To describe my generation back then....in general....we were up for an idea....any idea. I was interested in Robert Kennedy....and Rod McKuen....and John Kenneth Galbraith. Odd huh....Politics and poetry and economics. You could throw in Erich Fromm. As for culture....for me it was all Carole King and Carly Simon. To others it could be Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac....or Bob Dylan or Paul Simon. Hey it could be Zen....that was big....and the Hippie culture was probably the biggest. It was not only that we were searching....but that we found answers.....bad answers most.....but answers.
We were poets and philosophers. I ran my fingers just now across my left collarbone....with a large bump on it. It was the late 60s....the center fielder was the fullback on the high school football team. We ran into each other....physically....going for a Texas leaguer....and I lost that collision. He went on to play football in college. Today he is a poet....and author of poetry books....and an editor of a poetry journal. Also on the sandlot that day was another friend who went on to play for Westminster College's NAIA Division II undefeated national championship team. He's a philosopher today....who bombards me with radical theories....in response to my sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
My opinion of course....but we have lost in our lives the poetic view of life. We have it in us but just cannot bring it out. Consider this setting....it was a midnight shift in an industrial setting....where we are all working in a climate of lime slurry and coal dust. I bring in cards from a Christian board game that just asks simple questions about life....the game is meant to get people to better know one another. Everyone scoffs....but I persist....and we pass along the cards asking questions about fear or dreams or hopes or experiences. We wind up playing it every chance we could for a few weeks....as big burly men find that they do have feelings and even poetic inclinations.
OK....all of these thoughts to bring up today's offering from John Piper's desiringgod.org. He has all around him these young men....ministers in training I presume....a Christian....Boys In The Boat if you will....and they are really quite profound in their thinking and Christian discernment! Today's offering is from Greg Morse....and the title of the article that he both wrote and read is....Reality Written In Cursive...The Power of Christian Wordcraft. I really wish that you would go there and listen to this short....12:23 audio....and see if there might be a poet or philosopher lurking within you also?
Addendum....a few days later. Today desiringgod.org gives us another one of these young men reading one of their articles. Imagine for a moment what it would be like to have a pastor who you could have an hour long or more conversation with....and it would not be just pleasantries....where the only spiritual words might be praying that God answers this or that prayer. The young man today is Jon Bloom...and the article and reading title is....Heart of y Own Heart...Why I Love,,,,'Be Thou My Vision.'
