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You Are Accepted: In Conversation with Paul Tillich
Saint Julian Press Announces New Poetry Collection
You Are Accepted: Poems Inspired by Paul Tillich’s The Shaking of the Foundations
HOUSTON, TX — August 10, 2025 — Saint Julian Press is pleased to announce the release of You Are Accepted, a new poetry collection by Ron Starbuck that reimagines and responds to the timeless sermons of renowned 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich. Serving as a companion volume to At the Still Point: In Conversation with Saint Julian, this new work continues Starbuck’s exploration of faith through a lens of contemplative poetry. The official release date is September 15, 2025.
Drawing on Tillich’s landmark 1948 work The Shaking of the Foundations, Starbuck transforms theological insight into a deeply personal and lyrical dialogue. Each poem invites readers into a moment of encounter—with the Divine, with themselves, and with the questions that shape a life of faith.
“In these poems,” the poet says, “I wanted to honor Tillich’s way of speaking to the depth dimension of human life, where God’s presence meets our human struggles, doubts, and joys. Tillich’s voice—prophetic yet pastoral—opens space for grace, and poetry can carry that grace into the heart.”
You Are Accepted moves through themes of courage, time, suffering, joy, and the eternal now. The collection’s title echoes one of Tillich’s most famous sermons, which declares that no matter how alienated we may feel, we are already embraced by an unconditional love that accepts us just as we are.
The book’s structure mirrors Tillich’s sequence of sermons, each poem beginning with “After…” followed by the title of the sermon that inspired it. The poet’s language is contemplative yet accessible, making this collection equally at home in theological study groups, personal devotion, and literary circles.
Praise for You Are Accepted: In Conversation with Paul Tillich
These are poems of mature spirituality, an inner life that finds its covenant “etched not in tablets but in tears.” This seasoned author uses scripture not as a destination, but as a door, opening to the radiant, yet paradoxical, dark realities of Being. More than an homage to Paul Tillich, these poems dialog with silence itself, with the heart’s hollow, where, in the Psalmist’s words, “depth cries unto depth.” They are poems vibrant with compassion for “the poor, whose hunger teaches them to pray”; poems helping us clarify our faith. For deep faith thrives on the ineffable, on the liminal, on a “silence draped in the wreckage of our certainty.” Seeds of contemplative prayer, planted in the heart, these poems thrive in a climate with John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, and Thomas Merton. Their savor deepens with time. Return to them often. Taste them in bittersweet communion sips, like wine.
—Fred LaMotte
Strangers & Pilgrims
The Nectar of this Breath
Long known as a poet of depth, contemplative spaciousness, and ecstatic wonder, Ron Starbuck now turns his gift for interfaith dialogue towards conversation with Paul Tillich’s The Shaking of the Foundations. In You Are Accepted, one has the impression of a soul moved from deep receptivity into a heightened state of consciousness and spilled onto the page as poetry. Moving always towards what is unshakable, these poems acknowledge the difficulties, uncertainties, and imperfections of being human, holding the reader in this vulnerability—known, loved, and encouraged. As Starbuck says, in language that is consistently accessible and generous, “Be still. / Be ready. / You are not alone. / You are not abandoned. / You are being made new.”
—Melissa Studdard
Siddhartha, She: A Ritual Music Drama in Seven Tableaux
Dear Selection Committee
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast
Ron Starbuck is the Publisher and Executive Editor of Saint Julian Press, Inc., in Houston, Texas. He is the author of There Is Something About Being an Episcopalian, When Angels Are Born, Wheels Turning Inward, A Pilgrimage of Churches, At the Still Point: In Conversation with Saint Julian, and You Are Accepted: In Conversation with Paul Tillich. His writing reflects a lifelong search for the sacred within everyday life, drawing upon Christian mysticism, Anglican tradition, interfaith dialogue, and contemplative practice.
His family story reaches back to the Quaker settlers of Nantucket Island in the late 1600s. It extends through North Carolina, Indiana, and Kansas after the Civil War, before finding its home in Texas in the mid-20th century. This heritage of faith and perseverance quietly informs his calling as both poet and publisher. He lives with his wife, Joanne, and their four-legged companion, Ryder, in Houston’s historic Heights neighborhood.
His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in Parabola Magazine; Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature; The Criterion; The Enchanting Verses Literary Review; ONE from MillerWords; Pirene’s Fountain; Levure Littéraire (France); La Piccioletta Barca; and The Tulane Review. His ongoing reflections may be found on Substack at ronstarbuck.substack.com.
A lifelong Methodist–Episcopalian, he remains deeply engaged in Buddhist-Christian and interfaith dialogue, continuing a family tradition of faith and spiritual inquiry that has quietly shaped generations.
Poems & Reflections on Substack
The Two Servants — Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
The Other Order — Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
Doing the Truth — Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
You Are Accepted — Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
Born in a Grave - Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
The Theologian Part I & II - Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
The Theologian Part III & IV - Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
Through the Glass - Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
We Are Known - Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
We Who Groan in the Spirit - Poem & Essay from You Are Accepted
Forgetting and Being Forgotten — Poem & Essay from The Eternal Now
(The Eternal Now is another new book to be released in 2026.)
Books are available for preorder from:
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Published by
SAINT JULIAN PRESS, Inc.
www.saintjulianpress.org
Copyright © 2025
Two Thousand and Twenty-Five
©Ron Starbuck
Release Date: September 15, 2025
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-955194-47-1
eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-955194-48-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2025940201
Cover Image: Chiesa di San Francesco a Pienza II
Photo by Ron Starbuck from Pienza, Italy
