Month: March 2023

This is one I wrote in December 2017, about a month into writing poems. It’s sorta “Dr. Seussy” as an Ichthusian calls these rhythmic poems for which I seem to have a penchant. Anyway… if God’s bigness and grandeur has ever functionally made prayer challenging for you, perhaps you’ll benefit. (Shout out to Dallas Willard in his writings, particularly one section in Hearing God, that have helped me grow and change in my view of God’s majesty.)

A DIFFERENT SORT OF MAJESTY
Prayer-flight launching finds strong gravity
How could he ever have such time for me
I mean technically yes – he’s God and all
But devoted attention to one who’s so small?

Conceptions of majesty, wrongly reversed
Even our God-thoughts well-meaning are curs’d
Thinking of greatness not easy to see
His greatness precisely can focus on me

This one (not really a poem I suppose) is pretty personal. (I was back and forth on posting it, as it’s sorta long AND it’s totally about my own journey. But I thought it might have connections with some of y’all, and I frankly just like it … so I decided yes.) It’s about shame and art and identity and neurological integration and my own fragmentation and how writing poetry is helping change my life. The title refers to Psalm 133. Benjamin means “son of the right hand,” therefore left brain, with Lefty then of course being right brain.

Oh, hopefully both columns are visible on a mobile device by selecting it and scrolling, but if not, I put it in two columns below this one.

And in two columns if you can’t read it as above…

A sudden rainstorm gave me the idea for this one. Skip right to the poem if you don’t want my commentary (not that it’s that profound lol) to spoil your engagement. It’s about perspective, and control (and/or the lack of it), and trust, and choosing joy, and the like. Though God is God and in charge/sovereign and all that–truly, the fact remains that for our actual day-to-day lives it matters VERY much how we respond, how we set our minds, how we SEE and SEEK. “According to your faith it will be done to you,” as Jesus said. What a humbling honor.

YES

The wind blows where it wishes
The rain falls as it may
Does this frustrate me
Or free me

The tide doesn’t consult me
The seasons come and they go
Does this comfort me
Or mock me

The mountains stand stony still
The sky says I’m so small
Does this awe me
Or scare me

Is the bowl flipped or open
The heavens bronze or breathing
The ground a grave or garden

Are my hands closed or open
My head dipped or free
There’s a crowd around the hinged door
Asking what my heart will see

I found the first three lines of this poem in a journal from the summer of 2021. I think maybe Cory McElvain said them in a devotional he was leading on the Ichthus Kenya trip. Anyway, they were arresting lines then, and now, and I decided to keep going and see what happened. See what you think.

THE MOST INTERESTING GOD ON THE PLANET
through blood and tears and gasps of pain
God squeezed through the vagina of a Jewish teenager
clearly the body is honored and glorified
clearly the Lord’s not hung up on appearances
      or squeamish
clearly he redefines dignity
      and majesty
      and power
so lower yourself to get high
empty yourself to get full
be losing yourself to get found
don’t be judging the bloody gasp sound
and if the pressure makes your head sure it will burst
then just let yourself be born