Here is the Preface to my new book, Eating That Gospel Pie.
I finished correcting the proofs this week for publication in September.
You can buy it first on The Tangle Tour of ’26.
Today is Derby Day, and as the horses leave the paddock and make their way to the start gate at Churchill Downs, the band will play the familiar tunes of “My Old Kentucky Home.” It is a song inspired by the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, sparked by two books with Kentucky connections. In 1849, Josiah Henson published Life of Josiah Henson describing his 1830 escape from a slave farm near Owensboro, Kentucky and his safe arrival in Canada. That narrative, in turn, motivated Harriet Beecher Stowe to write her famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was published in 1852. The following year, Firth & Pond of New York published Stephen Foster’s song with the title “My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night.” Later, it became the state song of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and thus a part of my life story.
All that to give attention to one line in the song: “By‘n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door.” Those words originally invoked memories of slavery, poverty, and danger. But the popularity and power of the song is derived from the common human experience of trouble in life. Which is the way it speaks to me today as I pen this introduction to a collection of short essays about life, politics, and Jesus.
It has been a hard season of life. Our family has struggled to endure so much of what confronts too many people in these United States: illness, addiction, hospitalization, incarceration, adultery, poverty, separation, unemployment and underemployment, termination, divorce, relocation, disappointments of all kinds, and loss of friends and family. In addition to these more personal things, we have been pushed around by the public and political issues that are reshaping our country. I mention the COVID pandemic and all the death and disruption it generated. Add to that the rise of MAGA politics with the second coming of Donald Trump, the disruption of social and political norms, and the emphasis on destruction instead of creation, of rejection instead of welcome, of power instead of service. As a minister, I have paid attention to the general decline of religious affiliation and attendance over the last decade and more. Hard times have come knocking on the doors of most people, including ours and, I suspect, yours.
Every week, I have written a 700-word essay about what is happening in and around me. This has been one steady discipline that has kept me sane in these crazy times. Mercer University Press published a volume of these some years ago under the title, On the Other Side of Oddville (now out of print). Now, 20 years later, comes another one, inaugurating my own publishing imprint, The Meetinghouse Press. The title of this book comes from a line in a song by John Prine. He writes and sings about an encounter with Jesus, who surprisingly needed somebody to talk to. John describes that encounter and that conversation as “eating that gospel pie.”
It was during the COVID that I discovered the music of John Prine, and I tell that story and its aftermath elsewhere in this book. But discovering him was a balm to my soul and a joy to my spirit, one powerful thing that helped me navigate the personal and public stuff all around. In fact, it pushed me to write my own lyrics: not the music, but new lyrics to songs and hymns that I knew. I wish I had started this many years ago. Discovering Prine and Making Music were two of the life strategies that helped me survive, as the book subtitle asserts, the hard times of life and politics, of the personal and political storms that have swept over all of us.
There are ten of them, I discovered as I sorted my short essays for publication. In other words, my review of what I had written over the last ten years revealed to me the sort of things that, unknowingly, helped me cope as hard times came knocking at the door, things like Asking Questions and Reading Books, things like Bearing Witness, Pushing Back, and Following Jesus. There are ten of them, as it turns out, and I have used these ten strategies as the categories by which to organize and present my words and thoughts in this book. It works nicely, I think, and I am glad it does. I hope it helps you read and appreciate my story. Perhaps it will encourage you to notice the creative ways you have developed to cope with the hard times that are knocking at your door. If so, my writing will not have been in vain, and I will, with you, give thanks.
Dwight A. Moody
P.S. Subscribe to the weekly MeetingHouse newsletter and the weekly YouTube broadcast SUNDAY IN THE HOUSE
I finished correcting the proofs this week for publication in September.
You can buy it first on The Tangle Tour of ’26.
Today is Derby Day, and as the horses leave the paddock and make their way to the start gate at Churchill Downs, the band will play the familiar tunes of “My Old Kentucky Home.” It is a song inspired by the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, sparked by two books with Kentucky connections. In 1849, Josiah Henson published Life of Josiah Henson describing his 1830 escape from a slave farm near Owensboro, Kentucky and his safe arrival in Canada. That narrative, in turn, motivated Harriet Beecher Stowe to write her famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was published in 1852. The following year, Firth & Pond of New York published Stephen Foster’s song with the title “My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night.” Later, it became the state song of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and thus a part of my life story.
All that to give attention to one line in the song: “By‘n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door.” Those words originally invoked memories of slavery, poverty, and danger. But the popularity and power of the song is derived from the common human experience of trouble in life. Which is the way it speaks to me today as I pen this introduction to a collection of short essays about life, politics, and Jesus.
It has been a hard season of life. Our family has struggled to endure so much of what confronts too many people in these United States: illness, addiction, hospitalization, incarceration, adultery, poverty, separation, unemployment and underemployment, termination, divorce, relocation, disappointments of all kinds, and loss of friends and family. In addition to these more personal things, we have been pushed around by the public and political issues that are reshaping our country. I mention the COVID pandemic and all the death and disruption it generated. Add to that the rise of MAGA politics with the second coming of Donald Trump, the disruption of social and political norms, and the emphasis on destruction instead of creation, of rejection instead of welcome, of power instead of service. As a minister, I have paid attention to the general decline of religious affiliation and attendance over the last decade and more. Hard times have come knocking on the doors of most people, including ours and, I suspect, yours.
Every week, I have written a 700-word essay about what is happening in and around me. This has been one steady discipline that has kept me sane in these crazy times. Mercer University Press published a volume of these some years ago under the title, On the Other Side of Oddville (now out of print). Now, 20 years later, comes another one, inaugurating my own publishing imprint, The Meetinghouse Press. The title of this book comes from a line in a song by John Prine. He writes and sings about an encounter with Jesus, who surprisingly needed somebody to talk to. John describes that encounter and that conversation as “eating that gospel pie.”
It was during the COVID that I discovered the music of John Prine, and I tell that story and its aftermath elsewhere in this book. But discovering him was a balm to my soul and a joy to my spirit, one powerful thing that helped me navigate the personal and public stuff all around. In fact, it pushed me to write my own lyrics: not the music, but new lyrics to songs and hymns that I knew. I wish I had started this many years ago. Discovering Prine and Making Music were two of the life strategies that helped me survive, as the book subtitle asserts, the hard times of life and politics, of the personal and political storms that have swept over all of us.
There are ten of them, I discovered as I sorted my short essays for publication. In other words, my review of what I had written over the last ten years revealed to me the sort of things that, unknowingly, helped me cope as hard times came knocking at the door, things like Asking Questions and Reading Books, things like Bearing Witness, Pushing Back, and Following Jesus. There are ten of them, as it turns out, and I have used these ten strategies as the categories by which to organize and present my words and thoughts in this book. It works nicely, I think, and I am glad it does. I hope it helps you read and appreciate my story. Perhaps it will encourage you to notice the creative ways you have developed to cope with the hard times that are knocking at your door. If so, my writing will not have been in vain, and I will, with you, give thanks.
Dwight A. Moody
P.S. Subscribe to the weekly MeetingHouse newsletter and the weekly YouTube broadcast SUNDAY IN THE HOUSE
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