(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
CONFESSION This last week has been unnecessarily tough for evangelical Christians. Some were deeply offended by the world.* Others were dismayed** that the first group took offense. I’m solidly in the latter camp. But I’m NOT PROUD of an unloving, disdainful edge in my own response. I must answer for my own response, not for others’.
(background image by Alberto Adán on Pixabay)
*For future reference, this was about the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
**There are good reasons for the dismay, but that’s not my point here.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Do you ever feel like, “God isn’t pleased with me and never will be”? I suspect that is a thought that hangs over many of us, even those who are saved through faith in Jesus Christ. Well, every now and then, I just feel like saying “Go jump in a lake” to the accuser. In plain language, I suspect that in Heaven, God will express far more pleasure with us than Satan would have us anticipate.
There are two odd, but purposeful wording choices in this poem: 1) “be proven to have been” That could easily have been “prove to have been,” which would be far easier to read! But I wanted to steer clear of any mistaken notion that the “wine” will do the proving. It’s God who will prove anything. I can imagine Him saying “Here, look at this,” or “Here taste this,” or “Consider how this servant demonstrated my goodness.”
2) “favored year” was originally “favorite year.” But then I realized that was too exclusive, which was the opposite of my intent! More than one year can be favored. When God’s the one favoring, all the years can be favored. And again, “favored” suggests the year receives God’s grace and provision, not that it earns his approval. From my reading of Scripture, “favored” is closer to reality than “favorite.”
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
This is a poem in search of a theodicy. It asks, “How is God good if only a small percentage of the men and women he created are to be saved from destruction?”
Let me put that more personally… This poem is an actual prayer. I want God, the Potter, to answer. I trust his goodness, but I wish for him to verify that his goodness is displayed even in pots being made for destruction.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
By the end of his long life as a theologian, my father had concluded–like John Stott–that the Bible teaches what’s called “conditional immortality.” The comforting implication of conditional immortality is that men and women who do not accept God’s offer of salvation may suffer briefly at the Resurrection, but will not suffer for all Eternity. If you ask me, I’ll point you to his paper on the subject. I know how committed Dad was to the authority of Scripture, and to being intellectually honest. His paper on the subject is worth considering.
What Dad could not arrive at is Universalism–the eventual salvation of ALL people. That’s a position I and more than one of my best friends wish we could honestly arrive at. It’s what one of my main heroes in the faith, George MacDonald espoused.
This poem is an actual prayer. I have learned that poems in the form of prayer are read by God, if by nobody else. He knows how I struggle with this doctrine!
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
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.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
When, as former students we realize how much we were missing sleep… When our addictions abate… When we learn it was a now-defeated power that held us captive… Then we celebrate.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
I finished my crawl through Luke, and have begun my crawl through John. So far, the Greek seems easier, but John is every bit as much an allusionist as Luke.
John’s account of how Jesus called Nathanael to be one of his followers seems to be FULL of allusions. I doubt we can be definitive about what was going on in Jesus’ exchange with Nathanael. It does seem clear to me, though, that Jesus is alluding to Jacob/Israel in what he says to Nathanael. What was the condition of Nathanael’s heart? Why was he dismissive of goodness? How was he like Jacob, and how was the prospect of his own “Jacob’s ladder” a meaningful promise?
In this poem, I apply what I hope is sanctified imagination to the story. I realize that some of it is ambiguous. Let me clarify what I had in mind…. Nathanael seemed surprised that Jesus had seen him under the fig tree. I’m guessing he thought his being under the fig tree was completely private. But there’s more. Jesus welcomed Nathanael as “a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Why “deceit?” And why, “a true Israelite?” Because of what Jesus says later about Nathanael seeing “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man,” I’m guessing that Jesus was comparing Nathanael to Jacob, who is often called “Jacob the Deceiver,” but was also called Israel. Here’s the premise of the poem: Nathanael had been under a fig tree reflecting on how he, like Jacob was a deceiver. He wondered — and doubted — how God could be merciful with him. Jesus knew all that, and showed him otherwise.
