(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
One of the things I value about social media is that it has put me in touch with kindred spirits in far-flung places. I had a couple of them in mind as I wrote this poem. Both of them are ex-pastors who are rethinking aspects of Christianity–as am I. We don’t know each other personally and we seem to have different parameters for our respective examinations of faith. But we do share faith in a Savior who guarantees eternity and the expectation of satisfying friendships forever.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
When you’re not an Anglican, but serving them in the soundbooth, and the priest comes up and says, “Just let the slides go black; come down and let me wash your feet.” Maybe next time I’ll be less duty-bound, and accept. It would have been a blessing, all around.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
I was inspired to write this by a Facebook friend’s comment on my rambling, “thinking-out-loud” post about Acts 13:46, Romans, and how saving faith must surely be a faith that is thankful for eternal life. I’m telling you, the post was as rambling as that last sentence. But the Facebook friend bent her mind to my rambling and said, “Brad, I see what you’re doing here….” She went on to offer some tight restatements.
I sometimes think that God has given me exceptional eyes for beauty, and wants me to develop exceptional means to describe that beauty. Poetry and photography have been my go-to in fulfilling God’s purpose for me. But I recognize that my thinking is muddy. I don’t remember things. My vision of beauty is blurry. I need friends who can help me develop my descriptions of the beauty I see.
As I wrote this poem, I thought of two local friends, in addition to the Facebook friend. I texted them about how thankful I am for their collaboration. And I wrote the following to accompany the poem on Facebook:
I’m not sure there’s anything more beautiful than one person bending his or her mind to think WITH another person. The product may be all wrong, but the process is all right!
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Last Sunday evening, Susan and I had supper with two friends we both had known since back when we were all singles (the 1980s). I was best man in the husband’s wedding, and he was best man in mine. Over the years, he and I have climbed dozens of mountains together. For that and other reasons, my friend has gone from best man to even better man. Once, I was more mature than him. I’m pretty sure that has flipped… and I couldn’t be more happy!
(background image by Ricardo Dominguez on Pixabay)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
I feel self-centered in the tears I shed at hearing of my friend’s death. I’m sad for his wife and children. But mainly, I’m sad for myself. Marco Ciavolino was one of my greatest, most faithful encouragers for over three decades. He knew how to point out my strengths, and downplay my weaknesses.
Back in seminary, Marco was recognized by students and professors as “Mr. Creativity.” I naturally attached myself to him, and spent many a long night working with him on his creative projects. While I was the beneficiary, he would never fail to recall our collaboration as though my self-interest were some kind of faithfulness.
Over the years, I could count on him calling me within minutes of my emailing or texting him with a question. From what I hear, that’s how he was with everyone (see Marco’s obituary).
So yeah…. I’m sad at my loss.
God, make me more like him.
ALSO THIS… Today, I was thinking of a crazy invention. There’s nobody who celebrated my crazy inventions quite like Marco. I WANT Eternity. I must have Eternity. Only in Eternity does Marco laugh approvingly. Only in Eternity does Jesus celebrate His little brother.
AND THIS: SURPRISED BY PIZZA (One of my many good Marco memories) Being stupid and forgetful has its charms. For instance, there was that Saturday afternoon many years ago….
I was working in my home office when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door, and there was the Domino’s guy, already removing a large pizza from his insulated delivery bag.
“Brad Hepp?” “That’s me.” “Here’s your pizza.” “I didn’t order pizza.” “Well, somebody ordered it for Brad Hepp and they already paid.” “Okay. Thanks!”
I set the pizza on the kitchen counter, wondering how this could have happened. Did I dare take a bite? What if someone was trying to poison me?
That’s when I remembered a phone call I’d had just 30 minutes before with my buddy Marco, who lives up in Maryland. Like me, he is a webmaster. He was calling to share the great news that he had just sold a domain name for $10,000.
“Wow!” I told Marco. “Congratulations!” Then I mindlessly added, “Pizza for everyone!”
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
LUNCHTIME POETRY A coworker asked me how I spend my spare time. My answer felt weird and lonely.
Thinking about this some more…. Actually, I DO have friends who enjoy things I enjoy (e.g., hiking, making music, photography), but I have failed to schedule doing these things WITH friends most of my adult life (especially after my 20s). I understand this is a common weakness of men. A counselor told me that men my age generally have very few close friends (he was surprised at the number I DO have). Plenty of acquaintances, sure, but they might as well be strangers. I had that in mind in the second stanza: we are sometimes strangers with those who could be friends, or are friends… close friends.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
FIRST, MY STATE OF MIND IN WRITING THIS POEM Occasionally, I lie awake for hours, struggling with the consequences of being an obvious sinner. Then, the sun rises and I must go forth, in hope that the Spirit will channel this expressive energy God gave me.
