This is admittedly an odd poem to write on Christmas morning. Let me justify it. Here are some of God’s gifts that affect me deeply:
family and friends who recognize, but are unsatisfied with their limits
family and friends who accept me as I am, but encourage me to be more
eternity
Commentary
In case you are wondering…. I DO believe there is such a thing as truth. But we currently possess very little of it. I’m thankful that there is all eternity to explore and learn.
Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
The tone is sarcastic. In my favorite part, the last two stanzas, the “Know-It-Alls” are speaking to those who think there is a world yet to explore. They refer to them as fools, whose ignorance is vast. What satisfying irony that the very thing they criticize is the seed of a superior inheritance.
Distillation of a dream that just had me. [MORNING EDIT: Every time I wake up in the middle of the night and post something that just occurred to me, I wake up the next day and semi-regret it. My 2 am thoughts are weird(er) than usual. Perhaps Ezekiel felt that way!]
I may only have two friends old enough to understand this…. In my midnight dream, I pictured myself as what one would see through the viewfinder of an old rangefinder camera. Ideally, the photographer would twist the focusing barrel until a sharp image and its ghostly double were perfectly aligned. But in my dream, the split images remained separate—out of focus. Such is the dream of an old photographer-poet.
focusing through a rangefinder camera; not there yet
“Sigh to…” Think “Try to…” but with the frustration of someone unable to change himself. However, “Good Lord!” is said in both exasperation (lament) and hope. He IS “bringing many sons to glory.”
I have been noticing recently that writing poetry is a way to access emotions and thoughts that have been suppressed in some way. So when I say that poets twist words to reveal the truth, I’m referring partly to the truth about what “lurks” in their hearts. Sometimes that truth is good, sometimes not so good! But at least the poet is getting closer to honesty.
At its best, poetry expresses beautiful truths in a way that helps both the poet and reader understand them better. That’s my goal.
I’ll be hard-pressed to fully explain this one, but let me try by recounting the occasion:
I had been praying for a friend’s father for about a year. He was a brilliant man whose mind and health were failing. My repeated prayer was that God would give him enough clarity of mind and grace to respond in faith to the Savior — if he had not already done so (my friend wasn’t sure). He was on my list of “People I Want to See in Heaven!” God knew all about it.
On Saturday morning, after months in hospice, the father passed away a little before noon. My wife and I heard the sad news shortly after.
A couple of hours later, I was taking my afternoon nap. To help me sleep, I placed a piece of dark, heavy clothing over my face. As I lay there in that artificial darkness, it was as though the sun had gone down. I thought of my friend, and I began to sob. Some of this was fresh grief for my friend. Some was the mounting grief of a lifetime of deaths. I’ve been here before — three years ago, when my own father died.
I thought of how convenient it was that I could press the artificial darkness to my face and express my feelings without alarming my family. How I’d like to stay there, not remove the darkening cloth — now wet — from my face. But this day had many more hours to go.
Yet to Explore
How does the sun relate to the father? How does that sun both create and respond to the reality of “newborn day”? I have been thinking lately about Romans 8, where creation is depicted as groaning as it awaits freedom from corruption at the “the revealing of the sons of God.” That figures in to my inchoate thoughts. Here’s one of those embarrassing things about poetry: I don’t yet know the meaning of my own words, but firmly believe there IS meaning.
This Advent mindset doesn’t come easy for me, but I’m trying…. When I say “Let’s not pretend,” it’s myself I’m talking to. Being a “glass one-fifth full” guy, I frequently gloss over my own disappointments. And I ignore the suffering of others all too easily. But I’m convinced that God will correct this, that God IS correcting this.
When I posted this on Facebook and Instagram last night, I wrote, “I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow and realize this was nothing more than fluff!” That sounds like I didn’t know what I meant by the words, right?
Increasingly, I find myself able to write poetry and prose in an honest way, where the words express my actual thoughts and feelings, not some bogus sentiment that I concoct to suit a clever turn of phrase. Did you ever suspect that of poetry? Welcome to the skeptics club! How about this one?
Earlier in the day, yesterday, I thought of dryer lint and fluff in a metaphoric sense while writing a cover note to a silly little poem (one which I will not quote for the general public!):
Here’s a bit of doggerel that I cannot share with anyone else. It’s fluff that comes out of the deep appreciation I have for how God has caused our paths to cross.
