Engulfed in a World of Poetry

I’ve been so immersed in this poetry class and reading I can barely think.  Maybe I need to take a day’s break or something.  Things that are meaningless suddenly take on meaning and become verse.  Example:

Crossed

On a holiday or birthday,
they know that I love Jesus
so I have lots of crosses,
tangled in my drawer
I took one out to wear it,
but it was chained to others
twisted, tightly, so unruly
I had to make them straight.

There’s the silver filigree cross
and the bamboo cross with leather
there’s the turquiose cross I love
and the rock with just a fish
and they’re all so very pretty
it is hard for me deciding
which to take and which to leave
when I am putting on my face

Very slowly and with patience
I untangled all these crosses
laid them out upon the table
and I wondered what it meant
that they couldn’t stay together
in one drawer without combining
into knots and mess and trouble
Was a Godly message sent?

Were they merely jewels and ribbon
prone to tangle when the drawer moves
while my mind makes something of it
though it’s meaningless and dead?
That, perhaps, is what all life is
simply nothing ’til we take it
and we straighten it and shape it
as our heart can shape our head.

That came out when I was getting a necklace to wear after my shower today.  All these crosses were tangled up together and I began thinking of the deeper meaning of that.  The pragmatist inside me said, “L…” (my real name is far from eryssa), “This is getting out of hand… there is not MEANING in every little thing!”  It’s just that with all these poetry excercises and all the poetry I’ve been reading… I realize ANYTHING can have meaning.  It’s nuts.

Anyway, for the facts… I went to church this morning… to the 8am service (not my usual).  I haven’t really sat through a service in the sanctuary for a few weeks.  I’ve listened from the office instead.  Anyway, it made me so sad to sit in our sanctuary and hear the music and see the people and know that our Pastor will (may, because who knows what God may do to intervene) be coming back.  It seems almost like a desecration to know his insincere voice will be speaking to the people again… that his phony story about helping other people will be spoken in and out of sermons.  And, break my heart, his wife will sit there certain she is doing God’s work and not even realizing how horrible this all is.  I still don’t understand how they can continue claiming this stuff when it’s so clear he did NOT help others with this money, but mainly himself.  Argh… why can’t I just drop this and trust that God is working it out for the best?  I guess because somewhere inside I really want God to consult with me on these decisions (even though I don’t REALLY want God to do the stuff I say… I’d make a bigger mess of the world than is here already.)