Poetry is for people with time
I don’t have enough time in my life. I know there are supposed to be gaps in my day where I can contemplate the infinite but instead I seem to always have the metaphorical dogs snapping at my heals.
Sheena has lent me a few Roald Dahl books. I kind of wish I’d read them when I was a kid as I’m only really half enjoying them now. To really enjoy them, you need that kind of timelessness of childhood – where you could read a book without feeling any guilt or pressure to be doing work or to be learning anything or to be gaining some kind of kudos.
I have the same problem with poetry – I’d like to read more poetry but I can’t hack it because it feels like such a collossal waste of time. I wish I could get to some kind of zen state where I can just waste time and not care. In fact, I’m making that my goal for the week. To read poetry, guilt free. To do something wasteful that has no goal or purpose everyday.
Apparently it is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
Vigil today. Everybody knows those guys didn’t exist and that the lame lame guy was just really lame. We all know that even if they did exist, these stories about them are made up. Christianity was just a genie that popped out of a bottle. Kind of like the Claire Swire email that went around the world a couple of times in 2000.
Anyway, I don’t really have anything intelligent to say about the Apostles – except that it reminds me of my first attempt at a sermon a few weeks ago. I decided to go for what I hoped would be informal and personal by only writing sketchy notes that I hoped I would fill in with witty banter. Instead I did a lot of uming and areing and apparently gave a dead-pan delivery that was only saved by the fact that I had done some research and come up with some good stuff to say. Part of which is that when we have communion / eucharist, we are kind of transported sacramentally (so need to use our imaginations a bit) to the upper room where Jesus had the last supper with the disciples. So I guess we can relate to the apostles through that experience that we have and not think of them as being so far away in time and space from us.
Posted: June 28th, 2006 under Inspirational People, Blasphemy, Blah.
Comments: 3
Comments
Comment from zero mouse
Time: 5/7/2006, 10:14 am
I know waht you mean about reading I never have the time, anyway I fill most of my time reading dry educational material.
P.s. here is a short poem for a busy man.
Titled ‘The arrival of the kangaroo’
Hop, Hop, Hop, Stop
by Wayne Van Wick
Comment from Nathan
Time: 7/7/2006, 11:12 am
Regarding your sermon Matt, I couldn’t help but think that was representative of what you can put together after one unit of theology and at a first time effort of doing a sermon then I cannot for the day when you have some experience of sermon writing and more units of theology under you. It was a refreshing change from some others I’ve been bored with of late, even to the point of being lost with what the person delivering the sermon was trying to get at in the first place. Your sermon showed thought of content, integration of a theological concept into the world of reality where human beings live, your points were connected and thought provoking. Most sermond these days I tune out quite quickly, I was sure to stay focused with yours because I kept on wanting to see where you were going, and liked the direction you were heading in.
Presentation skills can and will be learned, the ums and ars will go but what cannot be learnt so well is the ability to take a very profound concept such as the doctine of Corpus Christi and to reflect on your own understanding and to then grow from it and more importantly to be able to make it accessible to simple folk like me.
There will be many moments of discouragement as you proceed along the path of formation. But don’t be too quick to judge yourself and allow yourself time to integrate all you learn in formation into your ministry.
I have no doubt that you are heading in the right direction… and I want to be there when the experienced less nervous Matt preaches in the future.
Comment from James the cat
Time: 2/7/2006, 8:26 pm
Poetry for people with time? Perhaps. Sometimes poetry is a distilled concept or emotion, that communicates what the writer has to say without the padding out of prose. Like a classic work of visual art, good poetry says what it needs to say and nothing else – although it may yet be nuanced and layered. Good poetry, like an Ikon, is gazed at, read, meditated on. The best poetry speaks for itself, and any written reflection or commentry on it (like we are forced to do in highschool english) lessens it.
As for time in life – we have what we make (says me without a 15month old at home). You are familiar with the benedictine formulation of ‘prayer, study, work’. This is the classical description of a balanced life. Of course, we must also consider Maslow’s triangle – at the base we are struggling for the essentials of existence – food, shelter, sleep – and more relective activities are reserved it seems for those who have overcome these immediate needs.
assuming the basics have been addressed, one must resign oneself to the fact that everying cannot be done, and there will always be unopened mail in the inbox, so to speak.