I recently got to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting Oxford. It is a beautiful place, but not just for the looks of it. It really is all that the books say and that the Inklings said in their letters and other writings. Between the centuries-old churches, libraries, paths, and pubs where generationally impactful conversations have taken place, it is a city enveloped in marvelous history.

As someone whose life has been acutely impacted by the simple yet profound theological works of C.S. Lewis and the intricate imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien, walking the path of Addison’s Walk was incredibly special to me. It is the path where the two would walk as they shared conversations—the conversations that ultimately led to Lewis’s conversion from atheism to Christianity.

The thread of story and myth was the one thread that wove the minds of these two men together and created an unlikely friendship of which the fruit has been influential for generations. Story wove together the minds of a Christian and an atheist, and eventually God used that thread to turn that atheist mind into a Christian heart.

How important to God story must be. How powerful its gravity.

It was in the early weeks of summer when I drifted along Addison’s Walk. The breeze was perfect, and the trees danced in it just so, light filtering through the leaves and twinkling on the brooks. All was green and all the flowers were vibrant in their colors. I considered Lewis and Tolkien and thought “this explains a lot.”

I looked across the way and saw the largest willow tree I’d ever seen in person.

From that moment, over the next month and a half, a poetic thought, or sentiment, that had been amorphous for a while would finally solidify, which I call “The Cave Cathedral” for reasons that do not need to be explained. That is the point of poetry, after all: to brush shoulders with the inexplicable. Poetry for me comes from the inability to express a sentiment any other way. If I could say it plainly, I would. But I cannot, and thus the poem, with all its metaphors, is born.

The willow tree’s deference
beckons me to remembrance,
and for a moment I escape my own indifference:
Free from the calamity of sensation deprivation
…which is just numbness.

From that downward-titlting tree, a bluebird flies; 
its feathers are bluer 
than this hazy sky above me nowadays—

—The sky was supposed to be bluer than this.

The trees were supposed to be taller.
There were supposed to be pirates and quicksand and tree frogs and 
Prince Charming. 
The lost crowns were supposed to be found. I was supposed to land softly from any height so long as I held an umbrella over my head. I was supposed to feed deer right out of my hand. 


That willow tree, it cries with me
over these things. 
(That’s the part when its deference beckons me to remembrance.)
And in that self-falling 
which I call recalling,
I sit, I realize

that somehow I am still inexhaustibly enchanted 
by this wild, crimson stream that runs through all life.

By that vine of new things that grows through all strife.
By the trials and schemes that call forth old life,
and make it, in its oldness, something new to the young.

Yes, even amidst all that never was,
there is still much that is.

There is weight I can hold,
and there is weight I can’t.
Sometimes I feel old,
all times smaller than an ant.

But though small, love constantly and largely befalls
my beating heart and breathing lungs and two blue eyes that still love what 
they see and the air they breathe and the blood that enables them to receive. 

What a ghastly scene. 
What a miraculous way of being.
What a sad song. 
What glad lyrics to which I hold on,
and lovely people with whom I get along,
and powerful crimson hope to which I belong.


Let me meet the Simple Man
who created the White Raven.
Who tends the Garden with His hands
and does not fret about a plan 
nor fret the strings of fire,
nor is He a liar, 
though He brilliantly strums the lyre,
and some say He even invented it.

Surely I have heard the sound of His songs pounding under the ground. 

Give me one day with this Man of Sweet Lamentations
and I’ll give up my life of bitter glitter arrayed by the Men of Exploitations.
Give me love, yes, and I’ll give up my cleverness.

There is weight I can hold,
and there is weight I can’t. 


The kingdom is not what it used to be
before I was banished to sky and sea...
The kingdom is not what it was, behold,
no one recalls the stories of old. 

But in the river that runs through the vale,
I remember every tale.
Yet in my memory I am alone,
for none remember what is written in the halls of stone.

