Poetry from the Cabin 01/27/2024

I started out this morning expecting to write a sonnet. I read the second chapter of As Kingfishers Catch Fire, by Eugene Peterson dutifully taking notes looking forward to discovering the poem I was sure slept nearby. Then only lines in, the poem escaped the boundaries I had set for it. Something different was born, discovered. Different from what I had expected or even sought. Sometimes free verse becomes the best container for discovery.  As we leave behind the comfortable constraints of poetic form we participate in a prayerful mess. But in the mess, in the spilling words, sometimes we find treasures long lost or sought. 

Humbled before His Glory

Here I stand, a soul exposed in wonder
I sense I am seen as eyes are lifted up
Before the God of Saini and Tabor
Of transfiguration and Golgotha

Before the quiet mountains filled with trees
Small among the quiet I don’t disturb
And more acutely in the city streets
Among so many voices no voice heard

Here I am aware of both grandeur and smallness
A veil undisturbed is creations inherent wholeness
For behind the trees, mountains, city streets there is the God who lives
Who invites beyond my selfishness into my ensouledness
Who invites that I in him should live and move and have my being
That with him, within the day to day, that I should learn His righteousness
Individual oneness with father, son and human kind
For all things are in Christ, in Him, His spirit bonds us
His image born by human kind, His spirit fills each face with light
Often sensed, rarely seen, such is our mortal sight

In His grandeur and my smallness, now I fear the Lord
Humbled before His glory in every mortal on this earth

Philippians 2:1-11
If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion, 2 make my joy full by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; 3 doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; 4 each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.
5 Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.