a digital commonplace book
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
I came home tonight after witnessing a friend teaching even more skillfully than before. This poem was my thankful response.
#patina #refinement #1peter4v10 #puebla #cathedral #copper #catedralbasilicadepuebla #poetography #stenerikarmitage
Increasingly, I find myself turning even simple statements into poems. Perhaps I’m as annoying in this as Fezzik was to Vizzini in “The Princess Bride”:
Inigo: That Vizzini, he can fuss.
From “The Princess Bride”
Fezzik: Fuss, fuss … I think he like to scream at us.
Inigo: Probably he means no harm.
Fezzik: He’s really very short on charm.
Inigo: You have a great gift for rhyme.
Fezzik: Yes, yes, some of the time.
Vizzini: Enough of that.
Inigo: Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?
Fezzik: If there are, we all be dead.
Vizzini: No more rhymes now, I mean it.
Fezzik: Anybody want a peanut?
The Poem’s Inspiration
I don’t recall the context of the exchange, but one of my Facebook friends wrote the following, and her first two sentences seemed like the beginning and premise for a limerick:
I once met a woman at the mall who had seven children in tow: an oldest child, a pair of twins, and, youngest of all, a set of quadruplets. Each pregnancy subsequent to the first doubled the outcome the one prior. If I were in her shoes, I think I’d probably put my foot down regarding future pregnancies.
Laurie Pearce Mathers
Despite the silly sound effects in my recording of this poem (and on the video version), it’s a serious poem. I promise you, it is!
I get very frustrated with narrow-mindedness, and with people who don’t develop intellectually over their lifetimes. Hopefully it’s obvious that the speaker in this poem has spent his (or her) entire lifetime defending a narrow, and tired point of view.
Looming Open Door
This is the sad conclusion of the poem. Opportunity has existed at every point since the speaker’s feet touched the floor to go out and explore. Instead, he considers the world “out there” a threat.
(background image by Raphael W. on Pixabay)
A friend encouraged me to pay close attention to the deep emotion I feel whenever I encounter certain stories. One of those stories is what Luke tells about the — presumably — aged Simeon. When Joseph and Mary encounter Simeon in the temple, they let him hold their baby, Jesus. Simeon says,
Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.
Luke 2:29-32
Why does that passage get to me every time I read it? Simeon seems to be satisfied. Everything’s great, right?
No.
More than once, I have been listening through Luke while walking at the lake. When I get to this passage, I tear up so much that anyone crossing paths with me would know something’s “wrong.” Simeon is satisfied, but I am…. What? Dissatisfied? I infer from the passage that Simeon will soon die, and his impending death figures into my response. Simeon is ready for death because he knows now that all will eventually be right in his world: the Messiah has come. Why does that satisfy him, but not me?
Different Story, Similar Feeling
Today, I heard a story that brought the same feeling, though with a little less intensity. The story was about a shy Irish composer named Ina Boyle (1889-1967). Ms. Boyle’s compositions were rarely played during her lifetime, but have been rediscovered fifty years after her death, and are now being played by orchestras.
When I hear a story like Ina Boyle’s or Simeon’s an image looms large in my mind: a great gulf, a void, a chasm separating promise and fulfillment. It’s death. Death and the time that has passed — and will pass — until the Resurrection.
This Poem: Somehow Remembrance…
So, today, when the great gulf came to mind, I asked myself, “What spans that gulf?” The picture that came to mind is strange: a refrigerator door, call it God’s refrigerator door. There he affixes the precious artwork of His children. Time passes, but He doesn’t forget our bright hopes and expectations, our responses to His obvious goodness. Somehow, God’s remembrance answers — will answer — the sadness I feel about mortality, the vapor which is our current state.
Pat Answers?
I could throw pat answers at myself all day long. Don’t even bother. One of my jobs as a poet is to be a spokesman for the feelings in search of truth.
In explaining this poem to one of my sons, I put it this way…. I’m an Elder, and so there are people that I will someday have to answer for. I’m not sure how that will be. I picture the Lord asking what I did to help these people survive their spiritual battles. I may answer, “Well, I tried, but You know… they didn’t want help.” And then the questions I dread: “Did YOU want my help? Did you ASK for my help?”
Silent battles rage around me. People I love, people for whom I must answer to God, are taking fire. The one most effective way for me to protect them is prayer. Instead, I find passive, unhelpful ways to fill my time.
As I wrote in one lament, “I scroll, I stroll, I scrawl.” I do anything but engage in the intense duty of intercession. My son could identify with that mindless, unthreatening hamster wheel of social media and other time-wasters. Can you identify?
Silent battles rage around me. But I choose to be distracted by other things, even news of noisy battles raging elsewhere: foreign wars.
“Here is your duty, man.” I can almost hear the Spirit say. “Here, not there.” But the news distracts; it almost drowns out the Spirit’s intense, insistent, discomforting voice.
I wrote this poem in anticipation of talking with a fellow poet. One topic I wanted to discuss with him is the vulnerability of baring your breast through revealing words. Is it insanity or inspiration?
We didn’t get to the “inspiration” part, but the “insanity” part was almost funny…. My fellow poet read me one of several poems he has written while struggling with depression. He said that people have phoned him after reading such a poem to say, “I read your poem. Are you okay?” He answers, “Thanks. I’m doing better because I wrote that poem.”
I don’t enjoy listening to people complain. I’ve noticed that other people don’t enjoy listening to me complain. Sometimes, my public complaint is answered by a public rebuke, often with an underlying, “If you were as spiritual as I am, you wouldn’t have such thoughts.”
I don’t know a good workaround. One of my jobs as a poet is to express what’s hard to express. That can include negative thoughts, and problems whose solution hasn’t appeared.
I really don’t have a lot I can say about this poem yet. It is almost entirely a raw, unprocessed impression of my state of mind.
But I can say two things…. As some other recent poems reveal, I am doing a lot of thinking about what it means that we live in a fallen world, and how I participate in the fallenness.
When this “poem” (or “sentence,” if you prefer) popped into my head, I was reading The Reluctant Tommy. Quoting from Wikipedia, it’s a book “compiled by Duncan Barrett from the memoirs of Ronald Skirth, a member of the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War…. The book captured attention due to Skirth’s actions during the war to avoid enemy casualties.”
Connecting Blood
Although I haven’t figured out just what this sentence or poem expresses, I’m pretty sure that “connecting” refers to various relationships between various things. That’s how my mind works.
I think most people have at one time or another experienced pain that feels strangely pleasant. For instance, when you find a way — perhaps with a friend’s help — to apply pressure to that knot in your back. For some, there is pleasure in the pain of a red-hot pepper. Well, recently, I have noticed that I am strangely drawn to sadness, and feel a certain pleasure in its presence.
