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DECEMBER 2023

AS SURELY AS THE SUN LiTERARY

 AS SURELY AS THE SUN
LiTERARY JOURNAL

ISSUE III | DECEMBER 2023

Copyright © 2023 As Surely As the Sun Literary

surelyasthesun.weebly.com
e-mail: surelyasthesunlit@gmail.com
 CONTENTS

Editor’s Note 6

POETRY

Peter Venable
I Am 8

Ron Riekki
As I Get Older, I Get Softer, And I Hope 10
It’s Simple 11

Alex Hawkins
Waltz Red, Kind of Blue 13
Searching For a Real Love 15
Tombs 16

Danielle Page
For Asheboro 19
Pondus Gloriae 20

Rick Hartwell
He is All 21

Danny Collins
The Twenty-Second of June In My Thirty-First Year 23

John Grey
A Workman At St. Peters 27
Poem of the Light 28
The Painting of Saint Sebastian 30

Alan Altany
Lord Jesus Poems, No. 2 33

Sebastian Koga
Now I Know 35
Liturgy of the Hours 36
Verbum Caro Factum Est 38

J W Goossen
Silent Retreat 41

Joseph Teti
On a Roadtrip 42

Jordan Zuniga
The Bread and Water of Life 46
NONFiCTiON

Kirby Olson
Communism is the Problem, Christ is the Solution 32

Noor Fredly
Lament of Ezra 39

FiCTiON

Claire Chow
Sanctuary 44

ViSUAL ART

Elder Gideon
Out of the Deep cover
Upper Room 12
Passing the Plate 18
The Lamb is My Shepherd 22
Borne on Eagles’ Wings 26

Daniel Mitsui
Tetragrammaton 31
Fiat Voluntas Tua 34
Ecce Quam Bonum 40
Deus Lux Est 43

Shayna Miller
Potter’s Hands 45
EDiTORʼS NOTE
…

After two days he will revive; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
~ Hosea 6:2 ~

December is a month of unabashed gift-giving. It is my hope that this issue too will come to be its
own sort of gift; a gift to God, a gift to its readers, a gift from and to its contributors. But what is the
gift, really?
There are too many people I know who would fake a smile if they uncovered a neatly
printed poem or a visual piece of art beneath bright wrapping and a bow. If it is taken out of
context, if it is unoriginal, if it is not specially attuned to its receiver, then the gift may as well be
meaningless.
We find this reality embodied in Old Testament scripture. We find Cain’s heartless offering
to Yahweh rejected. We find the delivered Hebrews at the base of Mt. Sinai bequeathing golden
jewelry to create an idol, only to their own self-absorbed destruction.
We find it spelled out in chapter one of Isaiah. The pre- Babylonian exile prophet couldn’t
have said it more clearly: “‘The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?’ says the
LORD… ‘Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons,
Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.’” (Isaiah 1:11-13)
This was a reprimand to a delivered people losing themselves yet again—not to Egyptian
slavery, but to the bonds of idolatry. For gods of war, of chaos, of indifference, and of greed, the
Israelites were neglecting the One True God. What then, Yahweh asks, were their multitudes of
sacrifices, of outwardly pleasing gifts, worth, if the greatest commandment to “love the LORD thy
God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) was not
duly obeyed?
God was not, and has never been, a fool to His people gone astray. Yet even as He deplores
through the words of the prophet Hosea, “Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that
disappears,” in the very same chapter, Hosea declares the Lord’s remarkable promise to His people:
“After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”
(Hosea 6:2-4)
In response to His people’s sinfulness, as prevalent today as it was three thousand years ago,
God offers a gift. This is the greatest gift that not only the Christmas season, but our life, death, and
salvation rest on—the Lord’s promise of returning, of restoring, and of resurrecting.
God’s free gift of grace in Christ Jesus can never be matched nor earned, and yet what we
offer Him sincerely, with our lives, with our writing and our art, is by no means meaningless.
I believe the gift of this journal is in its beauty; in its statements made and questions posed;
in the care taken to craft each piece; in the author’s interpretation, and in the reader’s, and in God’s.
I believe it is not a worthless offering, but a humble acknowledgement of God’s own extraordinary
sacrifice.