And the Simple Man
taps on the windows from the rooms of my heart:

“Look up, fly high,
           remember, 
                      remember, 
                                remember, 
you are numb because you have forgotten. 
See hope, 
feel hope,
touch and taste and hear hope….
hear the sound of my songs pounding under the ground.”


I have heard the foretellings.
The White Raven has been in my heart dwelling. 
I have heard the sound of His songs pounding under the ground.

Out from the treetrunk, the greenman has grown.
His eyes see things that go unseen.
What will I do now that I am grown?

Up from her spelunk, the swallow has flown.
Her wings slice sheens that have kept truths unseen.
What will I do now that I have flown?

Down from the tower, the martyr’s eyes shone.
Their fire lights with precision the mission of bark and bird of old--

--I will forever be moved in the presence of invisible things.

Like the greenman, I will grow softly from hard places.
Like the swallow, I will fly swiftly from dark places,
carrying the exacting light which sharpens the memory of all,
singing…

“Look up, fly high,
           remember,
                     remember,
                                 remember,
you are numb because you have forgotten.
See hope, feel hope,
touch and taste and hear hope…
hear the sound of His songs pounding under the ground.”

Most of you who will read this know me and have been following along already. And not just following along, but encouraging so beautifully. Thank you, I love you.

For those who may be new here, hello. I am a writer authoring my debut book—the first in a high fantasy trilogy. I feel immensely blessed to be able to commit a segment of time to creating this story full-time, which has been on my heart for just over four years now.

With that, I thought I could share occasional updates of a brief, abstract nature that illustrate the more conceptual lessons to be gleaned from this experience.

A record of the pearls I pull from the deep, if you will.

A diary of sorts for whomever it may concern.

So far, authoring this book has felt like the steady burn after the kindling. Trying to maintain the balance of the blaze and the consistency of the flame.

What fuels this steady burn?

This week I remember one of many fuels.

I remember when I was thirteen, I came to know a boy who did not know God. His name meant “light.” In depth and earnest, he asked me questions about stars and science as it related to God.

In candor and purity, he showed me his scar from a blade driven by the hand of someone he was supposed to have been able to love and trust.

No matter how much older I grow, I am not sure I will ever learn how to respond to such a story. It was one of the first times I remember witnessing the extreme failure of words—their utter shortcomings in all their brutal and exposing glory.

I have never seen that boy again. I can only pray he found the answers and the peace he was looking for.

We were a rather unlikely pairing, but there was only ever respect in our conversations. I am certain those conversations played a part in planting the world that is within me today which is now becoming a book.

Memory informs much. His story, whoever he is now, whether he was telling the truth or a tale, is found in my story. And I am not even fully sure why, except for the fact that those conversations held something true within them about the beauty of being human on this side of eternity.

I cannot help but think about all the people, both passing and permanent, who have marked my heart in whatever way they did.

What a profound miracle, to be able to carry a piece of another person’s story within our own.

The river runs with secrets that could wash the dead clean, but what dead Man is rising to bathe?

So, the living must drink from the Parting Glass in the beams of reflected light from the Looking Glass.

The Old Totem of Time is washed up on the shore. Its greedy spaded hands have stolen that which was never ours to begin with.

There are temporal vines growing up our carefully lain castle walls and bell towers, penetrating the seemingly sturdy stone with their roots of green and brown. They flower perennially with blue roses that match the shades of sky and sea, and we either see or fail to see those things which are out of our reach.

And so burns the Beautiful Fight, burning,

burning through blazing fire and crying in cavernous floods to stay in the light of all things. For anyone who has spent any time in the Real Darkness will do anything to stay in the True Light.

And I know that I know that I know where the stars came from.

Do you?

And with each step and turn, another old part of me crumbles under my own dance.

And there is the fight, night and day, to stay in the truth of all thought. For anyone who has been paralyzed by the putrid and prepossessing glory of Rotting Rose Philosophies would do anything to dance again with even more than their own two feet.

