Poem at Yule
Okay, this isn't actually a poem, and I again I find myself without time: we fed our dogs so much beef fat and bone left over from our roast, they've had the squirts for two days. All over my office carpet, mostly. Things like that take time to clean. I want to write about advent, but it will have to wait. Considering I attend a liturgical chuch, I guess this is only day two of the twelve anyway. I have until epiphany to reflect on the greatest of all holidays.
I will say a few things though. One, the last few days have been good for me. At times, very good. Nearly as good as I think mood can get. I am very grateful for that, for the lack of anxiety and obsession and depression and pain. I think it came from releasing so much energy over my father. I have much more work there to go, but I'll take the better days when I can. Sincere, heartfelt thanks to all who have prayed.
My mood began to lift about a week ago when I read Amanda's post about Handel's Messiah. I, of course, posted something witty like 'the Messiah is our faith set to music.' Well, I hadn't really listened to the thing closely. Napster time.
I played the entire oratorio, found the libretto, and realized it was made up of snippets of scripture. I began looking up those chapters, in Isaiah, for example. I admit it's impressive: the prophecies about Galilee and Bethlehem. The imagery in those old books. I've never read them; my gospel only policy may need revision. For the spiritual imagery in Malachi, in Isaiah, is very beautiful. The OT seems to progress from ancient patriarchial Sumerian law to something quite other in the prophetic books. Of course, I'm reading them as a Christian.
But even this skeptical Christian was moved. And then slowly, I believe in response to an intense and heartfelt prayer I tore out to the Father after I dropped my son off at the airport and had the long, float-drive home to myself, my faith began to build again. Oh, I'm still a bit 'outside,' but one thing I have established I cannot doubt, like Descartes and his cogito first premise: the Christian faith is good for me psychologically; it touches the part of me that must be fed spiritually. I have a deep need for the love of humans who believe they are loving in reaction to a love from above, and I crave the transcendent. I have a friend who is an atheist, who reads this blog (hey prof-brother, you know who you are) and I watched him Christmas day as he immersed himself in the film Return of the King. I'm a Tolkien fan from way back, sure. But I saw in his passion for middle-earth, in my own passion for it, a desire for a different world than the one we all suffer in. And while that desire does not mean that world exists (as Lewis and many others have argued) while that desire could be learned (as Moreland and others have noted) I bloody still need it. I suppose that Michael Schermer, Gould, Dawkins, the Huxleys, even Darwin himself, who have abandoned a Christian world view in response to scientific descriptions of the world, have found contentment and fulfillment in their wonder at a non-personal and random universe. Perhaps loss off faith does not necessarily lead to the existential crisis. But it often does. I could argue that perhaps for the thinking soul it usually does. I know for many staunch disbelievers it has, from Sartre (who later pulled himself out of despair into Marxism) to Bertrand Russell to my own self. But how have I drifted so far?
The fact is I need God. I have always needed him. If that need is learned, then perhaps I have been given a weakness which has led to ears to hear, and I am grateful beyond the capacity of emotion. How much faith God will give me in this life I don't know; it may never be much against my over-critical mind. I would like to continue working through my many doubts, of course. But I know one thing: I need to be in church; I need that specific kind of community; I need to pray and I need to worship and I need to serve those in need in the name of Jesus. All apart from a rational construction. Maybe Kierkegaard (who is high on my list of cats to read) was right and we can't prove God in this life at all, we must turn to him out of despair. I don't know. But I know I need the sayings in the gospels and the poetry of the Jewish prophets which Christ clearly, historically applied to himself.
And perhaps this is my first premise. Not cogito, or even senseo, but egeo (and it has been many years since my latin). What I mean is not I think therefore I am, or I feel therefore I am, but I need. My first premise is need. I know that many have described human spirituality along biological and evoltionary-sociological lines. Even if they are right, this does not prove God does not exist. But they are speculating about processes never observed, and that makes as much sense to me right now as telling a seventeen year old boy his overwhelming craving for the naked body of a girl, for that touch and release, is simply a hormonal state, a moment in random evolutionary process.
Well, now I really am drifting, and I don't have any more time to look at this again. Perhaps I'll edit later. But I wanted to tell you all I'm doing better this week, much better, and that includes my spiritual journey as well. May God make an apostle out of me yet, meaning one who is sure he has met God, and cannot stop sharing what he has seen. It is the greatest prayer I can offer.
And now, most poetically, the Hallelujah chorus has come on. I began the Messiah when I began this, and now seems like a good spot to end.
