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 am exploring the idea that man was created for God’s approval, and nothing short of that will satisfy.
Approval seems like a low bar… until you contemplate the alternative. Now imagine an eternal “Yes!” when all you’ve heard is “No.”
#glory #approval #esteem #maslow #hierarchy
(background image based on a painting by Martina Bulková on Pixabay)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
I posted this on social media without any commentary, and there was absolutely NO response. How appropriate! It’s a lament about the loneliness I sometimes feel as a poet. My efforts to find a poetry writers group have thus far failed. I was part of a superb writers group a few years ago. Back then, though, I didn’t have enough confidence to make use of their generous and keen criticism. And meeting with that group became overly inconvenient.
So now, I’m living out what my father experienced much of his life: writing for an audience that never responds.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
I wrote this poem as I was finally reading Anne Frank’s diary. This reading coincided with a time in my life when I was–am–very deliberately re-forming my theology. I am reading Scripture with the assumption that it is authoritative, but also with the assumption that everything I have grown up thinking may be wrong. I want desperately to understand how a God who loves people infinitely more than I do, and calls me to forgive… how this God will deal with feeble, fragile men and women in Eternity.
I have friends, beautifully kind and loving friends–oh, I wish you knew them–who are committed Calvinists. I know how hard they must work at honoring God as they understand Him. I have another friend, an elderly lady, who grew up in Bible churches. She recently sent me a letter stating her deep struggle with God’s wrath, and eternal punishment. So, I don’t write this poem lightly, or judgmentally.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
This morning, I was writing a preachy little piece about how many of us think of judges only in terms of punishment, and not in terms of protection. I was exploring what this may say about us.
Then I turned from cleverness to the mirror. If I don’t grieve for the oppressed, what does that make me?
You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
Psalms 18:27 (NIV)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
I cannot comment too much on this poem, except to say that it expresses a curious, abiding concern for someone I observe but don’t really know. I have no basis to intervene, but I’m free to pray. God knows what to do.
#prayer #vulnerable #godfather
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
We’re often happiest when we make others happy. Today, I will look for ways to affirm those who are planted nearby.
(background image by mollyroselee on Pixabay)
#perfectionism #withholding #affirmation #thirsty
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
It’s lunchtime as I write this, and I’ve reached chapter five of Fleming Rutledge’s “The Crucifixion.” She is pointing out the active nature of remembering. It’s more than simply recalling. Some of us live only in the space between our eyebrows and the tops of our heads. Our thoughts and actions are estranged. We think, but do not do. Fortunately for us, God isn’t like that. We may not appreciate or understand what He’s doing, but HE IS DOING.
By the way, of poems that I have written, this has come to be one of my favorites. The mindless mumbling of the poor man in the poem is much like my prayers, even the poems of prayer that I write. What I am coming to understand is that God takes my requests more seriously than I do. I expect to be reminded of this often in eternity.
#flemingrutledge #thecrucifixion #remembering #philippians1v6
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
I initially wrote this about the gift of poetic expression. But as soon as I had called that “joy,” I realized that what I was writing applies to all of us who have been gifted in some way by God. Each person can work out how his or her gift can be an expression of God’s loving intent.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
In some ways, this is the prayer of my life. Once, long ago, I told a teacher and friend, “There’s little I feel compelled to say.” With age, that is changing. Considering how much I have learned about the need for reformation in my life, it’s a good thing I was taciturn in my youth!
By the way, this is coming to be one of my favorite poems–in case anyone ever wonders….
(background image by WikiImages from Pixabay)
#taciturn #loquacious #folly #wisdom #youth #oldage
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
I have written about this before in various ways. Clearly, I haven’t resolved the tension.
(background image by Herbert Bieser on Pixabay)
#falseguilt #expectations #insufficiency #inadequacy #memory #hauntingmemories
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
John 11:5-6 ESV
This morning, my crawl through John got me to chapter eleven. If it has been a while since you read that chapter, I urge you to read it now. You’ll realize that Jesus was about 20 miles (a good day’s walk) from Lazarus, and his sisters. That raises the question: why did Jesus stay where he was after being told that Lazarus was sick? John’s word choice is curious. He writes, “So he stayed two days longer.” You or I might have written “But he stayed two days longer.”
