Friday, December 17, 2010

something i wrote

this is something i wrote a while ago, that i think deserves a second look.
ever have a moment where you realize you've lost a piece of truth that you used to have? yeah, i just had one of those moments. so, read. enjoy. please listen to the music. it is truly inspiring.

i was browsing through classical music earlier today, and came across what might be the most despondent sounding piece of art i have ever heard. you know something is truly art when you feel what the artist must have felt. hopeless, fear-ridden, like he was drowning in a pain that would never end. for a brief moment, you feel the promise of hope -- the emotion evolves and you feel... free. and then it's back. the haunting sorrow. the anguish. what a perfect picture of the human condition without the knowledge, the conviction of grace. for the knowledge itself is not enough. a person needs to feel something before it seems real. go listen, and see if you understand:


had chopin been a poet instead of a composer, perhaps he might have written something like this?

burn, icy hand upon my heart

and cut my soul to pieces

leave not one whole part

that would feel again

sing, haunting melody of spite

triumph in your brief hour

set all breath in me to flight

erase the memory of what i could have been

leave no trace of soul

keep my heart bleeding

always broken, never whole

until i forget my needing

why do we let ourselves forget that we are loved, redeemed; that our price has been paid, that we cannot do a single thing that would cause us to be forsaken? how can we not feel infinitely overwhelmed by the fact that, despite what lowly, putrid, worms we are, God chose to love us anyway. why do we not just sit and revel in that fact? that glorious, consuming, rapturous love. that we don't deserve. that we will never deserve. why do we keep trying so hard? why can't we accept the gift our father has given us? why can't i? why don't i feel it as i ought?

1 comment:

beatrice said...

mid-semester i hit a huge patch of "wait... who am i and who was i?"

its amazing how sometimes who you are can get lost in speeding clocks and no time at all. this year i'm taking care to make a moment that is my own... i feel like if i take 10 minutes everyday, call them my own, that if i tie myself to a few minutes of each day this life will become mine, a piece of me, rather than me being a piece of its muddle.