Psalms of lament are the most common type of psalm in the Bible, making up 40% of the Psalter.¹ Yet one study found that only 5% of popular worship songs in the U.S. even scratch the surface of lament² — a symptom of a much deeper, truly lamentable problem: a church largely lacking the “spiritual formation… language or tools to adequately sit with the despair and sadness of recent racial injustices, senseless acts of gun violence and social unrest taking place in the world around us.”³ We need to recover the practice of lament in order to, like the psalmists, cry out to God about the gap between God’s promises and God’s seeming absence in our sin-shattered world.⁴

However, lament has not been absent everywhere in the American church. It has long been an essential element in African American Christian traditions-as seen clearly in African American poetry, visual art, and music (from Negro spirituals to Hip Hop).

Within the vast corpus of African American poetry, I have been especially drawn (as a lover of sonnets) to the rich tradition of African American sonnets, which includes many honest, explosive, and gut-wrenching sonnets of lament. Despite pushback,⁵ many Black poets have subversively used this historically white poetic form “to challenge the master narrative”⁶ of an unrepentantly racist nation and to reaffirm the image of God in African American people. The brief and potent sonnet form, most popularly associated with love poems, has became for these poets what Natasha Trethewey calls “a container for grief” and, furthermore, “a way to transform it.”⁷ These sonnets embody the essence of lament which, Rebekah Eklund writes, “takes wordless, almost unbearable pain, and gives it a shape and a voice.”⁸

As we pause to remember the modern-day lynching of George Floyd six years ago this week, I offer my own sonnet of lament below, inspired by words from my friend Chanté Griffin, author of Loving Your Black Neighbor as Yourself.⁹ I invite you to take a deep breath-to slow down, as poetry so helpfully requires us to do-and to sit for a few minutes, unhurried, in this poem’s space of lament.

Image

after Chanté Griffin

I wish I didn’t know who George Floyd was,
had never heard his name or seen his face
displayed on screens and blazoned on brick walls,
unbreathing monuments to life erased.

I wish that George was playing with his daughter,
unknown to all the world, lost in her eyes.
I think of all the things he would have taught her,
their lives unshattered and unscrutinized.

Instead, the whole world watched a white man kneel
upon her father’s neck until he died.
My God! What do we do? How do we heal
this hell of hashtags hewn from priceless lives?
Today, Lord, help us mourn for George and feel
the richness of the years he was denied.

Further Reading

I’ve shared six of my favorite African American sonnets over at my Substack, along with a book recommendation for anyone who wants to learn more about this incredible poetic tradition.

You can also read my own humble attempts at sonnets of lament in the tradition of African American sonnets:

• A Sonnet for Sonya Massey
• The Cross and the Lynching Tree
• The Rule (another sonnet about George Floyd)

Last Chance to Register for the PAX Fellowship

It has been an honor to journey with Christian writers of color the past three years as a PAX Fellowship facilitator and mentor, and I am thrilled to see registrations rolling in for the 2026–2027 Writing as Spiritual Formation cohort (updated syllabus here)!

Registration will be open through June 15, 2026 or until my cohort’s fifteen spots fill up. You can also check out the other cohorts, including Poetry, Songwriting, Writing for Social Impact, and more.

Please help spread the word! A personal invitation goes a long way, so if you know any Christians of color ages 25–45 who might be interested, we at PAX would be really grateful if you could take a moment to share this opportunity with them.

Thanks to Red Letter Christians for originally publishing “Image.” And thank you for reading. I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Seeking shalom,
Michael

