Heart and Skill Pt. 2

The Genius unknowingly shared a birthday with a goat who is not even a part of this story, but also with a young woman who was christened Kathy. Her biography will remain short, but let it be known that in the course of the previously mentioned nineteen year span, she became the most beautiful girl in body and heart that was alive in the entire world. Period.

Through a series of mishaps, ironies, and one overturned cart in the middle of a market, she became acquainted with both the Simpleton and the Genius, both of whom joined the entire bachelor population in loving her madly.

But there was a problem.

The Simpleton felt a fire burning in his heart for the girl but could not tell her how he felt. It was not a language barrier that kept him from writing beautiful sonnets for his love, it was the fact that even if he knew the words to say, he would not know in what order to say them. He had become, by no genetic fault whatsoever, mentally handicapped. And now at the age of 'nine'teen the only phrase that could run through his head was "I love you".
This desire of his was strong, but it was never allowed to grow. His love was confined to this one phrase in the same way that a fish is confined to a tank. If only it had room to grow it would have become much larger and deeper, but this single phrase did not hold ultimate sway on him.
The interaction that took place between the girl and the Simpleton was entirely limited to this one phrase. At first Kathy loved the Simpleton because she heard whispers of passion in his voice that ran deeper than the mobs that pursued her. She thought she heard echoes of art that her heart longed for, but in the end she grew tired of his repetition and, seeing that his mental faculty did not match his heart, shunned him completely.

Kathy's relation to the Genius is another story altogether, or another paragraph at least. As Kathy conversed with the Genius she was amazed with his knowledge. He seemed to know so much about life and the world. Unfortunately it became evident to her that he was rather blind to people. While he tried to show his love to her, he would always do it in a blunt and assuming way. The genius thought that the match between perfect beauty and perfect wisdom was logical and he tried reasoning with Kathy to show her this was true. Over and over again the Genius took things that were beautiful because they were true and eloquized the life out of them. Something of romp and play had died in him long ago and so every romantic proposition was wrung of anything that would sound silly or that was not completely true and then presented to Kathy with humble flare.

Kathy eventually dumped them both and married a tubby boy named Poetry who had grown up with red-haired Bill Collins.

Tip to Simpleton: Train yourself to appreciate beauty with skill.
Tip to Genius: Don't be a moron.
Second tip to Genius: Train yourself to appreciate beauty.

Heart and Skill Pt. 1

Once upon a time there was a boy who was born in the countryside. His parents were both very poor and could not afford to send him to the local school. Wanting to save face when queried about their son's education, the parents told all their neighbors that they valued their son's character above his education and that they would train him themselves. Since neither parent could read or write it was assumed by the neighbors that the son would prove an excellent ditch digger, which he did. Unfortunately, his parents hired him out too early in life and at the age of nineteen his vocabulary matched that of his last year of training ten years ago.

The Simpleton unknowingly shared a birthday with another boy in a village eight miles south. This boy's parents were also not extremely well to do, but placed a high value on the boy's education. He learned to read at three and was working on Latin and Greek by the age of eight. At nine he had mastered algebra and French and was just writing his autobiography. By the time he reached fifteen he had accomplished so many things that his parents were running out of subjects to teach. At sixteen he attended the largest university in the nation and completed his Masters in Every-stinkin-thing-there-is-to-ever-learn-in-the-whole-world in three years. At nineteen he was the most literate person in the country. From a young age the boy felt pressured by his parents and the distance grew as he began to pass them academically. His trip to the University was his final break with them. Now, he was alone in the world, for he could not find anyone his equal intellectually. Several times he came close to have one or two actual friends, but he was such an extremely logical fellow that he discarded them because of several flaws he detected. Alas, no one would be as perfect as he.

Portrait of a Toilet

It does not matter how eloquently or expressively a toilet is described, it remains a toilet. While it may be portrayed with words meant to strike emotion in the heart it can only reach a certain depth of poetry because of the content. Similarly, I have read some excellent poems about trees that have somehow stirred up less longing in my heart than the crappiest verse about the cross of Christ.
How much better it is when a master painter brings the soul to worship with words that cut straight through bone and marrow to the heart? I have seen it, I have heard it.
And if you all you see on the horizon is trite verse or exquisite wastepaper, do not give up. There are diamonds in the rough; there is a fountain in the desert. The source is the ultimate Poet, the Giver of Life. He is the only one who has every come up with anything original to say and when He talks all eternity listens.
We hear The echoes of His voice in every second. Train yourself to sing along.

