Poem of the Week [10.7]

Another poem inspired by one of my favorite (wordless songs) that speak for themselves more clearly than words ever could. The impetus comes from The Gathering Sky by the Pat Metheny Group. A couple of years ago my daughter and I listened to this song while driving and we imagined how the song starts with a quite summer afternoon. In the distance however dark cloud formations gather and approach. Soon a breathtaking storm is unleashed until after rain, lightening and wind the quiet gentle atmosphere returns. Both of us didn’t realize that was exactly what the song was all about. Of course this poem has a much deeper meaning far beyond the mere description of a storm…

Poem of the Week [10.6]

'Travels' Album Cover

When I returned from two years traveling abroad I suffered from re-entry-shock. At one point I picked up the seminal Pat Metheny Group album Travels. How it helped me.

It is time to honor this music with a poem along the same line as the previous one about prodigals and exiles. Travelers need to arrive at one point or else the entire idea of traveling has lost its meaning. Traveler, come to your destination!

Poem of the Week [10.4]

Yet another perspective on suffering. As I worked on my case study for the course Perspectives On Evil And Suffering in which I interviewed my own parents (they’ve lost two of their five children) I came to an interesting discovery. My parents’ theology was not very explicit and they were hardly aware that their views on God and suffering contained some apparent contradictions. Yet, they were not very willing to surrender these views.

Poem of the week [10.2]

Just in time before the week comes to an end. I wrote this upon reading Lamentations. This quatrain is inspired by Lamentations chapter 3, which also happens to be the climax of the book where God’s compassion is reflected upon.

Poem of the Week [10.1]

No time this week to write a lengthy post. So I’ll start a new thing: poem of the week. As if that wasn’t already going on. Enjoy…

Perspective On Suffering [II]

As I wrote in my previous post on this topic the course Perspectives On Evil and Suffering is around the corner. Here is another perspective, that of music. I remember that when I went through a very rough time in the early 90s music kept me going. Church didn’t help much in those days. God seemed rather far away, but there were certain artists (Pat Metheny, Yellow Jackets) whose music I returned to again and again for a glimpse of hope. God is in the aestetic more than we realize.

Perspective On Suffering [I]

Soon some of us will be deeply involved in suffering. Perspectives On Evil and Suffering that is, our 3rd Quarter Course at Bethel Seminary. Soon we will be steeped in the thought of Plantinga and throw in some godforsaken Open Theism to let God off the hook. Before we get there, a poetical approach might do. With a dose of humor. What would suffering be without it?

The Greatest Adventure Yet

You like to travel far and wide
climb astutely arid mountains
take foreign cultures in your stride
throw rusty coins in ancient fountains

But then just invitational
a faint and otherworldy friend
so close and yet ineffable
takes you beyond an unknown bend

Though an adventure just the same
he shows from what you would refrain
it leaves your deepest fear untamed
and leads along a higher plane

to real uncharted territory
This is adventure’s greatest story

Burden of Being

Or how one does not need to reach too far deep within to feel that existentialist disgust (dégoût) for existence without meaning. Enjoy this poem rife with ire and irony.

Stripped of everything
all adjectives
all descriptives
all additives

What could have been

A fleeting fugue tells me what could have been
fountain of glittering gold, for beauty’s sake
one last gesture of grandeur: lift your hand
before your life succumbs one movement make

And then relent, released into death’s silence
we will remember, muster all our power
to grasp and touch the master’s perfect hand
grand sweep of all we hope in this life’s hour

Death waits incumbent on fate’s fugitive
too soon you go – your fleeting youth betrayed
by a relentless and unyielding trampling
unsurpassed you pass away and fade

Reflection on the last movement of Mozart’s 41st Symphony.