Footnotes

1. Rebekah Eklund, Practicing Lament (Cascade Books, 2021), 1; Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times (InterVarsity Press, 2015), Introduction.
2. Rah, Prophetic Lament, Introduction.
3. Brenda Salter McNeil, Foreword to Prophetic Lament.
4. Eklund, Practicing Lament, 4–5. “What distinguishes lament from despair,” she continues, is that “lament is still a prayer, which means it still turns toward God, even if it only turns toward God to shake a fist.”
5. For example, see Langston Hughes’ essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” in which he attributes some African American artists’ preference for white poetic conventions to acceptance-seeking or internalized racism — “that old whispering ‘I want to be white.’”
6. Natasha Trethewey, “On Abiding Metaphors and Finding a Calling,” in How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill, edited by Jericho Brown (Amistad, 2023).
7. Trethewey, “On Abiding Metaphors and Finding a Calling.”
8. Eklund, Practicing Lament, 2. She continues: “Lament… provides a structure to hang pain on. … [W]hen everything comes undone, a simple structure can help piece us back together by showing us the way — first this, then that. Step by step through the darkness.”
9. Chanté Griffin, Facebook, May 25, 2021: “I wish I didn’t know who George Floyd was. I wish I had never heard his name, never cried or protested over his death.
   I wish he had lived a life in obscurity to everyone except those who knew him intimately.
   I wish a lot of things,
   mostly that he were alive today,
   one year to the date his life was snuffed away.”
10. In a crown of sonnets, the last line of each sonnet becomes the first line of the next one. The fourteenth sonnet’s final line repeats the first sonnet’s first line, completing the circle. (Nelson does a variation on the typical crown of sonnets by having each poem’s title function as part of the sonnet itself, effectively making each poem fifteen lines long.) Furthermore, in a heroic crown of sonnets, the final lines of each of the fourteen sonnets are brought together to create a fifteenth “master sonnet,” the jewel in the crown. It’s not a poetic form for the faint of heart!

Originally published at https://michaelstalcup.substack.com.

So… I’ve been away from Medium for a hot minute (read: years). I’ve been plenty busy over at my Substack newsletter and supporting other writers (see further down), but I want to get back to posting poems, curated visual art, and thoughts on the creative process here on Medium where I first started writing and sharing my poetry. 🥰 Thank you to anyone taking the time to read these crafted words!

To get started, here are a few thoughts on the Artemis II mission, the love of God, and the wonder around us. You can listen to an audio version of this post, including Reid Wiseman’s press conference statement, over on my Substack.

Like millions of people, our family was hooked on the Artemis II mission to the moon. We watched the launch, the live broadcast of the splashdown, and all sorts of videos about the astronauts, their training, and their brief life in space. Though I will never understand their experiences, I resonated with this sentiment that commander Reid Wiseman shared about his experience in the hours after returning to earth:

“I’m not really a religious person, but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything or to experience anything, so I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come to visit us for a minute. And when that man walked in-I’d never met him before in my life-but I saw the cross on his collar and I just, I broke down in tears. It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through.”

I remember my own sense of overwhelming awe as a teenager on the shores of Bass Lake, California as I looked up at the star-slathered night sky-for once not polluted by Los Angeles lights-and listened to a youth pastor preach on a simple yet profound truth: that the God who made the universe also made me, knew me intimately-my name, every hair on my head-and was inviting me into a relationship with Him.

This poem is my monument to that moment of awakened awe and gratitude that forever marked me and led me to get baptized in Bass Lake that same week. Over the two decades since then, my understanding of God’s salvation and shalom has deepened and widened far beyond the gospel of individual salvation I stepped into that week-but my awe at God’s creation and God’s love for us has only grown. I am learning, slowly, to slow down and attend to wonder-following the example of my late grandma Jean, to whom I dedicate this poem.

The Shallows

In memory of Jean Stalcup (1927–2009)

When I drink in the stars and upward sink
into the theater your words have wrought,
I touch unfelt immensity and think — 
like Grandma used to pause in patient thought
before an ordinary flower, awed
by intricacies hidden in plain view,
then say, “You didn’t have to do that, God!” — 
surely a smaller universe would do!

But you have walled us in with open seas
unconquerable, wild with distant shores
whose raging dawns are but your filigree
across our vaulted skies. This art of yours,
what Grandma held and I behold — these flames
frame truth which awes us more: You know our names.

