Page 2: Dave Harrity – Making Manifest
It’s now halfway through the month, and we are moving from theology of creating towards our physical and mental position towards creating. The first day is on stillness – an introduction to what may be the most significant concept in this book – and others are on observing connections swirling around us. Harrity takes us into nature, right to the end of those connections, and asks us to sit still and just look. At the end of the week there is instruction to write another poem – we are beginning to see a pattern – but this one is only limited by subject, line count (ten, again), and the rhyming it should not contain.
The fourth week brings us around to the fullness of what Harrity said he wanted to do with this study. We are encouraged outward, into creating. He looses us from the restrictions early in the book into ideas of Kingdom, becoming, and creating with purpose. In chapter 22 he says this, and its summarizes Making Manifest well:
“Christ calls us: practice slowness, grip the moment before you and see it without hesitation, see the real and brilliant places before you; love your neighbor, bless your enemy, treat all creation with amiable respect. Because each being in this world is created, designed, intentional.” [emphasis his]
This is all intended to be a kind of creative rocket fuel, propelling us beyond the final poem, an exploration of turning an observed object into an impetus for redemption, into intentional lives of creation and observation in stillness. We were made to create, and Dave Harrity is trying to lead us towards that. But, more importantly, he wants us to create well in slow intentionality, never losing sight of the initial Creator.
These are heady subjects, and Harrity handles them with aplomb. His writing voice reads a bit like Rob Bell, if Bell was a true poet. We feel, really feel, his passion and wonder all at once. Making Manifest is a wonderful delight to read. Harrity proves he is both a poet and a lover of the mysteries of God, and constantly reassures us that he has plenty to teach and is well qualified to do as such.
Despite similarities to that devotional you told your youth group Bible study you did read every day, when, really, you were scouring AIM away messages, Dave Harrity’s Making Manifest is a practical adventure by a skilled writer into what it means to create, and why Christians are called to create well.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
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Thanks for your very real interaction with Making Manifest. It sounds like something that would greatly benefit today’s over-connected youth (and their parents for that matter).