Why is it that struggle induces sleep ... passivity, longing to sit still and think about nothing or sit and listen to music. I think it is the weight of thoughts that weigh us down at time ... But honestly that is seldom true, thoughts alone are nothing ... no real weight and no real lift. It is life and reality and people that weigh us down or lift us up.
Mind splits as I ponder my place,
heart and water spill around and slosh out,
wandering feet would like to walk in a forest,
Something peaceful and pretty
even if it is cold.
But instead I am here and I must find my place right here.
This is always the solution,
Escape is rarely a solution ... only when you are on your way to murder
or theive or pillage,
should you flee with quick feet.
All other times you must plod directly into life,
whatever life will meet you.
You must believe that even if the times are dark and cool,
Even it is is many nights that pass before there is a spouting,
You must believe.
God will grow you if you believe.
Plant yourself, one foot after another and God will give increase.
This isn't all, it never is, but it is a big part.
It is a hard lesson to learn in our time of constant illusion
and corporate day dreams,
When imagination can actually be your problem.
God take our imaginations,
right now they are worth less than dung.
May we have dreams of your kingdom and seek it with sweat and tears.
May the gospels grant substance to our tireless imagination,
Tempered with the prophets and the epistles and the Old stories.
fishin
About Me
- jaypercival
- Jason Campbell is a full-time accountant and a part-time writer. He has been wrestling with ideas around race, justice, and the American experiment for over twenty years.
2 comments:
There are a lot of great lines/thoughts here. Especially this one: "All other times you must plod directly into life,/ whatever life will meet you." That's the kind of submission to God's plan and story I'm trying to understanding and live out.
Sometimes I wonder if, in our hearts, we read Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you and not to harm you," with the subject and object of the verse inverted. If we were to revise it to reflect what we really mean, maybe it would say something like, "For you know the plans I have for me, God, to give me whatever I want, make all my dreams come true and my life easy." If I'm honest, and I don't know about you, but that's where I often find myself.
We pick a few other verses, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart," for example, to justify our sense that God exists for us, not the other way around. Even the Lord's prayer can be one of these. We pray, "May your kingdom come, and your will be done." But how often do we mean it? How often do we mean something else? I can recite the prayer all day long, but I fear that too often what's in my heart is closer to, "My kingdom come, my will be done."
Another great line: "God take our imaginations,/ right now they are worth less than dung" is another powerful line. I like that you said "right now." God can definitely redeem our imagination and dreams to suit his purposes, for his glory. But you're right -- until he transforms the way we think, both of those things can be worthless, maybe even destructive, to our lives. "The heart is deceitful above all things" right?
"May the gospels grant substance to our tireless imagination,
Tempered with the prophets and the epistles and the Old stories."
that makes me think of prince caspian, when he's a boy and his uncle tells him to dismiss the old stories of talking beasts and heroes from other worlds. there, however, his imagination and longing for the "epistles" and old stories is validated by the realization of their truth, rather than reality dashing the hopes of this particular dreamer.
i guess it depends on what is happening in the imagination of the person in question. one can imagine truth or folly. obviously the realization of reality will have two completely different effects on that person when it comes, depending on their state of imagination.
i hope we can be like caspian.
Post a Comment