In this, ‘Going Deeper’, I’d like to invite you to enjoy the wonderful poetry of my friend Gerard Kelly. Here in his poem, ‘Humanifesto’, Gerard writes about ‘drinking deep’ in the foolishness of wisdom - a perfect description of the call to us to be thirsty for truth, and the need for us all to avoid ‘swallowing’ the wisdom of fools. In scripture, God’s wisdom is often contrasted with the earthly, unspiritual, and devilish so-called wisdom that comes from the enemy. If you’d like to enjoy more of Gerard’s work, I’d like to recommend his book, Spoken Worship, (Zondervan) available at your local Christian bookshop or on Amazon.
Humanifesto
I want to be a grace guerrilla,
No longer a chameleon of karma:
The time has come to stand out
From the crowd.
I want to give forgiveness
A fighting chance
Of freeing me,
To live in love,
And live it out loud
I want to drink deep
Of the foolishness of wisdom,
Instead of swallowing
The wisdom of fools:
To find a source
In the deeper mines of meaning.
I want to search-out the unsearchable
To invoke the invisible:
To choose the truths
The TV hypnotists aren't screening.
No camouflage
No entourage
No smoothly fitting-in
I want a faith that goes further than face-value
And a beauty that goes deeper than my skin.
I want to be untouched by my possessions,
Instead of being possessed
By what I touch:
To test the taste
Of having nothing to call mine:
To hold consumption's cravings back;
To be content with luck or lack
To live as well on water as on wine.
I want to spend myself
On those I think might need me,
Not spend
All I think I need on myself:
I want my heart
To be willing to make house-calls.
Let those whose rope is at an end
Find in me a faithful friend,
Let me be known as one who re-builds broken walls.
No camouflage
No entourage
No smoothly fitting-in
I want a faith that goes further than face-value
And a beauty that goes deeper than my skin.
I want to be centred outside the circle
To be chiselled from a different seam
I want to be seduced by another story
And drawn into a deeper dream
To be anchored in an undiscovered ocean,
To revolve around an unfamiliar sun;
A boom-box tuned to an alternate station;
A bullet fired from a different gun.
No camouflage
No entourage
No smoothly fitting-in
I want a faith that goes further than face-value
And a beauty that goes deeper than my skin.