As always, soli Deo gloria,

Natasha Bredle
Editor-in-Chief
I AM
Peter Venable

A
Pi(π)
relation
for Khufu
helped builders
to design the Great
Pyramid, Giza, Egypt—
from height, perimeter, and
polyhedron base up to its apex.
It is reckoned to be four thousand,
six-hundred years old and stands fixed
through roasting noonday summer suns,
chilly winter nights, whipping desert winds,
and millennia of pharaohs, monarchs, presidents.
Multitudes still watch and marvel at its perpetuity.

A craftsman, a commonplace Hebrew day laborer,

hiked to Sepphoris as a mason and craftsman.
At 33 he was baptized and began his duty.
He strode on—blistered toes turned hard.
His calloused hands raised dead souls.
He ordered sniveling spirits away.
In a sailboat, with a command
He calmed a brutal tempest.
When the hour came,
He broke his body.
The next morning
“It is finished.”
 Three days:
The tomb
empty.
“It is I.”

He flipped the world’s pyramid

upside down on its peak—
its stone tip on His
back for you
and for
I.
AS I GET OLDER, I GET SOFTER, AND I HOPE
Ron Riekki

that one day, I will be as

soft as the clouds, no,

softer, and my bones

want to go home, to

God, ache for God, and

in that ache, I’m awake,

alive, in my chronic
pain, my eyes cry

for God, and this poem

cries for God, and I pray

that you will pray for

me, dear reader, before

I am dead, so that I,
alive, can feel the love

of God fully rear

itself deep within

my core, and I will

pray for you too, as

that is what this poem

attempts to do.
ITʼS SiMPLE
Ron Riekki

I promised myself
to God in September.
The first. These words

commemorate. I
remember. The moment
strikes me, clashes

against the before.

I, now, am so thankful
for something as simple

as the touch of these

bedsheets, the sound
of the crickets outside,

such beauty bound up

in every moment, this
very moment, never

alone, because I, now,

believe, so light, so
good, like snow.
UPPER ROOM
Elder Gideon
WALTZ RED, KiND OF BLUE
Alex Hawkins

I have seen it in the waltz of red

and blue across Alabama blacktop,
in the wraith a shovel has over five bucks,
in bullets diving in buffalo sauce, in muscle
cars molded around Maple trees, and in
walks taken in big cities of jabs and pricks.

Sudden stillness
An imposed lull

I have heard it in snow white keys

jangling like Winter’s death, in the
grief that shoots bourbon off Beale
Street, in the country twang musing
hot days in January, in the tears after
the laughter of kids trampled for trap,
in the howls and screeches carved in
Norwegian firs and pale, lonely skin.

Do You accept those ignorant of You?

Lord, I am praying that you do.

I have felt it in the misery

ocean waves cackle with
when a child has one year,
in the mumbling a mudslide
has as it eats mobile homes,
in the hope when a hurricane
weighs less than silence, in
the slow fire a sunset judges with,
and in the memory of bloody peace
the Moon writes into the sky when
a single, silver trumpet captures it
and cries.
SEARCHiNG FOR A REAL LOVE
Alex Hawkins

Often, on my way to see a woman,

I gave my heart all the way
to storm clouds, puffs of midnight
in the 6 PM air. It only misses
the freezing moon as something
barks at it, either conformity’s
corrosion oozing through my car’s
stereo or a creature whispering,
“Hello” from the gutter.

When I turned toward cemetery

gates, I deafened the music to let
the children of the grave hear
the ballads of decaying fig trees
and the hum of hornets in their hearts.

Like the coffins, I am newly planted

with an arisen soul. The dead and I
learn about The Light that throws
us around black suns, so I no longer
roam those old haunted cathouses.
We sing with chainsaw riffs:
I am alive.
I am known.
I know real Love.
TOMBS
Alex Hawkins

Some
use the watchful eyes of owls
or winged-dogs hunched in secure corners.
Some
hold obelisks pointed to the transactions
of sun and moon, wishing for Nile-river royalty.
Some
revive Athenian hallways, trapping
spirits into philosopher’s thoughts.
Some
slam stone slabs into dust,
bearing names and number to be withered
by rain, hail, teenagers, tourists, and time.

