Poems About Life

 

No Black and White

We grow up thinking life will be simple

Black and white, clean

But it's not

It's messy, grey, an enigma

Things never go according to plan

There is no cookie cutter life

It is all like a jigsaw puzzle

We are all trying to fit pieces together

But it's never complete

Something is always missing

Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee"

We search and search for meaning, significance

We try to find it in love but in our desperation can choke the one we love

We're missing something, looking for it, what is it?

God? Spirituality? Faith?

But even religion seems to not fully satisfy

This life is broken, empty, sad

Because we live in a fallen world

It is not black and white

It is grey, life is an enigma

A puzzle that everyone is trying to solve

And none of us can.

 

 

Relationships

 

Relationships are never simple

They are never easy

At the fall God said to Eve

"Your desire shall be for your husband,

Yet he shall rule over you."

Desire meaning…power?

So there is the power struggle

Who is in charge here?

Who sacrifices more?

And we fight and bicker and tear each other apart

We point fingers and judge

And all for what?  To what end? 

Satan pits us against each other

Like two boxers in a ring

And sits back and watches and laughs

And God tries to get our attention

"Stop!" he yells, "Yield! Give up!"

But we stubbornly keep fighting

Digging ourselves deeper into a hole

And the fighting breeds guilt

And the guilt breeds more fighting

Until we surrender the relationship to God

Hold it with open hands and say,

"God we absolutely cannot do this on our own.

You are the vine, we are the branches

Can you do this for us?"

And he says, "I thought you would never ask.  Yes I can, and I will."

 

 

 

Contentment

Why are we as human beings never content?

Nothing is ever enough

We buy things and are never satisfied

So we buy more things but the hole is still there

The ache inside, the bottomless pit

No matter how much we try to get or accomplish or be

It is never enough

We are never enough

For ourselves, for anybody

So we keep trying and trying and trying

“Chasing after the wind” Solomon would say

Striving to be better, to be....perfect?

Because deep down

We know we were made for perfection

And a small part of us knows it and believes it

We sense who we were meant to be before the fall

But we can't get there

Like a star that we can see but not touch

We know it exists, we know perfection did exist at one point

And there is this constant sadness of what was lost

But we don't want to admit it

So we keep running, trying, staying busy

Ignoring the sadness, ignoring the ache for what we know is missing

We blame Adam and Eve for ruining everything for us

“It was all their fault. 

Life would have been fine if they didn’t ruin it for us.”

But humility comes when we can admit

"No, I would have done the same thing too.

I would have eaten the forbidden fruit.

I ruined it for myself."

So we are left in a broken world, aching, waiting

For that day, the last day

When “the sons of God will be revealed”

Until then we will never be fulfilled

We will always know something is missing

Something is broken

And we will always be discontent.