In one of my recent poems, I depicted sadness as a lady who has me sabbath in her house. She feeds me and urges me to “rest and weep.” In the commentary for that poem, I suggested that the process I am in is one of becoming more compassionate. I’m pretty sure that’s fundamentally true.
But in the poem above, I ask if the reason for this phase (I guess it’s a phase) is that I need to fully recognize and steel myself against Satan’s lies. The emotion of sadness helps me better comprehend what I’m looking at in a fallen world. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be, no matter what anyone might say.
When I contemplate oppression, poverty, and death, it’s hard to imagine a future world where these are eradicated. It seems that everywhere I look in this current world, wealth is amassed at someone else’s expense. In a generally prosperous culture, that’s not always easy to see, but I’m learning to connect the dots.
How could it work any other way? I believe it will some day, but how? That’s what the last stanza of my poem addresses. When the all-powerful Creator has restored the world to its original design, then my questions will be answered.
February 26, 2023 Additional Comments:
[This part I barely understand, so bear with me. If it’s too dense, skip to the last paragraph]
In “The Crucifixion,” Fleming Rutledge writes about a “PARADOX: THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN AS JOYFUL GOOD NEWS.” It’s a startling claim, but Rutledge makes a good case for it. Later in that chapter, she writes the following: “The action of God’s grace precedes our consciousness of sin, so that we perceive the depth of our own participation in sin’s bondage, simultaneously with the recognition of the unconditional love of Christ, which is perfect freedom. We recognize that love, moreover, not from the depths of the hell we were bent on creating for ourselves, but from the perspective of the heaven that God is preparing for us.”
Over the last few years, I have increasingly felt this strange pleasure at recognizing what a wretch I am, not only on the basis of my own sinfulness, but also on the basis of my being PART of a sinful humanity. This strange sensation is something I tried to explain with the attached poem, which I wrote exactly one year ago. The reason that I offered then was surely right in part. But it didn’t fully account for the pleasant sadness.
So, Rutledge—and other wise souls—are helping me understand the pleasant sadness.
[This part may be easier to understand, as it relies on imagination more than on theology.]
I picture myself on a long hike with Jesus. Naturally, the trail we’re on is along the sides of some mountain in the Rockies. We can see forever. Conversation turns to why Jesus had to die for me. It was my sin. He goes into detail. But we keep walking. He’s with me on the trail because he loves me. It’s obvious. He’s telling me these things because he loves me. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. He wants me to know that he knows fully well what kind of rotten friend I am. Amazingly, it doesn’t feel like scolding. Through talking with me about my sin, Jesus produces in me a pleasant sadness. He reassures me I need not fear his rejection some day when the truth comes out. He took care of everything. Everything.
Backdrop
This morning, I was thinking through the questions I want to ask a fellow poet when I meet with him tomorrow. He’s a better poet than I am, but I see similarities in our approach. So, I want to explore the similarities. One of the things I want to explore is what drives us to write poetry. I suspect it has something to do with a God-given hunger for beauty.
Seeking and Speaking Beauty
When I idiotically scroll through Instagram Reels or TikTok, there is one small consolation: I find myself increasingly able to appreciate beauty as expressed by a variety of people in various ways. It probably helps that I had already determined to grow in this ability. On many a long walk around the lake, the question has always been, “What is the beauty I have missed thus far?” The same is true of my “walks” through Scripture. God writes beautifully everywhere.
This morning, I wrote a LONG reflection on legalism and generosity. Then the poet in me said, “Let me handle this!” Thus the little poem above.
Here’s an outline of what prompted the poem:
In Matthew 12 and Galatians 2, we see Pharisees and Judaizers spying on the liberty that Jesus’ followers have vis-a-vis Jewish Law. In Matthew 12, it was the Pharisees objecting to the disciples’ foraging as they walked through a grainfield on the Sabbath. In Galatians 2, it was apparently the Judaizers insisting that Gentile converts had to adopt Jewish mores. (this event is very like–possibly the same as–what is described in Acts 15: the Jerusalem Council).
In both passages, the response is that righteous behavior is more associated with mercy, compassion, and generosity than it is with punctilious rule-keeping.
Notice what Jesus said to the Pharisees (I have bolded what jumps out at me):
And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:7-8
Notice what I bold here in Paul’s Galatians 2 summary:
…when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
Galatians 2:9-10
Is Righteousness Rule-Keeping?
I think many of us who know that righteousness is NOT merely rule-keeping still hang onto that notion. I see it in the culture wars. I can almost hear some Christians say, “Those people out there are not righteous. Just look at how they break God’s moral laws!” Does it matter that “those people out there” are sometimes more loving, more generous, more merciful than the Christians who are judging them?
That’s why I wrote in the poem that by righteousness, “I mainly mean love.” And when I look “out there” at a world of people who don’t know Jesus Christ, I must also look “in here.” Do I demonstrate that I know Him by practicing the righteousness of love? Is God’s gracious rule operating in my heart?
When I was ten, we moved to the States from a country where practicing religion was always costly. Mostly, the cost was self-imposed, as many thought they could earn God’s favor. For a few, the cost was appropriate, and unavoidable, as they could not be comfortable with surrounding culture. IN CONTRAST, what I saw here in the States was that practicing religion seemed to cost nothing. That concerned me then, and it concerns me still.
Someone may respond, “I’m not comfortable with surrounding culture! So, wouldn’t you agree that I am paying a price to be a Christian!” My answer: maybe, maybe not. The thing about culture is that it is never merely “surrounding.” Rather, it works its way into much — if not all — of what we think and do. We’re part of it. It’s part of us.
Simply being upset at others’ immorality is not enough. Jesus’ prescription is not “Get mad at the world.” His prescription is, “You! You. If necessary, cut off your own arm. Gouge out your own eye. Renounce everything that YOU have.”
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:33
Recently, one of my ongoing projects has been peeling back layers of personal, church, and world history in order to better comprehend this world’s fallenness. I felt a certain compulsion about it. I needed to feel sadness about the many insults to God’s purpose and His image in man. I needed to feel sorrow about ways that I participate in those insults.
On a recent Sunday evening, I hit pause on the project. I thought, “Enough of this for now. I’m not feeling the compulsion.”
Was I done with exploring sadness? I don’t think so. It was just a rest. My heart still has chambers of ungodly anger that must be flooded instead with compassion. Like the Pharisees who despised the Lord of the Sabbath, I look for fault with His followers. I treasure offense at His disciples’ trespasses. Like the Pharisees, I need to understand what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (see Matthew 12). Then, perhaps, I will not be so quick to condemn.
SO, WEEP SOME MORE
I had just finished writing this poem (and was pretty broken up by the process of writing it) when Susan came in and told me that an old friend — a GOOD and brilliant man — now has Alzheimer’s. My sadness turned to sobbing.
