You First
A Love That Will Not Let Me Go
- Arts & Literature
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2026
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Publisher's Description
Spiritual encounters can upend one’s life. Karen Luke Jackson discovered this firsthand while sitting at the bedside of a dying friend. She didn’t know who to confide in. She’d grown up in a small country church and knew nothing about mystical traditions. Only when a therapist told her that such experiences were a divine gift did she realize she was not alone. A quest to know more took her to the secluded island of Iona, St. Clare’s humble monastery near Assisi, the Pacific redwoods, and an interfaith mikvah. In You First, Jackson shares what she gleaned. The title poem records her initial bewilderment until she learned about three Christian mystics: “I would have gone mad / had I not heard of / Julian. Teresa. Hildegard.” Later, at St. Columba’s Bay, “I picked up a stone, infused it with useless regrets, and tossed it into the sea.” And her insights from walking labyrinths, “I enter a path with no false turns, no dead ends / . . . Everything is stellar dust.” As readers dip into these poems and essays, may what is discovered shed light on their own sacred explorations.
Endorsements (6)
“You First invites us to consider the mystical in our lives, the power of our own spiritual journey on this one Earth. Through poems and essays, Karen Luke Jackson imbues the ordinary cadence of this life—with its losses and loves and legacies—with the divine presence available to us all. This book showed me how to discover the sacred essence I yearn for but sometimes neglect to see.”
“From her childhood baptism in Coochie Creek in South Georgia to her rebirth at a mikvah in Oregon years later, Jackson takes readers on a captivating, sensory-filled journey through country churches, sacred meadows, labyrinths, sequoia groves, and holy waters. As she navigates various life challenges–a divorce, the death of her parents, a major career shift, a health crisis–Jackson is awed by mystical experiences that help her make peace with the past and with the future. Seamlessly blending poetry and prose and propelled by a sense of deep searching, Jackson’s work reads not like a sermon or academic treatise but like an invitation, a call to join her on a mesmerizing trek to the edge of this world and beyond.”
“‘That other life I might have fled my vows’ writes Karen Jackson, but in this life, she spirals courageously towards the Mystery—opening, opening to what is luring her—the sacred in laurel thickets, women mystics, and bowls of soup. In writing both demanding and spacious, rooted in the body and dancing with the ineffable, Jackson cracks open doors to wonder and Love comes flooding in.”
“While deeply personal, this collection of poems and essays by Karen Luke Jackson is resonant with universal themes. Reading it, I am suspended in wordless appreciation again and again. It is a volume to be savored in small portions. Prepare to be nourished, and perhaps freed. Karen’s reflections on her journey may loosen your ordinary constraints and permit you to embrace more fully your own life path.”
“You First is a treasure of poetry and prose that bears witness to love that accompanies us through loss, healing, and wonder. Karen Jackson writes with spiritual courage and contemplative depth, inviting readers to listen inwardly and embrace the deep connections that surpass our understanding.”
“‘I am learning to trust / this path,’ writes Karen Luke Jackson in ‘Walking the Labyrinth,’ a poem in her moving new book You First. A divorce in mid-life shakes up her life sufficiently to propel her into a life of pilgrimage to sacred spaces. The poems and prose in her marvelous new book tell the story of her mystical experiences along the way and offer us, her fortunate readers, an opportunity to reflect on our own spiritual journeys.”
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