I was on kitchen crew for a retreat last weekend (Zero Hour Ministries, great group and mission) and had a lengthy conversation one evening with a fellow OCD-sufferer. (See this post for my explanation/poem on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.) The conversation was so very enjoyable, marked by that difficult-to-put-into-words feeling when someone “gets it,” truly gets what you are trying to say in a way that few other people can. Finishing sentences with exactly what you were going to say, when usually at that point you’d just be getting a somewhat quizzical look haha. Very meaningful.
It inspired me to post another poem about OCD — one of my most frequent poem topics, as right-brain and integrative-brain activities are really helpful to combat the brain lock of OCD.
This past semester in Ichthus we studied the New Testament book of Hebrews. I absolutely loved the commentary I used, particularly its insight into how the first-century Greco-Roman culture (most notably, the undergirding societal structure of patronage, or patron-client relationships) informs so much of the rhetorical approach of the book. Rather than nerd out about it here, I’ll just say this:
The Greek word for ‘thanksgiving’ is eucharistos and I’ve never understood why. Eu means ‘good’ … charis means ‘grace’ or ‘favor’ … and it has never made sense to me why that etymology would result in that meaning. And now it does — because the biblical culture viewed ‘grace’ as a circle, even portrayed by the Roman moralist Seneca as a dance of three sisters. ‘Grace’ (charis) was the attitude of the benefactor/patron/rich person toward the client/one in need. ‘Grace’ was then also the name given to the actual benefit or connection or gift given. And then finally (and this is the part I have not seen) ‘grace’ was ALSO the name given to the flow of thanksgiving — GRATITUDE (note the link there) — back to the patron.
You “returned grace” … it was viewed as a beautiful circle that if not finished with gratitude, was not complete (and was even an insult to the benefactor/patron/gracious person).
A ton more I could say there, and what’s funny as I look at this particular poem it doesn’t really go very far into any of what I’ve written above. But teachers gotta teach, and Bible nerds gotta nerdize, and finally … we used to make fun of my mom when she’d say before family dinners (referring to prayer), “Shall we return thanks?” We’d say “What, it’s not like God is thanking us!”
Apparently (as usual) Mom knew more than we thought. 🙂
Jeanette and I got to go to Europe last month. To say that we thoroughly enjoyed it would be a significant understatement. I had hoped to write some poems during the trip, and after a slow start, that came to pass. I thought I would post some of them in one chunk for easy reading. I’ll start with the one that has a picture that goes with it, (canola) fields in Denmark that I found just absolutely captivating. The poem itself was birthed by noting the way different countries were handling Covid on public transportation and seeing where that took me.
This one I wrote when we were flying from Copenhagen to Brussels where our friend picked us up and took us to their home in Maastricht, Netherlands. I was thinking of other airplanes that flew over this very same part of the world about 80 years ago…
Pardon the language in the second line, but it seemed to fit.
The next two are from this wonderful book my wife gave me not too long after I started writing poetry. I have written fairly few poems in this book because there are always so many other poems bursting around in my mind to write, when I sit down I usually do those. So I decided I would take the book on our trip and do at least a couple … and so here they are. The titles are simply what the page says to write a poem about … see the picture.
This one (also from the Write the Poem book) is pretty personal, dealing with things that go with having a predominantly avoidant attachment vibe. (I dabble in ambivalent attachment as well — good times.)
OK, two more. This one is called Ache VII because I’ve written six previous poems called Ache. It’s a regular state of my soul, and I find writing poems to help therapize it. Ends up being a little conversation between Jesus and me.
This last one is also pretty personal. Wrote it sitting outside a restaurant in the beautiful city of Maastricht, Netherlands. It deals with my tendency (I imagine I’m not the only one) to get stuck in and even derailed by things of earthly beauty rather than seeing through them to the Source of all beauty.
If you made it this far, amazing — you should get a prize. Thank you for letting me share with you all!
I went on a trip last weekend to the San Diego area (North County/Encinitas/Carlsbad to be precise) with Jeanette for her 50th birthday. We had a truly delightful time. The first night we were there, we went to a beach where the surf interacts with the rocks in a way I find so very enjoyable. So I wrote this, and I really like how it turned out. (Oh, I called it “II” because I have already written a — totally different — poem called Deep Calls to Deep.)
I called this one Identity I because apparently I intended to write several on the same theme. I haven’t yet (and I wrote this one nearly 3 1/2 years ago), but I like the thought.
