So I know I haven’t posted here in a really, really long time. And honestly, for a while I wasn’t sure I was going to continue with this blog. Not that I haven’t loved doing it! But, A, my journey of faith has expanded from where it was when I started this site. And B, well, between my other site, school, my music and life in general, I wondered if I could actually do justice to this blog on top of everything else! But, as you can see, I did end up deciding to keep it going because it feels important to me to do so. So I thought I’d start back in by reposting an edited version of one of my poems.
I originally wrote this piece in response to feeling caught between the anti-Christian sentiment I often feel in Left spaces and the reasons for that sentiment. So I wrote this poem to try to articulate how one can be a Christian of deep faith without being supremacist or exclusivist – how one can be a person of Christian faith and still respect and value the diversity of faiths and cultures and ways of being in the world. As you’ll see, I found the metaphor of language really helpful there – to think of all our faith-practices and ways of worshiping and being as different languages that God gives us to speak to and hear God with! So now I’ve gone back and edited the poem a bit, cleaning up some of the structure to, hopefully, make it flow and read better. So I hope you enjoy it and find it useful!
God Speaks Myriad Languages:
Note, the poem contains a reference to this awesome song Draw The Circle Wide!
God speaks myriad languages.
To me, He speaks the language of love
shown through manger, cross and resurrection,
but also those of theatre, liturgy, rock, and chanting.
To some, God speaks Hebrew, while to others Arabic.
To yet others, God speaks Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan,
and is plural, immanent, manifold, many-named,,
or is not a “God” as I understand it.
To Mom, She speaks the language of trees,
and of hedgehogs, rabbits, skunks, puppies.
To many, Great Spirit Creator speaks through the place/s
where they have lived since the world began:
Bella Bella, Black Mesa, Elsipogtog, Amazonia,
the Arctic, Haida Gwaii.
And I’m sure God speaks to the rocks and trees and animals too,
though I don’t understand the tongues.
So let the circle be drawn wide!
There is an incredible richness to it all –
the many and varied ways God speaks to us.
So let us rejoice and give thanks
for this great cosmic polyglot!
And let us defend that vast richness too.
For, what a sad, diminished world it would be
if there was but one language of prayer, –
if we all spoke to God the same way –
if we all heard God the same way!
We will never be as multilingual as God.
We should rejoice and give thanks that God
has given to everyone,
every tribe and tongue, every race and nation,
every species and kind,
unique ways to talk to and to hear God/
Him/Her/Thou/Great Spirit Creator!
Yet, we must never forget how much more vast God is
than even our vastest imaginings,
and that each of ours is a tongue, not the tongue;
a way, not the way
of knowing God and receiving God’s word.
So be yourself as you were created!
Speak to God and hear God in the tongue
that God has given you to do that with!
But never forget that, unlike us,
who speak a few tongues or maybe just one,
God speaks fluently as many languages
as there are life-forms in the universe.
For the Good One is the wellspring of all of them!
Phantom of the Cross 