The sins of some people are obvious, going before them into judgment, but for others, they show up later. Similarly good works are also obvious, and the ones that are not cannot remain hidden.
1 Timothy 5:24-25 NET
NOW THE EXCELLENT FEEDBACK OF TWO WISE FRIENDS First, from Jim Powell: “You probably already know this, but Tony Campolo famously began one of his sermons by saying: ‘I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.'”
Jim added, “For the record, I do not use profanity, though I occasionally will quote it if there is a reason to do so. I probably wouldn’t even use it the way that Tony Campolo did, however, he is right about his priorities. While we sleep tonight, thousands of children will die of hunger, malnutrition, and curable diseases. And we don’t get as energized about doing something about it, because we don’t see any angle in which we would be fighting against sin. In fact, too many Christians would turn away those very children if they showed up at our southern border. Because right-wing news media have convinced many that they are a grave threat to our national security.”
Then, this from David Lewis: “I read in a (now out-of-print) book a line about a woman who was poisoning her husband little-by-little. She distilled the poison out of sweet words, loving words, gentle words, all of them withheld.”
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Less than two months into my new job at the library, and I’ll be getting a new manager. I wrote this poem for Jennifer’s going-away party (I also sent it to the Dallas Public Library Director and to the relevant District Manager). Back when I was hired, I had marveled with a friend that Jennifer has a background that’s ideal for the areas in which I want to grow. I think the two months DID set me on a good course. We’ll see what a new manager brings into the mix….
February 2024 update: We did get a new manager a couple of months later, and he has been SUPERB!
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
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)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
I woke up thinking, “It’s Saturday again. Already. Time is fleeting.” Then, I thought about other things that are sometimes fleeting, but should not be. Love and friendship make the passage of time tolerable. Their loss make its pain more intense.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Seriousness, kindness, and criticism. These are currents I negotiate in my daily swim. Always swim with a buddy.
Here’s how I explained this poem to an old friend: “Who you’re becoming matters for all eternity, so I will spend time and effort on our friendship now.” That’s the perspective I want to fully embrace.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)
Commentary
I am woefully behind in posting poetry to this blog. I wanted to go ahead and post this one while the emotion underlying it is still fresh.
My morning routine these days includes reading through the New Testament in Greek. It’s a slow process because I’m frankly not very good at it. But that has its benefits. Mainly, I’m slowed down by the process, and my mind has more time to mull over what’s being said. Luke has occasioned a lot of mulling. His Greek has struck me as more refined and elevated than what I encountered in Matthew and Mark. Even when I can’t pin down the reasons for his careful word choice, I can see that he’s doing SOMETHING interesting, generally to develop a theme.
When I write about my routine, I refer to it as “my crawl through Luke.” It’s slow, and it often feels like I’m a baby in my understanding. At least I won’t run out of things to explore in this lifetime!
My crawl through Luke brings me to the end of chapter 18 and the beginning of chapter 19. Luke is doing SOMETHING with this juxtaposition of two stories. One happens outside Jericho, and the other happens inside Jericho. Both involve men who cannot see. I have tried to imagine what it might have been like for those two men to become friends. In this poem, Zacchaeus is talking with the unnamed blind beggar….
This poem is a companion to one I wrote almost a month ago. It arises from a growing recognition of what it means to continue serving in a ministry when a close partner in ministry has left. What’s true in this case is probably true whereverclose friends work together on something difficult and then one of them leaves. Picture soldiers in war, or parents in the child-rearing years. Even triumphs that follow that separation can feel hollow.
TWO INTERPRETATIONS From the introductory paragraph, and from the way that I recorded the poem, it should be clear that “as if” introduces a comparison to a death that has not actually occured. It just feels like death. Going separate ways feels especially like death when the friendship is deeply valued. I’d guess most of us experience only a handful of such friendships in our lifetimes.
But the simile gains its power from something we all experience: the loss of friends and families through actual death. So, if it helps you draw out an emotion, read the poem in that second way. Turn it on its head. Let the “as if” introduce a comparison of actual death to abandonment. When a loved one dies, do they leave us alone? It’s as if they do! They’re gone for now. We need to acknowledge that emotion, to be honest about it, even if we live in hope of the Resurrection. One comfort of that hope is this: if stories of what we experience while separated by death are worth remembering and relating, I imagine we’ll be able to share those stories hundreds — or billions — of years from now.
