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The Grace of Incorruption: The Selected Essays of Donald Sheehan on Orthodox Faith and Poetics
Professor of literature, scholar, teacher of poets and poetry, convert to the Eastern Orthodox Church, man of prayer, Donald Sheehan wrote these wide-ranging essays with a common commitment to understanding the ways in which the ruining oppositions of our experience can be held within the disciplines of lyric art—held “until God Himself can be seen in the ruins . . . and overwhelmingly and gratefully loved.” That is what Sheehan means by “the grace of incorruption.” Part One weaves together themes from Sheehan’s life and pilgrimages; the spiritual art of Orthodox Saints Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac and Ephraim of Syria, Sergius of Radonezh, Herman of Alaska; the literary art of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Frost, Salinger, and contemporary poets Jane Kenyon, Sydney Lea, and Nicholas Samaras; the philosophy of René Girard—examining the nature of penitence, prayer, personhood, freedom, depression, and the right relationship to the earth. Part Two delves into the poetics of Psalms, especially LXX 118: a “poetics of resurrection,” a poetics that came to govern the lifework of an extraordinary man, blessed with faith, learning, and humility.
290 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2015
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March 24, 2015
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
In this beautiful book, Dostoyevsky, Orthodox liturgy, and Holy Fathers ancient and modern converse with Shakespeare, Frost, Salinger, Jane Kenyon and Rene Girard, with insight into such realities as memory, violence, depression, stillness, self-emptying love, personhood, and "the anthropology of the Cross." This conversation, a "spiritual ecumenism" effected in art, gathers finally round the heart and source of both poetry and prayer in Christian East and West alike: the Psalms of David.
Contributions by Orthodox Christians to Anglophone poetry and poetics are few. Don Sheehan was not only a fine interpreter of poetry, but a poet himself, working in the medium of prose. The philosopher Malebranche famously wrote that "attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul," and the Orthodox liturgy bids us continually to "be attentive." The essays in this volume capture that spirit of loving attentiveness -- never lacking in form -- for which Don ardently strove, and which characterized his approach to art, to other people, and to God.
Fr. Matthew Baker
Fordham University
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
This was a very difficult book for me to read, as—now and again—my own tears blinded me to the page, and my own sobbing shook the papers in my hands. That is to say that Donald Sheehan’s journey—through both brokenness and beauty—to a deep and healing calm is at once personal and universal. With a poet’s visionary prose, a scholar’s acuity, and a pilgrim’s devotion, Donald Sheehan offers his reader access to the profound, compelling stillness at the heart of all things. He proves an exceedingly good guide along the way.
Scott Cairns
author of Slow Pilgrim: Collected Poems
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
Forgive the personalism of this comment, but I am dead certain that my response to this volume will chime with those of others whose work is held up to the light in The Grace of Incorruption. On beholding Donald Sheehan’s elucidation of our efforts, in one beautiful sentence after another, we must share the uncanny sense of never having understood our own hearts– not until we saw them reflected in the great heart (and mind) of this nonpareil commentator. Don Sheehan did not merely understand poetry; it was part and parcel of his own great soul.
Sydney Lea
Vermont Poet Laureate
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
From the opening mention of “Downward Mobility” to his battle with akedia, I was reminded of my first meeting with the Sheehans in the woods of Vermont. In the middle of a blustery snow storm, my wife and our two small children parked our car along an unplowed road, and hiked what seemed more than the mile to their cottage in two feet of already fallen snow. With one child on my shoulders and the other barely able to clear his feet out of the snow at each step, we trudged along to their “off the grid” home. Homeschooling their child with no electricity, running water or indoor toilet, this professor from Dartmouth College immediately grabbed my attention with his life pared to its essential “bones.” Over many years of periodic connections, I found myself praying at his bedside shortly before his death. Here again, prayed over, washed, and laid out in the most simply elegant fashion by dear loved ones, the overabundant sparseness of his life grabbed my heart. It does not surprise me that this book captures his desire to distill the essence of these other life artists. From St. Ephraim and Shakespeare to Frost and Holy Scripture, this book illumines this truly ascetic struggle. Like the word of God, it is “sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4.12). If you are willing to take the time, he will strip back every distraction to reveal the “drama of intimacy” we sadly so often distractedly miss.