The King’s Tomb

tricks all the other tombs.
The King’s Tomb
makes the willows whisper through their
weeping limbs a hope for fallen dogwood
blooms, waking a choir deep in their
dirt-bedded roots. Reach your hand
down and grab it, the roots don’t let go.
The King’s Tomb
breathes fresh light for all the other tombs
to taste the psalms in wine or the proverbs
in a prayer of whiskey-soaked slide guitar
when the graveyard craves music and dance.
The King’s Tomb
breaks bread baked from the thoughts of
the Earth, so we no longer eat darkness
off chapel pews or temple floors and
paradise can reside in our feet
illuminated by a single light
from the tomb’s minute cracks.
The King’s Tomb
hovers in the evening prayers
of forgotten burial plots, parents
and child alike, so they won’t be
withered by Death.

How great it is, to know your King’s Tomb.

PASSiNG THE PLATE
Elder Gideon
FOR ASHEBORO
Danielle Page

Firmly mounted on the quartz and clay,

The foundation of a stilled town rests.

It is here that the land is tilled, season

After season, crops predictably rising
And falling with each year’s yawn, sleep,
And blurry eyed awakening.

It is here where shop owners expect the

Quiet morning before the Sunday rush,
Where the trailer lawns are littered
With decor and junk and knick-knacks,
Where generations stay put, unwavering.

But do you not perceive it?

It is here where sunflowers, extinct, are rediscovered,

Where hearts of unsheltered folk find their souls pitched
as upward as their tents finding fresh ground.
Where the Uwharrie flows to fill reservoirs with fresh water.
Where “always been” is slowly slipping out of its set vocabulary.

It is here that the quartz and clay split open,

the ground bellowing its wide eyed response:

“Behold, I am doing a new thing.”

PONDUS GLORiAE
Danielle Page

How do cathedrals bear

The weight of glory?
Is this why they were
Fashioned from stone?

Does their colored glass

Serve as another clefted
Rock, deflecting a
Holy, burning light,
A kaleidoscopic veil?

Do their archways brace

The burden of his presence,
A secure vault for his
Manifold perfections?

Or, is this why its wooden

Doors withstand piercing
Gazes of mercy: to share
With us its Atlassian task,
To carry the weight of glory?
HE iS ALL
Rick Hartwell

In the beginning there was void,

then division into night and day;
water, earth, an abundance of life.

God seemed to be a monarchist

or maybe even an aristocrat, but
Jesus was a leftist, a socialist,
perhaps even a communist.

Later came the triune nature of God;

four corners of an apostolic church;
seven sins cast from Magdalene;
multiple decades of the rosary;
twelve stations of the cross.

So much numerology rooted in the

foundations of Catholicism, then:
One Bread—
One Body—
One Church—
One God.

And suddenly,
it All makes sense.

He is All.
THE LAMB iS MY SHEPHERD
Elder Gideon
THE TWENTY-SECOND OF JUNE iN MY
THiRTY-FiRST YEAR
Danny Collins

I
New doubts darken the green time dance
Not a hint cooler the air
Not a blush redder the leaves
Yet my steps brace against a snow pregnant wind

Is this the cost of a misspent spring?

To harvest and hoard
A foreshortened year
Gathering wheat into ever larger granaries?

What fall from summer fullness do I wish

The yellow surrender
Of the fruitful south
Or a northern flame to scorn the sudden chill?

II
I listen at dawn to the standing oak
To the leaf speech
To the wind song
To the wisdom of deep rooted winters

The wanton oak gives all in every season

Shade in the summer
Acorns in the fall
Sweet hymns of resurrection in the spring
Must I waste to the winds a prodigal summer
Heedless of industry
Of the squirrel’s contempt
Gathering only winter sleep and spring awakening?

