They change on the inside
first. The seconds of light that start to go
missing, unnoticed by Us,
affect Them from the inside
first, the inside, starts to come out
Because it's almost time
And They know it.
Then it comes too fast
and They reveal, the colors
that were inside, all along,
too soon
And Their reds are too red
And the air is too cold
In a last laugh
In a last breath
In a last hurrah
In a last goodbye
In a last wave
before We even realized
because the green was still there
last time.
We said goodbye casually.
not knowing the green
was already gone, and
We feel the wind which breaks
the fetters of Some,
suddenly. But Others get to hold on and
We have learned to notice,
now, the changes
that grapple, like hooks,
the forced surrender, of each One.
Some, leave slowly.
They let go
and fall to the earth,
Serenely. But a gust took that One.
And I think that,
yes, there was still some green left.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Poem Reading
For my English 3000 class, I was required to pick a poem and give my interpretation of it. This is the draft. I will be changing it to suit my professor's grading and to add more development; however, I also really like the way it is now. Anyway, I just thought I would share. Feel free to give some of your thoughts, critiques, etc. (: I just really like this poem.
Eden--Emily Grosholz (1992)
No, you explain it otherwise to me.
"He's sleeping. and his mommy going to come."
Later, when the squirrel has been removed,
"His mommy fix him," you insist, insisiting
on the right to know what you belive.
The world is truly full of fabulous
great and curious small inhabitants,
and you're the freshly minted, unashamed
Adam in this garden. You preside,
appreciate, and judge our proper names.
Like God, I brought you here.
Like God, i seem to be omnipotent,
mostly helpful, sometimes angry as hell.
I fix whatever minor faults arise
with bandaids, batteries, masking tape, and pills.
But I am powerless, as you must know,
to chase the serpent sliding in the grass,
or the tall angel with the flaming sword
who scares you when he rises suddenly
behind the gates of sunset.
Eden--Emily Grosholz (1992)
In lurid cartoon colors, the big baby
dinosaur steps backwards under the shadow
of an approaching T-rex
"His mommy going to fix it," you remark,
Serenely anxious, hoping for the best.
After the big explosion, after the lights
go down inside the house and up the street,
We rush outdoors to find a squirrel stopped in straws of half-gnawed cable. i explain,
trying to fit in the facts, "The squirrel is dead."
dinosaur steps backwards under the shadow
of an approaching T-rex
"His mommy going to fix it," you remark,
Serenely anxious, hoping for the best.
After the big explosion, after the lights
go down inside the house and up the street,
We rush outdoors to find a squirrel stopped in straws of half-gnawed cable. i explain,
trying to fit in the facts, "The squirrel is dead."
No, you explain it otherwise to me.
"He's sleeping. and his mommy going to come."
Later, when the squirrel has been removed,
"His mommy fix him," you insist, insisiting
on the right to know what you belive.
The world is truly full of fabulous
great and curious small inhabitants,
and you're the freshly minted, unashamed
Adam in this garden. You preside,
appreciate, and judge our proper names.
Like God, I brought you here.
Like God, i seem to be omnipotent,
mostly helpful, sometimes angry as hell.
I fix whatever minor faults arise
with bandaids, batteries, masking tape, and pills.
But I am powerless, as you must know,
to chase the serpent sliding in the grass,
or the tall angel with the flaming sword
who scares you when he rises suddenly
behind the gates of sunset.
In Emily
Grosholz’s “Eden,” readers listen to the discourse of a mother to her
child. The way she talks allows readers
to infer that perhaps the child is not listening; the mother may simply be
musing these fearful thoughts in her head.
After all, to confide many of these thoughts to her child would only
expedite the process she hopes to avoid.
This poem exhibits that, though loss of innocence is inevitable in the
scheme of life through maturity, it is still a tragic loss.
The poem opens with the mother
speaking of vivid and harsh “lurid” colored cartoons (Line 1). This unnaturally bright scene reflects the
unnaturally bright disposition that many children possess. The use of colors will become significant at
the very end of the poem. In the end of
the poem, the mother references a sunset.
