Interview with the Rev. Dr. Albert Starr, Jr., Author of “Late Night Offerings & Morning Prayers”
Church Anew is delighted to continue a series that celebrates the books and contributions of leaders in our community. While we can’t share every book or article or milestone, feel free to nominate someone or some piece that you know by contacting our blog editor Emmy Kegler at emmy@churchanew.org.
Please share a brief summary of your book.
Prayer emerges as poetry and poetry reveals itself as prayer. What is gathered here, in this book, are poems born out of the kind of personal wrestling that often keeps me up late into the night and ushers me to places of prayer. These writings, both the prayers and the poems, are catalysts for reflection and conversation, vehicles carrying us to those places where we find ourselves on common ground, both the difficult and the delightful.
Why did you write this book?
A few years ago, I had been posting portions of my morning devotions, sharing with my Facebook community. I was encouraged by a growing number of friends to put the morning prayers into a book. The process of learning how to bring a book to life intersected with some major personal challenges, when what had been, for me, some very meaningful work, was brought to a very abrupt end.
The poet Sonia Sanchez says that on this American landscape, particularly as black people, we must "re-imagine" ourselves every ten to fifteen years. Writing this book has been a part of my work of "re-imagining" myself as poet and performer, learning what both of those roles mean and the impact of storytellers on the world stage. I wrote this book as voice, as consolation and encouragement, as vision and dreaming, as truth telling, as healing. This is where prayer and sacred imagination takes us when we explore the depths of it, seeking something beyond the superficial and merely transactional. This book, these poems and prayers, are about seeing: seeing self, seeing each other in this common ground of our humanity, and seeing the divine. Late Night Offerings & Morning Prayers reflect on the delight and the pain of past, present and future. Struggle and celebration are given voice here.
Who should read this book?
I've not thought of a specific "who" in terms of who should read this book. Since the release in February of 2024, I have had wonderful responses from a wide range of people from young adults to elders in numerous communities and contexts. Certainly, it is for people who love poetry, but I'm having great conversations with people who tell me they've not gotten much out of poetry before but have found a relevance in many of the pieces in this book that have clearly spoken to their own realities and experiences.
What would you like the reader to take away after reading your book?
I am always hoping and praying that among these writings in this book, the reader will find something that causes not just comfort and consolation but a stirring as well. I hope someone finds the kind of agitation here that cannot be ignored but must be attended to. I pray there will be words found here that a reader will experience as "recognition" and walk away carrying with them a sense of being seen, recognizing themselves, something of their own story in some piece they peered into in this book. Among these poems and prayers, I expect readers will find catalysts for conversations about the precious and personal, the political and the private. Maybe, just maybe, some will take from here inspiration, motivation to write or at the very least be moved to find ways to give voice to their own late night wrestlings, ways of sharing with the world their offering.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
In these last couple of years of writing and with the release of this book last year, I have been ushered into an extraordinary experience of the coupling of poetry and performance. I've performed my poetry on small community stages, university and seminary campuses, on-line venues. There is something about hearing poetry in the voice of the author that takes the genre to another dimension, creating such a different experience that I've even heard self-professed "I don't read poetry" folks say, “... but I really like this." I believe we are in a space now where the ancient tradition and role of the poet/storyteller is again emerging as a voice, gathering community, putting word and narrative, voice and vision to our common ground experience.
Rev. Eric Shafer
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer is a regular contributor to Church Anew and serves as “Pastor in Residence” for Global Refuge - www.globalrefuge.org - which is now in its 85th year serving immigrants and refugees. He has served ELCA congregations in Pennsylvania and California and was the ELCA’s Communication Director, a synod bishop’s assistant, and an interfaith communication executive. He and his wife, Kris, live at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, California.