Cover note for “Heaven is a Haven”
So I thought, “Can I push that metaphor?” What could represent deep appreciation or deep affection and related fluff? A coat of many colors thrown into a clothes dryer might do it!
The part about “when my color’s grey?” That MAY have a deeper referent than I can yet identify and articulate. Sometimes poetry does come out of the subconscience. There’s a fine line between that justification and saying that it’s just a concocted sentiment. Time will tell which this is. Hang on to your skeptic’s hat.
I wrote this after talking briefly with a friend who was struggling. It seemed to me that the friend needed nothing so much as a brother to share his burden — a brother who is willing to suffer alongside, to let the smoke blow in his own face. No lectures. No correction. Silent compassion can speak louder than words. At least that’s what I’m told.
Why “Job’s One Good Friend”? The biblical character Job had friends who sat with him for a while in silence. They had come together “to show him sympathy and comfort him.” But then they opened their mouths, and it wasn’t helpful. It seems that the one who came closest to being a true friend kept his mouth closed the longest.
And why a campfire? If you’ve ever sat around a campfire in the mountains, you know that as the wind direction shifts, the smoke sometimes blows in your face. Some guys feel that they are the target, no matter where they sit! I picture Job and his friends sitting around such a campfire, perhaps one that burned down to embers and then to ashes. “And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.”
This poem is about photography AND learning from older people. See the commentary below.
Commentary
The thought in this poem crystalized as I was looking at a friend’s Instagram photos. The friend is not a photographer, just someone who understands and appreciates the great outdoors. I was looking at one of his early-morning mountain scenes. The sky was literally grey and the trees had no green in them. The photographer in me always aches to edit such photos so that they match my ideal of beauty, and I often excuse my own editing as an attempt to make sure the photo depicts the scene as our magnificent human eyes would have seen it. This all assumes or suggests the conceit that I am the expert, that my vision is the standard.
But my photography and poetry are expressions of something far more important: the desire to fully appreciate and reflect the beauty inherent in a world created by God. In this pursuit, I revel in the wisdom that is both longed for — loudly insisted on — by youth and quietly attained in old age.
Perhaps what I wrote on Facebook will clarify:
Here’s a book that needs to be written: “removing THE BARNICLES OF CHRONIA.” I say this partly in jest, partly “en serio.” As I age, and come to important new realizations about life, I think of my older friends. Many have been down this road already, but were not inclined to chronicle the journey. It seems that we could serve others by offering an honest, thankful, hopeful account. Thoughts?
[Edit, 11/8/2019: Last night, I discussed the project above with fellow creative writers. It’s still on my mind. The poem and photograph below ponders the subject by different means.]
By the way, I know the last stanza is difficult. I’m using “prove” in the sense of “testing so as to find what works.” I think that a full appreciation of beauty is attainable. I fancy that is one of the things that God is even now perfecting in His children. But we all have false or incomplete ideas about beauty in its various manifestations (visual, physical, emotional, intellectual, theological, etc.). For instance, I highly suspect that I still have a false idea about the relationship of beauty and suffering: “Suffering is bad, not suffering is good!” How can suffering have anything to do with beauty?
The answer to the question I just posed is one which I suspect people older than I — and some younger than I — understand far better than I currently understand it. The answer surely goes something like this: through suffering, we are prepared for the beauty that is coming. The answer is somewhere in Romans 8. Perhaps in this passage:
16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
It was dark in the living room. My wife and boys had already gone to bed, and I was left alone in the papa chair. By faint light coming from the kitchen, I could see Princess on a blanket we had set for her on the floor. She sat there, as peaceful and dignified as ever, probably purring. Two days before, she had stopped eating altogether, even when Joshua stroked her bony back and tried feeding her from his hand. The tumor in her stomach had won, and now she could barely walk, let alone jump or climb onto the couch.
In the morning, Joshua and Susan would take her to the vet. They’d ask the vet for some locks of her beautiful hair to remember her by. It seemed more appropriate than ashes.
Sitting there in the dark, I thought of how Princess’ well-being had been my responsibility for most of her seventeen years. Under my protection, neither hawks in the trees above nor the bitter cold of winter nights had ever touched her beautiful form. But now…. Now, tears began to stream. “I’m sorry, Princess. There’s nothing I can do for you this time.”