This image evokes thoughts of an array of colors yet again; however,
these colors are natural. This reflects
the understanding a child gains as they mature, a more natural understanding of
the world. The sunset also serves to
show the ending or death of a “day.” In
this case, the “day” represents childhood and the innocence that accompanies
it.
As we move to the second stanza in
the poem, the mother speaks of a “big explosion” in reference to a power outage
(Line 6). She is likely using her
child’s vocabulary to emphasize the way children often find ordinary events
amazing and fantastical; this is a blessing of youth that adults often
tragically leave behind. It is easy to
dismiss the small things in life as ordinary instead of taking time to
marvel. In this stanza, the child
encounters death a second time. The
mother attempts to “fit the facts” which evokes a sense of attempting to put
together a puzzle (Line 10). After this precarious struggle, she bluntly tells
her child that the squirrel has died.
Moving on to the next stanza the child replies that the mommy squirrel
will fix this; mommies fix things is this child’s reality. Therefore, the child shapes all other
experiences around this fact. The third
stanza closes with a seemingly paradoxical phrase “the right to know what you
believe” (Line 15). This is the center
of the poem, and it leads us to a change from the occurrences of the day to the
deeper thoughts of the mother.
In the fourth stanza the mother
alludes to The Bible she calls the
child, whom we now know to be her son, as an “unashamed Adam” (Line 18 &
19). This compares the child to Adam who
was completely and happily naked in the Garden of Eden. The child wears his ignorance of death,
ignorance of weakness, and childlike illusion unashamedly like nakedness bare
and unaltered. He does not even have an
understanding of shame. This is a
beautiful image of untainted innocence; it is reflective of complete
contentment. However, drawing upon this
allusion, the mother is unable to avoid its progression.
She goes on to compare herself in
her son’s eyes as God. These two parallel
reflections on herself as God reveal the speaker’s attitude towards God. Although motherly, she comments that God can
be “angry as hell” (Line 23). This
negative light of God appears to stem from the mothers own fear, remorse, and
frustration at being unable to prevent her own son from The Fall. This fall is not a fall of sin, but it is a
fall that will remove his innocence.
Like God chose not to intervene during Adam’s fall, so parents must
chose to one day release their children.
This inevitability lends to the
closing of the poem. The last stanza
reads like a confession. “I am
powerless, as you must know,” she says to the child (Line 26). She proceeds to
allude to The Fall. She speaks of the
“sudden” appearance of the “angel” (Line 28). Like the loss of innocence, it is a scary
occurrence. Yet, few of us can ever recall
quite where we lost it; it’s a sequence of events. Like Adam tasting the apple, seeing things
anew, hiding, confessing, and being cast out, we all slowly leave our gardens. We are cast into a world where we experience
a new and more painful form of nakedness.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
His Authority
I have been thinking about the authority of Christ.
Frankly, it's kind of impossible to wrap my head around all the power He possesses. Yet, He still desires my attention. It's pretty mind-blowing.
What is also mind-blowing is that if we were to let this understanding of whom Christ really is seep in, we would never worry or fear. He has authority in every space of the universe, the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen, the constant and the transient, the gargantuan and the minuscule, the significant and insignificant. He has authority over amoebas and over super-novas. He has authority over us and over any potential extra-terrestrials. He has authority over my next breath and yours. He has authority over the past, present, and future. He has always more than proven His authority. He has also always proven that He is the greatest and most wonderful King.
I fail continually at being ever-conscious of the true identity of Christ. However, while riding down the road from Chattanooga a couple days ago, I had some interesting thoughts spring up. These thoughts were spurred from some talks I had heard (and needed to hear) at a small (very small) conference at ChattHOP (Chattanooga House of Prayer) called Immersion. I was blessed to attend this.
