#MicroPoetry|July ’18 Reflections

The word maelstrom is the inspiration or this verse. The word carries with it such movement and texture that it spoke to me of creativity, energy and possibility. Sometimes the words is framed in negatively, such as being chaotic, even violent. As I reflected on this, I thought of the sun and the images we have of plasma being ejected from it and knowing that heat is what allows life to thrive on this wee blue dot we call home. This musing is my attempt to capture this.

Selfless acts … they are appropriately highlighted and celebrated. They can be life-giving examples of how we choose and respond to care for one another. Yet – sometimes – they are over-sensationalised (what faith might call idolatrized) to the point that the humanity of the person and people is lost in a flattened story that neglects to take into account the humanness of those involved. Often such celebration can leave us numb to the need for self-case. Not care in a self-centred manner, but care that – in itself – models how to be well and vibrant.

I often explore the image of shining. In particular that we are meant to be Light’s beacons to one another and ourselves. As I was thinking on this theme, the connexion with self-care arose. The catalyst occurred after a recent post, and subsequent discussion, on the A Deacon’s Musing Facebook Page about positive #BodyImage, I felt the need to explore the link between shining and sabbath or self-care. This verse, therefore, is the result of that musing.

Change: it’s something we acknowledge is constant and yet we long for permanency and stability. This is indeed a tension for most of us. How we navigate this often leads to the way we perceive ourselves and others. Awakening to this reality – if you will – carries a central learning: choice. Choice, as the act of agency, is a powerful revelation. Not in the manner should I buy this shirt or that flower. Rather, the choice to respond to the constancy of change in a way that adds richness and value to our lives. Here I muse about change through the lens of awakening to the power of choice.

Children: we have all started and grown from there. We have watched our Elders say what to do and we have watched what they do. Sometimes, perhaps often, the two do not match. When there is that paradox, often what we learn is the doing, not the saying. In this poetic musing, I am attempting to explore the responsibility that comes with recognising the power of our actions to prepare those who shall follow.

Imagining & dreaming are blessed gifts that are intrinsically tied to creativity. These two acts, when done in community are further amplified when different voices help shape what might be into what is. To get to the birth, to arrive at the place where the idea is tangible, tactile and real takes more than the act to dream, but the commitment to pursue through trial and failure, frustration and turmoil. This is sometimes called discipline and in this musing I explore the faithful work it takes to bring something new into the world.

Happy – it’s one of those words that you see everywhere and often ends up seeming to have no meaning. If it carries any value, it is usually reduced to be something you can buy or that you experience when you consume something. As such, sometimes it feels like the state that ‘happy’ describes becomes lost and that seems to lead us to a constant place of sensing something is missing. This verse explores happy as a state in which we are aligned with a Call to which we aspire to be fully human. Living into that possibility certainty invites us into happiness I suspect.

We often awake with a sense of distance from not only one another, but from ourselves. We are not encouraged to take that inner journey of self-knowing that often reveals that we are more than an isolated atom, but are part of a cosmos that brightly blazes. In this musing, I navigate the paradox of realising in one’s self connexion with the infinite begins to be revealed in relationships with others.

Perfection is an illusory goal that too often distracts from the commitment that comes when we take steps to change, whether that be oneself, community or the world. Such aspiration, however, requires a discipline that reveals that in failure rich learning helps to take steps toward dreams realised. The tension between doing the hard work and dreaming creatively are explored through the metaphor of flight in this verse.

Often A Deacon’s Musing verses explore dreams – not simply as flights of fancy, but as ways we move from imagination to action, from pondering to creation. Often this act of birthing is framed as an isolated event or action of one person. Yet such acts often require rich communities of support, challenge, love and nurture. Without these peopled places, we can get loss in failure and not realise moments of learning or becomes consumed by ego and not realise the implications of that to which we aspire. This poetry navigates that need for community in order to create that which is life-giving for all.

Freedom & forgiveness. I have been toying with how these two things connect. As I was doing that, it occurred to me to explore what if the former was the noun and the latter the verb. Connected in the musing was how we live in a time when everything is a product to be consumed, including ourselves and one another. If that is true, then it becomes easy to dehumanise ourselves and our neighbours. This verse engages this tension with expressing forgiveness as an action that invites us to move toward the mutual hope of freedom.