The prophetic in the Old Testament was called the poetic by OT scholar Walter Brueggemann. I’ve grown to love that comparison over the years. I was reminded of it again reading this paragraph from a recent article:

Too many writers and artists in the West sing the same potted tunes on demand, hopping from perch to scandalous plank. But unlike songbirds, poets and readers can learn from the dead, and they can refuse to be tamed by the forces of ideological conformity and technological brain-suck. That’s the spirit we need today. Let a hundred poets whose lips are still moving, heroes living or dead, leaven our days, and let them teach their life-affirming music to our young.

The article critiqued ideologies to the right and to the left. We get into our echo chambers. We’ve lost our individual voices.

Learn from the dead. This is one current task I am taking up and I consider what is ahead for the next ten years. I need my own voice.