((Fun fact: When I prayed about going, I prayed and said, "God if I need to go to this, let it cost no money but the gas to drive down there." (I figured this was relatively impossible. I would need to eat.) However, I received an e-mail from my friend who had invited me that had information about immersion on it. Guess what.... it was completely free....They even fed us.))
Anyway, I heard some great talks on finding your identity in how God views you and on missions.
The one on missions started the thought of Christ sending us out under His authority.
He sends us out equipped to spread His word and disciple others. (Disciple, not convert....discipling requires a little more dedication...but another topic for another day.)
In scripture, Jesus tells His disciples to ask whatever in His name and He will do it. (John 14) We are His disciples and are able to receive the Spirit (advocate, Spirit of truth, Holy Spirit) at any time because Jesus has now ascended into Heaven; The Spirit of God dwells in us!! The Trinity is a mystery, but we do know that Christ and God and The Holy Spirit are God in three beings made one. (I know, mind-blowing.)
Frankly, it's kind of impossible to wrap my head around all the power He possesses. Yet, He still desires my attention. It's pretty mind-blowing.
What is also mind-blowing is that if we were to let this understanding of whom Christ really is seep in, we would never worry or fear. He has authority in every space of the universe, the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen, the constant and the transient, the gargantuan and the minuscule, the significant and insignificant. He has authority over amoebas and over super-novas. He has authority over us and over any potential extra-terrestrials. He has authority over my next breath and yours. He has authority over the past, present, and future. He has always more than proven His authority. He has also always proven that He is the greatest and most wonderful King.
I fail continually at being ever-conscious of the true identity of Christ. However, while riding down the road from Chattanooga a couple days ago, I had some interesting thoughts spring up. These thoughts were spurred from some talks I had heard (and needed to hear) at a small (very small) conference at ChattHOP (Chattanooga House of Prayer) called Immersion. I was blessed to attend this.
((Fun fact: When I prayed about going, I prayed and said, "God if I need to go to this, let it cost no money but the gas to drive down there." (I figured this was relatively impossible. I would need to eat.) However, I received an e-mail from my friend who had invited me that had information about immersion on it. Guess what.... it was completely free....They even fed us.))
Anyway, I heard some great talks on finding your identity in how God views you and on missions.
The one on missions started the thought of Christ sending us out under His authority.
He sends us out equipped to spread His word and disciple others. (Disciple, not convert....discipling requires a little more dedication...but another topic for another day.)
In scripture, Jesus tells His disciples to ask whatever in His name and He will do it. (John 14) We are His disciples and are able to receive the Spirit (advocate, Spirit of truth, Holy Spirit) at any time because Jesus has now ascended into Heaven; The Spirit of God dwells in us!! The Trinity is a mystery, but we do know that Christ and God and The Holy Spirit are God in three beings made one. (I know, mind-blowing.)
With all this wonderful knowledge in our heads, we still have the audacity to fear. Do not let fear hold us back brothers and sisters! Let our head knowledge penetrate our heart! Let The Lord's magnificence and love and power wash over you like waves. We were made for His glory; now let's go glorify Him daily with our actions!!
Monday, August 12, 2013
Habakkuk 3:17-19
I just want to love God because He is God, Almighty, Jehovah, YHWH, I AM, Creator, and so much more. I want to learn to love God so much that, like Habakkuk, I can be totally bereft of earthly material blessing and still glorify The Name of The Lord.
Fill me up, God
This is something I have felt convicted of recently......
Sometimes, we Christians, myself included, ask God for a lot of stuff. A lot of times, this stuff isn't even bad. We ask for more of God, courage, boldness, wisdom, energy, etc. I believe God is happy to give us these things! He enjoys giving good gifts to his children. However, I believe that a lot of times, we waste these precious gifts. We should not ask for these things frivolously and expect no responsibility to come along with them.
Many times, we receive these gifts, experience a spiritual high for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but then we forget; our joy gets choked out by our worldly worries. I ask and encourage you brothers and sisters that we, myself included, try not to do this.
