Ted Loder has been one of our favorite spiritual writers for more than three decades. You’ll currently find him in our Remembering Spiritual Masters Project.
Reverend Dr. Loder was the senior pastor of First United Methodist Church of Germantown (Philadelphia) from 1962 to 2000, and known nationally as one of this country’s greatest preachers. He was also politically active, with a history of involvement in causes for justice, including marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the sixties, protests of the Vietnam War in the seventies, and providing sanctuary for refugees denied asylum by the U.S. government in the eighties and nineties.
Loder died in April 2021 at the age of 90. This book — which is a much larger trim size than the typical paperback — is also more than 600 packed pages in length, bringing together in one volume four of Loder’s essential poems and meditations for which the writer became famous.
Don’t look at the descriptor “poems” and think you automatically understand Loder’s voice and style. These are poem-meditations, often several pages in length, that plead, argue, lament, cry, and fight. Loder is a God-wrestler of the very best kind. His poem-meditations are often still used creatively in the worship services of mainline Protestant churches. (I’ve also seen them used in progressive Jewish liturgies.)
We reviewed three of the four books included between these covers when they were first published: Guerillas of Grace, The Haunt of Grace, and Tracks in the Straw. The fourth — Wrestling the Light: Ache and Awe in the Human-Divine Struggle — we missed when it first appeared in 1991. It has the same passion and intensity that we’ve found in all of Loder’s work.
The opening paragraph of the preface to Wrestling the Light points to the focus of its poem-meditations: “Grace is probably the most central and crucial word in the vocabulary of the Christian faith. Yet, even to say quite simply that grace refers to the way, or ways, God restores us estranged creatures to Him/Herself opens the gates to deep and, I believe, irresolvable mysteries.” Each poem addresses the Divine, but not always with an even reverence. “Lord…” begins one, but another starts with “Damnit God…”, and another is addressed to “God of thunderous silence.” Some story meditations, written in prose over several pages, are interspersed between thematic sections of poems.
This big book is essential for the shelves of any Christian who teaches the faith, writes homilies or lessons, and wants to think and pray creatively around the ancient but essential themes.
try a spiritual practice on grace
Go Deeper:
Touching Only the Hem of God's Robe: Read an excerpt from Guerillas of Grace on prayer as a way of doing the best we can to incarnate grace, forgiveness, and justice in the world.
