#MicroPoetry|March ’18 Reflections

Awe and wonder are often terms that are spiritualized in a manner that makes them seem inaccessible. This inaccessibility often carries with it an assumption that those who attain such insight are ”better” or “holier.” I believe this is unfortunate. If our lives are a journey in which spirit and body walk, then recognising we all possess this potential should embolden us. This verse attempts to convey one outcome of a life lived nurturing such awareness.

Truth – in its capital ‘T’ form – is often the battleground between sides: whether that’s political, ideological, religious or philosophical. These places of debate, whether shaped with words or force, are implicitly violent. They are framed that someone must be right and therefore another wrong. In its mundane, everyday form, it might be easy to dismiss this. But as the stakes are raised and the entrenching deepens, the anger and sense of righteousness quickly displays this reality. In light of this, I am attempting to explore what if our aspiration toward truth was not either/or, but both/and …

The image of climbing and reaching goals is often one that is used to motivate people in corporate/business/team settings. I have not often heard, however, the metaphor used in respect to helping make our collective spaces and places better. I thought I would play with this motivation image, therefore, by exploring what such summit ascending might mean if it were a collaborative experience that reinforced that “success” involves all of our participation.

Playing in dirt – in my experience – is a consistent joy, which children share. Regardless of space and time, curiosity and joy are demonstrated most purely when you watch a child discovering a new texture, taste, smell or colour whether on a lawn, garden, beach or sidewalk! Another consistent aspect of our journey is too often we cull and weed out this curiosity so that by the time we are “adults” such wonder is quelled if not lost. In this MicroPoetry verse, I attempt to reconnect that place of wonder by offer we are not separate from, but directly connected to Creation.

Sometimes these verses clearly begins and ends as a prayer. This would be one of those times. I was trying, in this case, to use the rhythm of two words ending in “be” as a Taizé or meditative cadence. That then led me to try to find prayerful attributes/values that speak to both our individual and collective connexion that help us all be better and more resilient when we foster together a shared future.

The gift of laughter, in my experience, is truly that. In places of fear and tears, when shadows seem to overwhelm, laughter and joy find their ways into such moments. It does not mean all is better or fixed, settled or resolved, but it is often like fresh air in moments of oppressive stillness.

I love questions. I love the doors they reveal in our lives. I also recognise that those questions and the choices are not always easy. That anxiety, however, is a helpful indicator – sometimes – of the import of the moment. That feelings, sometimes even fear, can actually be an indication that the door before us is where we might need to go, even in the uncertainty and concern that arises. This verse attempts to capture that moment of possibility and tension of a decision’s dawning.

Words can indeed be magic – they can excite the imagination. When tenderly nurtured, they can reveal possibilities once thought unimaginable. Words also fail. In the places of harm and trauma, loss and shock, they can only amplify the powerlessness that arises when there are no fixes, no solutions. In an extroverted world, platitudes sometimes follow. In this poetic musing, I am attempting to capture this with care and sensitivity by exploring that sometimes the most helpful response begins and ends in silent presence.

There are many metaphors for the spiritually explored life. Often the unexamined life can lead to a sense of division between the internal and the external, the physical and the immaterial. I have found these, in turn, that these divisions keep us from a holistic appreciation of our lives. Here, I am exploring how this journey allows us to integrate the various facets of our lives and recognise the deep connexions that shape us.

I recently imagined the universe as an “incubator for life.” There are many ways I have imagined exploring this further, but the idea of the energy that nurture would require for creating has kind of caught my attention. I also have never imagined this state of creativity as being bound to time in a point A to point B kind of way. That having been said, that is how most of experience life. This verse attempts to play with these two aspects.

There are innumerable ways that poetry and prose have attempted to express the idea that a system is only as efficient as its individual parts. This has indeed – sometimes – limited how people interact as it has reduced us to simply widgets. Though this challenge is appropriate, it can limit the use of possible metaphors to express this universal truth: we are a collective body that relies on one another to do that which – individually – we are unable. Here I am exploring this old concept through the image of a bicycle!

I am drawn to the idea of love as an energy, a force, a universal constant that binds us all together. Even in the midst of the tragedies we experience, the hurt we may cause one another, love abides. Often in those shadowed places, if you look forward, we find stories of tender compassion and selfless courage. It is these acts that speak to Holy Love. This verse attempts to capture that, even if inadequately.