AN EXAMPLE OF THE SECOND INTERPRETATION Over the last two years, I have grown in the direction of kindness, something I pray for almost daily. God is using current events to soften my unkind heart. I have come to care for things that I didn’t care for in years past, and to not care for things that I cared for too much in years past. In this process, I often wonder how my father would have responded to the same current events. Would he have grown bitter, as I see some growing? He was making progress — looking more like Jesus — right up to his death in late 2016. Had he still been living, would we have seen together what I now see alone? I imagine so. But because he and I share another Friend, and because that Friend secures our eternal life, we may some day look back together on what we now see apart. Oh, the stories that — reunited — we’ll share!
This, like another poem I wrote on this day, is just silly. My friend Kelly Stern posted a picture of a slug on her Facebook page, and my imagination went immediately to “work.” Just chalk it up to the brain making new connections….
About four miles into my hike, I called one of the ladies in our church. I rely on her for advice. “Do you have time to talk?” “Yes,” she answered. For the next two miles, we talked about hospitality. By the time I reached my half-way point, we had thought through several options for how our church can practice hospitality in this lingering pandemic. We wrapped up the conversation. “Thanks,” I said, hung up the call, and began retracing my steps to home.
As I walked, I reflected on how hospitable my friend had been to me in our conversation abouthospitality. “Here, where the weeds give way to a mowed meadow… it’s one of several places in the path where she suddenly grew silent, yielding to my impetuous mind.” There, where rainwater recently rushed through the grass, “I was babbling, while she listened politely.” Up the white rock path a ways, I remembered what solid footing I felt when we shared a memory of Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow. There, where petrified wood sticks out of the limestone… “That’s where I was stepping when she recalled how Count Rostov arranged the seating at dinner parties, thus insuring a perfect evening for everyone.”
These weeds, that grass, this petrified wood in a limestone path…. Insignificant, except when they mark moments in a good conversation, an outcropping of hospitality.
As I catch up with posting my poems on this blog, here’s one that I am especially eager to get “out there.” It was written on the day that my dear friend announced that he was resigning as our senior pastor. I had known for a couple of days that this was coming. I knew it was going to be painful. I knew that my friend would have other duties on that Sunday. It was Mother’s Day. This day was not all about him. In his typical humble fashion, he carried off his duties for the morning with graciousness. Then, at the end of the service, after he had concluded by announcing his resignation, I and the other elders stood with him and his wife on the stage and prayed for them. The tears came at last — I was close enough to see. And since I know what lead up to this resignation, it was especially painful for me. Here and there, my friend made strategic errors as a senior pastor. WHO DOESN’T?! But any such errors were dwarfed by his faithfulness to God, by all he had put in motion to make our church a place where shepherding and spiritual growth really happen. Let’s just say that two years of extremely painful personal circumstances were exacerbated by the pandemic and a handful of implacable opponents who made my friend their lightning rod.
My pastor’s benediction that day was the old Anglican “Go into the world in peace….” That afternoon, I took a long walk. This poem came to mind as I walked. Here’s how I introduced it on Facebook:
This poem was the fruit of a tearful Sunday walk. It refers to real friends and real expectations. We live now in a long, painful beginning. Someday, that beginning will have reached its end, in terms of time and purpose. For now, “Go into the world in peace; have courage; hold on to what is good.”
Hope Do you see the hope? It’s real. There’s something about selflessness that reminds me: Jesus triumphed over the grave. When a brother acts like Jesus, I’m reminded of what Jesus’ actions have put in motion. “Have courage. Hold on to what is good.”
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.
MEA DUFUS CULPA I know a man who goes away from some conversations having said too much and listened too little. If you know me, you know him too . [publishing this at a time when our nation is paying for people being too proud to listen]
I read that a writer comes alive by telling dead men’s tales. Here’s one such tale, though it’s not the *men* who died. This little poem was a lament. A dear friend had tried to persuade someone that his even-handedness in politics is NOT a retreat from righteousness. But the opponent was trapped in his or her allegiance to one end of the political spectrum.
December 20, 2021 Update: This problem has only grown worse over the last 17 months. I’m now reluctant to talk openly with people I once considered eminently reasonable. I fear being disappointed, and I fear opening the door to enmity where no enmity existed before. Now, more than ever, I live with this refrain: “Anything I say can and will be used against me.” I have a Christ-like friend who had to get off social media because there is someone out there — supposedly a Christian — literally building a case against him, misinterpreting anything he says, casting it in the worst possible light, and cataloging the supposed sins. Call that someone The Accuser.
I dedicated this little poem to my friends of color, by whose grace, wisdom, and other beauties I hope to better appreciate our Heavenly Father. It’s a slow process. Foolishness is bound up in this heart of mine.
