John Schwartz Poetry

Posted a Holy Week poem last week (about “Sad Saturday”), so it seemed appropriate to post an Easter one today. (This will actually be the second Easter poem I’ve posted–the first is here.)

The specific biblical background for this story is Luke 24:13-35, one of my favorite stories in Scripture … for some of the reasons that are in this poem. (If you also dig this story and want to hear a very energetic, very clever song that I really really like about the same topic, you can go to this link.)

Jesus is really funny sometimes…

John 19:31 NIV says of the day between Good Friday and Easter, “The next day was to be a special Sabbath.” Literally it reads “For the day of that Sabbath was great.” The concept of “Silent Saturday” or “Sad Saturday” (or just Sad-urday if you prefer lol), with all of its agony, being a “great” day grabbed my poetic attention and so I wrote this.

May your Holy Week be one where the living Christ draws closer to each and every one of you, and in and to your gatherings and communities if that applies!

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

This one’s about someone I know well — two people, actually. And then “Eben” is Eben Alexander, a guy who had a near-death experience. Message or text me if you have any questions!

JOHANNA
< our heroine, sitting on a park bench on a cool drab day, is approached by a stranger, who says >
Good day miss and have you ever noticed?

I’m sorry but not’ced what I said

No noticed … just really noticed
Freed from the rage rage in your head
Here listen to my good friend Eben
From the journey he took there and back
And he’ll tell you that even on best days
At most it can see just a crack

So I guess then no, prob’ly haven’t
With even best days a lott’ry pick
So why are you asking you rubbing it in?
I wouldn’t have placed you a dick

< fit of laughter ensues >

Hang on sorry umm please give me a sec
I just gotta catch up my breath
Hope you don’t mind my laughter
But that’s just funny
Like mistaking bright life for death
OK so alright no it’s not a jab
I just thought you might want a teacher
There’s a way to get tastes of the unbrained life
While you’re still a decaying creature
(You might say it’s an optional feature)

Oh sorry sir yes I do want a teacher
And I so so want tastes of that life
My gray matter’s determined to cut funky grooves

OK great will you please be my wife?

Umm
Whoa
Uh that escalated quickly
Didn’t we just the two of us meet

Johanna come on can’t you feel your heart burn
I’m the one who keeps washing your feet

Wait you’re him you’re the one
The one in my dreams
I’ve been crushing on since I could see?

The only the same
Love’ll bypass your brain
I can show you your identity
You can notice all true right through me
The crystal calm mind past gray sea
The fearless made so fearfully
Johanna just breathe and let be

A theme of my life lately has been the whole Jesus-paradox life and death thing. There’s at least one form of this statement in each of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John); here it is in John:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. The one who loves his life loses it, and one who hates one’s life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves me, he or she must follow me… (John 12:24-26a)

I think I’m supposed to take a next step into this actual truth. Not just a poetic Bible passage.

I like this one.

I think about the nature of living: what it’s like, and what it is supposed to be like. I have (pretty much for my entire Jesus-following life) such a strong desire to be perfect. I read the absolute calls of God in the Bible, the calls to total surrender, walking in the Spirit, experiencing power and joy and peace and such, and I want it. Ultimately I want it because it is good and makes God look good and I love him and as his child I truly do long for his “name to be hallowed”; but right along with that I want it because when I don’t walk in a sense of absolute surrender and flow and perfect Jesus-performance (haha, what a phrase) it makes me uneasy. Very uneasy. I am so uncomfortable with messiness in my own life. (Yes, I am an Enneagram One. Yes, there is a reason why all of 2021 and half of 2022 was filled with God teaching me to be OK with being a human being. Yes, the allure of trying to be and feel perfect is a perpetually tempting snare. Yes, I am laughing right now.)

Anyway, here’s a fun, somewhat whimsical poem about one of the many aspects of that. Informed by Psalm 23 and the whole theme of being sheep. And it sounds like I’m teaching this … but I was basically writing it to myself.

GREEN PASTURES
God’s not a god of confusion
But don’t overextrapolate that
If we’re always sheep
At the same time we’re sons
Confusion is just where we’re at

Not pumped about being dumb livestock?
Sure it grates against adamic pride
But David showed true
The king’s a sheep too
It’s the gateway to enjoy the ride

I can’t get this all tied up for ya
There’s a tension in what I now say
But at least hear the shout
Do not “figure it out”
That’s a long stride into the flesh way

So give up the drive for mind-wrapping
Left-brained horizon’s full view
When sheep walk at night
A lantern’s their light
But trust hears “Fear not, I’m with you”