Your Glory to Proclaim

This book, Your Glory to Proclaim, is the offshoot of two earlier books, Mists of Evening and Gentle Waters.  Both of the earlier books contain multiple religious poems written over a period of years, beginning with a few conceived while I was in High School at Concordia, an all boys academy in Austin, Texas. The poems in this third work are those not yet published and a goodly number taken from those first two books that are of religious influence. All three sources combined to make this volume.

It might be interesting to know that my life has been steeped with religious connections, beginning with my introduction to faith when I was very young. I attended a parochial school run and owned by St, Paul Lutheran Church, Houston, of which  my mother and I were members.  I took religion very seriously and began teaching Sunday school the summer in which I turned fourteen.

While at Concordia, which was a pre-ministerial training academy, I seriously considered going into the ministry, but my father wanted me to become an engineer. So, when I graduated from Concordia, I entered the University of Houston, intending to become an Architectural Engineer. My training as an Engineer lasted two weeks, then I changed my major.  Following this change in direction I again looked into the possibility of becoming a minister, but after talking with the president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod I decided that I could better serve my God doing what I could do as a lay person. I’ve never been sorry for my decision. I enlisted in the Navy and after four years (during the Korean crisis) I returned to college, ending up with a Masters Degree in English and Sociology.  My poetry consists of pieces I wrote while at Concordia, in the Navy, at college, and subsequently while an employee with several business enterprises. Many were composed while in retirement.  

Having been a Lutheran all of my life, I strongly suspect that these poems have been written from the Lutheran perspective; nevertheless, I hope that you derive some benefit from them and, at the very least, enjoy them as poetry.

Myles B, Knape