“Now rest, and weep,
And rest, and weep,
And rest, and weep
Some more.”
I can’t help but think that this season in the house of Sadness is what I should expect as a follower of Jesus. It’s on the path to becoming compassionate, like He is compassionate.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isaiah 53:3 ESV
This poem is me trying to convince myself of something I believe, but have had trouble seeing recently. My attention has been drawn — hopefully by God, and hopefully just for a season — away from delightful things in this world to things that are broken, and terribly in need of restoration. I wrote about that in my recent poem, “Beauty’s Time Tabled.” Frankly, I have a slew of poems coming out about the sadness I currently feel, including one I’ll post on this blog soon: “The House of Sadness.”
So Full of Rocks
Read “rocks” in this poem as the dull, lifeless, colorless sort that make up most of the world. When I think of those rocks, I know that they are actually fascinating, but only in ways that a geologist would recognize.
Won’t Go Far
I sometimes despair that all my thinking and writing is practically useless. When I do point to something beautiful, the response is generally a chasm of silence, an echoing yawn.
But… I Insist
Although I’m currently discouraged and disillusioned, I do still see bright, shiny things here and there, enough to keep hope alive. For instance, this morning, reading Matthew 12, and comparing it to Galatians 2, I saw something that reminded me of God’s better ways. God shows us that we get to obey Him as a celebration and imitation of His gracious, generous, merciful purposes. So I wrote this little poem:
Getting Hungry
I’ve had my taste whetted
For righteousness.
And by that
I mainly mean love.
I long to see
God’s gracious rule
In my heart and in my world,
Not just in Heaven above….
(background image by Stefan Schweihofer on Pixabay)
On my walk yesterday, I finished listening to Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. It got me thinking about how God views the little triumphs so far and few between in His fallen world.
Why does this matter to me? There are two reasons. First, it matters because considering it is what I should do. Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son prompts us to compare ourselves not only with a prodigal or a resentful older brother, but also with a compassionate, generous, and joyful father. Nouwen spends the last third of his book driving that last point home.
A second reason why this matters is that it relates to my current state of mind. I wrote about this already in my commentary for “Beauty’s Time Tabled.” In the arc of my reflection on how evil has been manifest in my own life, the life of the Church, and the life of my nation, I have come to a significant point. Having fancied for some time that my thinking and my poetry might yield fruit beyond my own life, I have begun to dial down my hopes and expectations. The best I can realistically hope for is limited and isolated triumphs. That’s reality in a fallen world.
So how should I respond to this disillusionment? Does God’s joyful response to limited triumphs serve as a model for me?
Heaven is a Party Town
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of three parables that Luke puts together (in Luke 15): The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, and The Prodigal Son. A common element in the three parables is the joyful celebration. The shepherd, having brought home his one errant sheep “calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'” (Luke 15:6). Jesus, who knows well how Heaven is run continues,
I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
Luke 15: 7
When the woman finds her one lost coin, she likewise calls together friends for a party. And again, Jesus compares her response to the joyful response in Heaven:
I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
Luke 15:10
Then we get to the much longer Parable of the Prodigal Son. By now, we know to equate the earthly father’s response to God’s:
But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.
Luke 15:32
If God and His angels celebrate small triumphs, can I? Will I? Or does everything have to work out just as I wish in order for me to be happy? Would I be a party pooper in Heaven?
The poem mocks my own severe view of things. Luke was severe. He clearly had high standards for our response to God. But he was careful to record what Jesus said about Heaven’s response to small triumphs: it’s a party town, where music and dancing can clearly be heard even by a resentful older brother standing outside.
Recently, I have written some light and playful poems. So where does this one come from?!
It seems that I have come to the end of a hopeful period. What I have been investigating–in personal, church, and world history–has been dark. It has left me sad, but sad in a hopeful way. I thought that by identifying the source and nature of various evils, I could somehow propose reformation.
I thought that I, through poetic thought and expression, could be a channel of God’s reforming beauty. Maybe I’ll regain that perspective tomorrow. But today, it feels like beauty has been put on hold; it has been tabled for now.
Is this depression talking? I doubt it. It’s probably just reality setting in. Beauty will have its time. But now–at least today–belongs to lament.
ADDENDUM: On my long walk today, I finished listening to a book my counselor assigned: Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. The final chapter of that book encourages the reader to consider how he or she might become more like the Father in Jesus’ parable. Well…. In considering that, one thing stands out to me tonight: God the Father takes joy in isolated victories. If He can, is there any reason I cannot as well?
This poem is about the “end” or purpose of life, and whether or not we can achieve that purpose when our numbered days are few.
We are not Jesus Christ. But God invites us to identify with Him very, very deeply. I suppose He’s pleased for us to compare ourselves with Jesus when pondering the very little time that remains to any of us.
Jesus began His public ministry around age 30, and lived another 3 or so years. So, he began his public ministry ten-elevenths through his earthly life. Imagine all the ways Jesus could have faithfully reflected God the Father, all the healing, preaching, and loving he could have done with a few more years! But I have to assume that three was enough.
How About Me?
The amount of character development and spiritual growth that I have experienced over the last three years astounds me. That’s not bragging. In fact, it seems more a sad admission of how many decades I have wasted than anything else! This development leaves me suspecting–or hoping–that God has something surprising for me to do with the time that remains in my life. How could that be? How could anything a 61-year old man (62 this summer) do that matters in Eternity?
I don’t know. He loves me deeply. He wants the best for me. As old as I am, He’s still my older brother. He says that in one of my favorite passages:
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.
Hebrews 2:10-12
The Background Photo
For several years now, my most profound thinking has happened while I was on long hikes, largely near or around White Rock Lake. The other day, I was thinking about what I have written in the poem just as my hike reached the area pictured in the background photo. I took the photo initially thinking of using it to say this:
Here’s the path
That I in former days,
On longer walks,
Often saw
And wondered ’bout.
It’s more familiar now
Than what I knew
When time and strength
Had bound me
To my former ways.
But then I wrote a better(?) poem about “The End of Life,” and needed a background photo!
This light-hearted poem is a prequel to the more serious “The King’s Toast.” By the way, my initial commentary on that poem was pretty muddled. If you already read that commentary, do me the favor of reading the improved version.
It’s probably obvious that in this poem I’m exploring the idea that an awareness of God’s presence would help us regulate our behavior. Have a problem with foul language? What if Jesus were right there beside you in a physical, visible form? Would you curse then?
I don’t know.
Closely related poem: “The King’s Toast.“
(background image by Adina Voicu on Pixabay)
If this little poem has any deep meanings, it’s by accident. It’s just some residual silliness from my younger self. That’s all.
(background image by Radomír Šalda on Pixabay)
I hope it’s not arrogant to say, “I like this poem.” Here’s why….