And I know that I know that I know where the stars came from.

Do you?

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“Footfalls echo / in the memory, / down the passage / we did not take, / towards the door / we never opened… / into the rose garden.”

—T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets

Footfalls echo in the memory…

In other words, it is quiet in the throneroom of remembrance.

The moments have left and no longer make sounds, only feelings. Heat waves from the taper candle flames turn the lemongrass air of violins into glassy kaleidoscopes of milky gold clouds, and the good things of old I never did haunt me. The good left undone tugs at my hems. But it’s not a bad haunting by an evil ghost. No, not at all.

It’s an indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

A Loving Hand guides me this way and that way—Blue Heron hands that only remind me of my mess because they are in the process of cleaning it up.

Pain, brokenness, bridges burned, tables turned…

Healing, wholeness, sailboats sustained over even the most vicious of waters…

Tables rebuilt sturdy and strong…

Yes, may I be moved in the presence of invisible things forevermore.

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Yes, each one of us, storyteller or not, must be in the presence of our enemies. The reality of this scripture has always been true for me, as one who receives it and believes it to be the Truth. It has been true of my journey as a writer and of my life in a general sense.

Here is a metaphor to illustrate this:

In a theater, there are stage lights and house lights. The stage lights illuminate the performers, while the house lights illuminate the audience. While the show goes on, the house lights are dark to make the stage more visible. The performers often cannot see the audience, or at least not see them very well.

For a long time, though I sat and ate at the table with God, I could not see my enemies. It was as if our table were on a stage, with the stage lights shining directly on us while the house lights were dark, leaving our surroundings completely dark and leaving me unable to see what watched from the shadows. I was happy that way, in blissful ignorance of what was hiding. But was I purposeful that way? Was I fully alive?

How could I be as innocent as a dove if I were unaware of the alternative? If I did not know what I was to be innocent of?

There came a time when, suddenly, the house lights came on. In an instant, I could now see the whole audience. Every enemy and terrifying, hidden thing that had lurked in the shadows became fully visible. Every distorted view of God, and therefore myself, and others. I looked around at a sea of faces, nearly paralyzed with fear: Some blatantly scary, some breathtakingly beautiful, some even resembled the face of Jesus, but were, in truth, mere charlatans.

Jesus took hold of my hand.

“They have always been there,” he said. “Nothing has changed about them. You are not in danger, and you never were. The only thing that has changed is that you are aware now. They only have as much power as you give them, and your fear is their power. You must learn to regard them as the nothingness they are. To say, ‘I do not fear evil’ even when looking right at it.”

I wish I could say that I found this courage immediately. That I was able to focus on Jesus and the table as soon as He said those words. But the reality is that it was a journey.

But I suppose it is true that doing the courageous thing would have meant nothing had I not been afraid first.

I cannot begin to describe here what it was like to sit at that table, learning to be brave in the power of God and the safe table He prepared for me. But I knew the purpose of it all when I began to notice, for the first time, that my head was, in fact, wet with oil, and my cup was, in fact, running over.

How could I have been so blind?

I never forgot the faces, but learned to choose not to bring them to mind. And when they come again into my line of sight for whatever reason, I smile and turn my head back because they remind me how much greater my God is: How in his bright shade of Light every fear is exposed for the mere illusion it truly is.

What prompted this moment?

The lights came on when I dove deep into the waters of penning darkness as I authored my book.

Why was that the prompting?

Because it was time to come face to face with that which lurked in the shadows.

What was the point?

The mystery of this truth leads me to find that the best way to answer is by clarifying what the point was NOT: Not to study the darkness. Not to give darkness power. Not to become familiar with darkness in any way. The point of it, I am, in part, still learning, even a year later. But what I see thus far is that this is a necessary veil every storyteller must pass through, so that we may see the power of God like never before and allow Him to illuminate the Truth of our story in a way we could never have imagined.

