If I didn’t know better
[Or if the world were like me]
I would think that artists learned to tickle the keys
To paint the notes they could not see
And puerile musicians with only 4 chords
Spilled the inkwell to blot out silence.
I’d think writers were poets
Who were packrats with words
And poets who attempted free verse as such
Were lazy and sucked at making thoughts rhyme
[So I slapped on a bumper sticker that screams:
Po-Mo! Creative! Unique!]
If painters were seraphim
And poets were saints,
I would be me.
Scraping month old paint chips off the palette
Closing my eyes to miss the sour keys
[If I hit them, it’s called Jazz.]
Telling myself that free verse has enough space
To let me act a fool.
My thoughts lean heavy against my eyes
And I can’t tell if it’s my soul or my gut that’s rotund and full.
Something heavy inside me churns like butter.
An ocean? A storm? (Dysentery?)
[No, pick some spiritual imagery.]
It’s the Holy Ghost haunting me, according to Over the Rhine.
Whatever notions, vague premonitions
Whatever desires to create like God
and speak existence into the unspoken,
All that is hope and frail and much broken,
Is but a spark caught flickering on an unfocused camera frame,
While the inferno dances out past the corner of my eye.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A letter for Thanksgiving
I suppose now is a good time to sit and think of all the reasons we should be thankful.
The first part is the sitting. Some of us (who work in offices), feel like we do that an awful lot. In fact, for 8.5 hours a day, I sit in a cheap office chair in front of my Macbook and fidget away. So why sit anymore?
Perhaps the sitting I'm thinking about isn't so much the physical position of our gluts on some padding. Perhaps I mean more of the spiritual sitting... a position of rest, but also of attentiveness, a position that is difficult to attain when our minds are overrun with time lines and schedules, people to meet and events to attend, assignments to complete and on and on. Our spirits are seldom still enough to just sit. I am thankful that I can sit.
"Be still and know that I am G-d."
I'm sitting on a couch, house sitting for some friends, who left banana chocolate chip muffins for me. (Crappy HNGR intern? Guilty as charged. But boy is guilt delicious.) Through the concrete ceiling, I hear someone sight-reading hymns on a piano and some foreigners w-rshipping on a brisk Thursday night in November, halfway across the world from the rest of their families. I'm thankful that family goes beyond our blood, but is found wherever there is His blood. In so many ways, we are exiles. But in so many ways, we find Home wherever we are.
There is a certain amount of restlessness in my heart. Pages and pages of journal will attest to the desires that demand a hearing. But even journals get tired of hearing the same things day in and day out. There is never full resolution. There is never full resolve. And what tomorrow looks like... what next semester looks like, I cannot say. But from our thoughts down to the core of creation, there is a yearning for completion. I am thankful that we are never left alone, nor are we without a promise.
I read this in 1st Peter today:
"To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion… according to the foreknowledge of G-d the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to J-sus Chr-st and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (ESV)
Ironic that we are elect. Chosen, loved, the children of He who rules the Hosts of the universe. And yet... we are ragged, dirty exiles with our hearts on that place we call Home.
No matter where you're getting your dose of tryptophan and football, how close or far you are from those you love, go on and sit. Be still. And even if you have every reason in the world to be ungrateful, let the Spirit of He who bought us with his blood bring you a thankfulness that transcends understanding. If you think you feel close to home, might I remind you that we are yet a ways off. But if you feel far and lost, He is nearer than You know.
Friends, my Family, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Most sincerely,
Chuck
The first part is the sitting. Some of us (who work in offices), feel like we do that an awful lot. In fact, for 8.5 hours a day, I sit in a cheap office chair in front of my Macbook and fidget away. So why sit anymore?
Perhaps the sitting I'm thinking about isn't so much the physical position of our gluts on some padding. Perhaps I mean more of the spiritual sitting... a position of rest, but also of attentiveness, a position that is difficult to attain when our minds are overrun with time lines and schedules, people to meet and events to attend, assignments to complete and on and on. Our spirits are seldom still enough to just sit. I am thankful that I can sit.
"Be still and know that I am G-d."
I'm sitting on a couch, house sitting for some friends, who left banana chocolate chip muffins for me. (Crappy HNGR intern? Guilty as charged. But boy is guilt delicious.) Through the concrete ceiling, I hear someone sight-reading hymns on a piano and some foreigners w-rshipping on a brisk Thursday night in November, halfway across the world from the rest of their families. I'm thankful that family goes beyond our blood, but is found wherever there is His blood. In so many ways, we are exiles. But in so many ways, we find Home wherever we are.
There is a certain amount of restlessness in my heart. Pages and pages of journal will attest to the desires that demand a hearing. But even journals get tired of hearing the same things day in and day out. There is never full resolution. There is never full resolve. And what tomorrow looks like... what next semester looks like, I cannot say. But from our thoughts down to the core of creation, there is a yearning for completion. I am thankful that we are never left alone, nor are we without a promise.
I read this in 1st Peter today:
"To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion… according to the foreknowledge of G-d the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to J-sus Chr-st and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (ESV)
Ironic that we are elect. Chosen, loved, the children of He who rules the Hosts of the universe. And yet... we are ragged, dirty exiles with our hearts on that place we call Home.
No matter where you're getting your dose of tryptophan and football, how close or far you are from those you love, go on and sit. Be still. And even if you have every reason in the world to be ungrateful, let the Spirit of He who bought us with his blood bring you a thankfulness that transcends understanding. If you think you feel close to home, might I remind you that we are yet a ways off. But if you feel far and lost, He is nearer than You know.
Friends, my Family, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Most sincerely,
Chuck
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