Hearing the Music

Poetry and Words

Words are amazing! When I say, “A maple tree in every color of citrus including blood orange,” a creative image pops in your head. Maybe you saw a tree like that in your travels. Maybe you imagine one in your mind and it happens to have oranges, lemons, and limes for leaves. Or maybe you didn’t, but now you do. Words take you along a path, a story. 

I trained and worked as a nurse for 45 years. That’s a lot of left-brain work: science, formulas, metrics, policies. But when I discovered poetry about 12 years ago, it was as if I could feel my right brain stretch and flex its neurons in a new way. I enjoy the feeling, the process and the craft. I enjoy the connection it gives to others as we discuss poems and poetry.

Nature is my main muse. Something about being outside enjoying God’s creation makes me want to write about it. Sometimes it’s just an observation, but that might turn into a metaphor, and then I’m delighted when it goes a step further and God shows me something about his character and his care for us.

Recently, I wrote a poem about the Westminster Confession of Faith 7.1 after a Sunday School class (okay, different muse), and in asking Bruce Baugus about the word “fruition” among other words, he wrote: “I generally cast this in terms of enjoyment. That comes most from Augustine, who I find extremely helpful on some of these points. For Augustine we use some things to enjoy other things and the ultimate object of enjoyment is God alone. Thus everything else is to be used to that end, and doing so is to make a right use of all other things because everything exists to the end of knowing and enjoying God (the glory of God).” This helped me see that I use poetry to enjoy nature to the end of knowing and enjoying God to his glory. 

At the condo association where we live, I offered to paint the address plaques and a surprising benefit was that I was able to compose poems while mindlessly painting. My eyes and ears were open to the abundance of wildlife around. I was considering how to describe the evening crickets. I couldn’t sleep that night and pulled out Luci Shaw's book What the Light Was Like. In her poem “The Simple Dark,” she writes: 

    The shadow purples,
    the dusk intricate with crickets. The sky
    infested with pricks of light.
    My whole body an ear, an eye.

See what she did there? I count six times she used the “K” sound in two sentences. The crickets are singing right there in the words. Luci uses her poetry to enjoy creation and to bring glory to God. 

I’m also impressed by the lyric writers of hymns and songs with all their rhyme, rhythm and purpose. How great would it be to have your poem sung to the Lord in praise! I can’t speak for all the arts, but I know they influence each other. I’m anticipating hearing from those who enjoy other art forms. 

Remember our maple tree? All the fall colors? Is the tree groaning as it goes through this dying season? Is it fall because of The Fall? Paul said, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Romans 8:20-21). Will there be those glorious colors in heaven? Or will there be colors we can’t even imagine? Beyond blood orange.

Paul knew about bondage. In this week’s passage about the gospel he says, “...for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!” (2 Timothy 2:9). Looking forward to Sunday as we worship together, celebrate communion and learn as Pastor Michael teaches from God’s word, the word that is not bound. 

Clean Water

We were under a “Boil Water Advisory” for several days this past week. A water main break caused concern for water safety in parts of Northeast Grand Rapids. 

Perhaps it was because I was helping my daughter with her 2 year-old and 6 month-old sons that it felt extra stressful. After every diaper change—wash your hands; every snack, meal, messy play—wash his hands. And then all the usual things that take water: dishes, food prep, teeth brushing. 

My daughter and I are both nurses so we have overactive imaginations when seeing water with potential E. coli gushing out of the faucets. Multiple times we boiled stock pots full of water, not just for the required one minute rolling boil but five minutes for good measure.

On the fourth day, I went to Bible study and we talked about hospitality. It could be something as simple as meeting a friend in the park to talk and share a snack. This idea was shared at the Soup’s On evening as well.

On the way home I stopped at Huff Park to pick up a free case of bottled water provided by SpartanNash. City workers, firefighters and police officers were all lined up to fill the cars rolling through the line. A Salvation Army food truck was providing food for the workers as well as warm drinks. (It was 27 degrees out with flurries!) They were offering a cup of warm water (coffee, tea) in Jesus’ name.

“Thank you! Thank you! Stay warm! God bless you!” Why did I feel tears and emotion? I know there are multitudes in this world who don’t have access to healthy water. For forty-five years I was the one giving the cup of water to the thirsty.

Seeing the workers and the organizations behind this gift and their hospitality, I felt seen. I was humbled and grateful. They gave me hope.

Soon the Public Safety Alert sounded on my phone. All clear! The advisory was lifted. I was at my daughter’s. We celebrated with a glass of water straight from the faucet.

Photo by manu schwendener on Unsplash

Listen to Metaphor

Silent and listen are anagrams. Not only do they use the same letters, they work together, too. We need to be silent to listen.

“Listening is the part of prayer that’s most neglected,” said Eugene Peterson in an interview I recently listened to. He spoke of poetry in the Bible, especially in the Psalms, and the remarkable use of metaphor which “both means what it says and what it doesn’t say. Those two things come together and it creates an imagination which is active. You’re not trying to figure things out; you’re trying to enter into what is there.”

So I perused the five Psalms for this week, looking for metaphors. In Psalm 81 we read that we will be fed honey from a rock. In Psalm 84 it says, “in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” And “righteousness and peace kiss each other” in Psalm 85. The imagination kicks in to picture these things.

Peterson memorized Psalm 92, the Sabbath Psalm, and then recited it every Sunday as part of his prayer for that day. He memorized seven psalms, one for each day of the week. Then as he was silent in prayer, the words of that psalm informed his listening. “Psalm 18 is a psalm just filled with metaphor and you are overwhelmed with all the ways you can reimagine God working in your life.”

I’ve read books on prayer over the years, heard sermons, done Bible studies. But my prayer life feels stagnant right now. (Stagnant. Metaphor. Picturing a small pond, brackish water, pond scum floating on top, sunlight not getting through, death and decay below. Needs stirring.) 

I listened to the interview because of my interest in poetry. But it’s turning my attention to prayer. What seven psalms would I choose for the week? Psalm 84 could be a Sunday psalm. How I envy that sparrow, gliding through the temple courts, nesting near the altar, brooding silently on her eggs, watching the lambs and goats, grain offerings, fire, smoke wafting up into the blue sky. Promises enacted day after day. Why should prayer be hard, O my soul? Consider the sparrow. Be silent and listen. Then sing out to Creator-God of his marvelous works.

Cupped hands holding a small bird
        ~after a drawing by Emma Bukovietski (above)

It started with the first solid gray line
a horizon marking a beginning
then others darker, lighter
depending on the pressure
and angle of the graphite
some lines curved, shaded,
cross hatched.

The Creator drew the form 
that he would inhabit — a vessel to hold
the coursing blood, the mind, the soul 
just as hands cradle a nestling
its beak as distinctive
as a number two pencil 
pointing into the world.

When feathers fledged he flew
swift and straight as a polished arrow.

Photo by Mateo Abrahan on Unsplash