A song I love to sing is "Fill Me Up." It says "fill me up God" over and over; God does and He will continue to fill us with His Spirit. He fills us with living water. This water is alive and dynamic! It is not stagnant. It is meant to gush forth from us in the form of love and service towards others.
God fills us and equips us to do His work; I pray we all strive to boldly and joyfully proclaim the greatest news we could ever receive, the news of the astounding love of Christ!
Put your faith into action this week! (:
Sometimes, we Christians, myself included, ask God for a lot of stuff. A lot of times, this stuff isn't even bad. We ask for more of God, courage, boldness, wisdom, energy, etc. I believe God is happy to give us these things! He enjoys giving good gifts to his children. However, I believe that a lot of times, we waste these precious gifts. We should not ask for these things frivolously and expect no responsibility to come along with them.
Many times, we receive these gifts, experience a spiritual high for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but then we forget; our joy gets choked out by our worldly worries. I ask and encourage you brothers and sisters that we, myself included, try not to do this.
A song I love to sing is "Fill Me Up." It says "fill me up God" over and over; God does and He will continue to fill us with His Spirit. He fills us with living water. This water is alive and dynamic! It is not stagnant. It is meant to gush forth from us in the form of love and service towards others.
God fills us and equips us to do His work; I pray we all strive to boldly and joyfully proclaim the greatest news we could ever receive, the news of the astounding love of Christ!
Put your faith into action this week! (:
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Car Sanctuary
In traffic, where there once was rage, there is peace.
In long stretches of endless road, where there once was anxiety, there is boundless joy.
Over the hum of cycling rubber, there is loud praise.
Where my voice was once silent, I now speak audibly to The One who always hears.
In a well-used five-thousand dollar coupe, The Spirit of The Living God abides with me.
He makes the ordinary extraordinary.
He made the tents of my forefathers in faith His dwelling place, and now He is willing and content to make my car a sanctuary.
How beautiful is His presence!
It is transformative.
In long stretches of endless road, where there once was anxiety, there is boundless joy.
Over the hum of cycling rubber, there is loud praise.
Where my voice was once silent, I now speak audibly to The One who always hears.
In a well-used five-thousand dollar coupe, The Spirit of The Living God abides with me.
He makes the ordinary extraordinary.
He made the tents of my forefathers in faith His dwelling place, and now He is willing and content to make my car a sanctuary.
How beautiful is His presence!
It is transformative.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
The Purpose
[From my first journal entry... This was post traveling for about 15ish hours... Location: a squeaky bunk bed in La Romana, Dominican Republic]
"Wow. Today feels like so much. God is such a good protector; despite my mild anxieties, we arrived in La Romana without a hitch. I'm still so fascinated by flying; it's so surreal, and everything is so beautiful. It's a whole new perspective.
That's part of what this trip is, a perspective change.
There is so much newness! I'm in a country with a foreign language. ( I now am even more sympathetic with the foreign language speakers in my home country.) God is giving me new eyes.
Our devotional tonight is from Revelation 21:5; Jesus proclaims, "Look! I am making everything new!" I believe at times, Jesus doesn't necessarily make the "things" new; I believe, he changes us. We now see or are reminded in our soul and spirit to see the world as Jesus does. Jesus looks on everything with love; He is one with the Father. The Father, God, is love! He is love's personification, and He cannot be separated from it. His love is furious, penetrating, unending, enduring, passionate, consuming, relentless, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever and will ever encounter!
For me to be effective this week, or ever in life, I must keep this love at the forefront of my mind. It's crazy how my sinful flesh can drag me away from the always refreshing always newly exciting and amazing love of Christ. That is the fight of the flesh though; satan, the ultimate deceiver and father of all lies will attempt at all times to draw us away from the beautiful love of Christ. It is truly a daily struggle to fight, but we must fight in the knowledge that our battles have already been won.
