(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
You might think from the odd first line that I’m experiencing synesthesia. Who LISTENS to a painting? Who can HEAR the scene it depicts? Not me. And that’s just the point!
I long to be IN the scene, for tight-in frames to fall away from a panoramic view. To hear. To feel. To be out there. To be UP there! To waken sleeping sympathies.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
[This strange little poem is a flight of fancy. Any connection with a Greek goddess, a Norwegian singer, or a school in Cusco, Peru is accidental.]
Tonight, I was thinking about a photo I edited this morning. I had shot a Peace Lily flower and then boosted the saturation. Was it too much saturation? Am I overly enamored with jewel tones? Then I thought about places on earth where jewel tones are extravagantly displayed. I’ve seen them in the clothes of Quechua in the Peruvian Andes; I’ve seen pictures of the Aurora Borealis. How is one like the other? I began writing about the harsh settings, and the comfort brought to those settings by brilliant displays of color….
By the way, here’s the photo that launched me on this flight of fancy. As I was walking by one of the Peace Lilies at the library where I work, I thought I’d stoop down and look at one of the flowers from a lower vantage point. The heavy timber framework of the library’s high ceiling provided an interesting background. So I snapped a photo, and then did a little editing.
(poem’s background image by Yolanda Coervers on Pixabay)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
The idea behind this poem still needs a lot of work. In the meantime, maybe it will make sense to you and even resonate….
When I was young, I sometimes dreamed of being a mountaineering guide. And I had definite ideas about how kind and understanding a guide should be to the slowest and weakest of his clients.
Just now, I had a vision (not literal, but almost so) of myself as that slowest and weakest one on the trail. Is there comfort in my perception of the Good Guide?
The trail is real, and physical, and hard. But there is a reality just out of sight, a realm of rest and realization. It parallels the trail, but is permanent, and more real than the trail. The Good Guide will transfer me to that realm at the perfect time. Not too soon, and not too late.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
This evening, I texted what some might consider a disturbingly simple theological question to a trusted friend. He and I have talked about the good and necessary process of questioning a lifetime of assumptions. Sometimes, when you get old, you finally have the courage and wisdom to say, “WHY did I always make this assumption?” But then you realize there’s little time to come to new and settled conclusions. That’s why I wrote this poem. It doesn’t necessarily make sense. Actually, like the Preacher concluded, it doesn’t make sense at all apart from the prospect of eternal life.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
You can never go home again, though sometimes I try. Google Street View is an amazing way to travel the streets of places where I lived long ago. Sometimes it just produces sadness. Recently, I did a virtual “drive” around the summit of the cerro La Paz, in Puebla. When I lived there as a little boy, I could walk the quarter mile to the summit of the hill and look across the valley to the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Now it appears that wealthy people have built mansions that block the view from everyone but themselves.
ADDITION: One of my older brothers read the above poem and sent me the following photo from our family photo album. It is of me at about age three, being held by our maid, Lupe. The sky over Popocatepetl is ablaze with the kind of sunsets we often saw over the volcanoes. When you read that we had a maid, don’t get the wrong idea. By United States standards, and by the standard of most of the people who lived on our hill in Puebla, we were very poor (but only in financial terms!).
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
1 John 3:2 ESV
I apologize for this poem’s opacity. It expresses a growing recognition of the gap between my story-reading and God’s story-speaking. As I told a new friend yesterday, my questions increasingly outpace my conclusions. Hopefully, God is pleased with this.
(background photo: 6:59 am, Monday, September 19, 2016; ascending La Plata Peak)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Two things prompt this reflection.
First, I am thinking and praying about participating in an organization that promotes spiritual development through outdoor adventures. So I ask myself what part outdoor adventure has played in my own development? Did hiking and climbing mountains alone and with friends lay the groundwork for spiritual growth? If so, how?
Second, I was preparing some photos to help me tell the story of “The Road of No Return.” This was a mountain climbing trip with my great friend Darol. When I was 52, he and I revisited a mountain area where we had climbed 17 years earlier. In the intervening years, wisdom had traded places with strength. To put it another way, strength had migrated from my feet to my head! I have a vivid memory of seeing our car in the valley below, and of the seemingly interminable trek down the mountain road to reach that car. How could it hurt so much to reach something we could see with our own eyes?
