Beyond the Red Door

A podcast from Saint Mark's Church in Jackson Heights, New York City, called by the New York Times, "the most diverse neighborhood in the world." The Red Door Series began in 2020 and sought to capture and amplify and celebrate that diversity. Father Spencer Reece wanted poetry to be in the same room with meditation.The pandemic had raged in Jackson Heights. Reece was called to the parish after the former priest, Father Checo, died of Covid-19. During the pandemic the series grew in popularity. The structure was simple. The poet reads one poem and then there is ten minutes of silence. The poet then reads the poem a second time. Suddenly people that had never been in a church were coming. The series has now spread to St. John's Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and is poised to debut in churches in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Lisbon, Portugal, in Brooklyn, New York, and in Milford, Connecticut.These podcasts are a time for us to interview the poets about their process and about how spirituality is or is not a part of their work. Originally the arts and the church were combined. Over the centuries they have grown apart. We seek to have them in conversation with one another once more.