The homepage of writer, artist, and priest Karl Stevens.
Welcome!
I am an Episcopal Priest, an artist, and a writer who lives in Columbus, Ohio. I serve as the Rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, on the Ohio State University Campus. I am a Contemplative Christian, and that tradition is reflected in my art and writing. As an artist, I am very influenced by Medieval manuscript art, and by the Rothschild Canticles in particular. If you are interested in purchasing any of the art presented on this site, please send me an email.
Laments & Praise Last Sunday, we finished our five-part series on Lament by considering praise. It is rather beautiful that laments, which are so honest and raw about negative emotions, also have plenty of room for thanksgiving and expressions of joy. The ancient Israelites seemed to know that emotive prayer couldn’t be completely honest if…
Now we come to what is probably the most perilous moment in a lament. You might think that there’s peril in complaint, but it’s petition that is spiritually dangerous. Evelyn Underhill compared it with magic, the practice of a kind of wish-fulfillment that can easily disappoint if the things we pray for don’t appear in…
Continuing our project of writing laments using the ancient literary forms found in the Hebrew Scriptures, we turn to the naming of covenant. It is probably good to reiterate that the form of ancient lament has five parts: invocation; honest complaint; expressions of confidence; petition; and praise. Today we investigate the third part, which actually…
KPB Stevens 