III
I listen at noon to the river running
To the spring’s babble
To the rapid’s roar
To the slow erosion of uncertain banks.

The river’s end is not a word in time

No count of days constrict
No winding paths forsake
Her patient rush to find an end in ocean

Must I dissolve at last to ever be

Heedless of time
Of a true drawn course
Scorning all for the sea’s annihilation?

IV
I whisper at dusk to the wayward moon
The waxing and waning
The rootless and wandering
The searching and sought after, helpless moon

The moon is full in love’s reflected light

Swift in pursuit
Overtaken at last
He vanishes into the flame’s embrace
I shall be borne upon another’s course
Heedless of roots
Of a certain end
Content to chase the love that chases me
BORNE ON EAGLESʼ WiNGS
Elder Gideon
A WORKMAN AT ST. PETERS
John Grey

He’s installing organ pipes

in a hundred-year-old church,
giving breath to granite walls,
high stained-glass windows
that cast holy shadows across stone floors.

Purchased from years of small donations,

the organ sits high at the side of the altar,
awaits its lungs, its nostrils.

For so long, the choir has sung

to their own music,
luminous sure,
but in need of a chest
to provide for their voices.

Under his diligence,

flue goes here, reed there,
props in resonation,
conduits to the airstream.

The church
is of a Christian mind,
boasts a heart of spirit,
limbs of pews and vestibules,
and now this.
POEM OF THE LiGHT
John Grey

The secret of believing

is to possess
the most priceless thing
in the universe,
is to have it
in a world that has no way
of teaching me to find it,
is to believe in the believing,
that what is sought
cannot be found,
that whoever has spirit enough
to wait for it
discovers that it comes
to them eventually.
I see people who seem to know
but I don’t follow them.
No staggered run
across the rocky plains
after the crazy man.
No following the glitter
of shaman fingers
into the sparkling woods.
The echo of my heart-beat,
my thoughts, my footsteps,
walking through this world
is all the litanies I need,
my silent tongue
at peace in my mouth,
the only hallelujah.
I am reminded of the light,
how it can cut through
the darkness at any time,
in any place,
how I am not the cause
of it being here,
only the result
of my being in it.
THE PAiNTiNG OF SAiNT SEBASTiAN
John Grey

I imagine myself bringing water

to his parched lips,
hands reaching above
the arrows that dig into his flesh
to wet the winter death
with cool spring.
My tiny cup of liquid
would bring a smile
where there was only sacrifice,
like all fresh, Wet things
would triumph with tenderness.
I see pain
but I believe ministrations.
I find beauty destroyed,
faith sated and unharmed.
TETRAGRAMMATON
Daniel Mitsui
COMMUNiSM iS THE PROBLEM; CHRiST iS THE
SOLUTiON
Kirby Olson

The solution to Hegel and Marx is Kierkegaard.

Only the individual can laugh or cry.

Valerie Solanas didn’t care who she killed that day. Maurice Girodias or Andy Warhol.
They were both merely symbols, not men whose mothers loved them. Hatred is
collective.

The face of an individual blowing out birthday candles.

The modernists lost their footing in scapegoating abstractions. Some tended toward
fascism, some toward communism. Those that kept their footing, like Marianne
Moore, were grounded in a solid faith. She knew that God, like us, has an individual
human face. It is the face of Jesus Christ, our Savior. To see the one true face of Our
Lord is the beginning of all true prayer. To continue to reflect on the individual face
of each of our loved ones is the end of our prayers. It is also the beginning of all
poetry. One must not begin to pray until one can clearly see Christ’s face.

