See you soon...

I'll be back in a month or two and will check in with people when I return. Thanks for all your comments -


No Lie

For Jade and Darren, in memory of Devon

Child, don’t cry. So much
Can make us feel so sad.
Just keep your eyes on the prize
Wide as they can be, making your heart
Soft as strong can be, a steel feeling firmly
How it will not/cannot break. We shall overcome.

It takes some time child,
That I will admit for sure. Sometimes it even feels
God made some big mistakes,
As though he made us just to be
Forsaken. Child! Keep your eyes on the prize.
It’s only you and I sometimes
That stand mistaken, when our eyes
Are filled with pain that seems to rain
On everything we care about,
Blinding us with strain. It’s then that we begin
To turn our eyes beyond ourselves, outside that pain,
Sharing in the grace of greater eyes
And so many lives beyond our isolation.

This much is true, though it can be so hard to know:
We have to grow a while, feeling that small blue of being
No more than ourselves alone
Before we see into the wider blue
Of all that we are up to --
Not clearly yet, but with the powerful sincerity
Of meaning it, roaring with a seeking
Louder, deeper, than our self-deceit.
Cry only for that little while because you must
All of my God’s children, and then see:
It isn’t that God doesn’t care. He oversees us
Each and all, but God is very tall and sees things
Broadly – as you and I may even live to see.
Over our own shoulders, he is seeing every one of us,
And that can make us feel alone sometimes,
But God’s on everybody’s side, eyes already on the prize
So wide he sees it all. God knows already: you and I
My child, are only playing catch-up ball.

Yet each of us can see through those same eyes
That are not quite our own
But each of us may borrow for awhile.
Eyes on the prize, we shall overcome ourselves
The way an ocean’s fingertip briefly
Touches just the furthest reach
Of a shore that everybody seeks
And for a moment warms and brightens underneath the sun
Before it melts and fades within
The sea’s embrace again. And yet
This is a tide that has been rising
Since before the dawn of time.

No surprise, the prize is not specific. Nothing
You can buy, though many try and only waste
Their precious little time, eyes on the lie.
The prize is big. Infinitely greater than Atlantic
Or Pacific. There isn’t any package. If you ask,
You may even think there’s nothing to it
But everything is there, not yet aware
My lovely child, learning to stand tall.
Don’t you be another one lost stalling
When the only One is calling to us all.
Think big thoughts. Love large and wide.
For all of us one day will turn the tide,
And it will be there: waters clear and still,
And you and I will even walk on them: one continent
Where all of us will make a common stand
To find contentment in a Promised Land
Where God will laugh out loud and tell us all how odd
He thought it was we didn’t even know
That each of us is chosen.


Paul Martin © 2005

A Possible Topic??

“Percy”…

OK, I haven’t really been on blogging vacation. I have this other blog that’s totally wacky. Percy Bysshe Shelley was a leading Romantic era English poet. I love nineteenth century lit, and can even sort of write that way a little.

So I invented this character named Percy Bysshe Silly. It was just to poke fun about a few things concerning writing, romance, and the sexes – for example, the way that poetry, especially if it isn’t “gritty” or “hard edged,” is equated with effeminacy in the minds of many Americans. Percy ends up being this overly pugnacious, flirtatious, and yet loquacious character, all at the same time.

A Big Mistake?

Lately I’ve been running here and there into quite a lot of anti-Islam, anti-Muslim blogging. I made what may have been the big mistake of trying to discuss the topic of bigotry with people who appear to have bigoted attitudes toward Muslims.

A number of things have bothered me about this:

1. A lot of the anti-Muslim sentiment is coming from Christians.

2. Trying to converse with people who are anti-Muslim is difficult. What seems to happen in discussion threads is that I reply to them point by point. They usually respond by ignoring most or all of my responses; and just give more “evidence” for how rotten they think Muslims are.

3. When they do respond to my points, it’s often by misrepresenting them.

4. The responses are often laced with personal attack.

5. With one person, the response has been pure hate. I’ve become included in the apparently quite expansive category of people that this particular individual loves to hate. As a “Muslim sympathizer,” I suppose.

Please Post Here, There, or Bothwheres...

I’ve just done one more post on bigotry on my formerly fun blog:

Romantic

What do you think? Is it useless, or even counterproductive to discuss bigotry with someone who has bigoted attitudes? Despite its irrationality, is it impossible for someone to reason their way out of prejudice?

If that’s the case, is there any way that non-Muslims can constructively take a stand against anti-Islamic bigotry?

1. To leave a “meta-comment” – a comment about the usefulness or uselessness of trying to discuss the subject of bigotry – please leave your comment here on this blog.

2. To become embroiled in actual discussion of the topic, please post to the "Romantic" link above.

Still going with the lazy summer flow...

We continue to interrupt regular possiblegospel programming while lots of bloggers remain on vacation with stuff like:


Timepiece

Slow-gathering and known
By gravity alone,
A replete drop plops once.
One terse slap, then boundlessly unsounded,
Precisely bookmarked by the universe.