On Holy Spaces and the Sound of a Spice Store

a writing prompt for you

Welcome to Writing in Company. Each week I share some words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points for you to write about what matters. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.

I’m in one of my holy spaces this week. Presbyterians in the south and east, and some farther afield, will know Montreat—our church conference center in the mountains of North Carolina. I’ve come here since I was a child, and found myself at home no matter what, in all ages and stages: Family retreats rock-hopping in the creek. Youth conferences as an earnest young person, and frazzled adult leader. Workshops and worship and powerful speakers. Weeks spent reading and rocking with friends. I’ve learned much here—about myself, about being part of the beloved community, and about how to scootch over and make room for someone else to come along and join in.

This week I’m leading a workshop on writing liturgy at a conference full of the most creative people I know. Seriously, these church folks go from morning till midnight with games, music, crafts, and more. My workshop is probably the quietest thing happening here this week.

As is my way, I over-prepared. I won’t get to all my material, so I’m sharing an extra bit with you. In a talk about “Poetry, Liturgy, and the Writer’s Craft”¹, the poet Christian Wiman considered repetition and cadence, and the ritual quality of both poetry and liturgy—the sounds that give it power.

He said, “I love a poem before I understand a poem…because the sound is there.”

Wiman wrote his poem “I don’t want to be a spice store” concentrating first on its sound, not any meaning. He played with the language and sound of a spice store, then a store that has nothing by necessities. He said the poem turned when he wrote I want to wait brightly lit….and suddenly there was meaning there, remembering his father, and images from his childhood. He followed his thoughts on the page, until something true came out.

But it all started with the sound of the spice store.

a writing prompt

Read Wiman’s poem below, or listen to the author read it himself here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/01/i-dont-want-to-be-a-spice-store

Then play with sound or image, or an idea from the poem.

Or consider, what kind of store would you want to be?

I Don’t Want to Be a Spice Store

—Christian Wiman

I don’t want to be a spice store.
I don’t want to carry handcrafted Marseille soap,
or tsampa and yak butter,
or nine thousand varieties of wine.
Half the shops here don’t open till noon
and even the bookstore’s brined in charm.
I want to be the one store that’s open all night
and has nothing but necessities.
Something to get a fire going
and something to put one out.
A place where things stay frozen
and a place where they are sweet.
I want to hold within myself the possibility
of plugging one’s ears and easing one’s eyes;
superglue for ruptures that are,
one would have thought, irreparable,
a whole bevy of non-toxic solutions
for everyday disasters. I want to wait
brightly lit and with the patience
I never had as a child
for my father to find me open
on Christmas morning in his last-ditch, lone-wolf drive
for gifts. “Light of the World” penlight,
bobblehead compass, fuzzy dice.
I want to hum just a little with my own emptiness
at 4 a.m. To have little bells above my door.
To have a door.

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1. You can see Wiman’s whole talk here from a 2021 presentation for the Institute of Liturgical Studies: Poetry, Liturgy, and the Writer’s Craft