First, The Easy Stuff
I like how a poem can suggest a whole story in just a few words. Who is “He” who “told the King”? I didn’t have to describe him or do any character development. “He” is a humble man with a home the King can enter.
I like how the King’s easy familiarity can be established with just a “propped up his feet” and “took a swig.”
Finally, I like how poetry enabled me to to build a story around a verse that impressed me so much: Isaiah 57:15 (see below, where that verse brings possible resolution to a vexing question).
The Spirit in Which I Wrote This (By the way, the following is a meandering rumination. As you’ll see, I don’t end where I began)
Recently, I have been thinking about what effect it would have on a person if they were fully aware of God’s presence in their life. I mean, what if they could see him literally, physically walking with them in the park? Literally sitting beside them in the office? Literally sitting in the passenger seat of their car as they drive on the freeway?
I can’t help but think that it would regulate their behavior. Right? What about awareness of God’s actual, though not physical presence?
Someone wrote a book about this (at least that’s what I assume the book is about):
I’ll get around to reading Brother Lawrence’s little book sometime soon. But first, I need to think about this on my own…. So I pay attention. I watch for clues as I read or listen to the Bible.
Here was the first clue. I was listening through Isaiah, and came to this beautiful passage in Isaiah 11.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11:6-9
Isaiah describes a time when the knowledge of the Lord will regulate even the animals’ behavior. How? I can imagine human beings possessing special knowledge, intellectually understanding facts about the Lord. But animals? They are the ones whose behavior is regulated in this passage. So, I’m guessing the “knowledge” is more akin to “awareness.” Awareness of the Lord will be so thorough that even otherwise dangerous animals will not hurt or destroy.
So, this passage seems to support my theory that awareness of God’s presence would help regulate our behavior. How do we tap into that behavior-regulating awareness?
How About the Holy Spirit? Is He the Answer? Aren’t We Aware of Him?
In God’s current arrangement with man, He causes the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer. Problem solved, right? No. The indwelling is no guarantee of awareness. Ask any longtime believer!
If He’s Indwelling Me, Why Doesn’t He Make Himself Known? Or Does He?
Does familiarity cause us to drift in and out of awareness of the indwelling Holy Spirit? Is this just the best we can expect from an ongoing relationship? Some speak of God–including the Holy Spirit–as a “gentleman.” They might say, “He doesn’t impose on us, intrude in our thinking, but like a very quiet guest simply waits in the guest room for us to call Him to the dinner table or to the parlor for a good conversation.” In this scenario, He’s present, but we’re not aware of him, and that’s all we can expect if we don’t summon Him.
That sounds pretty passive on God’s part.
But another passage, also in Isaiah, starts to shift my thinking:
For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
Isaiah 57:15 (NIV)
It seems that this passage describes an indwelling WITH awareness. Here, the indwelt person experiences revival. It seems reasonable to guess that this revival is effective, noticeable encouragement. It’s not just God saying “Cheer up there, fella.” It’s God succeeding in cheering him up. NOTICE THIS IMPORTANT OBSERVATION: The awareness of God here is an awareness of what He has done, not an awareness that enables us to do something. It may come around to that, but awareness here is the result, not the cause. That may take a moment to sink in.
If Awareness Isn’t the Magic Key, What Is?
To whom does God grant such awareness? Who does He actively encourage? To whom does He say “I’m staying in your home. I’m sharing this drink with you. Cheers!” Is it someone who puts up a little shrine to God in every room? Someone who ties a “remember God” string around his finger? Perhaps. It could happen. But it is certainly to the “contrite and lowly in spirit.” That’s who.
Why am exploring this awareness of God? It’s because I wish for God to regulate my behavior. I really do. For instance, I pray often that He’ll make me a noticeably kinder, more generous person. In this and other areas, do I start by recognizing my brokenness and my inability to change apart from His work in my heart?
Will I experience His encouraging, “YES, I will change you… I AM changing you!”?
First, I must ask, “Am I contrite and lowly in spirit?” It seems that’s where it begins.
Closely related: “To a Misguided Cedar.” Also, the following poem, that was a prequel, although I published it later: “Adam Gets Tripped Up.”
(background image by “3938030” on Pixabay)
Headline
The title started as something else, but by the time I had finished my outburst (er, poem), it occured to me that the whole thing was in the form of a headline, a very long headline. It’s “too-long” in a double sense: too many words for one headline, and it speaks of a too-long history of evil.
Journey From Evil
In my imagination, the author is looking out a train window as he travels across history. What he sees out the window is a passing scene of perpetual destruction and oppression.* His guidebook explains the sites along the way. The guidebook is unofficial. Official history is written by the victors, and it is written to justify the evil by which, and for which the victors fought. This is the true history — ancient, recent, and current — “from” which we move toward God’s Kingdom. In my eschatology, there is little expectation that things will change much for the better until Jesus returns and establishes his rule. I could be wrong. [for instance, could I successfully refute the evidence Steven Pinker marshalls in “The Better Angels of our Nature”?]
Stillborn Might-Have-Beens
One area of history that I have been reviewing recently is the Reconstruction era immediately following the Civil War. It was a time of remarkable reversal. People who had only recently been enslaved were now welcomed into political leadership and higher education. I heard today that in one prominent South Carolina university, the enrollment was more than 50% blacks at some point between 1865 and 1875.
But then all that came to a screeching halt. Some Northern whites decided that it was in their best economic interest to let their disagreement with the South be forgotten. Some who still pressed for reconstruction lost their moral authority because of scandals. Greed had gotten the upper hand. What followed was almost a century of oppression: what the South referred to ironically as “The Redemption“: Jim Crow laws and all sorts of other UNKINDNESS, whose devastation is still evident (although some would white-wash it).
Humankind: what a cruel joke!
[In writing this, I know that I am laying myself open to some blowback. Christians don’t appreciate someone pointing out that they’re invested in a world that serves them well (though only for now).]
*There’s a personal history as well. Examining that history, I’m increasingly aware of how desperately I need Someone to save me from my sins.
This is a poem I started writing yesterday and finished up this morning. Yesterday, I thought of the phrase, “running out WITH time,” and asked myself how that might upend the notion of “running out OF time.” So, I didn’t know where I was going to go with the poem, but started writing anyway.
In a friend’s Sunday School class several few years ago, the friend asked us all if we thought there would be no time in Heaven. It seemed that my friend and I were the only ones willing to assert, “I don’t know of any reason why time should NOT continue to exist!” It surprised me that we were in the minority on this one.
Where do people get the notion that time will cease to exist in the eternal state? I suspect one source is a spillover of neoplatonism. But take this with a huge grain of salt. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, “I served with a philosopher. I knew a philosopher. A philosopher was a friend of mine. I am no Philosopher.” Regardless, the theory is that people with this thinking lump time in with matter, and therefore consider it unworthy of their ideal, immaterial “Heaven” (a disgusting non-place, if you ask me–I’m looking for the restoration of God’s GOOD creation).
