form that would prove and persuade in order to write in a form that has the power to confront, invite, and shape. Perhaps they understood that a story is able to convey meaning at a formative depth that no logical syllogism or composed research is able to reach.

By the time my selections are on display in the library, I find I’ve made peace with the lack of “theological” works on the shelf. Why shouldn’t I find God within these stories? Our holy scriptures, the biblical texts, have taught me to see a shepherd boy as a king, an orphaned slave as a savior, a barren woman and a virgin both as mothers, and a pacifist dissenter as the Messiah. Our theology has always been communicated and shaped through stories full of unexpected characters and unbelievable narratives. My list simply reflects the culture in which I live, while it is my tradition that enables me to see handless maidens, lost selkies, and slave princes as the Holy Ones of God.

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October is designated by the聽听补蝉听Theological Libraries Month. As a way to celebrate, we asked our faculty and staff to help us create a display of books and films that are meaningful to them theologically or that have been formative in their theological education or imagination. These items will be on display in the library through the month of October.

Below is a (by no means exhaustive) list of books and films that my own nebulous theology finds meaningful.

A theology of purpose鈥�

聽by Mary Doria Russell
A Jesuit priest believes he has found the purpose for his difficult life by joining the team making first contact with an alien civilization and in meeting these new 鈥渃hildren of God.鈥� They meant no harm.

A theology of grief鈥�

(Film)
After the tragic death of their young son, a couple must stumble through what to do with their grief while life goes on around them.

A theology of hope…

by Cormac McCarthy
A father and his young son journey down the road, surviving against all odds and with no real hope of finding any goodness left in the world.

A theology of relationship鈥�

(TV Series)
This TV series provides a lens to examine the relationship of the created with the creator, free will and predestination, and religious practice and prejudice, all while telling the story of a group of humans who are searching for a new home after the destruction of their home world.

A theology of story鈥�

聽by Mike Carey
What is the difference between what is told and what is real? Tom must discover the truth about his existence in order to save his life and the world around him.

A theology of art鈥�

(Film)
A passionate teacher helps his students find their own voices and a love of the written word.

by Chaim Potok
A young man feels torn between his orthodox religion and his artistic abilities鈥�is it even possible to choose between the things that make up who you are?

A theology of worship鈥�

(Film)
An often despondent psychologist finds himself somewhat envying the vicious and wild way his young patient worships horses鈥�even though the end result is gruesome.

A theology of prayer鈥�

by Mark Jarman
This series of poems is a take on John Donne鈥檚 Holy Sonnets, imagining God and communicating with God in strange ways.

A theology of heaven鈥�

(TV Series) Season 2, Episode 7 – 鈥淎erodynamics of Gender鈥�
In this episode of a brilliant comedy series, two characters discover paradise in the form of a trampoline in a magical garden鈥�the only requirement is that they must keep the garden secret from their friends.

A theology of sin鈥�

(Film)
Can there be a freedom in bondage, or a dependence in liberty? A self-destructive young woman is taken captive by a broken-hearted blues musician to heal her addictions in this somewhat bizarre story.

by Madeline L鈥橢ngle
The Murray children must rescue their father from the clutches of IT on the planet Camatoz.

A theology of faith and doubt鈥�

(TV Series)
Two FBI agents investigate supernatural cases, often acting as a metaphor for belief and skepticism.

A theology of giving鈥�

by Mac Barnett
Annabelle finds a miraculous box with a never ending supply of extra yarn鈥攂ut is it the box itself that is miraculous, or is it Annabelle鈥檚 giving heart? 聽

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