One art-that-you-wouldn't-consider-an-art-but-really-is-an-art

For my Psychiatric clinical the other day, I did some poetry reading with a few of the patients as a form of relaxation.  I pulled out one of my favorite poems, which I haven’t looked at in a while, and shared it with them.  Reading it again made me remember just how much I love it, and how much I cherish this writer’s insight.

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.  Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel.  None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch.  And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.  And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 Elizabeth Bishop wonderfully describes the natural course of loss and recovery in life.  I think about all the people that have come in and out of my life, all of the different possessions that I have owned and lost over the years.  But yet, here I am—still living life with the world still turning. 

The Great Commandment

I can only imagine what Jesus might have been thinking when the lawyer walked in the door in Matthew 22 and said to him, “Teacher, what is the great commandment in the Law?”

And what did Jesus say?  What was the one thing that the Christ pointed to, and said, “This! Above all else do this!”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Rather than telling mankind to do the right things or believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, Jesus makes the point of telling the people—all people—to love God.  Love God with everything that you’ve got.  Love God more than food and water and family.  Since this is the first and the greatest commandment, doesn’t that mean it should be foundational to our lives?

I was praying for some specific things last night, and I realized that if I truly loved God like I should and like he deserves, I likely wouldn’t be sitting here praying for these things.

I prayed that I would see that the prize of my faith is knowing Jesus, and not the things that I sometimes hope that God will give me.  But if I loved God like I should, nothing less than Jesus would even be acceptable.

I prayed that my strength would come from God (Psalm 73:25-26).  But if I loved God like I should, my life would be so interwoven with him that knowing him would be the thing that gets me through every day.

I prayed that God would show me areas of pride in my life and in turn help me cultivate humility.  If I loved God like I should, I would be so caught up in knowing him that I wouldn’t give myself any notice.  I wouldn’t think of myself because I would be too busy thinking about Him.

Christ knew full well that the thing that we were made for, that our hearts ache for, is knowing and loving God.  And not just, “Hey God, you’re cool,” but rather, “God, you are the maker and sustainer of everything and everything was made by you and for you.  You know every detail of me and you still love me, so the only thing that is fitting for me to do in return is give you all of the love and adoration I can muster.”

When I think about how horrible this little human brain is at responding appropriately to God in love and intimate knowledge, it feels like another great (not happy great, but big great) reminder that I am a sinner in such desperate need of a savior.  I have jacked my life up with my disobedience and shortcomings, but God will never fail to let me know that Christ came, Christ lived, Christ died, and Christ is risen as an invitation for my broken heart to draw closer to his day by day.    

Three Words

How to describe the indisputable idiocy of this brain?

Three words descend,

spoken over thousands of years

by the lips of the Creator.

By these words

the foundations of the world were formed.

Matter gained its substance.

Light made beauty visible.

These words bring to humanity

the very idea of relationship

and the pain of loneliness.

Were it not for these words,

the way would not have been made.

The human heart would be bound by fear.

Fear of abandonment.

Punishment.

Darkness.

Loss.

Hopelessness.

Failure.

Disappointment.

Discontentment.

Helplessness.

Yet the Father speaks three words

that change the course of eternity

and extract hope and freedom from the darkness.

I love you.

But I am convinced that the matter that surrounds my brain

and makes up the object termed ‘skull’ must be formed out of

a substance which is in itself impermeable, impenetrable,

resistant, impassable, barricaded, and all together dense.

Because no matter how often I see the indisputable truth

that these three words spoken from the lips of the Author

are the foundation of all other truths,

I forget.

I find it to be a difficult task

to retain the most precious knowledge

that I could ever be privileged to posses.

Sin has been the core of my nature

since the moment that I came forth,

but never has a moment presented itself

in which God wouldn’t look at me

and utter, like the most adoring Father,

I love you.

If the human mind could fully comprehend

that the King—who alone is omniscient—

loves man like no one else can, in every way,

at every moment, eternal and unchanging,

how then could man turn away from that?

If my imperfect, weak, adulterous, jacked up mind

could come to understand

the depth and height and sheer size

of the indescribable love

that the Lord and Savior of all has for me,

Everest would be nothing, and sin would lose all appeal.

Hope

There is a word that calms all my fears, and bids all my sorrows to cease.  Though life is certain to rush around me in a torrent of winds, there is one thing, and one thing only that will keep me sane and striving to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ.  Hope.  This is the one word that has infiltrated the many pockets of my mind for months now.  God has shown me in ever increasing depths of the wickedness of my heart, and he has countered that by showing me the complete and perfect hope that he has in store for me.  In spite of all my downfalls, all my shortcomings, all my flaws, I am confident that God has a plan for me that is leading me ever closer to his heart. 

I am confident because Romans 8:18 tells me that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.”  I feel like that doesn’t fully compute with me.  The things that God has coming for all Christians—the absolute wonders of his presence in Heaven—are so much greater than the difficulties that overcome us now that these hard times aren’t even worth mentioning.  We’ll have so much joy to occupy our thoughts and time that these hard times will be just a waste of brain space.  Nothing.  The future glory is so great that the present tribulations will be a miniscule pinprick of darkness next to a magnificent roaring flame.  Think about that when the hard times come again.  The joy that’s coming is so much greater than that pain.   Hold fast, fight the good fight, and every day live in hope of the coming glory of Christ. 

In his [fantastic, amazing, I-wish-I-could-read-it-every-day] book Mere Chrsitianity, CS Lewis has a chapter on hope in which this quote can be found: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”  There might be a day soon [if it has not already arrived] when all you and I have to hold onto is this hope.  When the only thing that gets us through the day is knowing that there will be a day that is better than this, where every desire is fulfilled in God.  I have days where I feel like I’ve sinned so much and so completely jacked everything up that all I can really think about is that day that is coming.  That future hope and glory.  And I believe that’s the reason hope has been such a massive, complicated, and beautiful word to me.  In the midst of this sinful life that I will never get right, what else do I have?  What else is there to hold onto other than the knowledge that I am saved by a grace that is continually pulling me heavenward? This world offers me no guarantees of happiness or love or peace—there is nothing to be gained here.  But because of hope, I pray along with Paul—to live is Christ, and to die is gain.