Another Possibility About Nathanael Nathanael has always fascinated me. When Jesus said of Nathanael, “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” was he being facetious? That’s the possibility I am currently exploring. I used to think that Jesus probably meant something like, “that Nathanael speaks his mind!” Such a guileless man appeals to me. Regardless, truthfulness was probably an important issue to Nathanael. I speculate that duplicity–whether his own, or what he experienced from others–was oppressive to him. In this poem, I also speculate that he doubted the availability of mercy. But the God who sees and knows each of us intimately sought him out. That’s amazing grace!
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)background image by Hans Braxmeier on Pixabay
Commentary
I lament that so many people (am I one of them?) are in constant “FIGHT!” mode. God bless those who demonstrate a better way: charitable peacemakers who understand that some things matter for eternity, and some things don’t.
The last line is unintentionally ambiguous. What I meant to ask was “Do you wish to beat people in arguments or to rescue them from peril?” When you say “Gotcha,” is it as a self-centered enemy, or as a God-honoring neighbor?
If it’s not obvious already, this is a re-framing of Jesus’ Good Samaritan parable.
I sat on this poem wondering how I’d explain the weak understanding that it reveals. Then a friend messaged me out of the blue to thank me for being open and vulnerable. So here you go!
Understood, But Just Barely Having been a Christian from my youth, having studied theology, etc., etc., I “know” many things about Christianity. But it seems that the longer I live, the more I realize that I barely understand some of its concepts.
I talked about this with a friend, who teaches theology at the seminary level…. I confessed to him that every time I hit Hebrews 5, I flinch. This passage immediately follows the discussion of Melchizedek:
11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:11-14
“Elementary” Truths My friend, the theologian, pointed out that there’s infinite depth to the most simple concepts of Christianity. Admitting that I don’t understand something fully, is actually laughable. Who does?
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.
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.
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.
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).
I saw this cedar growing in the crotch of a liveoak in front of Lakepointe Church. The poem is not about that church. But it does issue from thinking about churches. Every time a new church is planted, there are certain goals that the church planters are trying to achieve. While they may state a fine-sounding church “mission,” there is sometimes what Robert Schnase refers to as a “shadow mission,” the REAL mission of the church. If that shadow mission is some piece of idolatry like “having a form of worship that is comfortable to us,” the church may initially attract a lot of like-minded idolaters. Thus, it may grow rapidly. But such a mission can only carry the church so far; it contains the seed of its own eventual failure. A dedication to comfort rules out the willingness to change when change becomes necessary. There are probably as many “shadow missions” as there are sinners. I have just described one I see in myself.
As I was thinking about that, I remembered the photo above. Then I knew that the baby cedar may seem attractive in its current location, but it’s doomed to failure. The “shadow mission” of having “altitude” is no use to a cedar. As any cedar-burning Texas rancher will tell you, what cedars do exceptionally well is not to grow tall, but to send roots deep down into hard ground and draw up water for themselves, water that the ranchers need for other purposes! And so, they chop them down, and burn them.
MORE BROADLY, BECAUSE GOD IS MERCIFUL It isn’t sad when cedars miss their purpose in life. But how about us? What if we are wasting our strength on things that won’t last? Who will save us from such a bad investment? The poem concludes by pointing to the mercy of humbling, of being brought low. This seems to be what James had in mind in his powerful letter:
9Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.
James 1:9-10 (ESV)
[September 4, 2021 Update]: Here’s a picture I took 9 months later, when folly gave birth to death:
I wrote this little poem partly as a sermon to myself. Here’s how I prefaced it on Facebook:
SINCE WE’RE SCROLLING… I don’t want to waste this short lifetime, do you? And yet, I devote hours to things that won’t matter in eternity. Meanwhile, there are incredible riches — within reach — that I leave untouched, unexplored.
THE RESULT? My very speech is impoverished.
you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 NIV https://1peter.bible/1-peter-2-5
If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4:11 NIV https://1peter.bible/1-peter-4-11
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. Colossians 3:16 NIV https://colossians.bible/colossians-3-16
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17 NIV https://colossians.bible/colossians-3-17
