As a faith-driven person, I have always been frustrated by my lack of “spirituality.” This exercise is for those of you who are like me with regards to the spiritual side of their being. Poetry, I find, is a safe way to get in touch with elements which are outside of the physical human experience and can be done privately as well as shared without feeling the stakes or chance of failure is too high.

So let me say my struggles with spirituality. I see people in the charismatic tradition with their hands in the air and tears in their eyes and the only way to explain what goes through me is confusion. I hear prayers which just feel like they have more depth and connection than I can achieve. I know of people with regular spiritual disciplines, whether journaling, praying, devotionals, silent reflection, or whatever it may be and I attempt to do what they do and cannot. Poetry, for me, is the closest thing I can do to come to a spiritual place.

I don’t know what others go through, but I still feel like it is deeper than I can achieve. It does not, however, deter me from trying to feel deeper, taste more fully, and exist more actually. Poetry allows me the ability to be as vulnerable as I want, to share as fully as I desire, and to feel full success no matter the outcome.

-Out of Order comes Chaos comes Order-

A poetry exercise by Kevin Ressler

Objective: to take a spiritual written work and turn it into a completely different poem. Anything can qualify as a spiritual written work, for me the requirements are usually that the person felt spirituality when writing it, or when I or others have felt spirituality in the reading of it. Some psalm from the Bible, or a Surah from the Qu’ran, or a Buddhist meditation, or a personal journal entry, or a newspaper clipping can all work equally fine.

Method:
First (order): Take the selection and read it. Take as much time as needed to understand or connect with it.

Second (chaos): Jumble up the words. Use these words to make a random mess. I like to do this in one of two ways. Either (1) I pick words at random (it’s fine if they repeat, but for this part don’t add new ones) and put it into verse form so that it is a whimsical or ridiculously nonsensical poem, or (2) the other thing I’ll do is simply list out all or some of the words which strike me in some particular or not particular way.

Third (order): Using the word bank and any other words I want to add to it I take the collected new understanding of breaking down that original work and beauty and I reconstruct it into some verse poem form. It can rhyme, it can be free verse, it can be rhythmic, it can be not so much so. The product isn’t the point. The point is understanding how everything can be destructed and constructed. It is the fluidity of time and space and spirituality. The world is a carbon-based organism that lives and breathes and births and dies. Whatever you make is all the beauty of the original piece as well as whatever you add to it. Like heat, it can be added to but it can’t be subtracted from. Nothing is ugly, nothing is bad, and whatever you write is at least as beautiful in a different way than what you started from.

Example: I am using my favorite hymn. This hymn, which I have taken from the Mennonite Hymnal, is number 526 in that book and titled “In the rifted Rock I’m resting.” I’ll only be using the first two verses and the refrain. It is not the best poem I’ve ever written but it means something to me because of the connections. Will it ever be published? No. Did I have interesting foods for thought writing it? Yes. And for me that’s important enough.

First Verse: In the rifted Rock I’m resting, safely sheltered, I abide. There no foes nor storms molest me, while within the cleft I hide.

Refrain:Now I’m resting, sweetly resting, in the cleft once made for me. Jesus, blessed Rock of ages, I will hide myself in thee.

Second Verse: Long pursued by sin and Satan, weary, sad, I longed for rest. Then I found this heav’nly shelter, opened in my savior’s breast.

Word List:

rifted, shelter, heavenly, satan, savior, longed, rest, sad, found, abide, foes, storms, cleft, rock, sheltered, blessed, hide, pursued, weary, sin, breast

Rifted, I am searching for a savior who will abide
when I long for storms against foes.
With heavenly power, I hope this savior, when found
will bless and hide me while my foes fall into the rock,
cleft and hidden from the light.

But I have felt this sin. Of angst and pain, fear creeping
inside my mind. This place of weary rage is born
of sin and sadness. And I have found, my savior of lust
to be the Satan of my breast. Found by foes I hide
my shame and abide my hope for shelter was not found.

Now I’m blessed with painful knowledge, that my rest
won’t come with shelter. I longed for rest and sad I found
that I abide the Satan call. Heavenly father, longed to love
me, be my Savior, if I had not pursued my selfish call.

Through this storm, and their weary compassion I’ll be blessed.