This seems to be important enough to put it somewhere where it won't get lost:

When reading about God—even in nitty sort of systematic theology—I feel like a child looking at Christmas lights. After all, I’ve been waiting all stinking year with the egging-on of nostalgia from the previous six years of my life. I walk like I own the town because I’m seven whole years old now and I've seen these before—but I have them memorized because I know I will never see them enough. 

My eyes dart from one cluster to another, overwhelmed to take it all in. As I begin a grand exposition to describe one set of lights to my mother (who’s wants nothing more than to strap me into a harness to keep me from running in front of on-coming traffic again), I interrupt myself just before reaching my final point—I’m zinged with excitement as I see the next array coming up. I am so utterly caught up that I am hardly capable of offering a coherent logical description of what’s going on. Much less, a description of the theory used to properly put lights on a house or the handiwork involved in hanging the lights so they don’t fall. 

Since I so benefit from both theory and handiwork, I feel obligated to grow up—to grow out of being seven years old—so that maybe I could do for another seven year-old what these theological adults have done for me. The problem is that every time I read about the doctrine of the Trinity, I’m a kid and have to grow up all over again. Drag.

In Lieu Of Sitting Down to Pray...

In Lieu Of Sitting Down to Pray...

What is the verb for prayer? In our entreating,

is it really the words? Or is it the eyes--the gazing,

their absent minded closing thus losing of our sense

of time. Is it desiring--but how do we know what we're

honestly wanting? With the perpetually--in this life--

unreached deep, it is for now the losing, the silencing

of ourselves and all we think we know--and finally the lingering,

the something to be late for left rudely waiting, still waiting.

The words, we always knew, were far from good enough, but

they serve. A shanty twine-tied raft--tied by broken fingers--

to cross this wrath of holy Ocean. Surely, somewhere

hiding under the supplies, there is a sleeping Christ. 

And as we set our words, ourselves, to water, He will arise,

set His words to the tide, or take us on foot to the other side.

Setting Out

I figured out that one of my favorite things to write is that little bloggy blurb you see at the top there (hence why I've changed it so many times). So I suppose that means I like writing prose poems. I'm not sure what a prose poem is supposed to be or what any of the rules are, but I wrote one here. Perhaps it could be split into lines. I'll play with it, but for now, here it is(and, once again, a cartographer is one who makes maps).  I suppose, as well, that I'll mention that I'm leaving for seminary soon.

[EDIT] I chickened out and broke this up into lines. I like it better.

A Cartographer, Setting Out

With the landscape so open, so ready, it's easy to wander 

aloof--to get lost among sage-like rocks and within luscious foliage 

to brush. But I've come to find the river and chart its course; 

here I am, to follow the eddy to the Ocean and never to return. 

Not to worry, I'll leave the maps I've drawn behind in the sand 

once that's abandoned. And though I'll have loved this lifetime of journey, 

there comes time to lay walking sticks aside: once soil bed and beach 

are behind—when the only thing between my deep and His is either 

myself or the cliff. As of yet, I'm not sure which. All I have to go on is 

this fragment of inscription: "Take up your cliff, and say yes as I did." 

_________

And here is the original:

A Cartographer, Setting Out

With the landscape so open, so ready, it's easy to wander aloof--to get lost among sage-like rocks and within luscious foliage soothing my skin. But I've come to find the river and chart its course; here I am, to follow the eddy to the Ocean and never to return. Not to worry, I'll leave the maps I've drawn behind in the sand once abandoned. And though I'll have loved this lifetime of journey, there comes time to lay walking sticks aside: once soil bed and beach are behind—when the only thing between my deep and His is either myself or the cliff. As of yet, I'm not sure which. All I have to go on is this fragment of inscription: "Take up your cliff, and say yes as I did." 

Order Up: A Moment's Eye Contact At the Cafe Counter

[Edit: I cleaned this up a bit since last week. Also, I should mention that this is an ideal I hope to meet. I feel that I was much better at it a year or two ago. I'm happiest when I am wasting myself for the person in front of me. As of late, I've been more of a whiner. So I wrote this in response to the sort of person I'd rather be. Ah, the perks of dreaming...]

