What's new in House Hannon?
So I’ve been doing some new and crazy-brave things lately that are even more exciting than this little permanent art on my wrist reminding me to bloom! It is one of my deepest values to propagate beauty and growth in this broken world, flowers in soil and words in souls. Roses among thorns. Blooms and Benedictions. And now it’s time to invite my community in to pray with me for the journey ahead!
"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." -Proverbs 16:24
A year ago I heard about a new program inspired by the wisdom and writings of the late Eugene Peterson. It sparked an insatiable interest. It was one of those moments where God said “this is a WHEN— not an IF.” And so I applied. I crafted and cobbled and edited my best sentences. I typed and I erased and I dreamed. I spoke about grief and gardens and the healing power of words. I cried a lot and smiled, too. I asked my boys if this was alright. And then I submitted a headshot in my Barbie pink jumpsuit standing on lush green parkland because that’s the real me. I took a chance. I said a lot of vulnerable things and submitted a twelve page paper, freshly belabored.
And now I’ve been given the opportunity to do it again and again. They said yes!! They let me in. This fall I will begin my Doctorate in the art of Sacred Writing with Western Theological Seminary and I’m so honored. I never thought I would do this, but the nagging whisper to write wouldn’t quiet. I am humbled and delighted and grateful for every single person who has ever encouraged me to put pen to paper.
Here is an excerpt from the program description that haunted me for months, beckoning me to lend my own small and paltry and perhaps divinely anointed voice to the world of words and paper pulp.
“As people whose very life arrives from the Word, Christians ought to be those with the deepest reverence for language. Yet, too often, our writing is stilted, banal, cliched, moralistic, and bereft of the beauty and care the craft requires. If we are dealing with holy work simultaneously immersed in gritty humanity and divine transcendence, then our writing ought to carry a haunting lilt while piercing the heart and the mind. The Sacred Art of Writing aims to walk with students in this joyful, sacred calling.”
So I invite you to take this surreal journey with me and remember me in your prayers as often as you think of me burning the midnight oil to read through the night and write, parent, create, serve, teach
and wipe countertops through the day. I'll try to share updates here along the way as often as the days allow. I'm honored to have many rich communities of support and I appreciate your encouragement so much. To further understand my call towards sacred writing, scroll forth, dear reader! This was part of my submission for doctoral acceptance.
DARING TO SCRIBE
My childhood home was tumultuous and unstable. The volatility of my father’s behavior pushed me into a rich thought world at a young age. I would frequently retreat into the shelter of an ancient weeping willow on my parent’s property, contemplating the deep ache of this groaning, unredeemed world. Sitting high up on my arbor perch, I would watch the variegated purples and rich ochre hues settle into the shadows of the California hills. The majesty of the Creator was stunning and resplendent and it captured my artist’s soul. Beneath me, a rose garden beckoned and threatened, blooms so enchanting, thorns so sharp. Beauty beside pain. The metaphor was not lost on me, small as I was. Joy intermingled with suffering. It is the human experience, and I found there was deep healing to be wrought through poetry and prose, through song and word, and garden and pen. At every formational point in my life, words have been the most fundamental and enduring solace. In seasons of abject loneliness, an aptly written word has sustained hope.
And so I got to work, scribbling out little beautiful phrases or simple stanzas. I recorded my pain in paragraphs and my revelations in writing. I gifted my thoughts wrapped up in lyrical letters and poetic prose to the ones I loved. I found that an insightful word was the greatest gift I could give someone. To write vulnerably of someone’s strengths, to encapsulate their story and echo their suffering can affirm their essential self and point them back to the eternal story of salvation. I’ve been honored to see my words watering a new marriage while at other times bolstering a faltering one. Words obediently shared can fertilize a dream, confirm a calling and prophetically encourage the broken. Years ago I wrote a simple letter of gratitude and goodbye to my pastor. A lifetime later, he told me those artfully arranged truths shored him up many times when he contemplated leaving the painful, meandering path of ministry. I was young and without a lot of resources so I gave him my simple best. A paper framed or a book printed can stand eternal, echoing love, reminding, convicting, teaching, galvanizing.
