Part of a Poem Gifted to Another

Jock Stein March 09, 2023 1 0

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2 Corinthians 3: 1-3 (NRSVA)

1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; 3 and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Tablet has multiple meanings in English, with connotations of sweet, up to date and solid – not a bad cluster of words to describe a good heart, and the Holy Spirit writing letters on it. If Paul can mix metaphors, we can mix them even more... but what a beautiful basic image, the human being as a letter recommending one person to another because something has been imprinted on their heart.

Not much different is the image of our lives as poetry: that combines at least two ideas, the poem as something beautiful and attractive, but also the poem as heuristic (now, there’s a word!) – helping another person to discover something new. The poet is an enquirer as well as a singer, and the Christian is always pressing on to find new facets of God’s kingdom, and to help others do so also.

PRAY:

God, you are creative and constructive, putting things together in new ways, writing poems in our hearts. So build, so assemble, so write, we pray, that our lives – holy, beautiful and fruitful – may message the world.

Raise up writers with more than artificial intelligence, more than received wisdom, more than ordinary skill, that the media of tomorrow may be cleaner, happier and more hopeful than the media of today.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, your perfect word and image, our brother, saviour, leader, friend. Amen.