Another possible source is an old translation of Revelation 10:6
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
Revelation 10:6 KJV
Most modern translations render that along the lines, “that there should be no more delay.”
I ran my poem by a philosopher/theologian this morning, and he assured me that whatever reasons people come up with for saying that there will be no more time in Eternity are a matter of “blindly swallowing [wrong notions of secondary issues] without theological reflection.” Whew (it could have been me)!
Back To The Poem: Time Our Fellow Inmate
Here’s how I got around to using my upended phrase…. It occurred to me that people may think of time as one of life’s evils… that it limits us, perhaps even imprisons us. If so, the answer is to think of time not as the prison, but as a fellow inmate! Someday the prison of current limitations will be torn down. Then we’ll escape our prison cells and joyously run out WITH our fellow inmate, time.
To be continued….
On Christmas Eve, I sat up in the soundbooth for two services. First, there was the heavily-attended service of St. Bart’s Anglican Church. I think there were 50 kids in their Christmas Pageant. As you can imagine, there were at least that many parents and grandparents. It was lovely.
Then, an hour after St. Bart’s was done, we had Redeemer’s Candlelight Service. One person counted about 40 people…max. The service went well. It was disheartening at first. Nevertheless, our handbell choir, who had already performed in the St. Bart’s service, played beautifully in this service as well. The readers and singers and preacher all did a great job. Someone said of our small crowd, “We sang gustily.” “With gusto,” I thought. Yes. A small crowd, fully aware of their Audience, will do so.
This morning, I watched a YouTube video in which a professor of “Christian Psychology” explained various approaches that he and Christian peers take to secular insights. He went a long way toward helping me categorize and understand a complex subject. I especially appreciated the irenic tone he takes toward approaches that differ from his own.
Shortly afterwards, I learned that professor had been ousted from Southern Seminary because the rest of the faculty in his department are of the mind that Scripture is all we need for counseling, and that no secular insights are welcome or allowed. Not so irenic on their part!
The Title: When Every Hill’s a Place to Die
A certain gentleman once complained to me about people who say things like, “That’s not a hill worth dying on.” I should say he was a “very certain gentleman.” When I asked him if there aren’t some secondary issues in Christianity for which he wouldn’t die, he answered, “I’d die for everything I believe.” I know he probably considers himself brave and loyal. Perhaps he is. But I suspect he’s also inordinately proud of his ability to fully comprehend all those issues. God is not simple; the world he created is not simple. We need to be humble about our understanding. Ask Job!
Shelter in Redoubt
In warfare, a “redoubt” is a fortification to which combatants can retreat. It is often their final resort, their last defence. I picture a theological combatant (unlike the irenic professor described above) retreating to a simple structure that he thinks he fully understands. The complexities of others’ thoughts cannot defeat him as long as he is in his theological redoubt. “God said it; I believe it; that settles it,” yells the proud, combative theologian from within his little fort. He forgets that what God said isn’t always so easy to understand!
This poem came to mind as I listened to a performance of “Benedictus” by 2Cellos. I had heard the tune many times in the past, but never paid attention to its title.
This time was different. I was starting into a nap, being soothed by beautiful music. I had just returned from a public event where I felt horribly alienated. Frankly, a friendless freak.
As the tune started playing through my ear buds, I literally heard a slow faint beat, not of drums, but perhaps of cello bows changing direction as they sustained and grew the opening strain. Perhaps it was the bows, or perhaps it was the pulse in my ears from elevated blood pressure. I’ll have to listen with good speakers to figure that out. In any case, my heart was attuned to the playing of the cellos.
What is “Benedictus”?
Since I was listening on my smart phone, I did a quick search for what this Latin word might reference. There were two answers, both from excruciatingly beautiful passages in the Gospels. The first is from Zechariah’s words “Blessed be…” when Zechariah was moved by the birth of his son, John. We know him as “John the Baptist,” who prepared the way for Jesus:
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David…
Luke 1:68-69
Such high expectations!
The next “benedictus” is from Matthew 21, where the story is told of Jesus’ “triumphal entry” to Jerusalem, just as his Passion Week began:
And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Matthew 21:9
Such high expectations!
The Meantime
Jesus’ first coming was full of hope, both at its beginning, and at its end. But he ascended to the Father, and has not finished putting things in order, restoring His creation. Now, as we await his second coming, we are in the meantime. Someone has referred to it as the “in-between time.” I thought of using that phrase in the title, but opted for “meantime.” This is a time in-between, but it is also a time of meanness, a very mean time. Even those whom Jesus has brought into his family can feel rejected and lonely. As George MacDonald said somewhere, “The end of the Maker’s dream is not this.”
These little trails have always intrigued me, be they in the mountains or in a local park. Why do they evoke such strong emotion?
Seriously… I took the photo, walked another 200 yards, and sat down on a park bench to edit the photo and pen a few words. Then, as I continued walking home, I felt a tremendous lump in my throat. Why?
As I have revealed before, I’m seeing a counselor to help me explore what may be some deep-seated emotional “problems.” I don’t say that with shame. Frankly, I think we all have deep-seated emotional “problems.” I just have the luxury right now of exploring mine.
One of the things my counselor has encouraged me to do is to try to figure out what relationship some of my poetry has to my life story. Now that’s a good challenge for a poet!
Really a problem?
Is it really a problem that I get inexplicably emotional? After all, what do we expect of someone God crafted to be a poet? If a poet cannot feel deeply, and desire with determination to express that emotion, what hope is there for any of us? God is an intelligent designer. We are not random results of happenstance. God has a purpose for making us as He did.
I can’t read this out loud now. Maybe tomorrow….
A related poem: “Not Alone“
This was one of those middle-of-the-night poems that I felt compelled to write AND publish when I should have been sleeping. So, I woke up this morning and looked at my phone with a little bit of fear. “What did I write last night?”
Was I drunk when I wrote this poem? No. In fact, my thinking was remarkably clear. Last night, I had just seen someone’s Facebook post in which they revealed how worked up they are about politics in the United States. I thought, “Yeah, I used to get worked up about that….” Then I confessed to myself that for all my equanimity regarding politics, I still do get worked up. My irritation at politicians has been replaced with irritation at people who care about politicians. This is not much of an improvement!
In a moment of clarity, I visualized a coming time when the equanimity I now feel toward politicians will extend to people who get worked up about politicians. I sat up in bed and jotted down this convoluted thought, which had to be worked out in other, better words:
Will I someday care as little
the convoluted beginning of a poem
That YOU care now so much
About the things for which
I now no longer care?
