Here are a few short, expressive pieces I wrote last year that don’t fit anywhere in particular. Hope you enjoy!
Prompt: “Compare and contrast the city/city life with nature/rural life”
That great concrete jungle beckons the ambitious masses, but there is no true wilderness, no true adventure within its limits. It echoes with the neutered roars of steel tigers and aluminum raptors, full of energy yet devoid of spirit. Those who enter it aspire to an Indiana Jones of industry, intent on snatching the golden idol of finance, technology, or politics before their rivals. But the plot of this Darwinist screenplay leaves few Jones and many hapless, dejected grunts in its wake. These grunts soldier on, through smog, snaking asphalt, and soaring rent, but their feet tire and their machetes dull. Strangled by the vines of mediocrity, struck by the poison darts of loneliness, they must fall back to friendlier climes or succumb to the disease of despair.
What bounties there are for those who escape! Those who dance with the doe in green pastures, who lie content with their beloved besides still waters–their home is the never-ending country. Not the tallest skyscraper of Babel soars to the heights of the humblest foothills, not the highest gilded penthouse equals the vantage atop the craggy mountain peaks. Who can strive amidst the calm rhythms of the sparrow, the squirrel and the salmon? Who can numb a day’s labor with the bottomless bottle while the setting sun ignites clouds to burn orange, scarlet, and indigo? Who can hunch over a black mirror into the morning hours while the fire crackles and the family sings under the starry host of heaven?
Prompts: “I just sat there as it melted” + “One year anniversary of Quarantine” (written March 2021)
One year ago, I sat by my window as the snow melted.
It was March in the Midwest, the month where the grip of Jack Frost weakens, and the good earth springs to life again. How could I have known that even as this winter melted away, a much longer, colder, darker Winter was upon us in full force?
Normally I would not spend all day next to my window, cooped up inside. I’d be on my university campus, enjoying my final semesters with friends, anticipating a future filled with possibility. But these are extraordinary times. It was as if we traded a vibrant, Incarnational world for a sick, Gnostic one, where professors, colleagues, and friends became false beings of light, confined to cold displays and grainy audio, masquerading behind fuzzy cameras and faceless names. Perhaps we once had a choice between the red pill and the blue pill. But callous nature and greedy governments forced the latter down our throats, and we plunged deep into electronic simulation and manipulation, questioning sanity and reality. The former life was a dream; this life, a nightmare entirely contained in cold chips of silicon.
How many times have I craved that we tear off the twin masks of sanitary safety and social suspicion, and see the God-given glory of humanity in the faces of our fellow image-bearers? How many times have I lamented the loss of life, learning, and livelihood, praying that this disaster would subside? How many times have I asked, “How long, O Lord”?
Today, I sit by my window as the snow melts.
Where then is my hope which holds fast under the harshest pressure? It lies in my faith that this Winter does not have the last say. That the communion of saints on earth and in heaven never cease their praise and petition. That as surely as the sun rises, I know the Son has Risen, and He has prepared a place for a redeemed humanity.
And one day I will gladly sit there as a single year of desolation just melts in the face of the eternity of the Age to Come.
Prompt: “An idea that has you”
Dead people stay dead
Common sense, right?
But this idea has me, instead:
There was one who conquered the night.
He healed the sick, forgave sins, proclaimed:
“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”
For it he was betrayed, accused, and maimed
“Crucify him!” was his own people’s demand.
Crowned “King” on a cross
The pitiful death of a slave
His body wrapped by mourners of the loss
Laid in a rock-hewn grave.
But three days later, those wrappings stirred
His buried body drew breath again
Up rose the Messiah, the Son of God, the Word
Death trampled, and Victory won–Amen!
This idea the world hears from His Bride
From the poorest peasant to the richest king:
That if in Him we trust and abide
We too will live anew, His praises forever to sing.
An idea that has me secure
More real than any philosophy of man
A faith giving confidence to endure:
The Resurrection of the Son of Man.
That Great Old Bear
That great old bear
Tucked just below the waterfall
Salmon shimmering around his legs.
Many summers has he spent in the river
The long sun of Alaska
Guides his keen eyes.
Consistent, patient, steady as he lumbers
The spirit of Ursa Major, enfleshed.
A swarm of scarlet-red Sockeye
The still grizzly, a sudden lunge, and
Snap!
His catch wriggles fiercely
But the bear holds firm
Making a messy, gruesome meal
Out of a prized angling.
Yet ravenous, he rinses and repeats
How can he eat so many?
It’s worth it to skip the endless night
Winter, soon to come.
For now, he feasts,
This river is his buffet.
He does his viewers a service
In this Second Summer of Covid.
Relaxation, distraction, fascination with
That great old bear.
scribo discere 