The background image is a stylized photo that I took from my office window. There are times of day when several birds come to my garden. I haven’t figured out why the various species pick the same time, but they do. Almost always, the titmouse and chickadee couples come at the same time. And when they come, they are often joined by a cardinal couple. Is there a certain light or temperature that is just right? I don’t know. Thus the question: “What is that secret chime?”
I titled this “Nearer, My God, to Thee” because the pleasure that I take in the variety of birds who congregate in my little garden must be akin to the pleasure God takes when people of every nation peacefully enjoy the world he created.
That life should get progressively better, and satisfactory here and now is illusory. We are exiles, who learn our condition slowly, if at all.
This week, I got to do the scripture reading for our church’s virtual worship service. The passage was 1 Peter 1:1-2. That’s a short passage, easy to read. But when my pastor indicated that he liked the idea of a personal introduction, I had an extremely hard time recording it. Thinking about what it means to be an exile, and the hope we have — given God’s kind plans for us — I was overwhelmed with a mixture of sadness, hope, and thankfulness. I’d get to “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” and stop the recording, because I just couldn’t go on. By the way, the background image above is a frame from the reading when I finally got hold of my emotions.
Thinking of my birth city in another land brought back memories last night, and I had to work them out in a poem this morning.
This was prompted by a handful of memorable experiences, mainly when I was blabbering, and my listener was not.
[March 31, 2021 Update] Recently, I have had many occasions to revisit this pleasant reflection. I have several friends who are considerably smarter and wiser than me. That’s not surprising. What IS surprising — and endearing — is the courtesy these friends extend me in conversation. When we’re talking, they don’t interrupt me, or they quickly apologize if they do. They sit there and LISTEN as I “think out loud” and then they have the patience to let time heal the wounds in my thinking. Such people, I can’t help but love and admire. God make me more like them!
[September 16, 2023 Update] I often come away from conversations with my best friends amazed at their courtesy. They’re my best friends largely because they are smarter and wiser than me. I VALUE what they have to say. But because they are courteous, they generally listen without interrupting. These friends are the very people I wish would interrupt, but they don’t.
Yesterday, I had an encounter of a very different sort. I introduced myself to a patron at the library. We began what I thought was going to be chit-chat. But it turned into very little chit and a whole lotta chat. She had much to say. Every time I opened my mouth to comment, she’d say “Hold on!” and keep holding forth. After two or three such “zip-its” I literally put my finger on my lips so I wouldn’t be tempted to turn her diatribe into a conversation.
Since I didn’t really have anything I felt compelled to say, the whole thing amused me. I served her by listening… on her terms for sure.
Incidentally, the poem in this post was inspired by a conversation with my friend Sten-Erik Armitage. He was my pastor at the time. He’s still a friend to whom I sometimes send raw poems, when I fear posting them to the general public. Such a friend is priceless!
This scene, and the words I attached to it, is extremely moving to me. I guess that by my age, there is a lifetime of grief that will not go away in the short term. As a friend wrote, there are “So many missing springs.” Indeed. I can never see the daffodils, wild violets, and other spring flowers without thinking of my Mom. Ever since 2006, they have bloomed without her.
The scene is what I saw when I crossed the bridge where Rush Creek enters White Rock Lake. A few weeks before, I had taken the following photo, which I then captioned “Grow Old Along With Me” (an allusion to Dad’s favorite poem, Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning:
I’ll be hard-pressed to fully explain this one, but let me try by recounting the occasion:
I had been praying for a friend’s father for about a year. He was a brilliant man whose mind and health were failing. My repeated prayer was that God would give him enough clarity of mind and grace to respond in faith to the Savior — if he had not already done so (my friend wasn’t sure). He was on my list of “People I Want to See in Heaven!” God knew all about it.
On Saturday morning, after months in hospice, the father passed away a little before noon. My wife and I heard the sad news shortly after.
A couple of hours later, I was taking my afternoon nap. To help me sleep, I placed a piece of dark, heavy clothing over my face. As I lay there in that artificial darkness, it was as though the sun had gone down. I thought of my friend, and I began to sob. Some of this was fresh grief for my friend. Some was the mounting grief of a lifetime of deaths. I’ve been here before — three years ago, when my own father died.
I thought of how convenient it was that I could press the artificial darkness to my face and express my feelings without alarming my family. How I’d like to stay there, not remove the darkening cloth — now wet — from my face. But this day had many more hours to go.
