Today’s Word from Pastor Tom Kidd…
Picture 15 middle schoolers sitting around the confirmation table with yours truly trying to be inspirational, hoping to quicken their love of Luther and the Small Catechism. But it’s January, it was dark at 4:15 p.m., they’ve been up since 6:45 a.m. putting in a full day in the classroom, and I am competing with whatever the seasonal sport de jour was at that time. You’re not having too much trouble picturing how this is going, are you?
In a moment of brilliance, I have the class open their Bibles to Song of Songs (sometimes referred to as Song of Solomon). Being the compassionate empathic pastor that I am, I save certain passages for certain students. “Billy, would you please read chapter 4.” About the 5th verse little Billy asks, “Pastor, is this Bible porn?” “No, Billy, it is allegory.” After a few more verses my faithful lector concludes with, “If mom says this is porn, I’m going to tell her you made me read it.”
Just to show you how shallow I can be, I share this with you as one of my pastoral highlights. At least I had their attention, the moment was pure poetry. Keeping in mind that I freely confess there is not an original thought in my head, somewhere I came to the understanding that while life is understood in prose, it is experienced in poetry.
Does that make sense? Like falling in love, prose does not always do it justice. I think poetry and prose come from different parts of the brain.
The same can be said of death. Prose, via Kubler Ross, explains the five stages of grief well but the experience of death may best be left to poetry. I have a good pastor friend who wrote poetry as he accompanied his wife through her cancer, chemo, remission, return of cancer, chemo, and death. I was honored when he asked me to proof his work for publication and to write a review. I spent weeks getting lost in the poetic rendering of their experience. It felt as if I had been invited into a very special intimacy. When all was said and done, I had made maybe four punctuational corrections but I could not write the review. Couldn’t do it. The sharing in their experience touched my heart; I just could not put it into prose. He understood.
It is said that one can gather mystics from any and all religions, denominations and tribes together and they will have no trouble being one with God. Put varied theologians together representing these same traditions and it will take about 5 minutes before someone has to call for a medic. It is the experience of God versus the knowing of God. Both have their place yet too often it can feel like it is a heart vs. head competition. It isn’t.
Song of Songs is a beautiful allegory of God’s passionate love for Israel, for us. It can make a 13-year-old boy blush. These poetic words invite us into the experience of a Holy intimate passionate love, “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” (8:6). Pure poetry. Phew, I think I need to go lie down.
History does not repeat itself; human nature repeats itself (again, someone else’s thought borrowed). How history views this chaotic age will in large part be shaped by how love wins. Our nature is “by nature sinful and unclean.” How God’s passionate love for us lifts us beyond our nature to be the people of God that can heal, restore and provide hope will be the story.
Did I mention my confirming pastor says he never signed my confirmation certificate? Be at peace, God passionately loves you. We know who wins,
Pastor Tom