The juxtaposition between dust and divine providence, and the journey one must embark on to find the peace in that holy middle ground on this side of eternity, is a key theme in the seemingly morose, yet truly hopeful book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes. It is also more than evident in Shakespeare’s ever-famous work, Hamlet, especially through Prince Hamlet’s discourse both with his own feelings and the actions of the other characters. From describing the world as an “unweeded garden” (Shakespeare I.II), to believing that there is “special providence in the fall of a sparrow” (Shakespeare V.II), these themes are clearly not only present, but also war with each other within the play. An understanding of the notion that on earth, people are dust and life is a vapor, yet at the same time, God cares enough to divinely plan and ordain every part of their experience, and how these two facts coexist, creating a beautiful symphonic harmony, is a principal part of the Christian’s perspective. So, it is interesting that this harmonic juxtaposition of these beliefs is arguably one of the most key ongoing themes of Shakespeare’s deeply fascinating work of Hamlet, as this theme is alluded to numerous times throughout the play in different ways and through different circumstances that occur within the plot. Although written at completely different times, for completely different reasons, and in completely different places, these two incredible texts, Hamlet and Ecclesiastes, touch on and aim to deal with those same timeless philosophical questions that seem to have always maintained the ability to reach right into the center of the hearts and minds of human beings: those questions of human existence that have burdened mankind since creation. This essay does not claim that Hamlet is a religious work. However, these themes from Ecclesiastes (which this essay does recognize as the flawless, living, and active word of God), undoubtedly play a significant role in the play’s cavernous depth and are a large reason why the play is still just as fascinating to people today as it was when it was first performed, whether the audience is aware of this or not (this essay aims to make the reader notice it).

The play grapples with those burdensome questions of human existence, such as death, meaning, purpose, origin, and morality, as does Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is the written account of a king’s speech about his experiences in the world—although he has done, seen, known, and owned every earthly thing a man could desire to do, see, know, or own, he has found it all to be useless, or “vanity of vanities” (Ecclesiastes 1:1). Not far from this, Hamlet is a prince who claims to be in love, has experienced a great many things, and could have whatever earthly thing he wants, yet the all-consuming pain of losing his father and the circumstances surrounding that, especially in regard to his mother and uncle, take all the worth out of everything to him and make his kingdom feel like a prison. Yet, he still manages to eventually see that there is a purpose to the ubiquitous experience of mankind, and so does the preaching king in Ecclesiastes, despite his own discoveries. Although very different, as Hamlet is a fictional play laced with the worst flaws of human nature and Ecclesiastes is a nonfictional book of the holy Word of God, the two share many similar themes and ideas. It is arguable that either Shakespeare intentionally drew from Ecclesiastes when writing the play, or that Hamlet is proof that the contents of Ecclesiastes have a firm, timeless grasp on universal Truth. The former will never be confirmed since Shakespeare is not here to affirm or deny it, but the latter is true whether Shakespeare intended it or not. Shakespeare’s authorship of Hamlet, as well as its universal enjoyment and the large number of people who marvel at it, prove that the message in Ecclesiastes is true to the human heart and the condition of human nature. The consistencies and similarities among these two very different texts are more than coincidental... They prove that the ideas portrayed in them are universally true and timeless statements about mankind and human nature. Hamlet is proof that the ideas in Ecclesiastes are intrinsically true even outside of the Bible.

“The existential questions Hamlet asks are ones that we often ponder in our society—a society heavily influenced by the numerous philosophical movements that have occurred since Hamlet was written, as well as the advent of psychoanalysis. Some might say, then, that Hamlet is one of the first postmodern texts. Yet these same questions can be found in the Book of Ecclesiastes, written well before Hamlet. Perhaps these philosophical questions, rather than being modern existential angst, are a universal and timeless part of human anxiety” (Holliday 1).