About the Art

The image above is a microscopic close-up of a ceramic glaze (fired at 1,235° Celsius) from my friend, ceramic artist Tim Mills, photographed with the help of science teacher and microscopy lover Daryl Holst. Ever since Tim first showed me this image, I have loved how this tiny speck of God’s (and Tim’s) creation paradoxically looks like a vista of enormous galaxies and nebulas. These galaxies in glaze remind me that the infinite beauty of God’s creativity bridges both the macro and the micro, from the unfathomable universe to every “ordinary” flower (or glazed ceramic mug) we hold in our hand.

You can check out Tim’s incredibly beautiful, thoughtful ceramic work here; it’s stunning at a non-microscopic level too!

For anyone interested in (or confused by!) my sonnet, you can read more about the poem over at my Substack.

Two Opportunities

Let me make a couple quick shout-outs here before I go: a good book and a good writing community.

My friend Kristin T. Lee (a Spirit & Scribe and PAX Fellowship alumna!) just published her refreshingly honest, deeply thoughtful, and beautifully written book We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter’s Reckoning with American Christianity. It’s a hybrid of memoir and theological reflection that is one of the best books I’ve read this year. The book also includes “Deconstruction,” a new sonnet of mine that I’m really proud of. Go order this amazing book for yourself and please help spread the word!

Speaking of the PAX Fellowship, registration for my Writing as Spiritual Formation Cohort is open now through June 15, 2026. I can’t wait to journey with a community of writers as we seek to know God and grow together. You can learn more and apply here. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions!

Thank you to Ekstasis Magazine for originally publishing “The Shallows.” And thank you for reading, subscribing, and commenting to let me know your thoughts. I always love hearing back from you.

Originally published at https://michaelstalcup.substack.com.

by Michael Stalcup

ㅤㅤThen, hovering above the formless deep,
ㅤhe plunged his hand in, shattering the seas
ㅤㅤwith brushstrokes of volcanic flame, the leap
ㅤof islands, dolphins, ages, symphonies
and heartbeats rising, prismed out from light
ㅤunbreakable — his creativity
unbound, and bound, our story set to write.

ㅤㅤㅤBut we ignored him — hoarded all he gave.
ㅤㅤㅤHe offered us his hand — we chose the grave.

ㅤㅤAnd so the one who birthed the universe
ㅤconceived to paint himself, unformed, within
ㅤㅤone woman’s womb — to crown and cry and nurse,
ㅤhis fingers gripping tight her tender skin — 
and grow until the day his wood-worn hands
ㅤwould rebuild lives destroyed by sickness, sin,
despair, and death — helping the lowly stand.

ㅤㅤㅤBut we betrayed him — killed him like a slave.
ㅤㅤㅤWe pierced the hands of Love for all they gave.

ㅤㅤI wonder sometimes what his hands were like
ㅤwhen Thomas touched those wounds, somehow untouched
ㅤㅤby even resurrection’s healing light — 
ㅤand how those hands that hued the world and clutched
his mother’s breast will always bear the scars
ㅤof love poured out, ignored, rejected, crushed,
that we might hold the hand that holds the stars.

Michael Stalcup is a Thai-American missionary living in Bangkok, Thailand. His poetry has been published in Faithfully Magazine, First Things, Inheritance Magazine, Sojourners, and elsewhere. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and at michaelstalcup.com.

His Hand was originally published in ar-che-type on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The posted rule says keep your dogs on-leash.
But if a black man asks you to conform,
feel free to treat him like a dog, to storm
at him and point and threaten to unleash

that well-worn discipline: “I’ll call the cops
and say an African-American…”-
’cause “Harvard grad,” “birdwatcher,” “novelist,”
or “neighbor,” “person,” “stranger,” “man,” won’t stop

this white world quite the way that “black man” will,
won’t get police there fierce enough, with knees
on necks-will leave him too much room to breathe,
to be, to speak, to wait for you until

you leash your dog, and stay six feet away,
so he can watch the birds this bright spring day.

