Creation and Incarnation

The Christian understanding of human life is one that stresses its inherent value and worth. Roger Lundin writes:

"The doctrines of Creation and Incarnation affirm that human life is inherently meaningful. God has placed us in a world filled with order and hints of wonder, and through his acts of revelation and redemption he has entered into our history. As a result, although some things are obviously of greater importance than others, everything in our own experience has significance, and our attempt to discern that significance--as well as we can--is part of our calling as God's servants" (Gallagher 5).

Poetry is, in many ways, a worldly art. Whether its subject is love, death, oppression, nature, or Chinese dragons or Samson and Delilah or New York psychoanalysts or decadence in San Francisco or sitting on the porch steps recalling a lost marriage, a poem speaks of this world. Christ's incarnation teaches us that God hallows the material and cultural world. He is involved with it, values it, calls it good, weeps over it, and is concerned with changing it. Poetry, being the stuff of life, is then part of God’s concern.