To let go of this emphasis on individual love is to fall into the arms of Satan, whose
face is legion, and always changing, from one demonic abstraction to another, from
one ism to another, endlessly alienating oneself from the One True God, falling into
mass movements focused on eliminating those who don’t belong to some abstraction.
LORD JESUS POEMS, NO. 2
Alan Altany

If Jesus had been born

& raised all His life
in an American city
instead of antiquity,
preaching on sidewalks
to homeless addicts,
very faithful atheists,
busy stock brokers
the devoutly religious,
cohorts of young rebels,
the distracted & bored,
high tech entrepreneurs,
would new disciples follow Him
through the business districts,
ghettos & suburban sprawl?
Or would this historic Jesus
be ridiculed as a hateful bigot,
suppressed with raged rejection,
censored & cancelled for subversion?
Arrested, or put in a psych ward?
Stripped of dignity & beaten by gangs?
Dutifully crucified in a mall parking lot
crowded with the curious & callous?
Where would they bury His savaged body?
Would there be some sort of uprising?
Who would recognize Jesus hitch-hiking
with healed wounds on His wrists & feet
during the Monday morning commute?
FiAT VOLUNTAS TUA
Daniel Mitsui
NOW I KNOW
Sebastian Koga

Twilight:
the day is brought to the gallows
in a flash of fever.
On the road to Jericho,
flowers of blood caked
on my temple,
on my chest.

You pass
with a satchel of light,
a desert bladder full of dew.
Tomorrow,
startled from sleep,
the guillotine of morning
rolls the heads

of the primrose
and the moonflower.
What of my love for you?
Silence into silence.
Yoked to your little name,
Begotten of the Father
before all ages.
LiTURGY OF THE HOURS
Sebastian Koga

at the first hour

I disembark like Noah from the ark
the amniotic waters of morning
recede from city blocks
the dove returns with
coffee and bread

at the third hour

horses gallop across the screen
my work is interrupted
by builders of marble
memorials the clean heart
looks small in the mirror

at the sixth hour

the noon demons
pour wine into the sponge
cake of the blemished body
a saltpeter sky falls
over the Cross

at the ninth hour

I return to the
cavern of the soul —
sleep blows cold into
the penthouses of Babel

from the matins of memory

the breviary of the living
opens to the last page
Lord I have cried unto you,
Hear me!
VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST
Sebastian Koga

There is a word imprinted in my soul

Which brings the lost ships back to shore
And weaves a track through foggy woods,
And opens, with a whisper, Heaven’s door.

There is a word, not love nor money, no—

An echo through the cave within my chest,
A plainchant that can make the waters still,
A sigh through which both life and death find rest.

There is a word, for which there are no words,

That pours silence over tortured sleep,
Uncasts the shadows from the rage of love
And gives me faith to stay, and then to leap.

There is a word, I hold inside until I see

The green wheat blades above the snow,
Unfletch the arrow,
Unstring the bow,
Unflesh the body,
and in its silence glow.
LAMENT OF EZRA
Noor Fredly

The low cries of worship skip across the stacked stones; the wall stands in the
moonlight, waits to be whole. Sawdust bathes in the starlit air above the city—clean
work in the clear land You planned for us. The tears on my palms tremble like my
grieving heart and our guilty city. Stacked by the tents, our skins still bulge with the
waters from Ahavah, where Your sword watched over our camp and our gold; Your
love, like a sword before us, cleared the bandits from the road to the half-built city
while we clutched our scrolls and sacks of silver. The half-built house, where we
looked for food, held poison; we looked for friends, but found fools. Eloheinu, I am
too ashamed to lift my face to You. Lowing in the fields, our flocks, patient, listen to
their shepherd’s songs, awaiting the blade. We, like sheep, have gone astray. Our sins
are higher than our heads—we deserve their fate! Nebuchadnezzar’s gold, Your gold,
gifted back to us, still bright from the fire of Solomon’s crucibles, sits tied in our tents
in droves to adorn Your house again—Your house, half-shod with cedars from Cyrus
that stand in testimony against us. My God, you took off our chains and gave
kindness from kings to rebuild these ruins, which the sons of the Levites have filled
with the sins of the Jebusites, the Perizzites and Canaanites, You had routed from our
hills. You cleared the land for us; we invited in impurity, married with obscenity,
poured tar on our white wool. You have punished the floods of our sins as if they were
small as a spilled cup; shall we break the dam again? How high will Your anger rise?
The camp around us testifies that You are worthy of the gifts from every hand, the
love of every eye. Here we are before You in our guilt; not one of us can stand.
ECCE QUAM BONUM
Daniel Mitsui
SiLENT RETREAT
J W Goossen