Archpriest Thomas Moore
Theophany 2014
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
From start to finish, this beautiful book is a spiritual “powerhouse,” a grace-filled stream, a gift of joy – from the tender, perceptive heart and mind of the author, the lay poet-theologian Donald Sheehan (1940 – 2010), into our own hearts and minds! And it's a double labor of love: first, Don's very careful crafting of the articles, writing as a true wordsmith; and second, the superb editing work done by his beloved wife, Xenia, after his repose in the LORD. I use their first names, because I knew Don personally (though not real well), and Xenia is now part of our community at St. Tikhon's.
In the first half of the book, entitled “Reflections on Life, Literature, and Holiness,” Don begins with a profoundly touching autobiographical sketch. Then he takes us through fascinating studies of various aspects of the deep spiritual wisdom of Saints Ephrem and Isaac of Syria, St. Dionysios the Areopagite, St. Herman of Alaska, Feodor Dostoevsky (through Alyosha, Dmitri, and Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov), and even in William Shakespeare's Winter's Tale and Robert Frost's “An Old Man's Winter Night.” In these reflections he interweaves his deep knowledge of these sources with his keen spiritual sensibilities to open many spiritual vistas for the reader.
In the second half of the book, entitled “Orthodox Poetics and the Great Psalm (LXX 118),” Don uses his extensive knowledge of poetical syntax, and of Biblical Hebrew and Greek, to magnificently explicate many fascinating nuances in the construction and content of the Septuagint version of Psalm 118, which he describes as an extended “drama of intimacy” (p. 189) between the Divine “Thou” and the human “I” (p. 187). He helped me much by explaining that this psalm's repeated use of nine words for God's law, and the ten-fold inclusion of the phrase “Teach me Thy statutes,” are by no means part of an exercise in monotony, but rather a majestic crescendo of intensification in the psalmist's ever-deepening relationship with the LORD. And not just ever-deepening through moments of joy, but also through periods of depression and despair – which the psalmist comes to see as gifts from the LORD (“It is good that thou hast humbled me/ That I might learn thy statutes” - v. 71; in Don's words, “the experience of His fury and terror utterly unmakes you” - p. 123) to convince the psalmist of his utter desolation without GOD's ongoing love and support (“I have gone astray like a lost sheep/ Seek out thy servant” - v. 176).
In an earlier chapter, in intensifying the dynamism of the imagery used to describe one's growing relationship with God, Don calls it a “dance” (p. 109) – indeed, “a dance of blessedness” (p. 111). This dance transforms our entire being; as he writes, for instance,
In the same way, our depression can move into the dance with God's wisdom. Whenever we can turn our tears of depression toward God – or our anger or fear or even our joy; indeed, all that we do or think or feel or say – then we meet Him coming toward us in mercy, in teaching, in opening our eyes, in gracious judgment, in quickening, in strengthening, in enlarging our hearts, in bestowing wisdom and hope and genuine stillness” (p. 113).
Don's many vivid insights about various aspects of the life in Christ ring so true because they flow out of his own ongoing powerful, mystical experience of the living GOD, even as he bases his descriptions in the Scriptures – especially the Psalms, and in particular Psalm 118 – and in the Church Fathers, especially St. Isaac the Syrian. It all combines to compellingly invite, and indeed, draw the reader into the same dance of blessedness with our Creator and Savior. As Don writes, referring to Psalm 118,
Now, as we move through the 176 lines of this poem, we see affirmed the truth that God never has and never will utterly abandon anyone, never. He is always moving toward us in every way possible. What is necessary is that we move also and always toward Him (p. 111; his emphasis).
And what is also necessary is for us to come, as the Psalmist David did, to the vivid realization that we are indeed helpless without our LORD to guide and strengthen us. As Don writes,
God reveals Himself as wholly beyond us at the very moment He wills us wholly into Himself. And the single – indeed, the one and only – capacity we possess to respond rightly to God's infinity and calling-forth is our capacity for humility: our capacity, that is, to be nothing before God, and therefore deeply responsive to Him (p. 224).
