{"id":12666,"date":"2026-02-04T19:09:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=12666"},"modified":"2026-02-06T22:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:44:15","slug":"the-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/the-hours\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hours"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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And Yet<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Hours<\/em>\u00a0challenges us to embrace the darkness in pursuit of the divine.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sitting down to write this piece in the bustling cafe, I set my phone to “focus” and put in noise-cancelling earbuds. I have always written best in busy environments, but the last few years have taken constant stimulus to a whole new level, which, in addition to parenting two children and working full time, makes life a constant juggle. Many organizing techniques offer to help us control the onslaught of our experiences: bullet journals, Google calendars, focus options on our phones. One of the oldest of these \u201cfocus technologies\u201d is the monastic Divine Office, a schedule of prayers still used in monastic communities today. This is the frame that Matthew J. Andrews uses to organize The Hours<\/em>, his latest book of poems. The Divine Office is both comfort and constraint and thus can stand in for the experience of faith in a broken world. I don\u2019t often pray the Divine Office, but, like Andrews, I yearn for an organizing principle to face the continuing demands and disappointments of a world that feels out of our control.<\/p>

The collection is divided into four sections, each named for one part of the Office. The first, Vigils, is a service said in the middle-darkness of the night, when it is technically morning but still day has not yet arrived. One of the things I appreciate about this book as a whole, and this section in particular, is Andrews\u2019s distaste for sentimentality in the experience of faith. The deflating claim in the opening poem\u2019s title, \u201cThere is No Such Thing as Moonlight,\u201d sets the tone for the rest of the collection. Andrews is not going to offer a whimsical and delicate reflection on the cycle of prayer. Right out of the gate, we are confronted with a directness that initiates grief and destabilizes our perceptions. A few pages later, in \u201cHermeneutical Spiral,\u201d Andrews dissolves what comfort we might hold onto in the darkness of the wee hours. \u201cI turn my worn Bible upside down \/\/ in the bathtub, let it fill with ink,\u201d he writes. When the letters of the Bible run together and \u201cswirl in a tightening pillar,\u201d they not only obfuscate meaning but personify a kind of death: \u201cbleeding, dark; the drain, darker still.\u201d<\/p>

The Hours<\/em>\u00a0not only grapples with the darkness of faith but invites and sometimes even revels in it. Andrews\u2019s descriptions of experiencing the holy are fraught. He speaks as a poet well-acquainted not only with Christian theology and practice, but with the greed and collapse of the systems and organizations that surround us, and with their\u2014and our\u2014persistent destruction of the natural world. In company with the divine, creation resists any urge by the speaker of the poems to find respite there. \u201cGrey sky [denies] us guidance \/ of the sun,” Andrews writes in \u201cOn the Bosphorus.\u201d<\/p>

It\u2019s clear from these poems that the presence of God cannot be controlled, or even counted on. \u201cUnfinished Psalms From the Private Notebook of King David,\u201d in the voice of the biblical figure, alternates between reproach and request\u2014a pattern familiar to any reader of the Psalms. \u201cThis thorn in my side\u2013 \/ is this your weapon? \/ This woman in my eye\u2013 \/ is this your accuser?\u201d Poems titled \u201cApollyon\u201d (the Angel of Destruction) and \u201cWormwood\u201d follow. We are still in the middle of the night. \u201cWe don\u2019t deserve to be saved,\u201d claims Andrews in his own \u201cPsalm.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Andrews is determined to find the holy even if the holy turns out to also be broken.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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And yet, the poems persist in a relentless desire to connect with the divine despite the darkness; the momentum of the Divine Office keeps the narrator\u2019s prayer life going. The book\u2019s second section, Lauds, opens out slightly, like morning, into a day that feels like one may be able to contend with whatever it might bring. It begins with an image of Akeldama\u2014the “field of blood” associated with the death of Judas Iscariot\u2014and conveys a kind of strange consolation and resurrection.<\/p>

winter rains bring thick
skin of green, moist
breath of grasses, fluttering
heartbeat of insect wings\u2026<\/div>