I always say it, but I mean it: thanks to all who support me here. It touches me in a way I can't describe, in part because most of you who comment, all I guess, are Christians and much better at it than I am. Still, I have not been rejected.
Hallelujah
And Merry Christmas to all us sinners.
I will say a few things though. One, the last few days have been good for me. At times, very good. Nearly as good as I think mood can get. I am very grateful for that, for the lack of anxiety and obsession and depression and pain. I think it came from releasing so much energy over my father. I have much more work there to go, but I'll take the better days when I can. Sincere, heartfelt thanks to all who have prayed.
My mood began to lift about a week ago when I read Amanda's post about Handel's Messiah. I, of course, posted something witty like 'the Messiah is our faith set to music.' Well, I hadn't really listened to the thing closely. Napster time.
I played the entire oratorio, found the libretto, and realized it was made up of snippets of scripture. I began looking up those chapters, in Isaiah, for example. I admit it's impressive: the prophecies about Galilee and Bethlehem. The imagery in those old books. I've never read them; my gospel only policy may need revision. For the spiritual imagery in Malachi, in Isaiah, is very beautiful. The OT seems to progress from ancient patriarchial Sumerian law to something quite other in the prophetic books. Of course, I'm reading them as a Christian.
But even this skeptical Christian was moved. And then slowly, I believe in response to an intense and heartfelt prayer I tore out to the Father after I dropped my son off at the airport and had the long, float-drive home to myself, my faith began to build again. Oh, I'm still a bit 'outside,' but one thing I have established I cannot doubt, like Descartes and his cogito first premise: the Christian faith is good for me psychologically; it touches the part of me that must be fed spiritually. I have a deep need for the love of humans who believe they are loving in reaction to a love from above, and I crave the transcendent. I have a friend who is an atheist, who reads this blog (hey prof-brother, you know who you are) and I watched him Christmas day as he immersed himself in the film Return of the King. I'm a Tolkien fan from way back, sure. But I saw in his passion for middle-earth, in my own passion for it, a desire for a different world than the one we all suffer in. And while that desire does not mean that world exists (as Lewis and many others have argued) while that desire could be learned (as Moreland and others have noted) I bloody still need it. I suppose that Michael Schermer, Gould, Dawkins, the Huxleys, even Darwin himself, who have abandoned a Christian world view in response to scientific descriptions of the world, have found contentment and fulfillment in their wonder at a non-personal and random universe. Perhaps loss off faith does not necessarily lead to the existential crisis. But it often does. I could argue that perhaps for the thinking soul it usually does. I know for many staunch disbelievers it has, from Sartre (who later pulled himself out of despair into Marxism) to Bertrand Russell to my own self. But how have I drifted so far?
The fact is I need God. I have always needed him. If that need is learned, then perhaps I have been given a weakness which has led to ears to hear, and I am grateful beyond the capacity of emotion. How much faith God will give me in this life I don't know; it may never be much against my over-critical mind. I would like to continue working through my many doubts, of course. But I know one thing: I need to be in church; I need that specific kind of community; I need to pray and I need to worship and I need to serve those in need in the name of Jesus. All apart from a rational construction. Maybe Kierkegaard (who is high on my list of cats to read) was right and we can't prove God in this life at all, we must turn to him out of despair. I don't know. But I know I need the sayings in the gospels and the poetry of the Jewish prophets which Christ clearly, historically applied to himself.
And perhaps this is my first premise. Not cogito, or even senseo, but egeo (and it has been many years since my latin). What I mean is not I think therefore I am, or I feel therefore I am, but I need. My first premise is need. I know that many have described human spirituality along biological and evoltionary-sociological lines. Even if they are right, this does not prove God does not exist. But they are speculating about processes never observed, and that makes as much sense to me right now as telling a seventeen year old boy his overwhelming craving for the naked body of a girl, for that touch and release, is simply a hormonal state, a moment in random evolutionary process.
Well, now I really am drifting, and I don't have any more time to look at this again. Perhaps I'll edit later. But I wanted to tell you all I'm doing better this week, much better, and that includes my spiritual journey as well. May God make an apostle out of me yet, meaning one who is sure he has met God, and cannot stop sharing what he has seen. It is the greatest prayer I can offer.
And now, most poetically, the Hallelujah chorus has come on. I began the Messiah when I began this, and now seems like a good spot to end.
I always say it, but I mean it: thanks to all who support me here. It touches me in a way I can't describe, in part because most of you who comment, all I guess, are Christians and much better at it than I am. Still, I have not been rejected.
Hallelujah
And Merry Christmas to all us sinners.
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