I heard you say thank-you, I heard you.

Excuse my sweat, my smile that meets you and melts

like smelted stained glass once you're done looking at it. 

Your thank-you went, instead, to my chest,

to the generator that drives the machine.

You are feed--for the workhorse who lives for

that someone to pull. I manifest myself in deft hands

and obsession with pedantic efficiencies.

You will never know it, you will never see me;

I don't have a moment to tell you now

but you were worth it--my last drop of vitality,

a piece of me you will never know you have

on your plate and in your mouth and subject

to your teeth. Others wait, hungry, like me. 
And repeat.

Cartographer

This is an unnecessarily long way to talk about why I wanted to study theology. Why? Because it's fun. FYI: a cartographer is one who makes maps.

Cartographer

From sailboat to sea, neatly drowning,

to harbor, hanging off the dock

waiting for something--I didn't know what.

And now to dirt, to the land

to streets, rust, to chipped concrete:

Here I've been studying maps--all kinds

from different Lewises, Clarks, especially Magellans.

I look for the ones that smell of salt,

pages graced with sea stains: of mystics--

Athanasius, Bonhoeffer, Francis, Patrick--

who weathered the sea while on land--for us

now stuck in sand. I linger late nights, 

wide awake, to study maps with this at stake.

Awake late, I can't shake the burn in my throat--

and that craving. Now acquainted with splinters in my hands

broken ribs now fusing again--still in love with salty smells

the careless clatter of sea shells my soul remembers,

younger, when my Father took me sailing.

In searching for sea, I've been left to streets,

city, to dusty water an inch deep--enough 

for the antic bathing birds, then why,

why not deep enough for me? 

My Father, here, He takes care of me.

Here is the land, the broken guard rails

missing hubcaps, Christ plays in unlovely places.

I am waking to smells of dried sea on ancient maps 

at my desk during morning dusk after 

scanning through the night. I scan in hope

to gain life so graced with sight--eyes for this

sacramental, stop-sign, holy-rhythm life.

My eyes still long for deep sea;

I've threatened to leave, to find You in the far away

across oceans, fighting sea monsters bravely.

Years later now, I've learned to live on land--

I study maps in hopes to smell the sea again.

Even here, I find you in the near--in the provincial

the seemingly plain. In the simple joys of morning tea

reminding me a bit of the sea--the waves as I sip.

You are in both feasts and ordinary time

the rhythms of  birth and midlife, 

the cadence of sabbath and sweat

the song of sunrise and city sunset. 

In steps together--even here on land--

I can find what I wanted in childhood ecstasy 

a blinding glimpse of eternity—

as it was in the beginning, is, and always shall be

in this sacramental life. 

Drawing maps--I'll leave them in the streets

perchance they care to join me.

An Old One, but Hey...

I, for some reason, love the courier new font. What a wonderful nod to the sound of a type writer.

In the Balance

Life can seem obvious until we start to live it.

Most times it leaves us hanging,

And it’s in the hanging that we live,

Because the answer never stays

On a particular side, but is

Where we find the top

Spinning.

Conversion of a Five-Year-Old Poet

Perhaps it was the way the word 'soul'

echoed and 'heart' clapped back to my ear

that made me picture You there--an unearthed 

giant white playground bound sewer pipe I would hide in,

that there was a place deep within me where sounds like this

happen--because of the shape and form

of my inner little-woman heart and soul,

five-year-old thunder rolling, cracking, and ceasing.

Before I knew anything of phonetics, semantics,

I understood You through the sound of 'soul,' 

through the sound of echo--that's all I understood, 

that You would sit with me there, calm the storm. 

That You would send me forth from 'soul' to 'city street'?

from my sabbatical sewer pipe to hearing rumbles of hunger,

the groan of hidden agony? I couldn't dream of,

for instance, a daily commute from introverted retreat

to all types of hunger pains and back only to sleep.  But neither 

did I dream of that same sewer pipe now echoing 

the crash of living waterfalls and serene whisper 
of heavy April rain--right here in my sewer-pipe hiding place.

All I understood was the echo of 'soul,' 

that You would sit with me there.