Originally published at the Asian American Christian Collaborative in response to the news (on the same day) of the murder of George Floyd and the racist incident in Central Park. #BlackLivesMatter

The Rule was originally published in Resistance Poetry on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here are ten great books that I read this year and why I loved them. I hope you find a good read (or a few) here!

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited

By Scot McKnight (2016)

“You’re a sinner. But Jesus died for you. Pray to receive him and you can go to heaven when you die.” This, we’ve been taught, is the Christian “gospel.”

In this book, Professor McKnight shows how recent this particular framing of the “gospel” is (short answer: 1940s America); how narrow it is when compared to what we find preached in the New Testament; and how damaging this truncated “gospel” is, as churches focus on decisions more than disciples.

McKnight then presents a fuller understanding of the “gospel” that integrates the life of Jesus and the Old Testament as well.

Parable and Paradox: Sonnets on the sayings of Jesus and other poems

by Malcolm Guite (2016)

Malcolm Guite is an English poet (and professor, priest, and rock musician) writing in the great tradition of Christian poets like John Donne and George Herbert. My favorite living poet, he is also a remarkably insightful teacher, and I have been devouring his books and lectures this year (as this list will show).

Parable and Paradox is my favorite of his four poetry collections, as Guite skillfully connects ancient truths to our contemporary lives. His sonnets on the Lord’s Prayer are worth the price of the book, and his poems on Jesus’ “hard sayings” bring them into the present with all their appropriate discomfort.

The Voice Bible

By The Ecclesia Bible Society (2012)

This beautiful, lively translation was done by a team of biblical scholars working together with authors and artists. It shows. Dialogue is split out like in a screenplay, which works surprisingly well. Italicized textual additions provide helpful context and also help the story read more naturally. And over-familiar words like “Messiah” are given fresh but faithful translations like “Anointed One” that breathe new life into familiar passages.

The Voice Bible is an insight-filled and very readable translation that is great for taking in the Story of Stories.

The Bible Project Coffee Table Book: Illustrated Summaries of Biblical Books

By The Bible Project (2017)

This book (and the even better Read Scripture video series) combines biblical scholarship and excellent design/illustration to create striking visual outlines for the each book of the Bible (also offered for free download).

This book highlights literary structures we might miss (Matthew as a new Torah!?), helps us not lose the forest for the trees in books like Leviticus (it’s a story, not just laws!), and keeps us oriented in huge, sweeping books like Isaiah.

It has helped me appreciate the divine literary genius of the Bible more than ever before.

The Cross and the Lynching Tree

By James H. Cone (2011)

Take your pick. Both were forms of state-endorsed terrorism, executions designed not only to torture victims to death, but to intimidate those watching and keep them “in their place.”

In this eye-opening book, Cone raises troubling and worthwhile questions: Why has this most contemporary and obvious parallel to Jesus’ cross been almost completely ignored in American theology? And what are we to make of a White Christianity whose adherents went to church on Sundays and yet brutally lynched nearly five thousand Black people over six decades?

Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany

By Sarah Arthur (2014)

In this weekly devotional, Arthur thoughtfully brings together Bible passages, fiction excerpts, poems, and prayers to shine their varied lights on a weekly theme, guiding the reader from Advent to Epiphany.

She withholds her own thoughts except for an introduction where she offers guidance on how readers can meditate on these passages in God’s presence, inviting Him to speak to us. (Arthur recognizes Scripture’s unique authority but that God can speak to us in other ways too). Though you will not connect with every selection, you will find gems here.

The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter

By Malcolm Guite (2014)

After letting Sarah Arthur guide me through the church calendar last year, I turned to Malcolm Guite and found in him another most wonderful guide.

I can’t decide which I appreciate more: Guite’s own poetry (see above) or his incredible ability to draw out the depths of meaning and beauty in others’ poems.

Reading these hand-picked poems, opened up by Guite’s illuminating commentary, was like opening up a little present each day during Lent and Eastertide. It is a book stimulating for both the heart and mind.

A Community Called Atonement

By Scot McKnight (2007)

Professor McKnight takes us on a tour of the Bible’s rich, varied metaphors for speaking about Jesus’ atoning work on the cross.

