Fool's Errand

[ChrisTillinen]

Marvel the madness of the human quest
The drive to banish their creator
Heart and conscience give in to division
Chest ripped open for a cheap impostor

They fortify the temple crest
Against its true and rightful dweller
Trading true prophet's vision
For fate's frivolous fortuneteller

Running away from law's demand
To find something less commanding
Reducing the castle to its sand
To idolize shallow understanding

Never bothering to look beyond
To see who they are standing under
Just to make the ache of absence stop
They kill the deeper sense of wonder

Yet those who let the absence speak
And proclaim its loudest truth
May soon find the sense they seek
As divine light brings its sooth

 

[ChrisTillinen]

Heart and conscience give in to division
Chest ripped open for a cheap impostor

Now that I look back at this poem, this part in particular contains a rather graphic violent image. The idea is that in rejecting the true God and trying to put something else in God's place in their hearts, people end up damaging themselves.

I admit that I somewhat consciously don't limit myself to the tamest possible expressions. But then I'm often left wondering if some readers find it too offensive for a Christian poem.

 

[ebdesroches]

Now that I look back at this poem, this part in particular contains a rather graphic violent image. The idea is that in rejecting the true God and trying to put something else in God's place in their hearts, people end up damaging themselves.

I admit that I somewhat consciously don't limit myself to the tamest possible expressions. But then I'm often left wondering if some readers find it too offensive for a Christian poem.

More worried about what meaning is paired with it

 

[ebdesroches]

More worried about what meaning is paired with it

Haha just rewrite it! Nah!

 

[ChrisTillinen]

More worried about what meaning is paired with it

I'm not sure I understood that.

 

[ebdesroches]

I'm not sure I understood that.

Trying to figure out what you were talking about by your words. I have a good guess

 

[ChrisTillinen]

Often it's hard to define the meaning very exactly as the word choices may be influenced by a multiplicity of things, but by "Heart and conscience give in to division" I think I just mean all kinds of situations where the heart as symbolizing the source of emotions and affections comes into conflict with conscience which is supposed to tell a person what's right. When they "give in to division" there is an illicit acceptance of this conflict rather than the harmony that one should aim at.

"Chest ripped open for a cheap impostor" was the part that I was worried might sound "too violent". As for its meaning, like I mentioned earlier, there's the idea that people end up hurting themselves when trying to replace God's place in their heart with something else like a false god or the types of things that motivate people in worldly life. I suppose I chose this imagery as illustrating false religion's grotesque imitation of the true God's promise to give a new heart. When a false god or an idol does that, it becomes destructive like literally ripping open someone's chest to put something there. Also, I may have been somewhat influenced by how I remembered a story about the early life of Muhammad and how an angel supposedly ripped his heart out to wash it or something like that. It would fit as a paradigmatic illustration of a false religion's cheap imitation of the real change of heart.

Perhaps one of the reasons why I became a bit hesitant about this choice of words was that only after having posted the poem it occurred to me that someone could also read that line as describing sexual violence, which was never my intention.

 

[ebdesroches]

Often it's hard to define the meaning very exactly as the word choices may be influenced by a multiplicity of things, but by "Heart and conscience give in to division" I think I just mean all kinds of situations where the heart as symbolizing the source of emotions and affections comes into conflict with conscience which is supposed to tell a person what's right. When they "give in to division" there is an illicit acceptance of this conflict rather than the harmony that one should aim at.

"Chest ripped open for a cheap impostor" was the part that I was worried might sound "too violent". As for its meaning, like I mentioned earlier, there's the idea that people end up hurting themselves when trying to replace God's place in their heart with something else like a false god or the types of things that motivate people in worldly life. I suppose I chose this imagery as illustrating false religion's grotesque imitation of the true God's promise to give a new heart. When a false god or an idol does that, it becomes destructive like literally ripping open someone's chest to put something there. Also, I may have been somewhat influenced by how I remembered a story about the early life of Muhammad and how an angel supposedly ripped his heart out to wash it or something like that. It would fit as a paradigmatic illustration of a false religion's cheap imitation of the real change of heart.

Perhaps one of the reasons why I became a bit hesitant about this choice of words was that only after having posted the poem it occurred to me that someone could also read that line as describing sexual violence, which was never my intention.

Give me a bit if time, at lunch

 

[ChrisTillinen]

Sure, not a problem.

I guess I may just as well explain the other parts of the poem too, as it isn't that long, and often I even understand my own word choices better when I have to explain them at a conceptual level rather than just at the level of intuition, so perhaps this is more of an exercise in trying to develop as a poetry writer than anything else.

They fortify the temple crest
Against its true and rightful dweller

Human beings denying the creator's ownership of his own creation, including the body that the spirit of God would indwell.

Trading true prophet's vision
For fate's frivolous fortuneteller

Rejecting the truth of God and putting something false or frivolous on its place.

Running away from law's demand
To find something less commanding

Running from the demands of God's law. Still wanting to maintain a sense of being a good and principled person, so settling for some lesser standard. Or perhaps some supposedly fancy explanation for why all moral standards are subjective and not binding.

Reducing the castle to its sand
To idolize shallow understanding

Basically scientific materialism, pretending that everything that is real is exclusively analyzeable at the level of its material constituents. Science is a great gift from God when properly understood, but there are vast depths of reality that have to be denied or explained away if one is limited to just the deliverances of science as it is materialistically conceived.

Never bothering to look beyond
To see who they are standing under

Kind of a word play. Understanding... standing under. Those who "idolize shallow understanding" do so without realizing (or pretending not to realize) that they are standing under the sovereignty of God and his purposes as the ultimate guarantors of a truly intelligible cosmos.

Just to make the ache of absence stop
They kill the deeper sense of wonder

"The ache of absence" means a sense of longing for God when he does not seem to be present. Can also be manifested as longing for meaning and purpose, deep anxiety about a death that is seen as the end, etc. When a person rejects God, they may shut out "the deeper sense of wonder" as that would remind them of things that are ultimately inexorably connected to God.

Yet those who let the absence speak
And proclaim its loudest truth
May soon find the sense they seek
As divine light brings its sooth

This provides the contrast to what came before. Those who recognize the absence and let it speak may find that it points them to a direction where God can be found.

 

[ebdesroches]

I really found your explanation of your verses well worth while. It added a lot to my understanding of what you said.

"Your ideas and analogies are really original "Chest ripped open for a cheap impostor " Thanks for explaining what you meant. I would not use the same expressions as you did to express the same thing. But thats the glory of God, He made us different. We are not just robots. He really wants us to reflect Himself in different ways. Being limitless Himself, it becomes multiplied limitlessness if there can be such a thing.

I like your poetry and your ideas.

 

[ChrisTillinen]

"Your ideas and analogies are really original "Chest ripped open for a cheap impostor " Thanks for explaining what you meant.

I'm not sure if I also thought of this at some point while writing the poem, but it just occurred to me that one could also understand that line extremely literally if it's taken as illustrating the folly of false religion by the example of what the Aztecs did (literally ripped out a beating heart during their human sacrifices).

 

[ebdesroches]

I'm not sure if I also thought of this at some point while writing the poem, but it just occurred to me that one could also understand that line extremely literally if it's taken as illustrating the folly of false religion by the example of what the Aztecs did (literally ripped out a beating heart during their human sacrifices).

Yes!