Note: I’m not suggesting that the reflection in the image is one of profound understanding. It’s simply a recognition that places and experiences affect how we think about the world. They form a map in our brains… sometimes, a topo map.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”
John 11:8-10 ESV
Jesus had left Jerusalem, where religious leaders were trying to stone him. He and his disciples were on the other side of the Jordan River, enjoying a fruitful ministry. But it was time to return to Judea, and his dying friend Lazarus. There he would demonstrate his power and love.
The disciples objected, basically saying, “Protect yourself! They’re trying to kill you in Jerusalem.”
Jesus’ response was curious… at least to me. Instead of dealing with the immediate danger of being stoned to death, Jesus talked about walking in light, to avoid stumbling.
Stoning and stumbling…. Both involve stones. Maybe that’s the connection in Jesus’ curious response. Perhaps he was aware that a fearful avoidance of suffering—at the hands of those who wished to stone him—was itself a sneaky stumbling stone he and his disciples must avoid.
That’s the interpretation I probe with this poem.
Stones that fly And stones that lie... Either one can Take you down!
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
On my walk yesterday, listening through Exodus, I heard this fascinating snippet:
And they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.
Exodus 24:10-11
When I encounter passages like this one, I want to explore, to stop and study. Not necessarily to study in an academic way… more to gaze intently until my senses have taken in the scene, so that like Mary I may ponder in my heart. But there are voices—do I only imagine them?—who murmur “Move along, and stay behind the railing.”
The Poem’s Structure I woke up this morning and initially wrote the last five lines. As often happens with me, something subconscious was giving the poem physical structure by creating a pattern of line lengths. When I see that happening, I try to follow through. The poem was taking the form of a mountain, but it needed a summit. So I inserted the first seven lines.
Docents I have toured many a museum, and been thankful to many a docent for guiding me there. I mean no disrespect by picturing them in this poem as dripping clouds who live only to put out sparks of curiosity. What am I actually picturing? Dull, strangling systematic theology, at least as practiced by some.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5 NIV
It’s unsettling to look back on a lifetime of false confidence in man. I suspect most of us grow up thinking, “I’m one of the good guys. All that I possess was fairly earned, righteously taken.” But the more I learn about history, the more that fantasy is dispelled.
(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’m not going to say this is an easy poem. I wrote it, but am still trying to understand it! This may be a clue: I suspect that what my sister likes about the beach is what I like about the alpine trail: a vista — a perspective — that heightens or broadens our hope for godliness.
Here’s another way of expressing the longing:
Won’t it be fine When refining’s done, When what we love And what He loves At last are one!
–Brad Hepp, 3/6/2022
Reality This may be a simplistic view of religious hermits…. They live out the wish expressed in this poem. Removed from the irritations and challenges of society, they may think that they are being holy. But they are just living a fantasy. It is in dealing with irritations and challenges that God refines us and in our response that we are privileged to bring Him glory.
Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth’s smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence,—a paradox Which comforts while it mocks,— Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.
from Robert Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” The first stanza was my Dad’s favorite; the second is my favorite
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)].
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.
This is my second silly poem in one day. When I was young, that’s the only kind of poem I wrote.
The inspiration was watching one of the beautiful nature documentaries that David Attenborough put together. While I have never seen Zebras in the wild, I HAVE seen — or barelyseen — ptarmigans on mountain climbs in the Rockies. It’s amazing how close you can get to these birds before you recognize that they are birds, and not just rocks!
This poem comes out of struggling with what constitutes love for the Creator. Is it only fixation on signs of his return? Will we even recognize his voice then if we cannot recognize it now?
[NOTE: the following may be gobbledygook. Perhaps I’ll wake up early tomorrow morning and do major edits to the post, or even take it offline. That occasionally happens. Let’s just say for now that I’m “thinking out loud.” I’m trying to put words to something I sense more than understand]
Not Just an Expression
Nature expresses the majesty of the Creator. King David spoke of that in Psalm 19:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky displays his handiwork. 2 Day after day it speaks out; night after night it reveals his greatness. 3 There is no actual speech or word, nor is its voice literally heard. 4 Yet its voice echoes throughout the earth; its words carry to the distant horizon.