For three decades now, I have been honing this gift and seeing the rich fruit of a pen surrendered to Christ. I think contributing to the space of Christian writing is a vocation that has anchored our faith for millennia. It is a holy compulsion. Our words must not remain shut up in our souls. We cannot hoard or hide or silence the calling to write. We must surrender our implements to the use of the Father and contribute what meager fair we can. From the rich breadth of scriptural illumination and exegesis, to simple prayers and ancient lines of beauty, our faith is enriched by the writings of others. As we receive the musings of Anselm of Canterbury or Tertullian or Brother Lawrence from the 17th century, we are compelled into a fresh understanding of atonement, the Trinity, or practicing the presence of God. Because they chose to document their own theological or esoteric journey, the global church has benefited for centuries. Countless other modern voices like Tim Keller, Dallas Willard, John Mark Comer, and Austin Channing Brown have penned their thoughts and challenged my thinking. My theology is gloriously altered by their gift of words. My own voice is thin and paltry, but however it can serve the record of faith in this generation, I dare to scribe.
I believe in the power of a simple word. Prayers whispered over the heartbroken, sermons written to the wanton, books and devotionals and memoirs reaching souls I may never meet. Words can serve local ministries and immediate needs, but they can also travel the globe and transcend time. The Psalmists’ parchment resonates with my own digital document, speaking to our seamless human condition of joy and sorrow, celebration and lament. The early church fathers still tutor us in patience and long-suffering, reaching past the grave to console and convict. Frederick Buechner reveals secrets of his deeply personal experience and I find a comrade in a man I’ll never know, a man who has already slipped from the grip of ticking clocks, but whose words have been fortuitously and permanently recorded. The scars of his childhood eighty years ago mirror my own. His choice to honestly speak about them makes me feel a little less alone. I have felt the nearness of the Lord through paper and ink. I believe in the anointing of the written word.
“Speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.” The import of the Roman centurion’s statement of faith in Matthew 8:5 has indelibly marked me. One word can bring healing. One word can work life. One word can create or revive or redeem. I believe God’s presence can inhabit and mobilize our words. There is nothing more powerful than a timely word that falls on starving eyes or desperate ears. When my father died suddenly and tragically in 2017, I felt cast into such a wretched wilderness. Conversations felt empty and cavalier. Life took on a sickly pallor. I yearned for a meaningful word that might water the unslakable thirst in my soul. Of course I valued the refreshment of Scripture, but I searched for a contemporary writer that might speak to my grief.
I found Tish Harrison Warren’s Prayer in the Night in 2018 and found a companion in my darkness. She wrote with intelligence, vulnerability, truth and a depth that I craved. I vowed to one day contribute to this space. I shudder to think of anyone sitting alone in their pain, no friend in word or proximity save for the weeping willow beneath them. I feel a kindredness to Warren being a female Anglican priest. I also feel called to shepherd the church in word and deed, in leadership and rhythms of discipleship. I work alongside my husband creating sermons, devotional content and liturgies to compel our congregation to a richer devotional life. Sometimes the weight of the peoples’ sin and suffering feels staggering. They have survived so much and lost even more. I long to serve this local community as well as the global church with a timely word, a word fitting in season, like apples of gold in a setting of silver. I know personally how a simple sentence can alleviate pain.
I later stumbled upon the work of Douglas McKelvey. The poetic prayers of Every Moment Holy invited me to come close, to feel the full weight of my grief and to be reminded that in this life we will have pain, but to take heart— He has overcome the world. Every phrase echoed a beautiful eternity as well as an amber-gilt present. Every sentence felt powerful, every word chosen decisively, gently, intentionally. McKelvey’s liturgies were the modern psalms that I needed in the wake of unforeseen death. I wished that these prayers had accompanied me through the ugliness of 2017. If time were bendable, I would reach back and hand them to that little girl watching sunsets in unspeakable isolation. They were the cool cup that she needed, words to make someone fragile feel brave and seen and understood. I’ve gifted them many times since, reading them aloud and watching the words do their work. McKelvey’s profound ability has challenged me to add my voice, to speak to the ones still trapped in caves and crying under ancient tree boughs, to celebrate with those planting gardens and holding babies, to contribute to the annals of the Christian experience. Those who are called to write can do no less. Literary contribution is a high honor, a fierce conviction and a mantle to be borne with the utmost of reverence. I pray I am up to the holy task of speaking to the souls weeping in willows, afraid to go inside. With the companionship of Christ and honest words, I want them to know that they can find the roses among the thorns.
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