Irritableness & My Efforts
Irritableness (irritability?) is a trait I have lived with far too long. I’m working on it. I think about it. I read about it. New understanding comes by way of counseling and books. New concepts fill my mind: “attachment theory,” “affect regulation,” “interpersonal neuro-biology.”
Here’s what I expect to happen, based on past experience…. The Holy Spirit will take all my efforts, grind them into a powder, and sprinkle a dash of them in his delicious, surprising feast of provision. God made me with my penchant for problem-solving. He honors it, but not without poking fun at my self-reliance.
extradite this passion
In case the above background didn’t open up the poem for you, here it is in plain words: Just as a nation, or an embassy, gets tired of harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal by some other nation, I am tired of harboring passions that God would be more than glad to take off my hands. There are better things to do with my remaining energy in my remaining years, things that will make a difference forever.
Revolution
That’s a strong word. It describes a thorough change. That’s what I desire.
This poem is about healthy authenticity.
I’m not going to beat up on a certain tourist attraction here in Dallas. My wife walks there most mornings. But when I join her there, I do sometimes wonder, “Where are the mosquitoes?” “Where are the bees, and the butterflies?” And, “How much pesticide are we breathing in here?”
Oh, the flowers there are gorgeous, all sterile in their fruitless prime. They’re a sea of brilliant colors. None of them is disfigured by caterpillars. None of them is dying off or producing those awful, unsightly things called seeds.
The place is designed to attract tourists, after all. Not pollinators.
This applies to more than plants…
Healthy, life-giving interactions occur when we care more about honoring God-given processes than we do about the honor of managed appearances. That’s dense, I know; think about it….
What’s true in cultivating gardens is also true in cultivating friendships. Be honest with flowers and with friends.
A closely-related poem: False Flourishing.
I wrote this out of intense frustration. Recently, I’ve seen a silencing or muting of pointers to God’s amazing goodness and grace. It’s not prudent for me to go into details, to trot out examples. But I could.
On Mountain Tops
It’s probably no accident that my imagery is reminiscent of the giving of the Law (Exodus 19-20), and Israel’s response. To be honest, I haven’t worked out what this poem has to do with that historical event, but I sense that they are related. [NB: for “beauty” in the Law, see this article].
Subjects of His Ugliness
That may be a little harsh. “His Ugliness” refers to Satan (conversely, “Beauty” refers to Jesus). Am I suggesting that some who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ are actually subjects of Satan? Not necessarily, although it is possible. Even genuine followers of Jesus do sometimes wander off the path. In Matthew’s account, shortly after Peter had acknowledged that Jesus is the Messiah (Matthew 16:16), Jesus had to rebuke him:
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Matthew 16:23
The Ambiguous Title
I’m not really enthusiastic about the title. Maybe I’ll come up with something better. For what it’s worth, “Denying” is ambiguous. It can refer to being intellectually opposed to a proposition, and it can refer to successfully thwarting something. With respect to Jesus’ present reign, both senses of denial are currently in operation to one extent or another. But His coming reign cannot be stopped; it will not be denied! Every knee will bow (Rom. 14:11).
[The background photo of Kirkjufell in Iceland is by Hans Braxmeier on Pixabay (I moved the fire)].
Back in college, I developed a nervous habit of looking at my watch every minute or so. I doubt anyone else noticed the habit, but I sure did!
My wristwatch was a cheap old Timex, so here was my solution…. I took the back off and removed the movement and face. Then I disassembled the movement, threw the loose gears in the case, and closed it up. The useless watch went back on my left wrist.
True to form, I’d look down at the watch every minute or so. Every time I looked, I had to laugh at myself. There, under the crystal, were a bunch of loose gears, telling me absolutely nothing. Nothing except, “Hey dumb dumb. Stop looking down here!”
The Background Image
That’s not my watch. Who knows where my “Hey dumb dumb” watch got off to. Somewhere between college and now, I lost it (I really did). I’m tempted to buy a cheap old watch to recreate the college timepiece. Its photograph would replace the background image, created in Photoshop from a couple of Pixabay downloads.
The Limerick
When I first thought of writing this limerick, I immediately came up with lines 1, 2, and 5 (the “A A… A” lines). That left me lines 3 and 4 (the “B B” lines) to tell the whole “how I fixed it” story. Believe it or not, that was the hard part. In the prose above, it took me thirty-six words to say what the limerick says in twelve words! That’s one of the main things I love about writing poetry: the challenge and charm of compression.
Have you ever read the most compressed poem of all? Even I can remember this one:
Fleas
Ogden Nash
Adam
Had’em
A few years ago, when I went full-time with my web business and suddenly had plenty of time on my hands, I began taking walks around White Rock Lake. Sometimes it was from a parking lot (a 9 miles hike) and sometimes from home (a 12 miles hike). That was the beginning of one of the best periods in my life. Here’s why….
Paying Attention
On those long hikes, one of the things I did was pay close attention to how I was responding to people I encountered along the way: “The site of that elderly lady elicited warm feelings. Why? When I saw that young man, I felt disgust. Why? Why am I so ready to love some people, but not others?” Even after years of paying attention to my responses, it’s often still a mystery. But at least I’m a little more attuned to my emotional state now than I was before.
So I Asked Myself….
Yesterday, I walked by the bench in the background photo. Thanks to the habit of paying attention to my emotional state, I knew there was something I feel every time I pass by a person sitting on that bench. Could I put that feeling in words? Here’s what I initially wrote:
Often, when I’m walking at White Rock Lake and find someone sitting on this bench, I wish to sit with them, to share their experience. People taking in the beauty of a place like this are close to God, whether they realize it or not. But usually I just smile and walk on by.
Is it So?
What I want to do (sit with them) is something I can report with more confidence than why I want to do so. In the prose explanation and subsequent poem, I connect my desire to a sense that God is somehow involved in the experience. That’s still just a theory of what’s going on in my head and heart. This theory may get support from a book I started into last night: “The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community,” by Curt Thompson.
Why Wistful?
It makes me sad that I either cannot or do not always act on my good impulses. To sit and talk with a stranger? There’s nothing wrong with that impulse. But something usually stops me. What?
RELATED POST: “The Man From Valladolid” (based on meeting a fellow just yards from this bench).
The Title
Okay, okay…. I know that “may” should probably be “can.” But that wouldn’t rhyme with “say,” would it?! The title is a reminder that we should make the most of the relationships God gives us in this lifetime.
“Dispatch”
Dad was a theologian, writer, and editor. During much of his life, he wrote Bible study courses that were used by people for whom English is a second language. So, he was keenly aware that he needed to practice what he preached as an editor: “Don’t use big words when little words will do.”