But the next poem, \u201cSinner,\u201d a companion poem to \u201cI\u2019m Not Sure I Have Ever Prayed,\u201d shows that when the speaker attempts to connect with the natural world he describes, he is sidelined by distraction and despair. In both of these poems, the speaker confesses failings of attention to the world around him, in effect denying God\u2019s presence. He describes \u201cthe petitions and praises that hover untethered \/ in my mind like leaves in the wind\u201d and laments, \u201cI have walked blindly \/ past endless fields of wildflowers.\u201d Even when he is able to open himself to the natural world, it confronts him with destruction more than peace. In \u201cBirdsongs,\u201d arguably the most violent poem about the subject ever written, the second stanza evokes a child recognizing its mother\u2019s call. But the fourth stanza soon dispenses with any sentimentality, describing birdsong as \u201can atom \/ bomb in the sky,\u201d a \u201cflagellation of words, auditory stigmata.\u201d In Andrews\u2019s Divine Office, that which satisfies also tortures. That which contains dignity and life-force also presages destruction and blight.<\/p>

Sext, the noonday office and third section, explores generational history and familial relationship via personal poems. Andrews begins the section by embellishing scripture with the poem \u201cImagine Jesus Lives a Long Life,\u201d which portrays the dialogue between the devil and Jesus as a life-long one, not just confined to the desert temptation. \u201cGive a man enough time, old friend,<\/em>\u201d says Jesus, \u201cand he can learn to endure almost anything<\/em>.\u201d Andrews goes on to interrogate relationships both in his immediate family and the family of Christianity. \u201cI shave my face \/ with Abraham\u2019s knife,\u201d he writes in \u201cFather\u2019s Day.\u201d<\/p>

The last section, Vespers, returns to the dark, combining the horrors of the world with the personal disgust that can come from spiritual self-examination. The speaker of \u201cCoram Deo\u201d lines up his heresies on the bar as glasses. \u201cThe God of Broken Things,\u201d opens with, \u201cIn the beginning, there was garbage.\u201d And in \u201cWhole and Entire,\u201d a catalog of Christ images insists on the presence of the incarnate human experience: \u201c… the multiplicitous body of Christ \/ fractures: … \/ bloodied, slumped, wordless\u2026 \/ shuffling, hands folded, mouths agape\u2013 \/ pilgrim parts\u2026.\u201d Indeed, what keeps Andrews\u2019s collection from nihilism is the overlay of the body and physical experience (sometimes aggressive, sometimes pleasurable) with the underlying sense of despair. Flashes of sensation cut through physical images to create a disjointed yet intense experience.<\/p>

The Hours<\/em>\u00a0speaks to those who feel exhausted by the world and by their own determination to believe in the face of its disasters. It proclaims that the body can be redeemed even in its disgustingness, even in the mess and confusion of intimate encounter. Andrews is determined to find the holy even if the holy turns out to also be broken. By using the structure of the Divine Office, in which the cycle of prayer feels like drudgery but also creates a capacity for wonder, he expresses this tenacity. The whole collection could have been named after the refrain and ending of the opening poem: \u201cAnd Yet.\u201d Is the \u201cand yet\u201d a reminder that horrors continue to mount, or is it an invitation to hope for Divine connection? The answer is yes.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo\u00a0<\/strong>is the author of\u00a0Incarnation, Again<\/em>. She serves as Canon for Spirituality Education and Arts at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Hours\u00a0<\/strong>by Matthew J. Andrews was published by Solum Literary Press on April 22, 2025.\u00a0Fare Forward<\/em>\u00a0appreciates the provision of a review copy. You can purchase your own copy\u00a0here<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hours challenges us to embrace the darkness in pursuit of the divine. Review by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":12667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-newsletter","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/unnamed-1.png?fit=1500%2C1383&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12666"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12678,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions\/12678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/m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