John Schwartz Poetry

One night the sky was looking angry and (I can’t remember why–some event? Planned firepit? Not sure) I didn’t want that so I sorta wished/prayed/gazed at it and, interestingly, it like changed in about 30 seconds. Which was good that night. But it got me thinking.

I got the title from the title of a book by John Piper (The Hidden Smile of God) I read about 20 years ago, which in turn came from a line in a poem by William Cowper.

Continuing the theme of last week … struggles.

One of the (many) aspects I find super enjoyable about poetry is how things can mean lots of things, all at the same time. I also value things that are clever. Add to that my dad-jokeness, the enjoyment of things that are sorta clever and sorta cringe-y … and my poems often have sorta weird references that I enjoy but you might not lol.

I like the title of these doctors, “Goode & Payne,” as a way to refer to how suffering and perseverance produces good results. I like it enough where I wrote one poem in 2020 about them about the mercy of God I see in my having OCD, and then they’ve re-appeared recently as I wrestle through a continuing and challenging situation that I am facing. (When I make myself chuckle, then it helps me endure.)

So here they are, my two poems with the good(e) doctors in the titles. 🙂

I, like many of you, am no stranger to melancholy moods, mental ambushes, significant internal pain, etc. I’m 53 years old and let’s just say that this is, uh, not a new thing to me. It is less frequent and less intense particularly in these last years as I have finally found a “bottom line” of God’s goodness that has changed the game, and I am wildly thankful for that. But I still face acute mental trials, sometimes quite painful.

I’ve talked before of how I’ve discovered the practical GIFT that poetry has been and is to me related to this. It is genuinely therapeutic for me to try to write a poem like right in the midst of the challenging, even agonizing, situations. I see how creativity is neurologically integrating and how that is a massive blessing when I’m stuck in my brain, particularly my left brain, and am therefore quite neurologically disintegrated. (One poem I posted even directly addresses this.)

SO… long preamble to say that I wrote this one last November to try to more healthily navigate a stressful/overwhelmed/low time. And it’s been in my mind so I thought I’d post it.

A few notes: the title is a remez (thank you Marty Solomon/Bema) to Psalm 139; “Social One” is an Enneagram subtype reference; and the “expired window” of the last verse means that the poem at that point was 47 minutes in and my internal critic was quite happy to heap more vitriol on me (“the boobirds were in full swing” is what I wrote then haha) for how I was even messing this therapeutic/worship offering up and basically I’d taken too long for it to be useful. So I ended the poem feeling thoroughly wiped out and failed. And yet! And yet! That was not the end of the story. It did help. I’m learning to endure and to find a “peace that surpasses mind” (Philippians 4:7). I’m learning how to be John Schwartz, a beloved and favored child of the King, who doesn’t have to nail it.

So I’ve got that going for me… 🙂 And I can not WAIT for heaven when these sorts of struggles are a blip in the rear-view mirror.

Blessings y’all.

This one’s about going fishing with my dad (Bill) and my grandpa (Fred).

I’ve been missing Grandpa (my mom’s dad — I was less than a year old when my dad’s dad died, so I didn’t know him) lately. I was his first grandson after having four daughters and then a granddaughter, and we always had a special relationship. I believe he was the man I felt the safest around, and … I miss him.

The subject matter of this poem (the Bible and the place it has in human lives) seems to me to be of utmost importance. Not just if the Bible is important — I certainly believe it is, uniquely and irreplaceably so — but how.

The title is, appropriately enough, a reference to something in the Bible. And I think it might mean more than that as well.

One of my favorite things to do is to interact with people who for whatever reason(s) have genuine interest, curiosity, and enjoyment in poems I write. So if you happen to fit that description, respond to the Facebook message if that’s what sent you here or just shoot me an email at thusdude@gmail.com; I’d love to hear from you!

In conjunction with my sabbatical, I took the summer off from posting. Not sure if I’ll continue the weekly posts or go back to occasional. I wrote over 50 poems on sabbatical, so I may put a bunch in one post. Regardless–I will put this one here; I also posted it on Facebook.

It’s a groaning season — I’m up to 20 untimely (and a few more expected/timely/but painful nonetheless) deaths in the worlds I am close to in the last 5 months. It’s nuts, and … oh, the groaning.

This is sort of about that, or at least fits the groaning theme … but it’s actually about more/different than that. See how it hits you. It’s funny to say this about one’s own poem, but like is often the case, it feels sorta like it wrote me, rather than me writing it … so I’ve been musing on it and seeing lots of stuff in it.

The last line is a specific reference to something (Google it if you need help), which itself was a reference to something in the Bible (KJV version). That’s in play.

