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Devotional
| As Paul Friesen has written in regard to crosses he created for the United Methodist Church of
Hesston, Kansas, the poems in On the Cross are "not decorations, but for provocative meditation, inviting
you to confront Him who is Life, Light and Love." These poems—augmented by John Leon's line
drawings of the Cross based on Paul Friesen's crosses—fit into a long tradition of meditations on the Cross
articulated in poetry, prose, painting, music. Some of the most famous of the literary meditations are those
of St.John of the Cross, George Herbert, John Donne and Paul Gerhardt. The poems in On the Cross reflect
these earlier meditations as well as cite paintings by Matthias Grünewald, El Greco, Salvador Dalí, and
Giacometti. Music— Bach, hymns, gospel, folk—also enters the volume as a kind of meditation.
Readers are invited to read these devotional poems and then engage in their own meditations. The
poems in this volume are but the beginning of an approach to a symbol that leads up to the spiritual life that
begins in the teachings of Christ. Copyright 2005 Cascadia Publishing House | |