What I’m beginning to explore in this poem is the relationship between Jesus’ love for Lazarus and his staying away when he was summoned by Lazarus’ sisters. The question is an old one: “How does a loving God let his creation suffer?”
You’ll see that most of my poem is pure speculation, call it sanctified imagination. What was Lazarus experiencing as he neared death? What was actually happening?
I think I know where part two will land:
On the shore of glory and love
(then we’ll understand)
I hope you don’t consider this vignette–and others like it–an exposition of a biblical passage. It’s my emotional and imaginative response to the story of Jesus healing a lame man who had languished by the Pool of Bethesda (John 5). It makes me almost as happy to think of a reader saying “No, you got this wrong” as it would for the reader to say, “Oh yeah, that’s it. You nailed it!” I mainly want my reader to enter the scene with me, look around, and take it in, even if that means that my observations and interpretations prove to be mistaken.
A Personal Reflection
You may notice that the background I chose for this vignette is a homeless camp somewhere. In growing up to be like Jesus, I often struggle with kindness and compassion. These qualities are tested by seeing beggars and homeless people. So, in considering whether or not I am growing in these qualities, I let my thoughts wander back across my life to earlier encounters. Here’s what I jotted down:
SUFFERING IS LARGELY HID FROM OUR EYES
I grew up in a city where the disabled had to get out in public, so they could beg. Although a six-year-old Bradley didn’t feel the compassion that I feel now, I can still recall some of the more heart-wrenching scenes, like the legless man who got around by propping himself up on a skateboard. As with most powerful memories, I also remember the place. He hung out near the city’s one big, modern grocery store. I suppose it’s because the store’s clientele were “rich” folk like my missionary parents. And a few of those rich folk—there, like here—had compassion.
(background image by José Manuel de Laá on Pixabay)
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
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).
THANKFUL FOR LEWIS (AND MACDONALD)
One of the things C.S. Lewis does particularly well is to put things in perspective. As I write this reflection, I cannot name a particular text, but if you’ve read Lewis or his hero, MacDonald, you know that’s where I’ve been.
(background image by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay)
A friend asked me if there should be a comma after time. Here’s what I told him:
The absence of a comma opens this up to at least three interpretations. I know this style’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Are you familiar with ee cummings’ “my father moved through dooms of love“? That poem brings me to tears whenever I read it.
The slight effort of getting past the absence of punctuation in cummings may add to its emotional impact. Speaking of tea…. Coffee is better than tea precisely for its body, that it slides down not so easily.
So, here are some pointers to meaning:
This poem is about judging others harshly, and the need to deal with my lack of grace.
“Miserly of grace”
I may be leaning on questionable grammar here. The point is that I am being miserly in my exercise of grace.
“That I should blame the flower”
This poem is about my attitude toward people, not toward flowers. But I draw on the analogy of judging flowers harshly. Ridiculous, huh? If I can see the folly of that, maybe I can extend the lesson to my harsh judgment of people.
A NOTE FOR THE CONTRARIAN:
You may ask, “Don’t people have more control over their own behavior than flowers do over how well they bloom?” Yes and no. Since we have a will, we can choose to make progress in the refinement of our behavior. But progress can be slow. We all have backgrounds that predispose us to failure in particular areas. For example, a person who was abused as a child may WANT to be more trusting of their friends and partners, but the channels of mistrust run deep. We ALL have deep-rooted emotional baggage. Some of it results in easily-recognized behavioral problems. Some of it results in masked arrogance (or is that the mask of arrogance?).
“Some are not as they SHALL be”
This line moves from the universal problem of a fallen creation (flowers and people) to a smaller set of people. Who are they? It refers to those who trust in Jesus Christ. They expect someday to be resurrected with a glorified body — and mind! — similar to what He has. Now, they are frustrated in their attempts to be better people. Then, their limitations will be lifted.
“Enough for now that one like me”
Here, I look in the mirror. If I insist on judging and demanding change, I should demand it of myself.
“Should blossom far less miserly”
Back to the flower metaphor…. If I’m going to judge how flowers — and people — bloom, I should make sure that I am blooming well, that I am being generous with grace.
