Poetry Schmoetry

The other day I was at a party and overheard a girl complaining about having to study poetry. "Why can't you just say 'you're hot', why must you say 'your eyes are like clouds, and when you walk the flowers light up underneath your feet'. " 

I think she might have just watched Avatar and confused the movie with poetry, but her point was still heard. Why can't we just come out and say it? Why do we have to hide behind metaphors?

I think it has something to do with the message. The message is often too big to be expressed in plain speak. I can't tell a girl "you're hot", because she is so much more than that. To tell her how hot she is does nothing to express what I actually feel about her.

Metaphors give us the ability to be able to tell a girl that she's so much more than just hot. The work of a poet is to try and explain emotions that can't be expressed, and that's complicated. But I think if the message wasn't complicated to express then it would prove to be a message that wasn't laced with emotion, a message that didn't come from within.

When I studied poetry in high school my English teacher told me that men would sit and write sonnets in iambic pentameter to show how much effort they would be willing to go to. They would choose an incredibly complicated method to woo a girl, but the poem is not only complicated for the writer, it is complicated for the reader too. When you get a poem it takes a while to read and understand fully what the person is saying, but when you understand the metaphors and similes, you are welcomed into a world of beauty.

I think we need to realize that God is a poet too, working to woo us. Often we don't understand God; we find him confusing, but I think that is because we fail to realize that the message that He is trying to tell is not an ordinary message.

I remember once wondering why the world had mountains and valleys. It would have been a lot easier if there weren't any, but then we wouldn't have Table Mountain, the Grand Canyon, God's Window, or the Himalayas. The world would be devoid of the amazing beauty we are now able to experience.

Sometimes complicating things can open up the beauty and make it more visible. Perhaps God isn't being complicated for the sake of it. Perhaps He is complicated because there is no other way to express the beauty. Perhaps if God told humanity He thought it was 'hot' it wouldn't have the same impact as sending His Son to die on a cross 2000 years ago outside Jerusalem. Perhaps, maybe...

Seizing the Carpe and Remembering this 'Passion' Word

Last night after church some of us went up to Signal Hill and eventually got a spot overlooking the city. We started singing New Slang, imagining ourselves in a movie, and then started talking ‘if-you-were-going-to-die-in-seven-years-what-would-you-differently’.

I said I would take more risks: being a boy the first thing that came to mind was girls and asking girls out, then I thought of making an impact in the world and how my lifestyle at the moment is very low impact and how much more I’d like to do for God. Not to become famous, but rather to have made this life count for something.

The preach at church had been about passion, which is probably one of my favourite words and the one that least resembles my life at the moment. I was challenged to get off my ass, and so I decided to go forward for prayer. It was such a rad time of God reminding me that He’s got some plans, and that I need to stop being so lethargic and un-impassioned. Sitting on Signal Hill looking out over the city and imagining an impending death, I realized that there are so many things I need to cut out of my life and so many things that I need to add to my life.

Table Mountain is beautiful as heck but after living in Cape Town for a while it can be so easy to forget how beautiful that piece of rock is, and I think God suffers a similar fate. When we become Christians we are amazed by God, but slowly we forget about how great He is. Its not that we turn away from him, but rather that life overtakes our ambitions for Him and we settle for Sundays and Wednesdays.

And I don’t want to be no Sunday and Wednesday Christian, because really if I can’t come to him every day I may as well not come at all (to paraphrase Keith Green).