Up to this point in my life, I had never really understood corporate guilt. “Yes,” I could admit — only because good theology demands it — “I somehow share in the sin of Adam and Eve. But slavery and other atrocities? If neither I nor any of my relatives ever committed this or that sin, how can I — why should I — feel any guilt in the matter!”
That’s not what I was thinking about in the darkness of the night.
Looking at Princess across the room, I was sad. That much was clear, especially in the darkness. But then a little window opened. Through my tears, new light came streaming. It was sorrow, an emotion I barely recognize. “Princess,” I wept, “Not only am I unable to help you now, but in a very real — painfully real — sense, I am responsible for all that brought us to this dark night. I am truly sorry!” In that moment, for the first time ever, I was Adam. Once upon a time, God set me over His creation as its protector and provider. But I failed. And now, my Princess, like everything else under my charge, was dying.
A small window opened for me that night. Wisdom whispers, “Don’t let it close!”
Perhaps, in the light of that account, this poem I wrote the following day will make sense:
My pastor had this response: “I like it. Slowly we die as we are absorbed by the fictional lives of others dancing before our eyes when real life is just a power button and a glance away…” My riposte: “… and a good pair of sneakers if you’re so disposed!”
Despite my riposte, this poem is more about the first stanza than the second. Not everyone can don a pair of sneakers and join me on long hikes. But everyone can seek to live as directly as possible, fully appreciating their own God-given life and embracing God’s offer of rebirth, restoration, and eternal life. For most people, this appreciation and embracing requires a little — or a lot — of contemplation, meditation. Noise and distraction are the enemy. Compare my poem “Alone at the Lake.”
About the title: I’m not completely happy with the title. You can probably tell that I started with “Television.” From there, I started pushing on “Tele,” “Tell,” and finally landed on “Tolled.” It may be too far out there. But consider that “toll” is associated with death (“For Whom the Bell Tolls”). It also sounds like “told.” Even as the flitting and vapid* “lives” of fictional characters displayed on a television have “tolled” our dying, and have “told” us the bad news, nature itself has “told” us about better news, the hope of resurrection. A big stretch, I know! This is my blurry vision, and now I have told you.
*This needs work. I do think there is something of “the medium is the message” in this. In television, we have lives that are extinguished with the press of a button.
This morning, I was beginning to read a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. He’s a poet I know little about, but am confident he will be worth getting to know. His poem, “The Windhover” begins I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin… The effort to unravel “morning morning’s minion,” and the delight I felt as a result, suggested my own “morning catch,” which morphed quickly into “meaning’s catch:”
Here is how I commented on my own poem on Facebook:
The creative writers I recently began meeting with spent much of our first few sessions grappling with the PURPOSE of our writing. In the case of poetry, one question is “Why use metaphors when plain words could express the thought?” One of the best answers for me is that truth has more impact on a person when he or she puts effort into understanding it (this applies to the author and reader alike). My father and I spent years puzzling through Robert Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra” (Grow old along with me…). I’m convinced that Browning’s insight has had far more positive effect in my thinking BECAUSE of that puzzling than it would have had Browning “just said what he meant!”
IT’S ALWAYS DANGEROUS to admit your faults in public. But here goes….
I’m occasionally an idolater. Not just any idolater, but one whose idol
is himself. HOWEVER, God is merciful. He knows that I want to leave
idolatry behind, and — with the patience of one who knows the end from
the beginning — He’s working on me. I wrote this several weeks ago, and
have not had the courage to post it until now, except to some other
creatives who intimately understand the struggle.
Note: the background image was by “Mylene2401” on Pixabay.
Yesterday, I attended a birthday party for Youssef Sleiman. All who attended were given the opportunity to read something they had written, or to extemporize about how God has uniquely crafted this man to bring Himself glory. It was something like a memorial service, where the eulogies went on for over two hours. But in this case, the eulogee — the dearly not departed — was sitting there right beside us laughing and occasionally weeping.
I wrote a poem for the occasion, and was happy to see that much of what I wrote matched the reflections of people who have known Youssef far longer than I:
Background image stolen from Lynné Sleiman’s Facebook feed, where it was titled “Meta.”
We know these people. Sometimes we are these people.
