{"id":405,"date":"2024-10-07T10:40:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T15:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/?p=405"},"modified":"2024-10-07T11:00:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T16:00:45","slug":"taking-my-quill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"Taking My Quill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>First entry in over three months &#8212; wow! I did say at the very beginning I reserved the right to be quite sporadic on this site, so don&#8217;t say I didn&#8217;t warn you haha. I&#8217;ve still been writing (I <em>need<\/em> to keep writing); I just have a smaller group chat with people who have particularly engaged with my poems and it&#8217;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 &#8230; that&#8217;s fun, and so how about a new post for something new to look at!<br><br>I wrote this one yesterday morning. It&#8217;s good for me to celebrate and worship and write this sort of poem. I&#8217;m prone to focus on the gaps, the struggles, the wrestling &#8212; and don&#8217;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, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">I<\/span> <em>truly<\/em> <strong>am<\/strong> staggered by the mercy and grace and unspeakable love of God.<br><br>(The title is a reference to my favorite verse of the hymn, <a href=\"https:\/\/hymnary.org\/text\/the_love_of_god_is_greater_far\">&#8220;The Love of God,&#8221;<\/a> by Frederick Lehman.)<br><br>Thanks y&#8217;all. I would love to hear from any of you at john@ichthusmhk.org!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"185\" height=\"390\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/poem-TAKING-MY-QUILL.png?resize=185%2C390&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-406\" style=\"width:295px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/poem-TAKING-MY-QUILL.png?w=185&amp;ssl=1 185w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/poem-TAKING-MY-QUILL.png?resize=142%2C300&amp;ssl=1 142w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 185px) 100vw, 185px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First entry in over three months &#8212; wow! I did say at the very beginning I reserved the right to be quite sporadic on this site, so don&#8217;t say I didn&#8217;t warn you haha. I&#8217;ve still been writing (I need to keep writing); I just have a smaller group chat with people who have particularly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnwilliamschwartz.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}