I’ve been told that poetry is the language of love. The language of star crossed lovers and broken dreams, the language of hearts lifting upward to higher callings, a language of melancholic sonnets, and aesthetic beauty of the created lands. Even now as I lift my eyes from screen to world I see the language of poetry- beauty spilled out before me in the form of green hills and the tree covered mountains of Swaziland, I see the poetry in the wind of swaying palm trees and white butterflies flittering across me. I see the verses written in white clouds standing still; all of this His poetry saying, singing, “Love.”
But I’ve wondered if life really is poetry, let alone, if life is a poem of love. I mean I see love here and there- in between the hard days and teary nights. But is the life we are all living really the language of love, always? I wrestle with this notion, life-“ a poet’s verse of love?” How can this be when so much of life does not engross the heart with melodic song? When there are To Do’s and demands and expectations? When there is death and heartbreak and fear killing faith? Can there be a poet still singing His sonnets over us? Can there really be such love in the mess?
I see where the doubt comes from- the reality of my proud heart. I see the cynicism of a stubborn man from years of wounding. Hardening heart is the only medicine to remedy. I see my heart choosing, that which is not love in the moments I wake and want to sleep, not give service, or love or grace or anything of myself. I see the pride in days when I would rather sit in my doubt and fears and reluctance and questions and demands. But Love is not proud and so in the starving of my heart; I hear it grumbling hunger pains for more of the poetry- the verses of love- of life. I desire the substance of true life. I desire love, true love. Don’t we all?
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I sat in my bed last night and thought to myself, “The idea of falling in love is bizarre. What does that even mean? To be in love?” I hear people say it when they talk about how much they are “in love with God,” I’ve heard it in a wife’s praise to her handsome husband. I heart it in songs sung lover to lover, I see love in the cadence of poetic song. I simply saying, quietly whispering, “I want that love. I want to be in love.”
“But what does even falling in love look like?“ I thought to myself as I lay to sleep. Then the answer, “ It’s the standing on a great precipice. It’s the choice to jump-It’s the fall- the free fall- the plunge into the unknown and vulnerable and naked.” Falling in love is the jump from the ledge not in a careless blind way but it’s a leap of trust that you will be caught, held slow, loved deeply. The jump is only the beginning.
I stand at this precipice, one hand holding tight all my desires and what I think should be or ought to be. I stand at the precipice with other hand held tight- all my pains and demands and pride. I stand at the precipice of love asking myself if I really want to take the plunge.
“I do.”
“I do.”
“I do.”
And I jump.
And now I am falling. I realize that this falling in love is not the “feeling of free falling,” as so often we base love off our fickle feelings. Rather this love is the choice to release hands held tight, the choice to jump and the choice to trust that the mighty arms of God will catch me.
Life is a poem of love and it’s Christ who sings His verses over us. But we have the choice to take plunge from the great precipice of all things we hold against him and into his arms, the choice to live a life listening to the verses of love poured over us in everything- in the hideous depravity of a broken world, in the mundane, in the wounding, in the doubt.
His poetry of love-God’s poetry of life- is all around us.
Don’t fail to see it before it’s too late, ask your eyes to be open to it.
Listen to the poem; ask your ears to hear it through the loudness of the world.
His poetry is here, I promise.
Just jump.
