Tess Lockhart is poet theologian who sees God at work everywhere. The creative Word demands to be spoken, and she answered the call to bear witness to that elusive Word with the offering of her own exploratory words that invite us to join the search party as the frail, broken creatures that we all are.  "I am Jacob, wrestling," she says, "Jonah, pouting; a psalmist ranting; the Samaritan woman at the well, questioning; Peter, betraying then falling down grateful for forgiveness.  In all, I am hopelessly caught up in Divine Love even as I struggle like a cat to be let down to scamper off to find my own trouble." 

Growing up in Appalachia, she started out wanting to be an English professor devoted to Milton, English Renaissance drama, and poetry.  Her influences have included a variety of classical and modern poets, Christian liturgy, and biblical poets.  She was teaching endless sections of required introductory English classes in literature and composition when  she discerned a call to ordained ministry, leaving teaching to attend seminary.  Upon ordination, she served as a pastor of various churches, then earned a Ph.D. in theology at Vanderbilt.   As a member of a seminary faculty, she taught preaching and worship to future pastors before leaving full-time academia to do theology, write liturgy, and coach preachers for her mainline Protestant  denomination's national office.  Today,  she still promiscuously preaches around and teaches theology as an adjunct.  

Just after turning 51, her husband of 30 years died of a heart attack in her arms. Some of her poetry expresses frustration with this complicated first marriage and its sudden loss.  When she remarried later, she began to extol the wonders of redemptive incarnate love. 

With this new marriage,  she  basically retired from full-time church service and studied anatomy and medical massage, opening her own business as a licensed massage therapist in order to help heal this world’s many traumas, including her own that seem to be connected to the chronic pain she's lived with since the age of sixteen.  Her poetry reflects her fascination with transcendence in immanence and how spirit and matter co-mingle.

Now residing in Cincinnati, she enjoys keeping up with her two children and four step-children and her six grandchildren.   "My journey has taken some strange turns," she laughs.  "Hopefully some of the things I’ve learned might be of value to others and encourage them, like the biblical Jacob, to keep wrestling for a blessing."