This includes putting aside, through “holy ascesis” and “sovereign ascetical love” (p. 58), our own “endless desirings”; as the Psalmist says in Psalm 118, “Incline my heart to thy testimonies/ And not to endless desirings” (v. 36). And as Don says of Dmitri Karamazov, “The result in Dmitri is the rush of understanding that, as the false freedom of self-willed autonomy vanishes, genuine joy arrives” (p. 26).
The book is also graced with Don's own magnificent, powerful translation of the Septuagint version of Psalm 118, which, along with his translation of the entire Psalter (published by Wipf and Stock; 2013), is enriched greatly by his intimate and intense knowledge of the Psalms, gained in large part through his practice for years of reading through and meditating upon the entire Psalter every week.
Throughout the book the author interweaves brief accounts of particularly moving personal spiritual experiences, such as when he visited St. Herman's Spruce Island, and when he venerated the incorrupt relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh at his Holy Trinity Monastery in Russia. Glimpses into Don's last years fighting the depression that came with suffering from Lyme Disease are poignantly revealed through entries from his diary, and his final days and funeral are vividly described by his young goddaughter's mother.
Acute pain, acute joy, moments of darkness, and moments of radiant, triumphant light all suffuse this truly remarkable book by a truly remarkable man – mystic, poet, teacher, translator, sage, and ardent lover of Christ. He is one who has already deeply touched the lives of many through his own unforgettable life. Now he lives on in a very real way in this book – through which, I'm sure, he will touch the lives of many more, by the grace of our LORD Jesus Christ.
Dr. David Ford, Assoc. Professor of Church History, St. Tikhon's Seminary
In this beautiful book, Dostoyevsky, Orthodox liturgy, and Holy Fathers ancient and modern converse with Shakespeare, Frost, Salinger, Jane Kenyon and Rene Girard, with insight into such realities as memory, violence, depression, stillness, self-emptying love, personhood, and "the anthropology of the Cross." This conversation, a "spiritual ecumenism" effected in art, gathers finally round the heart and source of both poetry and prayer in Christian East and West alike: the Psalms of David.
Contributions by Orthodox Christians to Anglophone poetry and poetics are few. Don Sheehan was not only a fine interpreter of poetry, but a poet himself, working in the medium of prose. The philosopher Malebranche famously wrote that "attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul," and the Orthodox liturgy bids us continually to "be attentive." The essays in this volume capture that spirit of loving attentiveness -- never lacking in form -- for which Don ardently strove, and which characterized his approach to art, to other people, and to God.
Fr. Matthew Baker
Fordham University
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
This was a very difficult book for me to read, as—now and again—my own tears blinded me to the page, and my own sobbing shook the papers in my hands. That is to say that Donald Sheehan’s journey—through both brokenness and beauty—to a deep and healing calm is at once personal and universal. With a poet’s visionary prose, a scholar’s acuity, and a pilgrim’s devotion, Donald Sheehan offers his reader access to the profound, compelling stillness at the heart of all things. He proves an exceedingly good guide along the way.
Scott Cairns
author of Slow Pilgrim: Collected Poems
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
Forgive the personalism of this comment, but I am dead certain that my response to this volume will chime with those of others whose work is held up to the light in The Grace of Incorruption. On beholding Donald Sheehan’s elucidation of our efforts, in one beautiful sentence after another, we must share the uncanny sense of never having understood our own hearts– not until we saw them reflected in the great heart (and mind) of this nonpareil commentator. Don Sheehan did not merely understand poetry; it was part and parcel of his own great soul.