This morning, for some reason, this random memory popped in my head. When speaking of killing insects, Dad always used the big word “dispatch” when he could have used the little word “kill.” Why did he do that? I assumed it was a bit of humor. But I never asked him. In itself, this is not an important question. But my failure to ask him points to something that is important….
Uncharted Memories
Lately, I have been working through painful memories throughout my life, but especially from the formative childhood years. I’m realizing that my parents tended to not discuss the emotional impact of tragic events. I’m told that wasn’t unusual for people of their generation. But it bled over to me in the way that I interact with loved ones to this very day. Often, I’m not curious — or don’t act on what curiosity I do have — about others’ emotional state. There’s much that I miss of all I could love, lament, or celebrate.
(background image by Rob Slaven on Pixabay)
There must have been some interesting conditions in the sky over Dallas yesterday. A little after I took this photo of clouds with finger-like extensions, I noticed the formation of mammatus clouds* a little to the East.
So, I wanted to share the photograph, and to confess that I actually looked to where the clouds seemed to be pointing.
Is that silly?
I suspect most adults would have looked for where the lines converged just as I did. But only if they haven’t killed off a God-given imagination and sense of the transcendent. We expect nature to communicate something — for very good reasons.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Psalm 19:1
Disappointed?
So, I didn’t see a rider in the sky. But the conclusion of my little poem is not anti-supernatural. Rather, it’s based on a notion that creation is continually celebrating the pleasure and provision of a good Creator. Are you? Am I?
Related Poem
I’m not sure HOW this poem is related, but I thought of it when writing the above: “A Meditation.” Also, see “Voice Lessons.”
*From www.whatisthiscloud.com: “Mammatus clouds are formed the same way cumulus clouds are formed, but in reverse. They are formed by sinking cold air that form pouch-like figures as they’re carried into a warmer layer of air, contrary to the puffs of clouds rising through the convection of warm air.”
I heard this put another way: “Hurt people hurt people; we’re all hurt.” Anger displaces far more productive emotions like sadness, sorrow, pity.
The Title: “Here’s a Tip For You…”
We make pronouncements against people. We accuse. We express anger. It would often be better if we recognized that the offender is more to be pitied than resented. We could sadly pronounce them fellow sinners, like us in desperate need of a Savior.
Of course there was another reason I chose “pronouncement.” I wanted to introduce “pronouncement’s” sister: “pronunciation.” This little two-liner depends on the reader pronouncing T-E-A-R two different ways.
Tear Down and Tear Up
I actually had to look up these phrases to make sure I wasn’t confused! Two words are spelled the same: “tear” as in rend, and “tear” as in cry.
Some readers won’t notice that I’m using two different words. They’ll wonder how I’m differentiating the “up” and “down” forms of tearing=rending. Oh well. Maybe there’s something positive about their puzzling. There often is.
You’ve heard of the “Social Butterfly.” Now meet the “Social Gnat.” He lives on social media and other rotting things.
This is the kind of poem I often wrote when I was young. Silly, I know… unless you are this guy. Then it’s a serious message: get a life!
I keep encountering this notion that abrupt changes cannot possibly be God’s will. I’ve encountered it in others, but also in myself! Run your mind across the testimony of Scripture. Does the notion hold up? I don’t think so.
Abruptly
“Abruptly” has a negative connotation. It’s used when people are inconvenienced. One might say, “Because she changed her mind abruptly, all my careful plans were brought to nothing! I had to scramble!” One would never say, “My fondest wishes were fulfilled abruptly!” So, the speaker of the poem is complaining. His words should be read with a whiny voice. Notice the repetition of “our.” He feels entitled. Finally, he offers biblical allusions as self-serving platitudes.* He’s confused, and a sinner somewhere is surely to blame!
We Think Not
Based on his own thinking — or is it his lack of thinking!? — the speaker arrogantly decrees that nothing can be done abruptly. He speaks for all who consider themselves worthy judges of how life should unfold.
*How often I have heard 1 Corinthians 14:33 used as a proof text supporting mere personal preference!
I wrote this first thing this morning, after giving up on a restless night. About 2 or 3 am, I woke up, and could tell I wouldn’t be getting to sleep soon. So I used my monthly credit at Audible and downloaded “The End of The Affair” by Graham Greene. That title intrigued me ever since a theologian I respect recommended it to a fellow writer in response to the request, “…name one (and only one) novel that you recommend I should read?” The Audible version has the bonus of being read by Colin Firth.
So, by 7 am, I had listened to at least half of the novel. Admittedly, I dozed off during parts, but a check on synopsis sites tells me I didn’t miss much….
“Errant Love”
This is the only line I’ll expand on in this commentary. “Errant” usually means something like “erring or straying from the proper course or standards.” That definitely describes the illicit affair referred to in the book’s title. I won’t describe that here. In fact, I wouldn’t want to make a regular diet of this kind of material.
But “errant” has a more archaic meaning of something like being “out on an adventure.” When the thrill seeker wanders from home, he vacates his usual place… leaving it empty. Thus, the “empty place of errant love.”
The main character in the book — Maurice Bendrix — says very early on that “This is a record of hate far more than of love.” While I don’t know much about affairs (thank God!), I do know about hatred. I have felt it. I see it, almost daily, in the most unlikely places. It occurs to me that it only takes up residence where love has abandoned its rightful place, or where love is disordered.
The Background Image
The background image (adapted from a photo by Susann Mielke on Pixabay) was suggested by the setting of Greene’s novel: 1944 London, during the German blitz. The V-1 “robot” bombs buzz in from the South and make a mess of Bendrix’s apartment. In the process, they change everything, including Bendrix’s relationship with his love interest, Sarah.
I’m not very good at understanding poetry (feel free to join me in laughing at this ironic weakness). But I’ll give this one a try….
I woke up early this morning, my mind churning about what seem to be intractable problems. I say “churning.” It was not productive thought. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I could not state the problems in a way that would suggest solutions. I was flailing: “falling… failing.”
Falling, Failing… Filling
The pictures in my mind as I wrote the first two lines were first of a man falling off a cliff, crying out indistinctly; and second, of a man trapped and dying (failing) in a pitch-black cave, blindly scratching words on the cave wall. In both cases, the words seem to be of no use.
But words are sometimes more useful than they seem. In the writing of this poem, the words “falling” and “failing” led my little poet brain to another gerund: “filling.” Call it serendipity; I call it poetry: following words where they lead. Try as I may to be intentional, sometimes I’m just accidental.
So… “filling.” There was no distance between landing on that word and landing on the phrase “filling in the blanks.” And who could fill in the blanks? Who knows me through and through? Who knows the end from the beginning? God, of course.
