Matt Wickman

FRI, FEB 2, 2024   |  7:30-9:00 pm MDT

Explore with us how to experience God in times of silence and distress.

IN-PERSON GATHERING:

THE CONVERSATION:

We live, it seems, in an age of heightened anxiety and distress. In addition to life’s personal struggles, which can be acute, we face existential crises at social, political, and environmental levels. Finding peace can be a challenge. Life to the Whole Being: The Spiritual Memoir of a Literature Professor recounts Matthew Wickman’s experience of seeking and finding God amid various times of trial. For Wickman, an experience of divine presence has come partly through his religious practice. But it has also come through alternative media like literature. In this presentation, partly in discussion and partly by sharing portions of his book, he will discuss how literature – a kind of technology of spiritual attention – can awaken us more fully to the nuances of God’s presence, including during times when God appears silent.

ABOUT MATT:

Matthew Wickman is Professor of English and associate coordinator of the Faith and Imagination Institute at Brigham Young University, where he also served as Founding Director of the BYU Humanities Center. Once a specialist in Scottish literature (and a professor of Scottish literature at a Scottish university), his current work takes up poetry as a means of registering, mediating, and fashioning our relationship with the sacred. Once an avid surfer, he now watches videos of big-wave surfing from his land-locked Salt Lake City home. He and his wife Kerry are the parents of two adult daughters.

EXPLORE BEFORE WE MEET:

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE RECORDED ZOOM CONVERSATION

NOTES FROM THIS GATHERING:

It was a dark and stormy night. Despite the weather, we had a large and lovely group of people gathered in the Iverson home along with those on Zoom. Besides the locals, people from Ogden, Provo and Park City came. Unfortunately, about 50 minutes into our conversation, wifi went down and we couldn’t get it restarted. My apologies to those who we lost. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to record the rest of the evening. So many great questions and observations. Such a warm and loving and intelligent group. While we don’t have the entire recording of that magical evening—including Matt’s wife, Kerry, and Lorene de St. Aubin leading us in a guitar accompanied, “Nearer My God to Thee”—we do have Matt’s book. A book I highly recommend. You will hear the aches and pains of Matt’s life as he navigates the hard questions of finding God’s presence in an institution as well as his own life. And how the beauty of God in good literature and art and simple service—even institutional service—can reconnect us to the spirit of the divine in nearly endless ways.

I asked Spencer Hinckley, who had recommended Matt Wickman to me, for the lyrics of the song that Spencer sang at the beginning of the evening. Here they are along with a link with the writer singing them. The song is “The Beautiful” by David Wilcox. He hasn’t published it on a record yet, but Spencer wrote down the lyrics. Thank you Spencer for bringing Matt and your beautiful performance of David’s song to us. You created such a remarkable moment in time.

I am looking at the paintings in this great museum
The news of one more shooting made me long to cry
I’d love to work for justice and for peace and freedom
But right now I need a refuge that is quiet and dry

So I come to see the beauty when the world is tragic
An umbrella stops the rain but it won’t dry the sky
This play of light and shadow is transcendent magic
And it changes the whole universe, at least inside

Chorus:
In the ocean deep
When these waves are steep
Every hope I keep betrays me
It’s the beautiful that saves me

So I’m walking past these priceless works of famous artists
But in between these canvases it’s cold, white wall
These painters found a crucible for their catharsis
But they knew that no rendition could contain it all

I’m fearful of the riptide in the sea of sorrow
I don’t have any faith to make these waters part
And if I venture out there I would drown a martyr
And it seems so overwhelming I can barely start

Chorus:
In the ocean deep
When these waves are steep
Every hope I keep betrays me
It’s the beautiful that saves me

Now the woman at the coat check hands me back my raincoat
“Stay warm out there,” she smiles and looks me in the eye
I take her simple kindness like we’re in the same boat
And we all need some protection from the storm outside

We are underneath the cloud of all this dark emotion
But I’ll make it through the storm because I’ve warmed my heart
A wooden hull can rest upon a deep, dark ocean
And a window into beauty is a place to start

Chorus:
In the ocean deep
When these waves are steep
Every hope I keep betrays me
It’s the beautiful that saves me

“The Soul of Life” podcast

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