I like this little piece, and I must laugh because as is sometimes the case, I seem to be one of the few people who likes it! Why do I laugh? Here is something I’ll have to explore: when I write something that gets good response, there’s a sense in which it belongs to the readers; when it’s something that does not get a good response, even though I like it, it remains my “private stash.” As I said more than once to my sons in their youth: “Oh, you don’t like it? Good. There’s more for me!”
Most biographies end badly. It didn’t help that I was already unaccountably sad* yesterday as I listened to the final chapters of Alister McGrath’s biography “C.S. Lewis – A Life.” Lewis had beautiful things to say about the resurrection. But they were barely acknowledged or reflected in his final days, at least as recorded by McGrath.
To be fair, I was LISTENING to the Audible version of McGrath’s book. At the close of the audio version, there were two recordings of Lewis which somewhat brightened my perspective on his death.
About the image above: I stopped and took this photo while I was walking and listening to the biography. The flowers are Rain Lilies. When park maintenance comes and mows down all the wildflowers, these flowers spring up quickly, especially if there is any rain. They seem apropos the subject.
*I began writing a poem while walking and listening to the final chapters of Lewis’ biography:
The End of Biography How can it be so humid In this arid place? The rain within me Wants to fall, And surely will Before the day is done.
The story I have finished now Is of a man who died. Oh sure, he lived, And still his fame endures… But after all he died. And so will you, And so will I.
Death, for now, Is the final chapter Of all biography.
Does your contribution in this world seem laughable or small? This one’s for you. Stand up to your mocking self!
I suspect almost ALL of us feel odd at times. Lately, I have felt odd on many an occasion as I work at this art of poetry. Other poets assure me that it isn’t always necessary for us to fully understand what we write in our own poems. Often we’re trying to access and express thoughts buried deep inside. The words may or may not perfectly match the thoughts. My expectation is that as I continue practicing, there will be an increasing correspondence in thoughts and words. In the meantime, I sometimes feel like a blathering fool… one of God’s unaffiliated odd fellows.
But I do believe my circumstances and desires are being orchestrated by God’s good will; working at poetry is something I’m supposed to do. To what avail? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely that I’ll ever be good enough to publish. Here’s a theory: I often ask God to increase my ability to teach important truths. Perhaps the writing of poetry is making me more sensitive to truth and beauty. Perhaps I’m learning to convey that truth and beauty in a way that breaks through to others’ hearts.
(This poem USED to follow the rules for a Shakespearean sonnet. But forty years later, I have forgotten a few words and four lines! They were important to the flow and form, but probably added nothing to the sentiment. I was a freshman in college when I wrote this for an English course. It recalled the powerful crush I had on a girl who worked with me at a summer camp. She was older than me, beautiful and charming beyond description. When the summer passed, she returned to her home in the city, and shy young Brad — still working at the camp — could only watch for the ghost of her memory.)
I read the claim that “seasons rule man’s heart” And thought, “Absurd! I know that cannot be! Such stuff is nothing but poetic art For mine was ne’er affected one degree!”
“My heart in dead of winter, as in spring Has always changeless been despite the time! Such stuff is used for rhyme By poets who in fact don’t mean a thing.”
And still I’d think the poets’ claim untrue, Had I not spent this Fall apart from you.
— Brad Hepp, Fall of 1978
AUGUST 2021 NOTE: I was reading back over my poems the other day and hit this one. I still haven’t found the original, full sonnet. BUT, this time, Cecile’s last name suddenly popped into my mind. A quick Google search, and it looked like I had located her. She now has a key position in state government. On LinkedIn, I messaged Cecile, assuring her that I’m NOT a stalker. She confirmed that she is the Cecile who tended the gardens at that summer camp. Fun.
Here’s the exchange I had with Cecile (slightly redacted): I wrote: Cecile, In my semi-retirement, I have been working on my poetry. The oldest poem I halfway recall is a sonnet I wrote for “Cecile” after the summer when she and I both worked at Sky Ranch out in East Texas. By the time I wrote the sonnet, I was in college and past my infatuation for her, but the memory of that infatuation was ample inspiration! I’m not a stalker. Rather, I’m happily married to my beautiful, godly wife Susan, and serving as an elder at our church here in Dallas. For some reason, the last name [REDACTED] popped into my mind when I was working on my poetry blog. A quick search, and there was this highly-accomplished civil servant. It wouldn’t surprise me if the inspiring young lady who tended the gardens at Sky Ranch is now tending something equally important.