Sydney Lea
Vermont Poet Laureate
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
From the opening mention of “Downward Mobility” to his battle with akedia, I was reminded of my first meeting with the Sheehans in the woods of Vermont. In the middle of a blustery snow storm, my wife and our two small children parked our car along an unplowed road, and hiked what seemed more than the mile to their cottage in two feet of already fallen snow. With one child on my shoulders and the other barely able to clear his feet out of the snow at each step, we trudged along to their “off the grid” home. Homeschooling their child with no electricity, running water or indoor toilet, this professor from Dartmouth College immediately grabbed my attention with his life pared to its essential “bones.” Over many years of periodic connections, I found myself praying at his bedside shortly before his death. Here again, prayed over, washed, and laid out in the most simply elegant fashion by dear loved ones, the overabundant sparseness of his life grabbed my heart. It does not surprise me that this book captures his desire to distill the essence of these other life artists. From St. Ephraim and Shakespeare to Frost and Holy Scripture, this book illumines this truly ascetic struggle. Like the word of God, it is “sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4.12). If you are willing to take the time, he will strip back every distraction to reveal the “drama of intimacy” we sadly so often distractedly miss.
Archpriest Thomas Moore
Theophany 2014
THE GRACE OF INCORRUPTION, Donald Sheehan, ed. Xenia Sheehan
From start to finish, this beautiful book is a spiritual “powerhouse,” a grace-filled stream, a gift of joy – from the tender, perceptive heart and mind of the author, the lay poet-theologian Donald Sheehan (1940 – 2010), into our own hearts and minds! And it's a double labor of love: first, Don's very careful crafting of the articles, writing as a true wordsmith; and second, the superb editing work done by his beloved wife, Xenia, after his repose in the LORD. I use their first names, because I knew Don personally (though not real well), and Xenia is now part of our community at St. Tikhon's.
In the first half of the book, entitled “Reflections on Life, Literature, and Holiness,” Don begins with a profoundly touching autobiographical sketch. Then he takes us through fascinating studies of various aspects of the deep spiritual wisdom of Saints Ephrem and Isaac of Syria, St. Dionysios the Areopagite, St. Herman of Alaska, Feodor Dostoevsky (through Alyosha, Dmitri, and Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov), and even in William Shakespeare's Winter's Tale and Robert Frost's “An Old Man's Winter Night.” In these reflections he interweaves his deep knowledge of these sources with his keen spiritual sensibilities to open many spiritual vistas for the reader.
In the second half of the book, entitled “Orthodox Poetics and the Great Psalm (LXX 118),” Don uses his extensive knowledge of poetical syntax, and of Biblical Hebrew and Greek, to magnificently explicate many fascinating nuances in the construction and content of the Septuagint version of Psalm 118, which he describes as an extended “drama of intimacy” (p. 189) between the Divine “Thou” and the human “I” (p. 187). He helped me much by explaining that this psalm's repeated use of nine words for God's law, and the ten-fold inclusion of the phrase “Teach me Thy statutes,” are by no means part of an exercise in monotony, but rather a majestic crescendo of intensification in the psalmist's ever-deepening relationship with the LORD. And not just ever-deepening through moments of joy, but also through periods of depression and despair – which the psalmist comes to see as gifts from the LORD (“It is good that thou hast humbled me/ That I might learn thy statutes” - v. 71; in Don's words, “the experience of His fury and terror utterly unmakes you” - p. 123) to convince the psalmist of his utter desolation without GOD's ongoing love and support (“I have gone astray like a lost sheep/ Seek out thy servant” - v. 176).
In an earlier chapter, in intensifying the dynamism of the imagery used to describe one's growing relationship with God, Don calls it a “dance” (p. 109) – indeed, “a dance of blessedness” (p. 111). This dance transforms our entire being; as he writes, for instance,
In the same way, our depression can move into the dance with God's wisdom. Whenever we can turn our tears of depression toward God – or our anger or fear or even our joy; indeed, all that we do or think or feel or say – then we meet Him coming toward us in mercy, in teaching, in opening our eyes, in gracious judgment, in quickening, in strengthening, in enlarging our hearts, in bestowing wisdom and hope and genuine stillness” (p. 113).