McKnight invokes a helpful simile of his own, likening these metaphors to golf clubs in a bag: each of them helps us in different ways, but if we start trying to play the whole game with only one club (e.g. penal substitutionary atonement) we will get into trouble. No single metaphor was meant to explain the mystery of Jesus’ death on the cross in full.

This final part of this theology book considers the practical implications of the atonement.

Faith, Hope, and Poetry

By Malcolm Guite (2017)

Here is Guite in full professor mode exploring one of his most prominent topics: “Reason” alone is not sufficient to fully comprehend Truth, but must work hand in hand with what Guite calls “Imagination” — which the Protestant church has often been too suspicious of.

This book comes at a key time when the pendulum has swung from modernism (Reason shunning Imagination) to post-modernism (Imagination shunning Reason). Here Guite shows us a third way forward, arguing that these two truth-bearing faculties must not be separated. He does it by slowly guiding us through some of the greatest poems ever written.

Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

By Andrew Peterson (2019)

If Faith, Hope, and Poetry is like amazing lecture series, Adorning the Dark is like a bunch of good conversations with an experienced singer-songwriter and fiction author.

Just as valuable as Peterson’s practical advice are the vulnerable admissions of his own insecurities, failures, and inadequacies. Paradoxically, reading about Peterson’s struggles encouraged me as an artist — to try, to fail, and to trust God to create beauty through me despite my brokenness. This is an inviting, relatable, and beautiful book.

What were your favorite books from 2019? Leave a comment below.

Also check out my lists from 2018, 2016–17, and 2015.

Michael Stalcup is a Thai-American poet living in Bangkok, Thailand. His poetry has been published (or is forthcoming) in Firewords Magazine, First Things, Poets Reading the News, Visible Poetry Project, and elsewhere. This article was originally published on his website, where you can find more of his writing:

Michael Stalcup - Michael Stalcup

Top 10 Books I Read in 2019 was originally published in Be Yourself on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hi friends!

Two years ago I wrote a poem called “I Know Not Where I Go” in response to a challenge by Tre L. Loadholt and inspired by Steve Frank’s ongoing publication Psalming Spurgeon.

I’m thrilled that the poem has been included in this year’s Visible Poetry Project annual poetry film series for National Poetry Month! Watch the video above.

About Me

Image Prompt 9 was originally published in Chalkboard on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here are my favorite five books from my past year of reading. I hope that this list will point you to something you’ll enjoy.

Between Midnight and Dawn

A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide
Compiled by Sarah Arthur (2016)

Between Midnight and Dawn is one of three books that guide you through the church calendar in a wonderfully unique way. Each week presents a loosely themed collection of prayers, Scriptures, fiction excerpts, and poems. Though Arthur clearly put a lot of thought into organizing the book, she does so in a way that does not spoon-feed you. Rather, the hope is to make space for God to speak to you however He will through the various writings.

As someone who rarely enjoys “devotional” books, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Needless to say, I picked up the two other books in the series: At the Still Point (for Ordinary Time) and Light Upon Light (for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany).

Bird by Bird

Some Instructions on Writing and Life
by Anne Lamott (1995)

First of all, I cannot remember the last time I laughed out loud this much while reading a book. Anne Lamott says things in the most hilariously straightforward, absurd, and delightful ways. She is one of the most engaging writers I have read and this book is just plain fun.

But Bird by Bird is not a shallow book. Lamott’s advice on writing, including her famous section on “shitty first drafts”, is must-read material for any writer. I particularly appreciated her exhortation to see writing as its own reward,rather than looking to publication for satisfaction — a principle with application far beyond writing (see her subtitle: “…on Writing and Life”).

But please… go read everything the way she says it. No summary can begin to do her words justice. This reminds me: I need to go read more Anne Lamott.

Ordering Your Private World

by Gordon MacDonald (1985)

Thai Christian Students (IFES Thailand) has all their new staff read this old InterVarsity Press book. I am so glad they do! Though the book is as old as I am (!), it is still a timely word to those of us wrapped up in over-busy lives 33 years later.