I am finishing up my 27th year of staff for Ichthus here at KSU, after 4 1/2 years before that as a student leader. Three and a half years ago, I effectively restarted Ichthus when I left what-was-then-Ichthus, which took a new name. (If that sounds confusing — well, yes. Yes, it was.) But whether old or new or in-between, the vision that has driven me is one of God doing something big and wonderful here in Manhattan, far greater than just Ichthus. I believe he has promised it, actually, in 1991, clear back in the days when my understanding of God’s voice was much less developed than it is now, and has reconfirmed it, sometimes quite vividly, in 1995 (“even when you feel like a grasshopper among giants in the promised land, walk the way of Caleb and Joshua”), February 2005 (“open the floodgates of heaven,” one of the most powerful personal experiences of God’s presence in my life), and (differently) 2015. This most recent season (2019-now) has found me praying more than ever and pursuing the same vision trying specifically to learn from the great disciple-making movements happening throughout the world right now.

It’s an interesting thing to keep believing in something when the years keep going by and the road has more twists and turns than I could possibly have anticipated. (Thirty years of marriage and five kids, the oldest being 25 now, is part of that. There are lots more parts.) How badly do I want it?

So I still believe God is going to do something big and wonderful here (beyond the many wonderful things he has done over the years in so many lives–what an amazing job I have.) City-wide. Flooding this town with the good news of Jesus, transforming lives, healing and restoring and rescuing and being in his proper place of Lord. I do. Even if I move or die before it happens.

This poem represents some of my personal wrestling to keep believing that, particularly in this last season, when Ichthus is smaller and the most promising things seem to keep getting nipped in the bud by Covid, generational things, and who knows what all else.

(The Elijah references are from various parts of his life in 1 Kings 17-19 (also see James 5). And I’m heading into sabbatical starting next week until August 1, which will be an extended time at the “brook.”)

What’s the most important day of your life?

Today–because it’s the only one you’ll ever live in.

I’d say the dominant theme/lesson of 2023 for me so far is living in the moment. Learning to live in the moment, present, right here, right now. Not past regret. Not future planning. NOW.

It relates to what Dallas Willard said, “Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our time,” as fear-laced hurry (and that’s what makes it “hurry” and not just moving rapidly) takes one out of the moment.

It links to the concept of “flow,” similar to yet broader than what I often experience in writing poetry.

It is connected with my dawning realization that the underlying Master Compulsion in my OCD, within and behind most every other counter-thought or action I take to gain relief from my bursting fearful or guilt-laden thoughts, that which I am tempted to practice nearly every moment of every day, is something that fundamentally moves me OUT of the present moment into a sort of fruitless meta-thought.

It is the next step in maturity (I *think*? This is grasped by faith only) in the task of learning to actually live by the Holy Spirit, in an actual relationship with the Living God more than a quasi-religion trying to figure things out/apply principles from a book. (The book in this case being the Bible. I am quite confident not everyone gets caught in this trap.)

Anyway. This one’s about that. I liked the word “crucial” with its etymological ties to both “cross” and “cross-roads.” Words are so cool.

I think about sex a lot.

Now I know that is a stereotypical (classic comedic fodder) statement about men, and sure … I have grown up in this hypersexualized and thoroughly sexually broken world too. But that’s not what I mean. In fact, I sorta mean the opposite.

Why sex? Why did God make it? Why did he make it so amazing? The God who gave the gift of orgasms to humans (contrast the blank stare of cattle, dogs, etc.) was up to something — or lots of somethings. I like to think about that. One reason is that I’ve grown up in a (Christian) culture that has had a hard time viewing this great gift without shame, which has left all sorts of room for twisting and exploitation and hijacking of it. So I think about it, looking at the Bible and with the Lord, to be healed, and to crowd out the darkness and lies that assault my own life with truth, with the real.

But another (and ultimately greater) reason I think so much about it is that I truly believe biological life reflects spiritual life (bios reflects zoe, in Greekspeak) — that God deliberately designed this world and the way it works to reveal himself, to teach us how the “life that is truly life” works. So beyond the amazing experience, which (along with food, drink, nature, etc.) shows us God is a god of exquisite pleasure, what about this revealed mystery that marriage is to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church — he the husband, we (collectively) not just his Body, but his bride? And within that mystery (see Ephesians 5), I ask again — what about sex? What does sex in marriage show us about the nature of the relationship between God and his people, both now (in the groaning betrothal) and in the ecstatic eternal?

That may have been more explanation than you wanted, and may have gotten you anticipating a better poem than I was probably able to write. But I do like this poem and the many others I’ve written musing on this topic. I think we as the people of God will honor God by becoming truly the biggest fans of sex and sexuality (properly exercised) on the planet. I’ve appreciated writers like Sheila Wray Gregoire recently who practically explore these themes.

As always, I welcome your comments. Thanks for reading.

This poem is one of the many many MANY I have written in these last years as a way to try to cooperate/endure/stay in the forge. The more exquisite the creation (we human beings), the more the potential for ruin, and I feel that — SO fragmented and disintegrated at times. Can one ever feel whole? It can get crazy … dark … crazy dark. (Is anyone else thinking of “sharks with lasers — laser sharks” from The Lego Movie right now?)

Anyway, God. And the occasional rare treasure of someone who just won’t give up on you even when you rake them through the emotional coals. And the dogged tenacity he puts in our souls to endure. I think God gets a kick out of things like this poem and whatever and whoever in your own lives gives you perspective and lightens the groaning load.