Yet to Explore
How does the sun relate to the father? How does that sun both create and respond to the reality of “newborn day”? I have been thinking lately about Romans 8, where creation is depicted as groaning as it awaits freedom from corruption at the “the revealing of the sons of God.” That figures in to my inchoate thoughts. Here’s one of those embarrassing things about poetry: I don’t yet know the meaning of my own words, but firmly believe there IS meaning.
When I posted this on Facebook and Instagram last night, I wrote, “I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow and realize this was nothing more than fluff!” That sounds like I didn’t know what I meant by the words, right?
Increasingly, I find myself able to write poetry and prose in an honest way, where the words express my actual thoughts and feelings, not some bogus sentiment that I concoct to suit a clever turn of phrase. Did you ever suspect that of poetry? Welcome to the skeptics club! How about this one?
Earlier in the day, yesterday, I thought of dryer lint and fluff in a metaphoric sense while writing a cover note to a silly little poem (one which I will not quote for the general public!):
Here’s a bit of doggerel that I cannot share with anyone else. It’s fluff that comes out of the deep appreciation I have for how God has caused our paths to cross.
Cover note for “Heaven is a Haven”
So I thought, “Can I push that metaphor?” What could represent deep appreciation or deep affection and related fluff? A coat of many colors thrown into a clothes dryer might do it!
The part about “when my color’s grey?” That MAY have a deeper referent than I can yet identify and articulate. Sometimes poetry does come out of the subconscience. There’s a fine line between that justification and saying that it’s just a concocted sentiment. Time will tell which this is. Hang on to your skeptic’s hat.
I wrote this after talking briefly with a friend who was struggling. It seemed to me that the friend needed nothing so much as a brother to share his burden — a brother who is willing to suffer alongside, to let the smoke blow in his own face. No lectures. No correction. Silent compassion can speak louder than words. At least that’s what I’m told.
Why “Job’s One Good Friend”? The biblical character Job had friends who sat with him for a while in silence. They had come together “to show him sympathy and comfort him.” But then they opened their mouths, and it wasn’t helpful. It seems that the one who came closest to being a true friend kept his mouth closed the longest.
And why a campfire? If you’ve ever sat around a campfire in the mountains, you know that as the wind direction shifts, the smoke sometimes blows in your face. Some guys feel that they are the target, no matter where they sit! I picture Job and his friends sitting around such a campfire, perhaps one that burned down to embers and then to ashes. “And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.”
Yesterday, I attended a birthday party for Youssef Sleiman. All who attended were given the opportunity to read something they had written, or to extemporize about how God has uniquely crafted this man to bring Himself glory. It was something like a memorial service, where the eulogies went on for over two hours. But in this case, the eulogee — the dearly not departed — was sitting there right beside us laughing and occasionally weeping.
I wrote a poem for the occasion, and was happy to see that much of what I wrote matched the reflections of people who have known Youssef far longer than I:
Background image stolen from Lynné Sleiman’s Facebook feed, where it was titled “Meta.”
We know these people. Sometimes we are these people.
I like this little piece, and I must laugh because as is sometimes the case, I seem to be one of the few people who likes it! Why do I laugh? Here is something I’ll have to explore: when I write something that gets good response, there’s a sense in which it belongs to the readers; when it’s something that does not get a good response, even though I like it, it remains my “private stash.” As I said more than once to my sons in their youth: “Oh, you don’t like it? Good. There’s more for me!”
I won’t embarrass the young people I wrote this for by telling you their names. Suffice it to say that it is a young man and his girlfriend. They got to know each other at a time when both were dealing with anxiety. Their kindness to one another was soothing, leading in time to genuine love (affection coupled with determined efforts to seek the good of the loved one). Buoyed by countless long conversations, they have each grown stronger, assured of the love and support that overcomes anxiety.
But life continues to be hard. Pressures abound. Schoolwork is taxing. Other responsibilities pile on with each year of young life. What this poem advocates is that my young friends face those pressures, spend the time and mental/emotional energy that is demanded of them now without resorting to the comfort they have come to know in each other’s presence (physical and virtual, thanks to the Internet). In devoting time to their duties, they are not denying the affection they have for one another, but investing in themselves, investing in the valuable person they are, the valuable person loved by the other.
In a storm, darkness and curtains of rain may limit how far we see, but hearing our friend calling out encouragement is a powerful aid. I like to imagine some code phrase like, “Together through the storm!” Literally. I like to imagine a literal phrase that conveys love in other “mere” words… think of “As you wish” in The Princess Bride. With encouragement like that, the storm loses it’s power. It may separate for a time, but it cannot ultimately separate those whose love for one another was forged by its menace, those who learned there is something more powerful than a storm.
. [publishing this at a time when our nation is paying for people being too proud to listen]
