SPIRITUALITY AND POETRY — free as the sky

In most of human history, poetry and religion were almost the same thing. Poetry was the only language worthy of religion. Good poetry doesn’t try to define an experience as much as it tries to give us the experience itself, just as good liturgy should do. It seeks to awaken our own seeing, hearing, and knowing. It does not give us the conclusion as much as teach us a process whereby we can know for ourselves. It does not overexplain and destroy astonishment. (italicized mine)

Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

No human being is simple. Every person is riddled with complexity and resides in a land full of contradictions, conflict, and irony. On top of every human being, add cultural, geopolitical, and generational layers of human societies at every conceivable level, then what we have is profound complexity in the most unimaginable immense proportion. No wonder life is and feels complex! No one can force such an intricate web of complexity into a simple and predictable prescribed grid of knowing and understanding. There simply is no way, if I can make the statement that black and white.

The truth of the matter is that I do not have to see far beyond myself to know how complex, weird, contradictory, and ironic the world is, as well as how amazingly beauty-ful, wonder-ful, and grace-ful the world is and I am. This is where poetry enters in to save, uplift, and tell me I am not alone in this human endeavor. I can choose to listen to poets of the past and now to draw parallels and sit at their feet. I can draw parallels because “what is most personal is what is most universal.” That is precisely what good poetry does, making the connection between what is personal experiential truth for me and what is universal perennial collective wisdom.

Poets with their keen ability to “caress the divine details” can make their experiences equate with people outside their world. While doing so, they struggle with the very existence and purpose of language, trying to be as precise as they can muster up and at the same time realizing the limits and even failure of language. Such profundity of language keeps the poets continuing to express themselves as unerringly as they can. This intolerable liminal space is where poets live and spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to be as truthful and faithful to each experience and expression. I increasingly appreciate the process that went into the nicety of language with the backdrop of language limitation. More and more I am being invited to dwell in such judicious words and phrases to drink deeply from their life in relationship with my life. Rohr is right in that experientially for me, good poetry seems quite worthy of high religion and not for self-defined and self-interested “black and white” morality-driven low religion.

I love the “poetry” portions of Scripture, especially the Psalms (including other wisdom books in the Old Testament. I would also even consider Old Testament prophets as poets) for their brutal honesty, willingness to hold tensions and ironies of life, and the audacity to call life as is, not necessarily as it should be. While we know that “God is good,” the Psalmists would pause and honestly say, “I know God is good, but not today.” Today, I am angry, in lament, upset, in pain, under duress, being pursued by enemies, etc. The greater attraction and freedom is that one does not have to end with praise or a declaration that God is good. The Psalms invite us to be aware, be real, and be honest and okay with the fact that God does not seem good today. God’s goodness ultimately prevails someday for sure, but we do not have to force it upon us today before we are ready. It invites us to hold the tensions and the liminal space without a clear resolution. The Psalmists or the poets tell us it is okay. I find this generosity freeing. I find this God magnanimous and full of grace.

While traveling throughout Southeast Asia and now Korea, because I am in a new environment, I am more cognizant of what is happening around me. With heightened awareness, I can engage better my life’s interior orientation such as emotions, thoughts, and senses. My usual tendency is to deny negative emotions and thoughts and try to coast along but I am learning to “greet and host them all” as my guests. Anxiety and anger, the slow simmering kind, as well as the excitement of the unknowns and adventures rise to the top in recent weeks. The “all” aspects of my life become a doorway to connect with the poetry of all aspects of life. I find myself conversing poetry with the “poem” of my life and vice versa.

The Psalmists also seemed to struggle with language as we do. Never mind the fact that the Bible has been edited multiple times and reorganized by later scribes and priests with certain religious, national, and political agendas, not even mention the translation effort into many different languages for many centuries, adding more complexity. On a grand stroke, I would like to think that the Bible is giving us permission to struggle with our own words honestly, stemming from our experiences and engagement in our life. There is the invitation to process by entering and owning our life as well as by learning from the writers (poets if you like) and editors. Bible engages us in the very process of life, not necessarily giving us answers in life.

The parables Jesus taught and “other-worldly” eloquent teachings Jesus said are like good poetry. The teachings reveal what’s often underneath beyond a simple yes or no and engage a process by which answers arise from within. Jesus is the master of saying just enough, causing those who are willing to listen and see to hear and see, not overexplaining and destroying astonishment. Jesus possesses an unparalleled way of asking questions, deep and existential questions, that we cannot and had better not avoid. Poetry, dare I say, plays a similar role in raising questions in my life without destroying astonishment or curiosity. In fact, poetry creates an expansive and generous space for shared astonishment, wonder, and curiosity.

Both engage the very process of life. Without the process, life is not life—no one blinks on life and blinks off life. As we live or process life with awareness, we experience life as it happens, in real-time, discover grace as synonyms for power and wisdom to know how to live and find a connection between what is personal and universal, thus connecting with the world God created and ultimately with God.

Bonus

As it became a habit of mine after sending my laptop to a shop in Malaysia, I scribble almost every day following where my mind and heart take me. I do not filter, judge, or know where I am headed in my writing each day. I have written anything from my sense of the future of global Christianity to something very mundane as it is below and everything in between.

I do not know when it happened, but I drank my lukewarm cappuccino with a fly, making eye contact with me, in my cup. By the time the cappuccino was in my mouth, I was too late. I let out an unrehearsed wry chuckle. That is a first. I must have sipped a few times before I realized the fly was a fly, not unmixed cinnamon powder floating around. My mind wonders about an idea I have been resisting, “I should get my eyes checked.” Funnier, as if on a cue, the good old Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive” is being played in the café. I do not know who is trying to stay alive, the fly or me. I can see the fly hopelessly stuck but desperately wiggling around to stay alive. My thought extends, “Where was the fly before it decided to plunge into my cappuccino?” Ok, I’d better not think that through because I had already drunk at least a couple of sips. Then, “What was it thinking?” I guess I will never know. The least it is doing is that it is entertaining and sadly funny, at my expense. Oh well, at least I did not drink the fly.

All of a sudden, I am super aware of my surroundings, scanning for more flies or other flying insects. I see or hear none except for bugs and flies outside the floor-to-ceiling window near a flower bed. Then it all clicked for me. The café has magnetic insect screens for bug-repellent purposes inside all the doors. When I first entered, I accidentally tore the top Velcro section of the section, and the lady barista promptly told me, “It’s ok, I was about to take it down.” I was thankful for her kind word except later I found a fly swimming in my cappuccino. I had no one to blame except me. Now, I am thinking about what to say when returning my cup to the one-person run café. I do not want her to feel bad that it was her mistake. I certainly do not want her to imagine somehow, I have managed to drink most of the cup while avoiding the fly and tilting my cup while making eye contact with the desperate fly or blowing the fly away from my mouth while drinking.

Toward the end of this writing, I almost drank the darn cup again mindlessly. . .