John Schwartz Poetry

Thinking about when you cry out to God, possibly under great duress, and he seems absent. Why would he do/allow that? Why would he make us ask him again and again? Or why would he answer “no” to a begging for relief? This poem isn’t about all the reasons why he might (I can think of more; perhaps I shall write poems on them too), but it is about one of them from my own life.

(My feast example was inspired by a memorable scene in C. S. Lewis’s book The Last Battle.)

On a day at the end of last semester where I had a gap of delightful free space to breathe, and walk on campus, and reflect and pray and write a poem in the library, I found myself marveling at how rather than just reveling and enjoying the time, how strong the pull was to get in my head and get lost in guilt and such. How many times I have frittered away joy.

Just because one is declared emancipated doesn’t mean he or she knows how to actually live in that freedom.

I need to keep learning it.

Title and some imagery are from one of the most poignant chapters in the whole Bible, Ezekiel 16.

I (like many) love Colorado. One of the things I love there are the aspen groves–in any season, but especially summer, with a delightful mountain breeze, and fall (I took the picture below–what a fantastic hike). Here’s a haiku about such things.

ESTES
Oh shimm’ring green coins
Midas months are sure to come
Dance your dance with glee

Wrote this one over the past weekend when I experienced for about the millionth time that bittersweet longing and painful love and groaning for the life I was (you were, we all were) made for — the life of God.

This is one of the most common themes of all the poems I write. I ache for the life of God and grieve at my fickleness and wildly celebrate that God is bigger than all of that.

The poem’s title comes from one of my favorite movie scenes ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mk2Tca88Xo … The “seven grand” is the 7000 in 1 Kings 19:18.

Would love to hear any comments or questions or thoughts or anything at john@ichthusmhk.org …

It’s been a busy and eventful (and really good) semester. I am taking today, Friday (the 13th!) of finals week, to slow and breathe and be alone. I walked to Hale Library’s great room (the “Harry Potter room”) and wrote some poems, and this was one of them. The theme of beauty in the midst of pain is a common one for me (see, e.g., here or here or here, not to mention the many about OCD and … well it’s a theme). My good friend and I had a conversation the other day where just the stories in his own immediate world felt crushing, not even to mention things like the stuff I read today in the news … or the Holocaust. The world groans. It aches. There is so much pain. This really hangs on me–I feel it, everyday–and I write to wrestle and help integrate who I know God to be and the visible world … my lament psalms.

(The title is from a line in a Switchfoot song. The first line is from J. I. Packer’s Knowing God introduction. Corrie is Ten Boom; Lali is the tattooist of Auschwitz.)

Bonus poem! This was originally sparked by a study in Ephesians 2:1-10, specifically the phrase “God, who is rich in mercy” in verse 4, which when I started writing led to some thinking of the different kinds of riches and their challenges and how they might interplay. The title is a play between Matthew 28 and the statement in verse 10 that God’s people are God’s masterpiece. Blessings!

(As always, feel free to skip ahead to the poem if you don’t want commentary/preamble. Many of you are quite sleuthy when it comes to understanding poems–I marvel at you, and salute you, as I need ALL the help I can get when others share their poetry with me.)

I think God deliberately designed biological life to show us/help us understand what true (expressed in the New Testament by the Greek word zoe) life is. I also think that biological development functions in much the same way–the maturation process of birth through infancy/early childhood/adolescence/adulthood giving us clues for how we become mature in Christ.

One thing that complicates this is that we often become (or at least functionally are, how many years has God’s life within you been genuinely/intentionally growing?) spiritual babies when we are biological adults, which creates some significant challenges that would just be, well, super odd in biological development.

This poem’s about that–how hard it can be for us to submit to (let alone revel in, embracing every present moment as a holy moment) the day-by-day process of sanctification… so this poem is about that.

The last two lines are a reference to Genesis 3; the nature of the forbidden tree in Eden is not incidental or unimportant.

First entry in over three months — wow! I did say at the very beginning I reserved the right to be quite sporadic on this site, so don’t say I didn’t warn you haha. I’ve still been writing (I need to keep writing); I just have a smaller group chat with people who have particularly engaged with my poems and it’s easy to shoot one their way. However, as I look at the stats, there actually ARE a few people going to this site here and there even months after posting, so … that’s fun, and so how about a new post for something new to look at!

I wrote this one yesterday morning. It’s good for me to celebrate and worship and write this sort of poem. I’m prone to focus on the gaps, the struggles, the wrestling — and don’t get me wrong, poetry has been SUCH a gift for that. Yet the way a simple poem about the love of God is contested in my mind even as and after I write is quite telling. I like this poem, and how re-reading it gives me repeated opportunities to worship and be grateful. Regardless of the bursting thoughts and feelings in the complex neurological and mental and emotional world of John Schwartz, I truly am staggered by the mercy and grace and unspeakable love of God.

(The title is a reference to my favorite verse of the hymn, “The Love of God,” by Frederick Lehman.)

Thanks y’all. I would love to hear from any of you at john@ichthusmhk.org!

My daughter Juliana (who’s all grown-up now and lives in NYC) had mentioned at one point that she loves light and shadows and can just sit looking at them/watching them for lengthy periods of time. It occurred to me that I didn’t know if I’d ever done that, so I purposed to do it for at least 15 minutes and then potentially write a poem from that experience to help me engage in it more fully.

I went out on my front deck, pulled a chair up to get a good view of the shadows cast by my maple tree on my house, and looked in a way I am not used to looking. It was really cool. And here’s the poem. (The second stanza refers to seeing the shadow of two birds that landed in the tree and then flew off… which was pretty great.)

This one riffs on John 11, the amazing story of Jesus raising his dear friend Lazarus from the dead. But then it’s really about another dear friend of Jesus’–me, as time keeps passing and the process of becoming like him defies easy description. I’ll make some pointing comments afterward for those of you (like me) who need all the help you can get to understand poems.

Just a few notes if you want ’em:
* The title is a play on the name of the famous read-at-graduations Dr. Seuss book that highlights the partnership of this adventurous life with God, whether (in the poem’s metaphor) in the lap or with the rabbi “watching” us drive, as we (to change the image) never stop being a branch in the vine.
* The red in the first stanza is a warning light on the dashboard. If you adjust the seat, you can block the light behind the steering wheel and make it look like you don’t have any problems. Or you can just smash the light I suppose, which is great … until it’s not.
* The main stanza (a word which always makes me think of the Nissan Stanza my friend Brett drove in college … complete with a baseball as the handle on his gear shift, fun trips to Yello Sub in Lawrence, and hilarious times creatively bending some traffic rules) is the one I like the best and reading John 11 will illuminate it.

That’s it. Thanks for reading! Text me 785 317 4733 if you got any thoughts, comments, questions, etc.!