After Amen: 50 Days of Poetry and Prayer

Teach me again the stillness from which movement finds its meaning,

The stillness from which movement is beauty,

The stillness that rouses the slumbering imagination.

—from “Be Still”

After his shocking advanced-stage cancer diagnosis, pastor and author Tyler Staton found himself cast into a wilderness of emotion. Amid the struggle he found strength in the familiar solaces of prayer, soli­tude, and Scripture, but also through an unexpected source: writing carefully crafted poetry as a practice of prayer, like the biblical psalm­ists. Even after Tyler went into remission, this practice awakened in him a new appreciation for how God uses beauty and the ordinary to draw us to himself.

After Amen refocuses our attention on the role of wonder in the Christian life, presenting 50 devotional entries that feature biblical reflection, heartfelt prayer, and original poetry from Tyler. Through focusing on Jesus’s seven signs in the gospel of John, Tyler shows how all of life is an invitation to be formed into the image of Jesus. This exceptional book is a provocative and beautiful exploration of the way prayer reshapes us long after “amen.”