Cecile responded: “I did tend the garden at Sky Ranch. It was such a great time. I keep up with several others who worked the same summer.”
I won’t embarrass the young people I wrote this for by telling you their names. Suffice it to say that it is a young man and his girlfriend. They got to know each other at a time when both were dealing with anxiety. Their kindness to one another was soothing, leading in time to genuine love (affection coupled with determined efforts to seek the good of the loved one). Buoyed by countless long conversations, they have each grown stronger, assured of the love and support that overcomes anxiety.
But life continues to be hard. Pressures abound. Schoolwork is taxing. Other responsibilities pile on with each year of young life. What this poem advocates is that my young friends face those pressures, spend the time and mental/emotional energy that is demanded of them now without resorting to the comfort they have come to know in each other’s presence (physical and virtual, thanks to the Internet). In devoting time to their duties, they are not denying the affection they have for one another, but investing in themselves, investing in the valuable person they are, the valuable person loved by the other.
In a storm, darkness and curtains of rain may limit how far we see, but hearing our friend calling out encouragement is a powerful aid. I like to imagine some code phrase like, “Together through the storm!” Literally. I like to imagine a literal phrase that conveys love in other “mere” words… think of “As you wish” in The Princess Bride. With encouragement like that, the storm loses it’s power. It may separate for a time, but it cannot ultimately separate those whose love for one another was forged by its menace, those who learned there is something more powerful than a storm.
[NOTE: The following is not yet edited; it’s a first go at wrangling my thoughts. Call it meditation.] I am slowing working my way through Paul’s letter to the Galatians. As I do so, I’m trying to extract principles that apply in the context of my own life. I ask myself, “If Paul were writing to fellow Christians in the United States of America in 2019, how would he frame the argument? Would the motivations of people who are drawn to political poles be called into question by Paul’s arguments? Do we base our righteousness on identification with lesser things?”
This morning, I was in verse 10 of the first chapter: “or am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servantof Christ.” I asked myself, “Do I take sides in a perishing system because I want to please man, to feel righteous based on the ideas I hold?”
I thought about Paul’s pre-salvation rise in the ranks of Pharisees. He surely was advancing because he was zealous. But how much of that zeal was motivated by a desire to impress other Pharisees? Today we might use the term “virtue signaling.”
That was the general setting. In the poem, I focused more tightly on the ambition to be someone “great.” This idol has been on my mind a lot lately. The poem pokes fun at me. The greatness I aspire to (even in last gasps) is not greatness. Relative to true brilliance, we are all 99.9% darkness.
My son Joshua helped illustrate this poem. Let me first clarify that his artwork (and this style in general) is NOT the problem addressed by the poem. In fact, the process of drawing such a complex design can afford time and mental space to be contemplative, to “listen, feel, and face.”
Here’s how I tentatively explained the poem to Joshua (you may notice that I’m still struggling to understand this poem myself)….
“a tendency divine” God designed us to relate to Himself, with creativity, a desire to work and build. But as with so many other things, we pervert those qualities. We abuse the qualities. Instead of finding a balance of work and rest, we work all the time. God offers a Sabbath, promising that He’ll supply what we would have produced in that period of rest. Instead, we work straight through. We also let the qualities draw attention to the creation instead of to the Creator. While we could stop to enjoy the complexity of His creations, we instead busy ourselves building and admiring our own creations. In a hundred other ways, we say to God, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m kind of busy supplying for myself, expressing myself, making sure that others recognize how great I am. Catch you later, pal.”
“To fill each void” Jesus wasn’t impressed with the elaborate prayers of religious would-be leaders. He taught his disciples to pray simple prayers of dependence. He wasn’t impressed with the self-satisfied, self-righteous, and judgmental religion of many grown ups, so He taught his discples they’d better come to Him with the simple dependance and delight that characterize children.
“We fear” Why do we blow off the opportunity to breathe, to take it easy with our Heavenly Father? One reason may be that we don’t trust Him to prevent catastrophe. We think our security depends on us. Approaching the rim of a Grand Canyon, we doubt that He’ll hold our hand, and so we run back to the safety of the Visitor Center. There, surrounded by gee-gaws of plastic, we need not fear the hardness of rocks in the chasm below.