Throughout Hamlet, Shakespeare confronts some of the most critical questions of humanity by containing themes also found in Ecclesiastes: that life is a vapor in the grand scheme of eternity, that sometimes one must lose their direction in order to find it, and that there is a guiding hand of divine providence behind everything that occurs.

Before I can go any further, however, I must state a disclaimer and a refutation. The disclaimer is that I am neither an expert in Shakespeare nor biblical theology, and I do not claim to be. However, I have studied both extensively and find these topics, as well as their intersection, fascinating. The refutation is the refutation of the claim that Hamlet lives today as an artistic failure. In my studies, I have found quite the opposite.

The idea that life is a vapor and mankind is no more than dust is one of the main themes of Ecclesiastes. The preaching king (widely thought to be Solomon, though it is not confirmed) expresses the weariness and futility of the world:

All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing […] How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:7-9, 2:16-17).

He later explains how he acquired this knowledge:

I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:9-11).

From this short summary of everything the king in Ecclesiastes experienced, the reader can see that everything he had which made him “great” may have had a societal value attached to it, but it obtained no real value in what he later discovers to be what truly matters and what transcends the fleeting earthly society. The king learned the anticlimax to be found at the epitome of what this world offers through his disappointed expectations when he learned that all the things of this world did not fulfill him. Comparatively, Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet adopts this same perspective when he loses his father, is told that his grief is excessive, embarrassing, and unreasonable, after only one month, and is disappointed by the actions of those around him at such a painful magnitude that he too loses faith in anything of this world. He says, “How weary, slate, flat and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world! / Fie on’t! ah fie! ‘Tis an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely” (Shakespeare 1.2). It is clear to see from this that Hamlet no longer values the world or anything that it has to offer. Nothing the world has to offer will bring his father back, nothing the world has to offer will make his mother miss his father, and nothing the world has to offer will make his uncle respect him or his late father. And, on top of that, he feels he is “pigeon-liver’d and [that he] lack[s] gall” (Shakespeare II.II) because he cannot find it in himself to avenge his father by killing Claudius. In his article, “The Branches of an Act: Shakespeare’s Hamlet Explains His Inaction,” Larry Weiss writes that “Hamlet’s inaction is the result of his fear of post-mortem torment” (Weiss 1). So, Hamlet is also afraid of what will happen if he does kill Claudius. Nothing the world has to offer will help him feel less alone in his grief: not Ophelia, not his friends, not even the beauty that the creations of the earth or language bear. Later, he says, “It goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly / frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This / most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave / o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with / golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours” (Shakespeare II.II). This further clarifies his dreadful state. In an article from the American Poetry Review entitled, “Ecclesiastes as Witness: A Personal Essay,” Alicia Ostriker writes, “Vanity, mist, vapor, breath, spirit, wind. We want to be truly alive before we die. We want to arrive at the moments that exist outside of death, of change, of time” (Ostriker 9). We do indeed want to be “truly alive before we die.” So, when the things Hamlet or the king in Ecclesiastes look to in order to feel more alive leave them feeling even more empty, they find that none of it is worth all that it seems to be worth.

When Hamlet painfully realizes the world is not what he thought it to be through the disappointing and angering character revealed within the people around him, he loses his way in life. He feels no purpose. When the ghost of his father tells him that Claudius took his life, he adopts revenge as his purpose. However, this is undoubtedly a horrible tragedy of misplaced ambition, and he becomes mad with rage and sorrow, in every literal sense, because in his decision to feign insanity, he gains it in full. Hamlet learns that “in the place of justice, even there [is] wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there [is] wickedness” (Ecclesiastes 3:17). He becomes lost. The king in Ecclesiastes says, “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18). The king learned all he could, and it weighed heavily on him. Interestingly, an abundance of knowledge has this same effect on Hamlet. As he gains knowledge of what happened to his father and all the wickedness right under his nose, the “rottenness” in the state of Denmark, and the rottenness within himself, he becomes very vexed and sorrowful, following the plight of the king’s preaching in Ecclesiastes. The Prince wrestles with this for the majority of the play, but there comes a moment near the end of it when Hamlet suddenly finds himself and his way again. In his essay, “Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem?,” C.S. Lewis writes:

“The world of Hamlet is a world where one has lost one’s way. The Prince also has no doubt lost his, and we can tell the precise moment at which he finds it again: ‘Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the / fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come: if it be not to / come, it will be now: if it be not now, yet it will come: The / readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, / what is’t to leave betimes” (Lewis 14)?

At this moment, Hamlet remembers his place in the world. He spends almost the entire play lost until this moment, when there is a real possibility of losing his life in a duel against Laertes. Hamlet understands that even when a mere sparrow dies, it is a part of a divine plan, so it is part of a divine plan if he dies as well. He feels that people cannot control, nor do they have any knowledge of when or how they will die, so if the time comes, there is no point in trying to stop it because there will be no stopping it anyway. An unstoppable force has already set out his path for him, and he cannot make a single dent in that pan even if it were to end his path right there. Both Hamlet and Ecclesiastes share this outlook on life that reaches deep into people’s hearts and can either send a chill up their spine or a peace in their heart, depending on whether they choose to accept their lack of control over life or try to grasp onto control. For both the preacher and Hamlet, this idea gave them peace and comfort because they accepted the fact that they were not in control. This is something that many people cannot say about themselves, as it takes a great amount of courage and bravery, which is what makes these texts so fascinating to so many. Because of his new perspective, Prince Hamlet does not try to escape the duel, but accepts the fact that his fate could fall at the feet of either victory in life or defeat in death. Hamlet has to lose his way to find it, proving the argument of Ecclesiastes.

Hamlet’s adopted air of grave acquiescence when looking towards the future comes from his understanding that divine providence is guiding and controlling everything that takes place on earth. This perspective is a leading theme of Ecclesiastes:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

From his quote about the fall of a sparrow, it is clear to see that Hamlet understands this. This aids him in so boldly accepting his fate, whatever it may unfold to be, as he does not value his earthly life too much. However, this idea of divine providence is a theme throughout the entire play, not just when Hamlet has this moment of realization. For example, at the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s mother says to him, “Thou know’st ‘tis common: all that lives must die, / Passing through nature to eternity” (Shakespeare I.II). Another example is when Hamlet says to Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Shakespeare I.V). This idea of divine providence is what fills Shakespeare’s Hamlet with such wonder and what makes it so timelessly interesting.

The journey of discovery from dust to divine providence is an indisputable, intrinsic, universal truth that existed in the human experience since long before Hamlet, and even long before Ecclesiastes, and it will forever continue to be part of the human experience for those who seek meaning, answers, and Truth within their lives, or simply for those who think. Clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson writes:

Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So, you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn’t going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that’s going to fall apart. What is there, then, that’s going to help you fight against suffering? That’s easy: It’s the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that’s coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that’s the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything because it’s too painful, and you’re too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.

This quote from Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, beautifully summarizes the strongest common thread between Hamlet and Ecclesiastes. Hardships and disappointment are inevitable instruments to be played in the symphony of human life on earth. Trying to find ease from this pain in anything of this world will only bring destruction, more disappointment, and bitterness, and then eventually lead to a tragedy such as the tragedy of Prince Hamlet. The play might have ended differently if the Prince had read Ecclesiastes and taken its contents to heart. But he did not, and now Shakespeare’s Hamlet stands as stalwart proof of the truth found in Ecclesiastes: that this life is but a vapor, and the way we find meaning in it all is by seeing and accepting divine providence.

“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’”

Ezekiel 16:6

This is a verse that has been heavily on my heart for America, and the world, for the past month.

As Men, we wallow in our own blood often.
In our violent complacency.
In our wicked indignation.
And sometimes even in sheer evil fully displayed and out of hiding.

