Reflection: Aesthetics in a word: poetry
Guess how much of the Bible is poetry/song? About a third!*
Prose/discourse/sermons give us information, narrative involves us in the story, but poetry and metaphor are more the stuff of mystery and there’s a lot of mystery when it comes to God.
Poetry parses out clues. It sparks imagination. With aesthetic hints it can stir our gut and enliven our senses. Poetry can help us sit with what doesn’t make sense. Or discover that something does make sense, but it’s just snuck in through the back door. Without explanation you might realise the lights have just come on…take the poetry of words that taste sweet like honey, for example…Scripture that’s like nourishment or soul-quenching refreshment. (Psalm 19:10; 119:103; Jeremiah 15:16 )
Is opening God’s word a rote interval in your day? Or have you just been wooed by poetry, to sit at table with the Lord, to fill your bowl and feast on his word?
An appropriate response to God’s aesthetic overtures to us, in the words of theologian Jurgen Moltmann, is, “amazement, adoration and praise; that is freedom which expresses itself in gratitude, enjoyment and pleasure in the presence of beauty”.
Prayer:
We pray, as Paul did for the Ephesians: Lord, enlighten the eyes of our hearts to better perceive the great mystery of Christ-exalted who brings together all things in heaven and earth. Engaged in the circumstances of life and death, come-what-may, let our lives gratefully turn the spotlight on you…until the day when at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.(Ephesians 1; Philippians 2:10-11)
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*about 33% is poetry or song (discourse/prose: 24%; narrative 43%)