“In time, the power fails” But God is a good Father. One way or another, He’ll take us to the rim. It may be when a storm damages the electrical grid. It may be when age, disease, or exhaustion leave us dependant on Him.
Grand Canyon photo by “Pexels” on Pixabay. I personally have never been to the Grand Canyon. It seems like a vast depression to me. Perhaps someday….
This old sign tapped me on the shoulder as I walked by yesterday: “Remember me? Sure, you may see better now (slightly better than a newborn kitten), and judge less harshly. But you’re also prone to forget.” Thank you, Seven.
This poem refers to someone you almost certainly do not know. Don’t even TRY to guess who—you won’t get it right. He appears in the carousel of prideful men and humble men the Lord has lately set in motion before my eyes… pride and humility in the mirror and lessons of life. Underlying image by Enrique Lopez Garre on Pixabay.
This is probably as close as I’ll ever come to synesthesia. I was reading Romans and listening to Bach and Morricone. How I wish I could hear the music in all of them for all it’s worth!
As mentioned in an earlier post, I have recently begun thinking about GREED, and how it relates to other sins. While close friends know that I’m a hopeful “glass one-fifth full” sort of guy, I do also acknowledge the four-fifths empty. I am a sinner saved by grace, and am never surprised to discover how utterly sinful I am (and so I’m pleased at any progress!).
This pondering of greed began as a reaction. Some who believe differently than I do accuse “my side” of hypocrisy. “We” dwell on certain sins but completely ignore others. I considered using discussion of greed as a thought experiment, frankly a trap: what if I were to promote greed, insist on equal treatment of greedy people, call for greedy pride parades? You can guess where that was going (and now it will not serve as a trap). But by God’s grace, the thought experiment got out of control.
Some days, the thoughts I think Line up like singers in a talent show. Today is such a day.
If only I could walk and write! But duty I put off too long Now binds me to my desk.
I went to bed last night with a friend’s poem on my mind. Combine that with my having just wrapped up designing the cover of a Spanish book (more about that later) and I really did have the dream I describe below. I also woke up this morning with the dread of having to make up for months of procrastination: with taxes due in just a few days, I’ll be putting in a marathon of accounting and tax preparation. Such a situation seems to fire up my creative side, apparently desperate to justify yet another day of procrastination. I got up and jotted down the following lines with barely any thought:
The Dream I Had Last Night
The dream I had last night… (So very strange!) Was all about the title of a book Spelled out like corn maze On the spine of hillside’s gentle slope. My friends and I descended One by one, or sometimes all together Through those living words. But only as the day grew long And air a bit more cool Did we slow down enough To fill that shape and take its form.
And then I woke, with this in mind: That I — along with friends — AM being formed By process hard to get my head around. AM being formed By One who wrote the book And knows its title well.
Don’t ask too many questions For answers I don’t know: “This ‘book,’ and ‘title’ — What are they?” I only know I’m being formed By One who wrote the book And knows the answers well.
Nounish you may think yourself. Verbose you’re meant to be.
In fullness of Imago Dei, A mystery:
Don’t you see? You speak, And so, thereby, Does HE.
And when thereby He speaks, So, thereby DOES He.
NOTES: I imagine a time — when time began — when nouns were not mere nouns. That was long before anyone thought it necessary or even logical that “actions speak louder than words.” That divorce came later.
What’s implied by the phrase “God IS love?” Indirectly, this poem explores that concept.
March 11, 2019 rumination: On Sunday, I had to do the scripture reading: John 14:8-14. One verse was difficult to read: “10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” See that odd juxtaposition? “words I say / Father… doing his work.” Reading this, I couldn’t help but think of the odd last two stanzas of my poem. God does/works through the Son’s speaking. In verse twelve Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Two verses later, Jesus promises, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” The Father’s doing, Jesus’ doing, our doing all get jumbled up. And the doing is related to saying/asking in unusual ways. I HAVE NOT GOTTEN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS.
The photograph used in the featured image (shown below, but mainly for social media) was taken by Dimitris Vetsikas, of Cyprus. He generously posted the photograph on Pixabay.
He filled his pack with bubble wrap
And set off on the trail.
