I Will Pass Even to Acheronwas a 2021 winner of the Rattle Chapbook Series. The poems within relate to an injury sustained by one of Newell’s former students, Adam, who entered the military, was deployed to Afghanistan, and drove a vehicle over an improvised explosive device.

This is not an easy book to read. The poems capture the horror of war; the anguish of seeing someone you care about suffering agony; amputation and the pain of the phantom limb. Woven throughout are references from ancient epic poems and the writings of Civil War nurse Walt Whitman and Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. It is clear that Newell did her homework and studied widely. Her poems resonate emotionally and intellectually.

This chapbook would be especially relevant to anyone who has had a loved one injured in war. Unfortunately, that is a very large audience. I Will Pass Even to Acheron is 32 pages, costs only $6, and is available through the Rattle Foundation.

I read Into the Abyss along with my Bible study group. It’s an examination of Christ through the lens of quantum physics. I know, weird, huh?

But, you know what? Sometimes it’s good to look at God from a different angle. He’s so vast that He can’t be summarized in a collection of sacred texts. There is always more for us to know.

Mo Thomas describes a mystical experience he had. He says he was drawn into a black hole, and there he found the Godhead before the creation of the universe. Okay, yes, I know this sounds crazy. I don’t know if he dreamed this, or imagined it, or had a vision. But there are crazy stories in the Bible, too. (Have you read it?)

The four of us who are the core of our Bible study committed to reading this book from beginning to end. I had a hard time of it. To me, quantum physics is just a theory, one I can’t get my head around. I argued with the science all the way through. But the ideas about God that Thomas suggested piqued my curiosity. One thing he said was, “I’m no longer aiming for certainty; I’m aiming to learn the art of trust and the rhythms of Grace, with the childlike humility to admit my need for growth in so many areas of life.” That hit home. In my own spiritual walk, I’ve redefined faith. I used to think that faith meant having the right set of doctrinal beliefs. I now believe that faith is trust in God.

Thomas recounts his mystical experience in great detail, including his spaghettification (that’s a physics term—look it up). I cannot do it justice by summarizing it here. It’s very different from anything I’ve ever been taught in church. (Physicists, Thomas says the singularity is Christ.) Does that mean that it’s wrong? Or has the church been teaching us its best explanations based on the sharpest religious minds of hundreds of years ago? Thomas says, “Truth couldn’t change, but our understanding of it can and should be ever-changing as we learn and grow and mature along our journey.” Maybe our creeds need amending, or even archiving.

Here’s another quote from the book:

I believe that quantum physics, general relativity, and the many cutting-edge innovators seeking to merge the best aspects of these sciences will lead us into better ways of understanding and engaging with what Jesus called “the kingdom of God.” It’s been said that quantum physics is the physics of possibilities, because when we zoom down into the tiniest elements of our universe, we find that subatomic particles don’t “exist” as we’ve previously understood this to mean. Instead, math and physics show us that these particles “exist” as possibilities, and it is the observation of them that transforms them into an experience of reality.

Some points reaffirmed in Into the Abyss that have also appeared in other books my Bible study has read are that all of creation is sacred; all of us are created in the image of God; we are all intimately entangled with each other, with God, and with all of creation (and the claim that sin could separate us from God is false); Christ is the Word of God; and God does not punish us, He transforms us (think spaghettification again).

Am I saying that this book is definitely correct and the truth? No. Or more accurately, I don’t know. But I think that people who love God (or people who would like to know God) can explore other persons’ speculations about God and at least ponder them. If that’s where you are in your spiritual journey, I recommend this book for your consideration.