Certainty gives me pause these days. A whole new part of life has opened up to me, and with those new circumstances come unique thoughts, emotions and experiences. Those three things lead me to new understanding of God. That phenomenon often leads to a shake-up of everything, whether in the head, heart or world.

I haven’ t been writing essays because of my uncertainty. I am afraid to be certain; I am so new at the facets of God’s character recently revealed to me that I feel uncomfortable writing concretely about them. Thus, all the poetry: poems are much more suited to instability, confusion, emotional displays and general linguistic chaos. A haiku doesn’t need a thesis, explanation and support. An essay does.

I hope I will soon venture into essays again. It seems that I have broken the ice today. Still, I only settled here after exhausting my poetic possibilities for the day. Some things need the clarity that an essay can provide. Because life, for all its messy poetic devices and maudlin occurrences, is not always best explained in a heap of words. Sometimes a fish is a fish.

Sometimes learning that the love of God is more passionate than any earthly relationship takes a really amazing earthly relationship to put it in perspective (“You want me more than x person, God? How?”). Sometimes hope is a thing to be chased; sometimes it is a thing to be celebrated.

Sometimes life is a poem. Sometimes life is an essay. Sometimes it’s a flowery essay, or a concrete poem. Life is more than I can put into a neat box with a bow; but sometimes it helps to put it in iambic pentameter.

All this to say, I’d like to be at a point where I write essays again, but I have to be sure of something before I tell it to you. Or maybe that idea will change too. But these I know: God is good, God is infinite, and change happens. Those give me pause, too.

This is the true terror of living
that which the young run from
and the old grimly accept
that work is hard, but not altogether bad
but saps the power to live.

I have not been in angst too much
but then, I have not marveled
I have not been in pain at all
but neither have I wondered

And though the path seems neat and fine
(at least, as today sees it)
I understand old follies mine
a rollercoaster life sings
even if it’s sometimes dissonant

And yet, to tell, I see my shell
and snap it, lest it harden
I will not let the daily bones
a cell or prison be
still wonders to be seen
I must see thoroughly
my prayers to never cease

Empty, frozen space
someone starts an engine
and we try to warm our bones
the windshield freezes
and refreezes, no matter what
we try to stop it, no defroster
can keep it clean, even making it worse
it gets so dangerous

our lives are windshields
defroster hands give way
to the only one who can warm our space

two ears, many men
let us adore him this way
who is your Jesus?

I do not want to live forever
I would prefer to end (someday).
But ending is a myth, for ever
do our souls then travel on
Streaking past the last death’s fade
A terrifying joy past here.

This is what it is to love the world.