Don's many vivid insights about various aspects of the life in Christ ring so true because they flow out of his own ongoing powerful, mystical experience of the living GOD, even as he bases his descriptions in the Scriptures – especially the Psalms, and in particular Psalm 118 – and in the Church Fathers, especially St. Isaac the Syrian. It all combines to compellingly invite, and indeed, draw the reader into the same dance of blessedness with our Creator and Savior. As Don writes, referring to Psalm 118,
Now, as we move through the 176 lines of this poem, we see affirmed the truth that God never has and never will utterly abandon anyone, never. He is always moving toward us in every way possible. What is necessary is that we move also and always toward Him (p. 111; his emphasis).
And what is also necessary is for us to come, as the Psalmist David did, to the vivid realization that we are indeed helpless without our LORD to guide and strengthen us. As Don writes,
God reveals Himself as wholly beyond us at the very moment He wills us wholly into Himself. And the single – indeed, the one and only – capacity we possess to respond rightly to God's infinity and calling-forth is our capacity for humility: our capacity, that is, to be nothing before God, and therefore deeply responsive to Him (p. 224).
This includes putting aside, through “holy ascesis” and “sovereign ascetical love” (p. 58), our own “endless desirings”; as the Psalmist says in Psalm 118, “Incline my heart to thy testimonies/ And not to endless desirings” (v. 36). And as Don says of Dmitri Karamazov, “The result in Dmitri is the rush of understanding that, as the false freedom of self-willed autonomy vanishes, genuine joy arrives” (p. 26).
The book is also graced with Don's own magnificent, powerful translation of the Septuagint version of Psalm 118, which, along with his translation of the entire Psalter (published by Wipf and Stock; 2013), is enriched greatly by his intimate and intense knowledge of the Psalms, gained in large part through his practice for years of reading through and meditating upon the entire Psalter every week.
Throughout the book the author interweaves brief accounts of particularly moving personal spiritual experiences, such as when he visited St. Herman's Spruce Island, and when he venerated the incorrupt relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh at his Holy Trinity Monastery in Russia. Glimpses into Don's last years fighting the depression that came with suffering from Lyme Disease are poignantly revealed through entries from his diary, and his final days and funeral are vividly described by his young goddaughter's mother.
Acute pain, acute joy, moments of darkness, and moments of radiant, triumphant light all suffuse this truly remarkable book by a truly remarkable man – mystic, poet, teacher, translator, sage, and ardent lover of Christ. He is one who has already deeply touched the lives of many through his own unforgettable life. Now he lives on in a very real way in this book – through which, I'm sure, he will touch the lives of many more, by the grace of our LORD Jesus Christ.
Dr. David Ford, Assoc. Professor of Church History, St. Tikhon's Seminary
January 25, 2023
An astonishing book of essays on Orthodoxy, literature, and the poetics of the Psalms, which the author has clearly prayed and studied in depth.
February 8, 2017
Sheehan had a fascination with Psalm 118/119 and endlessly mulled over the details of the words as he did his own translation of the Septuagint text. If you like learning of one man's close spiritual relationship with the text and his sometimes unique translation and interpretation of it, the book is for you.
March 7, 2017
This book stunned me. The first half are essays of literature and poetry and how the themes in those works (from Frost to Dostoevsky) pointed to God's thread of purpose, redemption, and what Sheehan called "psalmic intimacy" in the second half (an unfinished, yet profoundly robust, essay on the beauty and power of Psalm 118 (LXX numbering) and the practice of praying the Psalms). An intensely meaningful read, especially as it corresponded to the death of a dear friend that took place as I was reading it.
April 20, 2016
lovely collection of essays. standouts were his brief autobiography at the beginning (this alone is worth buying the book for) which is so life-affirming, the chapter on orthodoxy and the natural world, especially the st. sergius story and the idea of the sweet smell on spruce island being "the land remembering" st. herman. loved the personal anecdotes throughout, his bit on nick samaras' poem and the kenyon poem/ treatment of depression in the psalms and st issac's homilies. his translations of and meditations on the psalms are lovely-- the thought and care with which he approaches them really comes through, to where the texts feel both refreshed and intensified. will definitely pick up his psalter.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews