A Week of Art and Shameless Promotion Part III: What Only Poetry Can Do

Over the next week I will be talking about "Christian" media and art. You will probably notice that each reference to "Christian" will be marked by parenthesis. As an amateur writer and musician who is a follower of Jesus it has been difficult to define what "Christian" art is. Derek Webb said that the term "Christian" used in reference to anything other than a person is a marketing technique. I think I agree.

I'm drastically aware of our culture's short attention span. Yet I ignored it yesterday, especially in a week of such frequent posts. So I'll be working in a box today. Like a Reneissance sonnet I'll only use 14 lines (minus the intro paragraph) to get a point accross.

There are several analogies floating around in my head. C.S. Lewis' stuck a line in Mere Christianity about a boy buying a present for his father using the money he borrowed from his father to buy it. Brennan Manning told me that my love is small, but Jesus is just beneath my paper-thin skin like dynamite. The priest, from Hugo's Les Miserables, spoke to me the words of Jesus, "With this silver, I have bought your soul. I've ransomed you from fear and Hatred, and now I give you back to God." I enjoyed reading these books. But more than that they communicated something to my soul that it desperately needed.

I'm too intellectual. If an idea comes knocking, my brain is the helicopter father who answers the door. "I'm sorry, the heart is not available right now. Why don't we just talk about this on the front porch?" Poetry is smarter than this. It rings the doorbell then immediately sneaks to a back window, getting a few words in with my heart before my head knows what's going on.