Unintended Ode to the Unknown God

Unintended Ode to the Unknown God

The force of humanity
was a press from his fingertip,
a breath through his lips,
and here we are, alive,
without understanding why.
Isn't that just like us,
to have it,
and have it wrong?
- passing the very face of God each day,
mistaking it for our own reflection,
walking in his elegance,
speaking his words after him,
as if our own thoughts.
What do you see in the formula,
if not the genius of the mathematician?
What do you hear in the masterpiece,
but the heart of its own musician?
Oh how we miss you,
your long lost children,
and can't even remember your likeness.
But with our own little hands,
we've been trying to piece together
an assemblage of your loving face,
like trying to recall a lullaby long forgotten.
But, God save us,
nothing we make looks back at us,
or hears the longing of our hearts,
or speaks the soft words we yearn to hear.
They do things very similar,
but nothing outside our handwritten plans.
They are every kind of wonderful version of you,
all except the one.
What a magnificent menagerie we've made,
an unintended ode to the unknown god,
spinning like a mobile around our heads,
soothing us to sleep each night,
in place of the one we so dearly miss.

::

The apostle Paul makes this plea to the high council in Athens -

...for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.
“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

- Acts 17:23-28

The Secret Admirer

We all have a loving admirer. We long for this love for a reason. We were made for it and for a world more lovely than this one. This life can only deliver the promise. Find out who your true admirer is. 

He's waiting for you.


The Secret Admirer

How lovely 
to receive a love letter
or be adored
discreetly from afar.
Dear God,
where is my admirer
or the serenader
with his guitar?

Rest your heart, my dear,
and listen.
My heart sings to you
from leafy balconies.
I throw you flowers
every season,
whispering, "how I love you",
with the breeze.

Be patient, my love,
and wait.
The little children
will carry my letters.
The smiles they deliver
are my own,
for no own knows
my joy better.

Close your eyes, my child,
and believe.
I am sending for you,
just as I've written.
Now follow the narrow path
no one can see,
through the small gate,
into the Kingdom I have hidden.

 

Fashionably Late

Fall usually prefers to be fashionably late in California, just like everyone else here, I guess. Even later along the coast. Of course. When she finally arrives, she'll still get a warm welcome. 

It's fun to talk about. I think most of us have our memories wrapped up in the seasons. It's such a love affair. I know each season has its own special meaning and purpose, but if I may... I think they're like elaborate love letters from God - pouring out his majestic undying love for us. I just enjoy seeing it this way. 

This poem personifies Fall in a slightly different way. But oh, how we love you, Autumn, wherever you are.

Hello, Autumn

Well hello, Autumn, peeking through the lilting limbs.

I see your red-gloved hands swinging in the northern winds.

I remember those golden sleeves from under your cloudy coat,
and you, smiling over a flaxen scarf, reveling in the cold.

Then finally in all your glory, you’re paraded, inciting crowds of adoring trees.
They never do forget you, even after your confetti has been swept from the streets.

A Poem As Lovely

The Poem In Front Of Me

There was a poem
right in front of me.
All I had to do
was describe it.
It was made of things
which I cannot conceive.
All I could do
was write it.


If I believe in God, which I do, then what am I doing, ever, but retracing the lines first written, first drawn, first loved by my own creator. There is a lot written about this, but I like how Joyce Kilmer put it. He must have felt the same way when he wrote this poem about a hundred years ago. You've probably heard the first line of this poem many times, but you may not have heard how it ends. I think it eludes to how everything ends.

The verses from the prophet Isaiah, below, put it all into perspective for me. I hope these words help all of us understand the true and greater perspective.


Trees
Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

::


...Break into song,
O mountains and forests and every tree!
For the Lord has redeemed Jacob
and is glorified in Israel.

This is what the Lord says—
your Redeemer and Creator:
“I am the Lord, who made all things.
I alone stretched out the heavens.
Who was with me
when I made the earth?

I expose the false prophets as liars
and make fools of fortune-tellers.
I cause the wise to give bad advice,
thus proving them to be fools.

- Isaiah 44:23-25

Let's Be Children

Who are we to be known by the creator of the universe? Children, after all. 
The two kings, cited below, understood what it means to be a child or God.

O come to me, great Eternity
for a moment to lie down.
Let's be children
on the floor of the museum,
gazing up at the stars upon your crown.

And would you stay to sing to me
a lullaby short and sweet,
that I might understand,
beneath the stillness of your hand,
the peace known at your feet.

::

You have set your glory
    in the heavens. 

Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger. 

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place, 

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor. 
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet.

- David, Psalm 8:1-6


I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
- Jesus, Matthew 11:25-29 


If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
- Jesus, John 14:23 


 

The Artist Who Loved Me

We all come to God in our own way, with our own unique perspective. Those responses must be another reflection of God's great creativity in us. I know him as the true father we all long for, but I also see him as the artist who could not part with his work. He could not abandon his masterpiece, his children and the beautiful little home he made for them. Could you? Even in his amazing anger, cursing his own work, he could not be angry forever.
If you're a creator of something you love, or if you're a mother or father, yourself, then you can understand the heart of God a little bit. He may be more passionate, more loving, more amazing, and more like you than you could have ever imagined. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as they say.

The Beloved Artist

If this landscape has been cursed
then I can't wait to see the one blessed.
Did you see the shades of its day?
Did you see how its blossoms were dressed?

If this is a painting given to me
so that I may daydream of its promise,
then I will love it to death
and give my heart to its artist.

::

Below are verses describing the great curse and redemption. They explain a lot - if you believe them. Take the scripture link to the whole chapter to continue reading. It's amazing.

...the ground is cursed because of you.
All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
though you will eat of its grains.
By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground 
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.

- Genesis 3:17-19


Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.
Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation!And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness.
Her people will be a source of joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and delight in my people.
And the sound of weeping and crying
will be heard in it no more.

“No longer will babies die when only a few days old.
No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life.
No longer will people be considered old at one hundred!
Only the cursed will die that young!
In those days people will live in the houses they build
and eat the fruit of their own vineyards.

- Isaiah 65:17-18  


 

Goodbye, Summertime

...until next year... but not to worry. Fall is filled with a love all its own. There are plenty of verses to follow about the season to come.


Summertime, the Bee, and the Heart's Reverie

You whispered to me a fuzzy little tune
about a season that came and went,
and I fear my heart became your rosy bloom,
which I so willingly lent.

You haunted me so sweetly,
fleet and darling ghost flame,
and made me glow so completely
until the next season came.