I came stumbling like a Dharma bum

Looking for the Merton side of town
Insights to anchor me
Keep me warm
Then my voice left me
For days, with little intercession
Floating in a sea
Of ancient wisdom
Of knots and nature
Of creation and Creator
Of blessings and beatitudes
And as my breath continued
The still small voice
Returned
To me my own.
ON A ROADTRiP
Joseph Teti

The layer of cool dew was not enough

to block my vision as I drove away
that morning. But, as I drove on, and left
that shaded, sleepy town, at that first hill
sunlight filled up the whole windshield, and I
was utterly blind—the wipers weren’t enough—
the defrost was too slow—I hardly knew
those unfamiliar streets—but suddenly—

I could not stop, or go, or turn—

I prayed.

… as I came up the hill, the angle changed,

the defrost worked a little, and I saw
the crystal specks of raindrops on the screen
diffract the sun’s rays into rainbow gleams.
DEUS LUX EST
Daniel Mitsui
SANCTUARY
Claire Chow

Gina harbored this secret wish to be a nun. When she thought nun, she pictured
simple white garments, loaves of coarse brown bread baked on an open hearth,
lovingly tended gardens with stone angels, and the calm, purposeful chanting of
ancient hymns. The very words: vespers, evensong, compline, stirred within her a
deeply visceral sense of the mystical, and it was to this image that she gravitated
whenever the reality of everyday life became too burdensome.
She could try to carve out a piece of her day for contemplation, a moment of
stillness amidst the noise and chaos of life. But more often than not, an unhappy
child, an unpaid bill, a threatening letter from the gas company, an ominous
thunk-clunk-thunk from under the car would rise to the surface and permeate her
consciousness, with a constant refrain of “I need” or “You must pay attention to this.”
Right now, the baby was screaming, his tiny red face turning a more and more
alarming shade, his fist shaking violently, as if to make the urgent point, “You must
have no other priority than me! Your life is not your own.” Gina was trying to transfer
a heavy, boiling pot of macaroni to the strainer in the sink, baby Marcus tucked under
one arm, when she had an almost unbearable thought: she could simply let go. She
could let go of bawling baby, let the pot drop to the floor and clatter, clatter, clatter,
spraying waves of hot water and pasta everywhere. The idea was terrifying and
thrilling in equal measure, but somehow, she was able to suppress the thought,
somehow find a sense of calm and carefully do what it was that needed doing. Get the
pot safely to the sink. Hold the baby tightly and protectively.
Many years later, when Marcus was a grown man with a strong back and a kind
heart, he would carry an ember of this memory, and when times were rough, it would
spark into flame. He would remember being held securely, no matter the chaos
around him. Not in any sense a religious man, Marcus could only describe it as a
moment of infinite grace.
POTTERʼS HANDS
Shayna Miller
THE BREAD AND WATER OF LiFE
Jordan Zuniga

There are some who go about

Looking for bread and water,
Anxiously striving for it,
Desperately yearning for it.
But I will never hunger
Nor thirst again in strife,
For the Bread of God is my life,
And the Living Water renews my strength with vigor.
I may have difficult days of sorrow
While waiting for my Shepherd,
But I am comforted by His food, which is to believe Him,
And trust in the power of His word.

May Lord Jesus Christ have all the glory!

 CONTRiBUTOR BiOGRAPHiES

Alan Altany has a Ph. D. in religious studies (University of Pittsburgh) and is a semi-retired
professor of Comparative Religions at a small college in Florida. He was the founding editor of
a small magazine of poetry (The Beggar’s Bowl) and has self-published two books of poetry: A
Beautiful Absurdity (2022) & The Greatest Longing (2023). Website:
https://www.alanaltany.com/.

Claire Chow is a first-generation Chinese-American writer, poet and psychotherapist. Her

poems and short fiction have been published in a variety of journals and she is the author of
Leaving Deep Water: the Lives of Asian-American women at the Crossroads of Two Cultures
(Dutton, 1998). For Ms. Chow, the quest is ongoing to seek the Divine in all aspects of her
work, her writing and her daily life.

