Poetry Sunday: Dr. Suess

This poetry Sunday, I'd like to honor a talented poet whose influence on the world, and particularly its young people, cannot be overstated: Theodore Suess Geisel - "Dr. Seuss"! Props to Mamiverse for creating this cool graphic highlighting some of the nuggets of wisdom embedded in Dr. Suess' books. My favorites are numbers 11, 23, 28, and 29… oh, and 7… and 13… and…well. I like most all of them. While you're reading, also check out this Relevant Magazine article on the inspiration and subtext of some of The Doctor's most famous works.

Awake

Welcome to another poetry Sunday... on Monday! I intended to post something yesterday, but then... well, then I didn't. While I'm breaking rules, I'm actually going to post song lyrics for this week's poetry:

Awake My Soul

Cathedral
Arches of reaching limbs
Crickets sing secret hymns
Over all of us

Fireflies
Tickle across our palms
Lit up like diamonds drawn
From the black above

Awake my soul to live this moment
Awake my soul, 
give thanks and hold it
Dear now
God is here now
Awake my soul

Day ends
And brown eyes smile back at me
She wipes my kiss from her cheek
After last “Amen”

Hush away the hurry
Put to rest the worry
Come to quell and quiet me
In this moment given
Slow and fully live it
Drink up all the passing peace

Awake my soul to live this moment
Awake my soul,
 give thanks and hold it
Dear now
Be here now
God is here now
Awake my soul

-Shaun Groves © 2011 Simplicity Street Music/ASCAP

Oh, to find peace and beauty in every passing moment. To be truly present. To be here, now. To not anticipate. To simply be. Each moment invites us to slow, to be awake, present, alive. Grateful. I've heard it said that we should "practice the presence of God". I still don't fully grasp what that means, but I think these lyrics have something to do with it. Be here, now. God is here, now. Here as we walk across campus and feel the sunshine on our faces, here as we smile at the woman behind the counter at the coffee shop, here as we sing, here as we wait, here as we work, here as we sit and listen to crickets and catch fireflies, here as we grieve, here as we celebrate.  Be here, now, because God is here, now. Slow and fully live.  Awake.

Poetry Sunday: A Future Not Our Own

It's Poetry Sunday!  I read this poem when I was a junior in college, and it really connected with me. Last week I was going through some old boxes of stuff in preparation for our move, and I found a copy of it. It speaks to me now just as much as it did then, and I hope it will speak to you as well. It's written by a former archbishop from El Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero (1917-1980):

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a small fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. 

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything. 

This is what we are about:
We plant the seeds that will one day grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. 

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it well.
It may be incomplete but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. 

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.  

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. 

We are prophets of a future not our own.

I love it… we cannot do everything, but that is liberating rather than disheartening. We're workers. We're ministers. We're not the master builder. We're pieces of this great, huge, complicated, beautiful, messy story. So let us plant seeds, let us water seeds already sewn, let us lay foundations, let us do something and do it well. Let us dive in head first with full hearts and clear eyes. And even in the midst of serving and loving and reconciling, even as we pour ourselves into the roles set before us, even as we focus keenly on making a difference in the here and now, let us be ever mindful that beyond the clear and vivid present is the blurrier "long view" on the horizon--a future that is ultimately not our own.

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." -1 Corinthians 3:6