The Shallows
Artemis II, Galaxies in Glaze, and a Sonnet of Awe
So… I’ve been away from Medium for a hot minute (read: years). I’ve been plenty busy over at my Substack newsletter and supporting other writers (see further down), but I want to get back to posting poems, curated visual art, and thoughts on the creative process here on Medium where I first started writing and sharing my poetry. 🥰 Thank you to anyone taking the time to read these crafted words!
To get started, here are a few thoughts on the Artemis II mission, the love of God, and the wonder around us. You can listen to an audio version of this post, including Reid Wiseman’s press conference statement, over on my Substack.
Like millions of people, our family was hooked on the Artemis II mission to the moon. We watched the launch, the live broadcast of the splashdown, and all sorts of videos about the astronauts, their training, and their brief life in space. Though I will never understand their experiences, I resonated with this sentiment that commander Reid Wiseman shared about his experience in the hours after returning to earth:
“I’m not really a religious person, but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything or to experience anything, so I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come to visit us for a minute. And when that man walked in-I’d never met him before in my life-but I saw the cross on his collar and I just, I broke down in tears. It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through.”
I remember my own sense of overwhelming awe as a teenager on the shores of Bass Lake, California as I looked up at the star-slathered night sky-for once not polluted by Los Angeles lights-and listened to a youth pastor preach on a simple yet profound truth: that the God who made the universe also made me, knew me intimately-my name, every hair on my head-and was inviting me into a relationship with Him.
This poem is my monument to that moment of awakened awe and gratitude that forever marked me and led me to get baptized in Bass Lake that same week. Over the two decades since then, my understanding of God’s salvation and shalom has deepened and widened far beyond the gospel of individual salvation I stepped into that week-but my awe at God’s creation and God’s love for us has only grown. I am learning, slowly, to slow down and attend to wonder-following the example of my late grandma Jean, to whom I dedicate this poem.
The Shallows
In memory of Jean Stalcup (1927–2009)
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When I drink in the stars and upward sink
into the theater your words have wrought,
I touch unfelt immensity and think —
like Grandma used to pause in patient thought
before an ordinary flower, awed
by intricacies hidden in plain view,
then say, “You didn’t have to do that, God!” —
surely a smaller universe would do!
But you have walled us in with open seas
unconquerable, wild with distant shores
whose raging dawns are but your filigree
across our vaulted skies. This art of yours,
what Grandma held and I behold — these flames
frame truth which awes us more: You know our names.
About the Art
The image above is a microscopic close-up of a ceramic glaze (fired at 1,235° Celsius) from my friend, ceramic artist Tim Mills, photographed with the help of science teacher and microscopy lover Daryl Holst. Ever since Tim first showed me this image, I have loved how this tiny speck of God’s (and Tim’s) creation paradoxically looks like a vista of enormous galaxies and nebulas. These galaxies in glaze remind me that the infinite beauty of God’s creativity bridges both the macro and the micro, from the unfathomable universe to every “ordinary” flower (or glazed ceramic mug) we hold in our hand.
You can check out Tim’s incredibly beautiful, thoughtful ceramic work here; it’s stunning at a non-microscopic level too!
For anyone interested in (or confused by!) my sonnet, you can read more about the poem over at my Substack.
Two Opportunities
Let me make a couple quick shout-outs here before I go: a good book and a good writing community.
My friend Kristin T. Lee (a Spirit & Scribe and PAX Fellowship alumna!) just published her refreshingly honest, deeply thoughtful, and beautifully written book We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter’s Reckoning with American Christianity. It’s a hybrid of memoir and theological reflection that is one of the best books I’ve read this year. The book also includes “Deconstruction,” a new sonnet of mine that I’m really proud of. Go order this amazing book for yourself and please help spread the word!
Speaking of the PAX Fellowship, registration for my Writing as Spiritual Formation Cohort is open now through June 15, 2026. I can’t wait to journey with a community of writers as we seek to know God and grow together. You can learn more and apply here. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions!
Thank you to Ekstasis Magazine for originally publishing “The Shallows.” And thank you for reading, subscribing, and commenting to let me know your thoughts. I always love hearing back from you.
Originally published at https://michaelstalcup.substack.com.