Any way it goes, we find ourselves here, wallowing in our blood. Again and again.
But aren’t we made for so much more?

The trumpets have not yet sounded. There is more to be done, even still.

“LIVE,” calls the Alpha.
“LIVE,” calls the Omega.
“LIVE,” calls the One and Only God.
“LIVE,” calls the Man of Sorrows
into our shattered hearts.
Even still, He calls.
Even in death, He says “LIVE!”

Though we already know the triumphant ending, there is still more to be done.
Does the land seem to be stirring to anybody else?

Haven’t we heard the foretellings?
Hasn’t He been in our hearts dwelling?
Haven’t we heard the sound
of His songs pounding under the ground?

May we stand up and strengthen our feeble knees. Walk out of our blood and into Jesus’s: The Living Waters.

The River runs with secrets that could wash the dead clean, but what dead man is rising to bathe?
That is why we must stand and call this valley of dry bones to LIVE.

Give me one day
with this Man of sweet lamentations,
and I’ll give up my life of bitter glitter
arrayed by the men of exploitations.

Give me Love,
and I’ll give up my cleverness.
Send me The Dove,
and I’ll send back my livelihood.

Darkness will pass,
the Son shining out all the clearer.

Until then,
fetch wood, carry water, walk the earth.
Fetch wood, carry water, walk the earth.
Fetch wood.
Carry water.
Walk the earth.

singed where it should’ve been satisfied,

I did not survive in that moment when

the sea's pressure almost shattered the stained-glass portraits

in the windows lining the halls of stone.

There used to be a song inside of everything,

but now there’s no song…

Not because everything stopped singing,

But because Man can’t hear it anymore.

Not because of the flower,

but the fire set to it,

not because of the apple,

but the serpent wrapped around the bough,

unearthed from the heart of it all were

murderous ideals

with a golden spade of all shades,

Man kills, steals, and destroys

each other and trees and songs

and history

as pretty little pawns for the Showman Prince of the Power of the Air;

pent-up freaks in his scintillating circus.

But,

just as the Showman Prince of the Power of the Air exists,

so also exists the Gardener King of the Wind,

who controls where the air goes and what it does.

And suddenly, from On High,

the Son shines

with repentance ripe and tense

and flickering through the trees

as they flash their jazz hands in the wind.

And I’m back to life, still burning,

eternal flame oil-drenched and dancing.

The Showman Prince glittered, sure,

but with merely distorted refractions of commandeered light

flitting vainly through commandeered air.

I know the One who is the Light,

who shines

and who owns the air.

The Gardener King of the Wind has no circus nor freaks.

No, instead, He has a Great Story with birds and flowers and a Blazing Symphony,

and heirs to His inheritance, royalty in His Garden Court,

children held closely in His Blue Heron arms,

and a song inside of everything again.

It was not an easy journey out through the other side of the phantasmagoria,

but I know better now.

Choosing the fertilized earth over the rosined stage

in every garden

and every theater.

Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne

How do we communicate in a way that is set ablaze with veritas (truth)?

“Artists are the people who stand in the frontier of the transformation of the unknown into knowledge. They make their voluntary foray out into the unknown, and they take a piece of it and transform it into an image.

The artists do not understand full well what they are doing. They cannot, if they are doing something genuinely new. Otherwise, they could just say what they mean and have done with it. They would not require expression in dance, music, and image. But they are guided by feel, by intuition—by their facility with the detection of patterns—and that is all embodied, rather than articulated, at least in its initial stages.

When creating, the artists are struggling, contending, and wrestling with a problem—maybe even a problem they do not fully understand—and striving to bring something new into clear focus. Otherwise they are mere propagandists, reversing the artistic process, attempting to transform something they can already articulate into image and art for the purpose of rhetorical and ideological victory.”