Danny Collins is a Christian, poet, and factory worker from the hills of Upstate New York.

Noor Fredly is an undergraduate student in Linguistics. She loves to serve in local ministry and
plans to enter the mission field after college.

Twice nominated for the 2023 Pushcart Prize, Elder Gideon is the author of three poetry
collections—Sophia’s Wisdom (forthcoming with EPS Press), Gnostic Triptych and Aegis of
Waves (Atmosphere Press)—and co-author with Tau Malachi of Gnosis of Guadalupe (EPS
Press, 2017). His poems, essays, and sculptures have appeared in dozens of journals. He’s an
alumnus of the 2022 Kenyon Review Summer Conference and the 2021 Community of
Writers. A veteran English teacher-activist and faith leader of a mystical Christian tradition,
Gideon lives to connect. Reach out to him @elder.gideon or eldergideon@gmail.com.

J W Goossen, born and raised in Vancouver, currently lives in Ladner BC and enjoys carving
out time for writing poems and stories, and painting. Publishing credits include Rhubarb, Geez,
Grain, Canadian Stories, Red Ogre Review and Alchemy.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing,
California Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, “Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and aaaaaaaa
“Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh
Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonally-challenged?) living
in California with his wife of forty-nine years, Sally Ann (upon whom he is emotionally,
physically, and spiritually dependent), two grown children, two granddaughters, and fifteen
cats! Like Blake, Thoreau and Merton, he believes that the instant contains eternity.

Alex Hawkins is a writer based out of East Tennessee. His work explores the crossroads of the
Holy Spirit, heavy metal, and God’s beauty found throughout the southern United States and
the people who live there.

Sebastian Koga is a Romanian neurosurgeon and poet currently working in New Orleans. He
completed a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and serves as a director of
the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, UK.

Shayna Miller is a self-taught Christian artist who specializes in watercolor and oil paintings.
Most of her work includes vibrant florals, rich landscapes, and detailed nature paintings. She
often finds inspiration for her work while spending time in nature, and she enjoys adding the
beauty found in everyday life to her paintings.

Daniel Mitsui is an artist whose specialties include ink drawing, religious iconography,
lettering, and ornament. His meticulously detailed works, made entirely by hand on paper or
vellum, are held in collections worldwide. He desires to make art that is faithful to tradition yet
strikingly original, and vigorously medieval in spirit.

Kirby Olson is a philosophy professor at SUNY Delhi in the western Catskills.

Danielle Page is a truth-teller, writer, and educator. When she’s not reading up on composition
theory, she’s scribbling in her Moleskine journal or hiking a mountainous trail. Her work has
appeared in the Whale Road Review, Calla Press, The Raven Review, Dream Noir Magazine,
The Amethyst Review, and elsewhere.

Ron Riekki’s latest book is the poetry collection We're Also Wounded. Right now, he's
watching the 1986 documentary Gerard Manley Hopkins: To Seem a Stranger.
Joseph Teti is an emerging writer from Hyattsville, MD. His poetry has appeared in Clayjar
Review, Solid Food Press, Foreshadow, and Rialto Books Review among others. He is a graduate of
Hillsdale College, and a fierce defender of Platonism and Romanticism in their continuities
with Christianity.

Peter Venable has written sacred and secular verse for many decades. He’s appeared in Ancient
Paths, Third Wednesday, THEMA, The Windhover, Prairie Messenger, The Christian Century,
The Merton Seasonal, Windhover, WestWard Quarterly, and others. He is a septuagenarian,
happily married, “Poppy” to two granddaughters, a Christ follower, and volunteers at a prison
camp. His Jesus Through A Poet’s Lens is available at Amazon. He is at petervenable.com and on
FB.

Jordan Zuniga is an emerging Christian and conservative poet, devotional, and creative writer.
He has appearances with The Upper Room, the Lorelei Signal and other publications.
Inquiring literary agents who are interested in offering representation can follow and contact
him on Instagram and Instagram messenger @cccreativewriter.