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A pastoral candidate went before a ministry team to be interviewed for ordination. The man was an intelligent man. He answered question after question with his typical erudition. Finally, one man asked him, “Share with us your thoughts on Eucharist.” The man gave a rather detailed theology of Eucharist. He was surprised, however, when the questioner replied, “Sir, you will be ready for ordination only when you return and have no possible explanation for Eucharist.”
God winked
And that one wink
Opened my eyes to worlds
All my studies in theology had not even
Hinted at, nor can.
When my theology became God,
Not about God, I started living
Amazed, always.
I am now the Love,
And becoming the Love,
Love is.
Once, I took a test recommended by the Christian denomination I serve through. One classification of personality for leaders was Poet. I scored Poet. The congregation I served had rejoiced in my poetry, and many had purchased copies of my book of poetry. I shared the test results with my Church Council. I was astonished later to learn of persons questioning my fitness for pastoral ministry because I was a Poet personality. Of course, the test givers recognized that Poet is as legitimate a style as any other and in no way unfits a person for being a Pastor. I was surprised that church members could not fathom how advantageous a Poet style can be for pastoral work and Scripture interpretation.
Poets manifest a sensitivity and depth of spiritual and integrative insight that most persons cannot. Many of the great theologians of the Church have been poetic persons. Much of the Bible and almost all the Prophets are in verse, not prose. This does not mean the Poet is superior; it does indicate the Poet has long been established as a fit style for communicating Divine Truth and having insight into the Spirit. This very gift may be why some persons are uncomfortable with a Poet leader: for he says, essentially, “There is so much to see that you have not seen.”
Henri J. M. Nouwen writes regarding the preparation and role of creativity, and this applies to poetry and poets, as well as to life in general:
[We must] enter ourselves first of all into the center of our existence and become familiar with the complexities of our inner lives. As soon as we feel home in our own house, discover the dark corners as well as the light spots, the closed doors as well as the drafty rooms, our confusion will evaporate, our anxiety will diminish, and we will become capable of creative work. The key word here is articulation. Those who can articulate the movements of their inner life, who can give names to their varied experiences, need no longer be victims of themselves, but are able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. They are able to create space for Him whose heart is greater than theirs, whose eyes see more than theirs, and whose hands can heal more than theirs. This articulation, I believe, is the basis for spiritual leadership of the future, because only they who are able to articulate their own experiences can offer themselves to others as a source of clarification.
-The Wounded Healer
The poet is present to open common reality to Supernal Light. The poet, by thoroughly knowing the inner recesses of her own complex Self, is gifted to write to invite other persons to that same self-knowledge, a self-knowledge that opens a person more to the free-flowing of Spirit, removing the hindrances of ignorance to Blessing. The poet can feel and see the Sacred in the commonplace and ordinary time.
Spiritual communities need both the language, insight, and experience of poets. One of the weaknesses of much church language and preaching, as well as teaching, is it lacks the depth, beauty, freedom, and enticement of poetry; that is, it is too prosaic, too plain, too trite. Just sit in many classes, Bible studies, and hear sermons. Most often, it seems, what one hears is purely prosaic. It is one thing to talk about something, another thing to entice persons to see for themselves. Poets are more interested in your experiencing the Sacred than having an ideology of the Sacred. Likewise, they know an ideology of the Sacred most often shuts out the enticing mysteries of the Sacred.
Opportunities for the poetic are present in church life. For example, Baptism and Eucharist are poetry in action. They invite beyond the common, as in Baptism, water, as in Eucharist, bread and new wine. Each invites us to Eternal Time, to where Spirit and spirit meet in a mysterious convergence. I enter that time when offering Baptism and Eucharist. I come away with no explanation of how it happened or what it was like for me. It just is, and I know I have been touched deeply by the poetic freedom through which I entered by the common elements of sacrament.
I rejoice in all the poets, clergypersons and laity, too, who have the spiritual gift to see the inwardness of Reality and provide feelings and words to help other persons experience the sacrament of the world as a sacred rite of Divinity, one we are to enjoy and never explain. Indeed, that we cannot explain the sacrament of Creation makes it the more enjoyable.
Where does this poetic insight lead? We are led from being a people of explanation to a people of amazement. Now, do you want to live a life of explanation? Or, do you want to live daily in amazement? If you want the latter, you must open to the poetic of Nature and the Divine. Language must become, for you, more a matter of introducing you to the Holy of Holies of the unexplained than the outer courtyard of the explained. Poetry and the poetic lead us to where we see with the heart, a seeing that is more a feeling, and one that leaves us speechless before the Creating One.
Reflection
What is the difference between poetry and poetic? What traits of poetry help us discern the poetic from the prosaic? What elements of the poetic do you see existing in your church? What role does the poetic play in your devotion? Have you ever read an author who is gifted at writing prose in a poetic spirit? How might poetry “threaten” the prose explanations about God?
Prayer
Poetic God, illumine your Presence through leading me to that Holy of Holies of experiencing the commonplace, in which I feel and know a Reality of Being, Awareness, and Bliss underlying and enriching the prose of everyday living. Amen.
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