Paul Pastor's "Letter to My Sons"
The Daily Poem
Goldberry Studios
4.6 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Paul J. Pastor is a writer and editor living in Oregon. His writings on spirituality and culture blend a love of the Christian Scriptures with wide-ranging interests in literature, ecology, philosophy, and art, and a unique intimacy with the natural world. His work engages timeless ideas that speak boldly to the wounds and possibilities of our age.
Paul’s writing is widely recognized for its beauty and depth, and has won numerous awards, including from the Maggie Awards, the Evangelical Press Association, and the Christian Book Association.
Bio via PaulJPastor.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to The Daily Poem, which is brought to you by bibliophiles. I'm David Kern, and today is |
| 0:06.7 | Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Today's poem is by an American poet named Paul J. Pastor. He has a new book |
| 0:16.8 | out called The Bower Lodge. It's a great book, wonderful book, and I wanted to share a poem |
| 0:21.2 | from that book with you. It's called My Sons, and I'll read that in just a minute. Paul is a writer |
| 0:27.8 | and editor who lives in Oregon. He writes on spirituality and culture, and his writings, quote, |
| 0:33.0 | blend a love of the Christian scriptures with wide-ranging interests in literature, ecology, philosophy, |
| 0:37.7 | and art, and a unique intimacy with the natural world. He's won numerous awards, including |
| 0:43.2 | from the Maggie Awards, the Evangelical Press Association, and the Christian Book Association. |
| 0:48.0 | And he also works for the editorial team of Penguin Random House, where he acquires new books for |
| 0:52.2 | their Waterbrook and Multnomah imprints. But as you're about to hear, he is himself a wonderful writer and a great poet. I hope |
| 1:00.0 | you'll get his book. It's a bit long compared to some things that I share on this podcast, |
| 1:05.6 | but I want to share it with you anyway. So this is Paul J. Pastors, my sons. |
| 1:15.1 | My sons, this is a bitter time when you have come of age. |
| 1:26.1 | The crow pulls foil from the earth. The rain is mixed with ash. The ground is hard to plow, yet we must turn the dirt. |
| 1:31.8 | The workers more than ever needed, yet less help shall we get than any of our fathers. |
| 1:34.9 | I address you with a solemn charge. |
| 1:36.3 | Be courageous. |
| 1:40.1 | Do not despair. |
| 1:46.1 | Do not fall prey to the bleached liar who whispers from the shoulder that this is not our mess. |
| 1:54.2 | I address you, and all our fathers stand to agree. I have seen their faces in the darkness of my meditation, in dreams that carried me like a horse, then bucked and left me weeping. We charge you to be strong, simple of heart, light in the |
| 2:04.2 | stirrups, gentle on the reins, eager to the hunt, quick to laugh, slow to bitterness, |
| 2:11.8 | hard and merciless upon what you must strike, full of compassion for all things lovely. Glory comes to those who are present |
... |
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