Jordan B. Peterson

For our art to be set ablaze, we must be engaging with something greater than ourselves. The content within the work can certainly come from deep within, or even be based on a personal struggle or phenomenon. Still, the question is: Does it point to that which is greater than ourselves, or does it wallow in our own muck, becoming a mere product of our society set on self-absorption?

We, the writer and the artist, have a responsibility to carry on our backs, which we must willfully take up.

The arts are a mirror that the storyteller/writer/artist/musician/etc. holds up to the audience while saying, “Don’t take my word for it, or anyone’s for that matter. Here is the truth about everything, shown through all your similarities to all Mankind.  Here is the glory of God revealed through your own experiences. Here is your simultaneously dusty and divine nature wrapped up into something beautiful.” 

Of course, we must not wallow in our own muck, but rather, call to that within us which is higher and grander and deeper. We must go “further up and further in” as C.S. Lewis writes. We must be true and we must be brave. For this, we must learn to acquire a poet’s heart. But what is a poet’s heart? Who is a poet? What makes their heart? Of what materials are the revolutionary vessels constituted?

Herein lies the answer: All hearts are like flowers. But the great question is… what kind of flower? Everyone, even if they are not aware of it, wants their heart to be a flower, as this is the ultimate aspiration of the artist.

Some venture through the garden, gathering fallen petals from others', even plucking petals right off of others’. Then, they stitch the petals together, fasten them to a random stem (also recycled), and shove it into the dirt. This little creation begs to be a flower, as false as it may be. This is the heartbreaking truth of many heart-flowers of our day. They have no roots because they are merely stitched together with stolen pieces… they are charlatan blooms, desperate to be real or at least feel something real. But they cannot, because they are not really living. They have no roots.

But then there are the heart-blooms which start as tiny seeds, barely visible. They are, at once, the smallest in size and the grandest in possibility, of all things. Then, over time, they grow. The roots travel deep and wide into the heart of the earth, and the bloom opens up its own beauty to the world as it basks in the sun and drinks in the rain. It grows in step with the seasons, and sometimes a frost occurs, forcing the bloom to start all over again. Sometimes the petals are plucked by predators, masqueraders, or reckless carousers… but the bloom never gives up, as its roots grant it the freedom to exist in beauty through every element of the great wide earth and the trials it holds.

A heart-bloom with no roots is cause for a tortured existence, doomed to ever tumble in even the slightest wind. To collapse under the weight of the very waters meant to nourish it. To shrivel in the very light meant to give it life.

But a rooted bloom that, in patience, grace, and authenticity, withstands the trials of growing and blooming… That is an existence of freedom, born from the mature talent of resilience. It is never overnight, but ever enjoying the depth of the glory of ebbs and flows. Always feeling, and choosing to even in pain, because the pain holds a purpose that makes it worthy of experiencing. Because it is a worthy weight to be entrusted with the honor of carrying.

A poet’s heart is the small seed which grows all on its own, by God’s hand, beyond other explanation. And a revolution is when a heart finally comes to its own conclusion and is free from the echo chamber of look-alike conclusions all around. The world is often a garden of charlatan blooms, and a poet’s heart exists as the rooted bloom among them.

In the midst of times when this world feels like a gutter, when the sorrow and pain and chaos feel unbearable, it is the great duty of the poet’s heart to help people fix their attention up to the stars (and beyond). It is not their duty to wallow in the muck, as this is the stuff stitched charlatan blooms are made of.

There are two main aspects of the human experience: dust and divinity. We were pulled from the dirt at creation, but into us was then breathed the breath of life from God’s own lungs. There is both folly and eternity in our hearts, both pain and joy in our experience, on this side of time. So, while on this side, it is right to recognize the pain that eventually and ultimately helps us feel nearer to the source of joy. In light of this, however, it is not beneficial to diminish the pain and suffering down to something so meaningless as something to be romanticized. We must look at ourselves through the lens of that which is greater, and not the other way around.