Creation and the Creator are not the same thing. That would be pantheism. HOWEVER, let me suggest that creation bears the same relationship to God as the soundwaves of speech bear to the speaker: they are his expression. When a child hears her father say, “I love you,” she doesn’t look around and say, “How curious… sound waves emanated from somewhere and landed in my ears.” If she separates the sound waves from the speaker at all, it’s only to say, “Those sound waves tell me that Daddy loves me.”
Nature expresses the majesty of our loving Father. Perhaps it would be better to say that in creating the universe, our Father spoke to us, He expressed his glory (intelligence, kindness, power, beauty, love), and creation is the “sound waves” of His voice.
Are we impressed by what He has expressed? That’s not an idle question.
“They’re Just Flowers”
Long ago and far away, I accompanied two friends on a long hike. Our path entered and followed an arroyo. At one place the walls of the arroyo were covered with tropical flowers. “How beautiful!” said one friend. I agreed. “They’re just flowers!” said the other friend. To this day, I think of that second friend’s response with pain and sadness. God’s beauty was there speaking to us in those flowers, expressing His powerful love. But the second friend was not impressed. He seemed to make no connection between creation and the Creator, between the expression — the “words” — and the Speaker. For him, it seems, Daddy wasn’t saying “I love you.” It was just flowers, random sound waves from who knows where.
Ever since I began writing poetry on a regular basis, I have also pondered what this activity indicates about me: what are the weaknesses a poet needs to acknowledge, and what are the strengths he can celebrate?
A Sample Weakness [EDIT: I originally wrote and published this late at night, but woke up before dawn with the realization that I had to UNpublish the post and come back with some edits. I had revealed more than I ought to reveal, which is the very tendency I lament in a paragraph below. Someday, the world will suit a poet like me. But not today]
Today, I had a conversation with the senior pastor of a local church. Before I headed over to his church, Susan cautioned me: “Don’t reveal more than you should.” She knows me well. I said, “Pray that I’ll control my mouth, and that I’ll be a blessing to him.”
So, I met the senior pastor at the back door of his church. We walked in, and I immediately began pelting him with questions about his church: how they interact with the neighborhood, how well that is working, etc. After looking at his sanctuary, and talking about how it has served during the pandemic, we went to a more private setting downstairs. I began….
“These last few years, I have been developing as a poet. While some think that poets conceal, their actual drive is to reveal. That’s my natural inclination. But today, I need to control that. I’ll be talking about [something private], and there are things I should not say. Forgive me.” The pastor was understanding, and we talked for another 40 minutes. I believe that by God’s grace I did not tell him more about [the private matter] than I should. Reflecting on what I shared, the pastor gave me hope that I 1) am not alone and 2) serve a God who is changing lives.
The Poet as a Lithe Cat Who Loves Counselors The little story above is about how I deal with the downside of being a poet: I have to be extra careful about not revealing what’s in my heart. But I usually am not so guarded. Think about it…. A poet is always digging into his own heart to surface emotions and thoughts that would rather stay hidden. He drags them up and exposes them to the light of day where they can be dealt with, sometimes by the poet himself, but more often by the reader, by wiser souls, by counselors. That’s why the poet is a friend of counselors. Like a domestic cat, he brings his daily offering of lizards and rats, and lays them at their door. “Here’s a rat that was running through my heart. What’s its name, and how do we deal with it?”
“Wine That Fills Our Cup” In the poem I refer to “wine that fills our cup.” Believe me, I like wine, and wine’s not a dead rat. Forget about rats and death. A poet — at least this poet — celebrates life in his expression of emotion. It is not despair that drives me, but hope. Even when speaking of negative, deadly emotions, there is an essential optimism: “This emotion is not my master. I discovered it, am revealing it, and by God’s grace I will see its cure. He will make me whole.”
Even the Wine of Lament I have been seeking lately to replace anger and bitterness with sadness and sorrow. In essence, to learn lament. Here’s what’s great about lament (at least as I understand it): it is sorrow felt and expressed in the presence of One who can change things, who will change things. When I move to lament, I move closer to hope. Wine is that which dulls, but also cheers.
My friend Scott Thibaut posted an insightful comment:
It’s nice to read a poem that recaps the song of Simeon in six lines.
[August 15, 2021 Note] I recently used this poem to illustrate another post:
NEVER TOO OLD TO GROW In my 60s, I don’t expect big career developments. But how depressing would it be if I don’t make major headway in spiritual/emotional growth in this decade? Fortunately, I’m surrounded by people who help me in this, including a professional counselor, immediate family who keep me honest, and a wise friend who regularly goes for long walks with me. Is growth painful? Maybe, but not as painful as a long slow slide into futility.