Sometimes we simply don’t know what to ask of God. That’s when we’d do well to remember something that’s probably happening more of the time than we realize:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Romans 8:26
“Until we meet again”
This line may disturb the reader. It’s trite, something we’d say to a mere fellow human. But it gave me great comfort to write the words. God doesn’t require our undivided attention. He generously works in our behalf while we go about our day, and even while we sleep at night:
Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Psalm 127:1-2
Writing a Psalm, Day One
Since we can finish reading most Psalms in a matter of minutes, it’s tempting to imagine that the Psalmist went through the experience he describes in the same short amount of time. But it seems more likely to me that the Psalms are a record of what happened over several days, or even months. The first few verses of a given Psalm may describe what the Psalmist was struggling with in summer. The last few verses may describe the joyful resolution that came in autumn.
My intractable problems? Perhaps they’ll be solved tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Then I can finish the Psalm.
I’m not aware of any deep meaning in this.* I had taken a photo of broomweed by the path and began editing it, trying to help the viewer see the yellow flowers standing out as much in the photograph as they did in my eye. Stereoscopic vision is a magnificent gift. With it, we isolate objects from their background. Flowers stand out from foliage. That’s what we SEE. But most photographs fail to convey their subject in three dimensions — photographic images are flat.** In this photograph, there was little separation between the yellow flowers and the green foliage, especially in the yellow light of late afternoon.
So…. I was editing. And the more that I edited, the more I isolated the yellow flowers from their background. Eventually, I pushed all but yellow to black. That’s when I thought of the line, “Imagine if at night….” Phosphorescent flowers…. Wouldn’t THAT be something?!
THE ORIGINAL, AND A MEMORY
Below is the original photograph. And here’s a memory about broomweed:
When I was a teenager, I got to help the gardener at a camp I was working at in Mexico. One day we drove to the other side of the lake where Cayo gathered stiff little bushes that we fashioned into brooms and rakes. I recall that they worked better than the store-bought ones.
*On the other hand, one could easily make the case that all beauty in creation illumines our path to understanding a beautiful Creator.
**Incidentally, this is part of why I insist that in editing photographs, “you have to lie to tell the truth.” That is, you have to lie about what the camera captured in order to tell the truth of what our magnificent vision captured.
When I sent this to a friend, he said “I have questions.” Yes. I imagine that this “poem” raises questions. Perhaps my friend has more questions than the ones I’ll try to answer here….
First, let me include what I wrote on social media when I posted this, along with the hashtags:
The Phantom Terrace is a real place. I’ve been there. And gratitude’s a real grace. I’ve been there too. Both are narrow ways.
#remembrance #gratitude #hope
As you can probably guess from the hashtags, this is more about the positive emotion of gratitude than it is about other, negative emotions.
Don’t read too much into the first two stanzas. I was mainly establishing the setting of a real place. One thin line of grass, growing on the ledge, stretches from one side of the mountain’s rock face to the other. Thus the “smile” imagery.
There’s a lot of ambiguity in the third stanza. The greatest ambiguity is in the phrase “unforgiving treachery.” Traversing the steep face of a mountain — even on a ledge like the Phantom Terrace — is treacherous. One slip and the fall could be fatal. It’s treacherous terrain. That is an unforgiving treachery. So, in one sense, it refers to the real danger of a real place.
“Unforgiving treachery” could also refer to what we experience interacting with fellow sinners. I was especially low when I wrote this. I was thinking about how little I can rely on some people some of the time.
“Unforgiving treachery” is also a backwards way of referring to how I can be unforgiving, and how treacherous that unforgiving attitude can be.
Regardless of what “unforgiving treachery” refers to, it is dangerous. But when I think of things and people for which I’m grateful… there is safety in that emotion. Today, I was grousing to my wife about the many disappointments I had experienced in the last 48 hours. She was patient. She let me grouse. But all that grousing was unproductive. In the midst of my complaints I did remember a fellow who this very morning demonstrated thoughtfulness, patience, kindness, reliability: Joe. What an uplifting thing to think of that brother’s attitudes and actions! Being grateful for him is definitely NOT a treacherous emotion. It gives me hope. It gives me incentive to persevere, to myself become more thoughtful, more patient, more kind… even more reliable. In short, gratitude is an emotion that safely takes me from this place of anger and disappointment to the place I long for: the fulfillment of Jesus’ intentions for us in Eternity. Gratitude is a long Phantom Terrace. Thank God it’s there!
NOTE: I did not take the background photo, but “borrowed” it from a website. If/when I publish this in a book, I’ll need to get permission to use it. Or maybe I’ll just drive up to Colorado and take my own photo of the Phantom Terrace.
Let me try to recap this in one sentence: Instrospection and merely thinking about doing right don’t bring about the purpose for which God created us.
“Lifeless Field” and “baser part”
Prisoners on death row are sometimes spoken of as “dead men walking.” They’re still alive, but they’re headed for death. Because of our belief in Resurrection of the body and of “progressive sanctification,” we Christians could refer to ourselves as “resurrected men walking.” Jesus isn’t through removing deadwood, cultivating the otherwise sterile soil of our hearts just yet. For now, we’re still partly dead, but we’re headed for thorough life, especially when we experience the Resurrection that Jesus experienced after His crucifixion.
Counseling
These days, I’m working with a counselor to help me understand why I have been an irritable man most of my adult life. The work I’m doing now could be compared to using a spade to turn over the dead parts of my life: my disordered affections and stupid coping mechanisms. The aim is to replace irritability with joy and equanimity.
But if I were of the opinion that merely THINKING about what needs to change, or “getting my head on straight” would effect the desired change (“the fruit”), I’d be mistaken. Only God can breathe life into dust and bring it to life.
My counselor has twice suggested something that would really turn away a person who doesn’t believe in God’s active work in our lives. He has said that God seems to have arranged human relationships in such a way that all our attempts at peace and reconciliation lead us to the realization that OUR ATTEMPTS won’t work. We need God. We need the Holy Spirit. We need His intervention and His life-giving work in our lives. At least that’s how I’m understanding the counselor at this point. In one sense, I’m paying the counselor to help me understand that counseling alone is worthless.
“Fig tree leaf so very large”
I’m an elder in my church. It’s a position of esteem and responsibility. It suggests that I am spiritually mature. If I were compared to a tree, one might say that I SEEM to be healthy. But appearance isn’t everything. Who am I really blessing? Who do I comfort? Who do I inspire? Who do I correct? What do people learn about Jesus by looking at my behavior? Just yesterday, I asked one of our deacons to pray for me: “Pray that I’ll actually spend time with people.” No amount of merely thinking right and diligence in administrative work will achieve what God intends for me to achieve: the fruit of being/looking more like Jesus and helping others to do the same.
And then, of course, there’s my family… my wife and boys. Am I blessing them? Or do the dead parts of me — my baser parts — just bring misery to them? Thankfully, they’re walking together with me in this journey.
(background image by Schwoaze on Pixabay)
