From ideas editor Kara Bettis Carvahlo: Author Daniel Taylor’s essay in our most recent print issue was a bit of an unusual one for CT. We have run pieces about poetry before, but rarely does a sociological study rely so heavily on poetry. Taylor coined the term yearners to describe those who want to believe in God but struggle with faith. And nothing quite captures yearning like poetry. He relied heavily on poets such as Anne Sexton (a poet CT wrote about in 1976).

I’ve been thinking about the lines from her poem Rowing since I edited the piece: 

God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew …
I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside of me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.