The thesis of the book is simple: if we want to live a more effective and organized life outwardly, we need to regularly tend to our inner world. Caring for our souls is like keeping a house clean: it is never done. Our souls get cluttered and dirty over time and we must constantly attend our inner lives to keep from falling into disorder.

MacDonald explores five areas of our inner world: motivations, time, intellectual development, intimacy with God, and rest. This is a book you are too busy not to read.

Sit, Walk, Stand

by Watchman Nee (1957)

This very short Christian classic speaks to the same issue as MacDonald’s book above. Nee, a persecuted Chinese Christian, flies us over the book of Ephesians to highlight one major thread in the book’s structure: before we do anything for God, we need to sit in our identity with Him. Only from that place can we walk forward in his service and ultimately stand firm against the enemy.

I read this book in California during a particularly busy season of our life. I was (and am) so grateful for these much-needed pastoral words from this Christian brother half a century and half a world away.

Rules for the Dance

A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse
by Mary Oliver (1998)

Since you’re probably not interested in writing poetry, note that this book is also for readers of poetry. It’s sort of like wine-tasting lessons, because sometimes old poems taste funny at first. Also note that “metrical verse” means, you know, most of the English poems ever written, so there’s a lot of payoff from this little book.

Oliver uses only 100 pages — 17 short, easy chapters — to explain the various poetic elements in metrical verse. Her succinct primer is chock full of marked-up, concrete examples so it never stays merely theoretical. The last 79 pages are a mini-anthology of the (complete) poems used to illustrate concepts earlier in the book — a wonderful place to dip your toes into the vast ocean of poetry.

For more recommendations, check out my Best Books of 2016–2017 and 2015 lists. What were some of your favorite reads this year?

Originally published on my blog at www.michaelstalcup.com.

Best Books I Read in 2018 was originally published in Publishous on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Let me love you like
soap does — give myself to you
until I am gone.

Your Turn

THEME: Soap

Share your own one-line poem on the theme as a response to this post, or write a stand-alone piece if you prefer. Tag your piece “One Line”. If you have a stand-alone poem, be sure to leave a link in the response section below.
Want to get notified about the weekly prompts? Complete this form.

Have a question about the One Line project? Read our submission rules!

Soap was originally published in Chalkboard on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I was … wondering whether I would just be jumping in front of a train that was headed to where it was headed anyway and that I would just be personally annihilated.”
ㅤ— Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

“The train is very, very urgent. It is moving a man’s career forward. It is very difficult to get the train to stop. … We must not ask why.”
ㅤ — Alexandra Petri in The Washington Post

The train will continue, and you will be crushed:
A scream on the tracks, the talk of the town
For a time, an event, inevitably hushed,
For the train must go on. It has always gone on.

To try to stop it, you must throw yourself:
Your name, your face, your reputation,
Your family, your safety, your private hell
Onto the altar of a ravenous nation,

Your horrors laid bare in the public eye — 
Irreversible, gut-wrenching endeavor — 
To be eyed, handled, objectified
By men you do not know and never

Wanted to. Still, you jump. Though the price
Is too high, though men smother you still — quiet,
Your courage cuts like rivers, cries
Out like blood from a field soaked silent.

But the train does not stop. They say it intends
You no ill will; it does not hate you.
It even slows to show its concern at the end
Before it goes on to annihilate you.

I hate this train. I cringe at the screams
I can’t unhear since I learned that the sound
Has never been some benign machine’s
Bright whistle, but women’s lives pinned down

Beneath this terrifying engine.
I sit inside, study my son,
Think of my daughters with a father’s affection,
And know — we know — what must be done:

This train must stop. I look to the men
Who have stood to defy the reign of such currents
And wonder: What can I do? And when
Will I find the courage to do it? Courage

Like hers.

Originally published in Poets Reading the News.

For more of my poetry, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The Train was originally published in P.S. I Love You on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.