The background image
The background image is part of a photo I took of the Wetmore Valley July 21, 2004. I was staying with my family at Horn Creek Family Camp. In the late afternoon, after suppers, I’d go out driving with the family, as that was the magical time when light was especially interesting and animals were venturing out from the woods.
I was sitting outside our Air BnB while on vacation in Silverthorne, Colorado. It was a crisp mountain morning. The birds were singing, occasionally geese flew over in formation, and this beautiful mountain filled my view (Red Peak?). But next door, there was a workman happily whistling as he worked outside. He distracted from “nature.” But I knew my being annoyed was wrong. I had to write this rebuke to myself.
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.
I jotted this down yesterday morning after a sleepless night, one where an admittedly minor ailment was reminding me of what took the lives of my parents. I’d have posted it yesterday, but ran out of time. Now, as I post this, it is Easter.
If you see ambivalence, mixed with annoyance, mixed with underlying hope, you see well. Hopefully, my reading of the poem (above) will reveal the negative side of my feelings.
The background photo is one I took up in the mountains last year on a similar morning, after a similar night.
Here is an exchange I had with a concerned friend, when he asked about the ailment. After describing the ailment, I wrote:
So, the poem was written out of fear and mild exhaustion, but with the realization that I was not acting in the full hope that often moves me. It’s full of double meaning.
Darol responded:
Yes, the middle of the night amplifies our fears and disappointments. I tell myself that the daylight will scatter them, and that they will end forever in that eternal morning.
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.”
He filled his pack with bubble wrap
And set off on the trail.
Thus equipped, the carefree sap
Was sure he could not fail.
So light his step,
Straight his back,
His shoulders fresh and strong…
Up steepest trail he fairly floated
Warbling his song:
“For times like these I was set free,
So tell me not that I must care
For all your drudgery.
La di da, twiddle dee!
Like all the birds that sing above
For this I was set free!”
Just as the sun
Behind the mountain
Took her cooling plunge,
Approaching alpine glade he sang, “So high and far I’ve come;
Dee dum, dee dum, dee dum!”
Feasting eyes on matted grass
The clever lad observed,
“Here the elk bed down to sleep,
And therefore, so shall I.”
Lying there, in bubbles wrapped,
The lad soon fell asleep.
But wasn’t long into the night
That hunger pains began to gnaw,
Bitter cold to creep.
He reached into his empty pack
In search of something, any? thing?
Of all he did not bring
To serve as food and warmth.
Somewhere
In that frigid night
His soul above him floated,
Warbling her song:
“For times like these I was set free
So tell me not that I must care
For all your drudgery.
La di da, twiddle dee!
Like all the birds that sing above
For this I was set free!”
Then, looking down from whence she’d come, “Die dumb, die dumb, die dumb!
On matted grass, eternal bed,
La he died — twiddle dead.”
– Brad Hepp (2019)
This silly poem was inspired by Psalm 16:2: “I say to the LORD, ‘You are my LORD; I have no good apart from you.'” How much of my day is spent pursuing “good” apart from the Lord, doing things that seem pleasant, but which He has not given me to do? Such folly invites the fate of a mountain climber who chooses to pack only what lightens his load.
As much as he’d probably prefer to deny it, Don Regier helped me with a few of the lines.
This evening, I leaned heavily on a friend for his perspective and advice. As with all wise men, he listened as much as he talked. Good questions are hard to formulate; good answers, harder still. The photo is of the Sangre de Cristos, taken on the return from one of my many mountain-climbing trips.
I read the poem to my friend. As a veteran of many climbs, he recognized the imagery. More importantly, as a veteran of the deepest valleys he recognized questions and opportunity that come when we reach inflection points in life.
I finally know what cloud formation it was that inspired this poem 30
years ago. Having grown up in the highlands of Mexico, I was accustomed
to the look of clouds spilling over a mountain range. The SHELF CLOUD
formation can mimic that look even in the flat lands of Texas. Knowing
this does not diminish the longing I have for the real thing, be it here
and now or there and ever. (The background photo was a free-to-use
download from Pixabay; wish I could take credit for it!).
