from and toward

How good to sing praise to our God;
how pleasant to give fitting praise.

Psalm 147

 

I choose to begin this post and may ohers with a bit from the Psalms.

God is love, and/while poems come from here and there, today a poem or a blog entry comes first as an indistinct but definite canvas, a snapshot of a familar set of steps as if you would say, I lived there. I was about 5 years old.

In firm ways but varying. My ambition is a kind of ribbon that, really, I should protect lest it get caught in the spokes. But what is that. My ambition is to do and present, then I am done with it. I am not as confident as this approach implies, or you might imagine for me. I doubt myself – or, I doubt – no, I don’t doubt. I do not place faith or hope in this sort of thing except that you are here, and generous with your time. But I am a witness to mental and emotional shadows and lapses, a kind of exhaustion. But I am clear of regrets, so in a week or so I am clear of repercussions. I stick with the plan. My heart is free, my mind is free. I write.

Do poems come from God? Insofar as all is God’s, sure. But no, not in my experience, or that I would allow sufficient to say, Ah, God wrote that, even while I am constantly in his Grace. But as this and that comes from here and there in propitious terms, fine. The work is a choice in love and need. I can say that. I can start from that point, and must, to confess a personal need. A propensity. A charism? I don’t think so. Though for another I would say, write as God loves you and loves that you write, of course. For myself, I cannot turn that corner, even as I am grateful for writing with a feeling that is closely related to the finer gratitudes, for prayer, my faith, for the privilege of prayer for others, for opportunities to serve the needy, the old, the sick at heart.

I think of my son, who exhibits talents or tendencies here and there. So I think about messaging for a life for him that will include the time to pursue where his heart and talent lead him. I think of that.

But for me, now and here (not here and there) my pleasure and the truth of that pleasure is to do what I am doing right now. Allowing the faint but definite picture to come into focus and being. Then I am done. I ask myself if that is arrogance. It may be: there is bound to be some central if latent failing, isn’t there? If not, fine – I will ascribe the grace to God what is God’s. I am a good student in this and other matters.

May God grant me the faith to learn from my own failings in his Holy name.