Thus equipped, the carefree sap
Was sure he could not fail.
So light his step,
Straight his back,
His shoulders fresh and strong…
Up steepest trail he fairly floated
Warbling his song:
“For times like these I was set free,
So tell me not that I must care
For all your drudgery.
La di da, twiddle dee!
Like all the birds that sing above
For this I was set free!”
Just as the sun
Behind the mountain
Took her cooling plunge,
Approaching alpine glade he sang, “So high and far I’ve come;
Dee dum, dee dum, dee dum!”
Feasting eyes on matted grass
The clever lad observed,
“Here the elk bed down to sleep,
And therefore, so shall I.”
Lying there, in bubbles wrapped,
The lad soon fell asleep.
But wasn’t long into the night
That hunger pains began to gnaw,
Bitter cold to creep.
He reached into his empty pack
In search of something, any? thing?
Of all he did not bring
To serve as food and warmth.
Somewhere
In that frigid night
His soul above him floated,
Warbling her song:
“For times like these I was set free
So tell me not that I must care
For all your drudgery.
La di da, twiddle dee!
Like all the birds that sing above
For this I was set free!”
Then, looking down from whence she’d come, “Die dumb, die dumb, die dumb!
On matted grass, eternal bed,
La he died — twiddle dead.”
– Brad Hepp (2019)
This silly poem was inspired by Psalm 16:2: “I say to the LORD, ‘You are my LORD; I have no good apart from you.'” How much of my day is spent pursuing “good” apart from the Lord, doing things that seem pleasant, but which He has not given me to do? Such folly invites the fate of a mountain climber who chooses to pack only what lightens his load.
As much as he’d probably prefer to deny it, Don Regier helped me with a few of the lines.
This is a sad time for many I love. The pain is shared and felt deeply, but need not be without purpose.
The poem was a response to what I observed in myself as I contemplated the tragic drowning of a friend’s 4-year-old son. For over a week, I — along with thousands across the globe — was praying for this child to recover. When God did not grant our prayer, I didn’t know quite what to do with my own response. To act as if I didn’t have disappointment was surely not healthy. Elephants in the rooms I share with ever-present God are silly creatures. Some response — if merely a poem of lament — was necessary.
This evening, I leaned heavily on a friend for his perspective and advice. As with all wise men, he listened as much as he talked. Good questions are hard to formulate; good answers, harder still. The photo is of the Sangre de Cristos, taken on the return from one of my many mountain-climbing trips.
I read the poem to my friend. As a veteran of many climbs, he recognized the imagery. More importantly, as a veteran of the deepest valleys he recognized questions and opportunity that come when we reach inflection points in life.
It was wet, cold, and windy at the lake today… almost as good as a hike in the mountains.
This is a poem that took its own shape as I wrote… NOT what I set out to write. In the small group materials that Dave Carr and Sten-Erik Armitage prepared for our church, they quoted Alvin Plantinga articulating this striking truth: “The chief difference between Christianity and the other theistic religions lies just here: the God of Christianity is willing to enter into and share the sufferings of his creatures, in order to redeem them and his world. Of course this doesn’t answer the question why does God permit evil? But it helps the Christian trust God as a loving father, no matter what ills befall him.” That’s a truth I need to reflect on more often and more deeply.
When I go for walks in the winter, I’m impressed with little flowers like this one: Buxbaum’s Speedwell. Now THAT’S a flower name for you! Its very name conveys a positive spirit.
In a Dallas Seminary Romans course we were in chapter 8, and Dr. Grassmick said to the class of about 20 seminarians, “Raise your hand if you are led by the Spirit of God.” Only three had the temerity to raise their hands. Three out of 20 SEMINARIANS, men (it would be men and women now) who were spending their lives studying God’s word and preparing to lead others in the spiritual life. Were the 17 who did not raise their hands REALLY not led by the Spirit of God? Were they simply humble? Or were they — what I suspect, and am trying to process — failing to recognize and celebrate the ways in which the Spirit was indeed leading them? Even in the dead of winter, buds begin to form. One can lament the cold, or one can notice and celebrate the signs of life. I want to CELEBRATE WHAT IS. Yes, I’m still a sinner. The glass IS sometimes four-fifths empty. But THANK GOD, the glass IS one-fifth full!
