I might be buried
with your pages folded neatly
in my mind.
I might be called to recite,
translate old ink.
The caverns of your essence hold
your shape;
your mind is here
and mine not far away.
A meeting,
moment of something true.
Something like proximity
or life,
or bright words striving with a void
outside our time.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
centre.
I've been feeling the strangeness, lately, of having my life centred around a relationship with God that is so clear to me- yet invisible and even ridiculous to most of the people I know. When faith is compelled by reasonable evidence, met by indescribable and obvious blessing, it's a beautiful thing... But I'm tired of my friends seemingly not being able to see these things at all, despite how actually important they are. I care a lot, and it can be confusing. I think that sometimes I try to see things from the perspective of others' experiences so much that I forget the simple reality I'm genuinely allowed to rest in.
If I surrender deeply to the things I can't dispute, how can taking them seriously be considered fundamentalist or naive? What am I expected to believe? The reality is intricate, not to be waved off with unnoticed double standards or considered undesirable. So when friends seem to engage with all these things and then dismiss them as an emotional, social or aesthetic choice- or misunderstand the nature of them, even when genuinely peering into them- it's just surreal. It hurts, it can be awkward and it's discouraging. Has something so large ever seemed so invisible?
God has revealed Himself to our generation in a way that asks faith and desire of us, even whilst giving us the grounds for it. I feel more and more that belief is not only about seeing things on the surface of reality and affirming them, but rather being willing to be stirred when God asks if we want anything to do with the kind of goodness that is His. Willing to be bound to this love, though it costs everything I thought was worth my desire. Willing to study, have my small perspectives challenged and have integrity with belief, and yet to surrender to what isn't comfortable. To acknowledge that we aren't being judged, but welcomed and desired, far beyond what we deserve. That however we imagine Him, God is desirable, faithful and good, not to be treated as worthless.
I need to remember the nature of the reality I walk in, even whilst trying to stay in touch with how others see it. To know that we are all subjects of this king, like it or not. To find the energy and the thankfulness to be lost not in what is imagined (the everyday, the mere undisputed), but in reality's fullness and real meaning. To be able to keep speaking about what I have found to be real, whether or not I know how to make that clear. For my heart to adore my God as king; for Him to be like the one I come home to, who is more real than anything else I find or am found in, because He is.
If I surrender deeply to the things I can't dispute, how can taking them seriously be considered fundamentalist or naive? What am I expected to believe? The reality is intricate, not to be waved off with unnoticed double standards or considered undesirable. So when friends seem to engage with all these things and then dismiss them as an emotional, social or aesthetic choice- or misunderstand the nature of them, even when genuinely peering into them- it's just surreal. It hurts, it can be awkward and it's discouraging. Has something so large ever seemed so invisible?
God has revealed Himself to our generation in a way that asks faith and desire of us, even whilst giving us the grounds for it. I feel more and more that belief is not only about seeing things on the surface of reality and affirming them, but rather being willing to be stirred when God asks if we want anything to do with the kind of goodness that is His. Willing to be bound to this love, though it costs everything I thought was worth my desire. Willing to study, have my small perspectives challenged and have integrity with belief, and yet to surrender to what isn't comfortable. To acknowledge that we aren't being judged, but welcomed and desired, far beyond what we deserve. That however we imagine Him, God is desirable, faithful and good, not to be treated as worthless.
I need to remember the nature of the reality I walk in, even whilst trying to stay in touch with how others see it. To know that we are all subjects of this king, like it or not. To find the energy and the thankfulness to be lost not in what is imagined (the everyday, the mere undisputed), but in reality's fullness and real meaning. To be able to keep speaking about what I have found to be real, whether or not I know how to make that clear. For my heart to adore my God as king; for Him to be like the one I come home to, who is more real than anything else I find or am found in, because He is.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
universe.
For the marriage of simplicity and truth,
sing these songs.
Bid trust bring us all her gifts
till the allegory fades
and we, remade,
are caught into the sky, the breath we come from.
Rest, restored: one is here
who knows us, knows us well.
Soon we’ll speak exactly as we feel and think and are, yet be well. See how our faces glow with the grace of it. The hours flow by, word of simplicity like water.
We’ll hold onto them like a treasure. Soon we’ll be eye to eye, heart to heart, and held under the poetry that wakes us gently—so well, by the fruit of these trees. The words that grow slowly, stand strongly. The cold, blue sky, the light of full sun and clouds, these gumtrees and even the homes and roads will catch their breath at her splendour (coming up from the desert).
To the light that rises for us, piecing together what was scattered, that holds my face, that catches my eyes, that holds me; whose silence speaks quietness to us here—
I love you, we love you here. The depth of what we hold.
Not broken. Only sleeping, if you still create.
Whose wisdom, whose words arrived (in our hearts, in this song):
let it now be like it will be.
Never leave for a moment, in your promise.
Beautiful and perfect, the weaver of all things.
sing these songs.
Bid trust bring us all her gifts
till the allegory fades
and we, remade,
are caught into the sky, the breath we come from.
Rest, restored: one is here
who knows us, knows us well.
Soon we’ll speak exactly as we feel and think and are, yet be well. See how our faces glow with the grace of it. The hours flow by, word of simplicity like water.
We’ll hold onto them like a treasure. Soon we’ll be eye to eye, heart to heart, and held under the poetry that wakes us gently—so well, by the fruit of these trees. The words that grow slowly, stand strongly. The cold, blue sky, the light of full sun and clouds, these gumtrees and even the homes and roads will catch their breath at her splendour (coming up from the desert).
To the light that rises for us, piecing together what was scattered, that holds my face, that catches my eyes, that holds me; whose silence speaks quietness to us here—
I love you, we love you here. The depth of what we hold.
Not broken. Only sleeping, if you still create.
Whose wisdom, whose words arrived (in our hearts, in this song):
let it now be like it will be.
Never leave for a moment, in your promise.
Beautiful and perfect, the weaver of all things.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
whan that the month of May is comen,
I haven't been posting properly for a while because of busyness, despite having planned (and promised!) to write up some of the things I've been learning in Biblical Studies this semester. No excuse needs to be made for lapses in blog posts, nor for my never having really been a 'blogger'. Still, I do feel that the long, sporadic writing here is symptomatic of the trouble I find in communicating things succinctly and relevantly. I'd love to deliberately work on that.
A while ago now, my friend Blake encouraged me to write poems with a word limit, for a month. I think it was about thirty words- and while that may not have made my poetry much better in quality or more outward-focused, I found it helpful! So I've decided to do the same this month, with prose. I'll try to give some super-quick thoughts, two hundred words or less, a bit more often. Whether or not this writing-space even has any readers matters little. It should be good practice! :)
A while ago now, my friend Blake encouraged me to write poems with a word limit, for a month. I think it was about thirty words- and while that may not have made my poetry much better in quality or more outward-focused, I found it helpful! So I've decided to do the same this month, with prose. I'll try to give some super-quick thoughts, two hundred words or less, a bit more often. Whether or not this writing-space even has any readers matters little. It should be good practice! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