A Hymn

A thunder tumbling down the alleys of the rockies,
Blowing the pines with a freezing gust of heaven

A billion gallons of ocean,
Crashing into the rocky cliffs of the Oregon coastline

A sunrise so artistic
I can taste it in my heart
And a dying sun so lovely
It makes me want to cry

Wondrous are the works of Your hand and the breath of Your mind
Poured out on our surroundings as a testimony
To your greatness, power, and love


But Greater still

God on a cross
Man made free
All sin forgiven
Eternity opened
Pain crushed
Grief assuaged
Life poured
Death killed
God saves
God loves
God restores
Nature testifies day after day

Countless stars frozen in the dance of night,
Bursting light soundlessly past light-years of liquid space

River scattering, twisting, rushing, before falling to a wondrous impact,
Scattering the mist I taste at Multnomah Falls

A field of grain
Reverently bowing to its creator in the wind.
A coyote howl
The beat of bumblebee’s wings
A stroke of lightning across the sky
A baby’s first cry
A testimony of your greatness, power, and love,

But greater still

God as a man
Using our lungs
Craving our food
Stubbing our toes
Feeling the strain of our exertion
And the pain of our exhaustion
Tasting our food
Hugging our frames
Caring for our brokenness
Loving us in our dying
He came
He saw
He conquered with love
All hearts that had till then
Fortified themselves in pride and despair

The Savior of all souls
Came crashing in as the greatest of earth
But the humblest of heaven

God man
My friend and savior
Ever the name of Jesus written on my heart
And heard on my lips
For he sought me
And he bought me
With blood divine.

Depth of Poetry

The depth of poetry is not rated by an author's ability to use a thesaurus. Poetry is not someone's attempt to bend over backwards to say something a new way; it is an attempt to say it in a way that we feel it should have been said all along. Where an artistic level is high, but the level of meaning and significance are low, there is a lack of poetry. Because while there may be a superficial admiration at the ability of the author, there is no wonder stirred in the mind, no resuscitation of the heart, no opening of the eyes to the wonders of the world. Ephphatha.

Glencoe- G.K. Chesterton

The star-crowned cliffs seem hinged upon the sky,
The clouds are floating rags across them curled,
They open to us like the gates of God
Cloven in the last great wall of all the world.

I looked, and saw the valley of my soul
Where naked crests fight to achieve the skies,
Where no grain grows nor wine, no fruitful thing,
Only big words and starry blasphemies.

But you have clothed with mercy like a moss
The barren violence of its primal wars,
Sterile although they be and void of rule,
You know my shapeless crags have Wed the stars.

How shall I thank you, O courageous heart.
That of this wasteful world you had no fear;
But bade it blossom in clear faith and sent
Your fair flower-feeding rivers: even as here

The peat burns brimming from their cups of stone
Glow brown and blood-red down the vast decline
As if Christ stood on yonder clouded peak
And turned its thousand waters into wine.

Foolishness

Poetry must not be over dissected. It is like a shaft of light observed with peripheral vision. When you face it head on it loses its distinction. The joy of poetry is that it is foolishness to the wise, but water to the thirsty. The mechanical and stoic may search in vain to find out why certain words shoot to our cores, but I do not. I simply thank God that He designed the human mind to both create and enjoy the premonitions of all things made right.

These Days- Rich Mullins

There's a song down in my heart
Nobody there to sing it
Like a vision asleep in the dark
With no one around to dream it
We just all sit back and watch all
That we love sinking away
When we got to where we was going
We forgot were it was
The next thing that you know is
All we found was we was lost
And the blame, oh the blame
Comes down on all of us these days

These days we got nothing left to find
These days, oh, its the blind leading the blind
These days I need more than just a line about Jesus
Oh I need to see His love these days

We got sophistication
In the wake of the fall
Now we got this civilization
And it's got us all involved in nothing
Oh nothing at all but atomic waste
And we got too many people
Who are too easily disposed of
Well you can make it all legal
But in the end you know that it aint right
You were just doing your job
And your job did you in these days

These days we got nothing left to find
These days oh its the blind leading the blind
These days I need more than just a line about Jesus
Oh I need to see His love these days

Poetry

Poetry.

I used to dislike poetry. There was something inside of me that had a deep disdain for the form and pattern of perfectly rhyming couplets. I loathed limericks and felt the sudden urge to break the sixth commandment over the head of anyone who mouthed one within earshot, a conviction I hold to this day.(For those alarmed by my last statement, the sixth commandment refers to murder, not adultery.)

But over time I have come to recognize an artistry and playfulness with words that touches the deepest part of the heart. A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes words can cut corners by painting pictures. Some of these word paintings are so packed with meaning that they catch in my throat and give me heartburn.

I would like to introduce you to some of my favorite word painters. These are men and women who have observed the numbing beauty of the world around us and have not shrunk back, but rather made attempts to capture them and share with others.