Christ does not call us from the other side of our battle either. He stands with us, intercedes for us, and He fights on our behalf. When we are weary and weak, we can rest in the promise that He is strong in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). When we are enfeebled, He is empowered. When we are tired, He is tireless. When we are feeling hopeless, He is our hope (Hebrews 6:19). When we lose faith, He is ever faithful (2 Timothy 2:13).
Psalm 23 reminds us that though we fight, we fight with mere shadows. ("Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...") The psalmist also writes, "I will fear no evil, for You [The Lord] are with me." God doesn't wait for us to come out of the valley; He joins us in it. He cannot abandon His beloved children. Also, if we have the ultimate light, Christ, with us, the shadows that attempt to haunt us have no choice but to flee!
[[Props to Jason Polk for teaching on this at The Orchard one night. It's been such an encouragement.]]
Jesus is exactly what we need, always! Only He can satisfy the depths of our soul with His boundless love. He can satisfy the needs of everyone we meet and minister to this week. We will eventually leave and have been like a wave in the sea to them. However, if we go to them under the authority and clothed in the love of Christ, His love will never leave them. This is not to say our time here is fruitless, but it is to say, that unless we leave the true love and peace of Christ, our efforts will be for naught. We must remember that we are here for Jesus. We are here for His glorification alone, and we are here to share His love.
Thank the Lord for His truth, His mercy, His grace, and His love!"
"Wow. Today feels like so much. God is such a good protector; despite my mild anxieties, we arrived in La Romana without a hitch. I'm still so fascinated by flying; it's so surreal, and everything is so beautiful. It's a whole new perspective.
That's part of what this trip is, a perspective change.
There is so much newness! I'm in a country with a foreign language. ( I now am even more sympathetic with the foreign language speakers in my home country.) God is giving me new eyes.
Our devotional tonight is from Revelation 21:5; Jesus proclaims, "Look! I am making everything new!" I believe at times, Jesus doesn't necessarily make the "things" new; I believe, he changes us. We now see or are reminded in our soul and spirit to see the world as Jesus does. Jesus looks on everything with love; He is one with the Father. The Father, God, is love! He is love's personification, and He cannot be separated from it. His love is furious, penetrating, unending, enduring, passionate, consuming, relentless, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever and will ever encounter!
For me to be effective this week, or ever in life, I must keep this love at the forefront of my mind. It's crazy how my sinful flesh can drag me away from the always refreshing always newly exciting and amazing love of Christ. That is the fight of the flesh though; satan, the ultimate deceiver and father of all lies will attempt at all times to draw us away from the beautiful love of Christ. It is truly a daily struggle to fight, but we must fight in the knowledge that our battles have already been won.
Christ does not call us from the other side of our battle either. He stands with us, intercedes for us, and He fights on our behalf. When we are weary and weak, we can rest in the promise that He is strong in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). When we are enfeebled, He is empowered. When we are tired, He is tireless. When we are feeling hopeless, He is our hope (Hebrews 6:19). When we lose faith, He is ever faithful (2 Timothy 2:13).
Psalm 23 reminds us that though we fight, we fight with mere shadows. ("Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...") The psalmist also writes, "I will fear no evil, for You [The Lord] are with me." God doesn't wait for us to come out of the valley; He joins us in it. He cannot abandon His beloved children. Also, if we have the ultimate light, Christ, with us, the shadows that attempt to haunt us have no choice but to flee!
[[Props to Jason Polk for teaching on this at The Orchard one night. It's been such an encouragement.]]
Jesus is exactly what we need, always! Only He can satisfy the depths of our soul with His boundless love. He can satisfy the needs of everyone we meet and minister to this week. We will eventually leave and have been like a wave in the sea to them. However, if we go to them under the authority and clothed in the love of Christ, His love will never leave them. This is not to say our time here is fruitless, but it is to say, that unless we leave the true love and peace of Christ, our efforts will be for naught. We must remember that we are here for Jesus. We are here for His glorification alone, and we are here to share His love.
Thank the Lord for His truth, His mercy, His grace, and His love!"
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