I do like, even with no sequels written yet, the way the I (as opposed to an Arabic numeral 1) fits with the theme.
What I also like about posting this poem now is that I wrote it when there was still a thorn in my soul … so the experiential component of it was typically conflicted and bittersweet.
I can access the truth of it by faith to a degree now, to let myself feel joy in the love of God, and I am grateful yet again for the different place I am in now compared to then.
I wrote this one in the midst of the last year of coming to the end of my rope.
The word qavah is the Hebrew word translated “hope” or “wait” in places like Isaiah 40:31. It is a primitive root with a basic meaning of “to bind together, possibly by twisting.” I find that interesting. I also find it very interesting that (at least that I can see) the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) pretty consistently translates qavah as “endure,” or literally to “abide under (pain, suffering, etc.).”
As I put it in another poem, To wait is to hope is to endure pain / Sanctification like begging for rain.
This poem helped me trust God more and see some of his design as he taught me to start enduring through the junkloads of shame that have needed excavation in my life. (I am by no means done with this lesson.)
My last post, “Asking for Orbit” dealt with “It’s about God, not about us” as it applies in my highly-prone-to-implode life. This one is my (much longer) poem with me wrestling out some of how that sentiment might play out when the God it’s “about” is the God revealed in Jesus Christ, one who is in his very essence agape love.
(My theological “Spidey-senses” go off sometimes at some of the places or ways we take the concept of God as supreme, the source, the end, the only one worthy, etc. )
Hope you enjoy it. As always, your comments or thoughts are welcomed … it’d be fun to grab coffee and talk more about any of this!
Oh and P.S. if you’re on a mobile you may only see the left column … make sure you read the whole thing.
How many times over my 34-year Jesus journey I’ve heard some form of saying “It’s all about God” or “It’s not about us.” A true sentiment indeed.
This particular form (this poem) comes from my own life — as an Enneagram One who unhealthily goes to a Four, I seem to be unusually skilled at making it all about me. And it turns out that at least I can even make not making it about me … about me.
So… if you want to read this “cold” and see how it hits you/try to figure it out, just read the poem below and don’t read the paragraphs below it. 🙂
So…
I wrote this poem when I was thinking about pride and shame and self-love and self-hate and my life. Specifically, I think what we usually call pride is often technically more related to something more like hubris, i.e. arrogance or too high a view of oneself. But I wonder (and have for some time) if that’s just the head side of the pride coin … with shame being the tails side. I think we tend to see pride as the big daddy of sins, the one that took the devil down, with shame as less toxic than “pride” … but I think shame IS pride, just the back-side of it. (Refusing to accept God’s opinion of us, whether our counter-opinion over-focuses on our dignity or our depravity, is, at the end of the day, still a deliberate REFUSAL to submit to what GOD says, no matter what we feel or think.) I over the course of my life have excelled in both, with hubris probably being more prominent in my younger years, and shame taking the lead role as I’ve gotten older. But especially as an Enneagram One, this two-sided coin is my constant companion and nemesis. Hence the poem … could I just let it go?
The imagery of this poem is (and hence the title) drawing from Frodo’s journey to and quest to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom.
I could say more but that should get you if it wasn’t very meaningful. People ask me all the time when they find out I write poems if I like this-or-that poet, or they recommend poetry, etc., and I find it a bit funny that not only have I read crazily little poetry, I have a great deal of difficulty even reading poetry. The more poetic the biblical books (say, e.g., Isaiah), the more challenging they’ve been for me. And while I love song lyrics, the same applies: The more poetic (aka allusive/obscure/etc.) they are, the more I’m like “?????” So whenever someone understands or finds my poems meaningful, I’m honored and impressed and, frankly, humbled. Because I don’t think I could figure them out/get much out of them if they weren’t my own! (Maybe that’s why God is having me write them haha, it’s the only way I can really benefit from poetry.)
Hey. Just got back from the Ichthus trip to East Africa … what a great trip for so many reasons. I’ve been feeling poemish (I suppose I should say poetic, but I sure do love inventing words) lately, and I wrote like 10 of them over the course of the trip. I like several of them in particular, but I think this one’s my favorite of them all. It came after the man who was leading our morning devotional time read John 1 as part of that day’s reflection and I was thinking about animals, there and throughout.
Super cool that just a few days later I was actually seeing lions on a safari! 🙂
