Author Archives: Ian D Martin

Poetry, Reflection

To Those Who’ll Listen

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To a friend.

What a flimsy raft is the unexamined life,
A well unplumbed,
A feast uneaten,
How can eyes be ajar and yet not see,
Or ears be hollow but fail to reverberate?
I wish I could whisper to your desires,
‘There is more. Much more.’
But my thoughts cannot be your thoughts,
For they inhabit different pages in a different book,
But still I long,
I long to edge open the door’s beaming light
And gently lead you into the dance.
But who am I?
Just another blind man learning
What shapes and colours must be like,
A proud one at that,
With hints of a patronising paternalism,
Is this an abundance of redundances?
Are my words spent like evaporated dew?
I have to give what I can,
And trust, yes grasp- to Faith,
That a human heart can be tenderised,
That willingness can be sown,
But in the process I feel the solitude,
Of one who sees a tapestry in every fleeting glimpse,
Who hears a heartbeat in the footsteps and machines,
But whose fellows seem content to
Lick the icing, but never…

Obstinate,
Words are like a gift,
In language I create very near ex-nihilo,
And so,
Together with the one who calls,
I join in the song and
Sing to those who’ll listen.

27 September 2014

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Poetry, Reflection, Theology

Where Feet and Wings Once Fleeted

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A theological reflection in poetry.

There is a shapeless face which stretches
Itself across the earth,
Mysterious and magnetic,
Turned to and fro by powers unearthly,
It’s shades and contours defy the mind,
Shifting its structures unpredictably,
Not to be contained,
And yet it must,
For by its filling we and all around us live,
Utterly unique yet completely indispensable,
Our relationship is strained both by too much
Or too little contact,
We must ourselves be contained by its rigid fluidity,
Finding both our greatest delight and terror
In the same countenance,
The rich seek to see you,
Body and all,
To gaze upon your beauty- always safely at a distance,
While the poor would be happy with
But a lock of your hair,
But our desires are naive-
No, vain.
For even a touch of your finger
Could decimate our edifices,
You cannot be tamed nor plumbed,
Nor will you obey our command
We are foolish to attempt to capture the beauty,
As if it could be possessed,
But this is our problem:
We want beauty we can keep,
And use,
And pet,
Little aware that this soft face could destroy us.
We want to chart and measure and quantify,
To have a mystery we can fully explain,
But we must be content,
Humble enough to sit
Where the feet and wing once fleeted.

9 September 2014

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Poetry

I Asked For a Dream

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I feel that cry of eternity in my heart,
It’s an impulse
A whisper, faint but unmissable,
That urges me to search for the source,
The fountain from which the beauty flows.
An uneasiness lingers over me
Peering into the vapours of coming clouds,
Their approach is relentless,
But their passing ethereal
I search for a rock on which to
Raise my eyes above the mist,
But my footing slips away into nothingness.
What form does that never-ending present take in me?
That song sung over me in the womb,
The tune of which is always on the edge of memory,
But never quite within reach.
Is not my existence an echo of that melody?
I asked for a dream and
All I saw was a glimmer,
A brief instant illuminated a new path
Which vanished just as quick.
But though the road may be darkened,
I still recollect it’s direction.
So though my foot tread trustingly,
I cling to the memory and pray for the daylight,
The beauty my goal and
The song my sustenance.

9 December 2011

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Poetry

Deaf Ears

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To a friend.

Fear my words are falling on deaf ears,
My heart is hurting to death here,
How many who claim to be about the Father’s business,
Are really on their own thing,
Treating him like a boss does their assistant? 
How quick we are to forget that you are with us,
Because you’re out of sight we put you out of mind,
And we think we can hide ourselves in the process.
Foolishness. Selfish.
Acting as if my self is just that, mine.
But where does my self come from?
Where is it based? 
From which Ocean does this seemingly bottomless pond spring? 
Emotions, thoughts, instincts all swirl beneath
far deeper than I can hold my breath to explore.
Deeper and darker, deeper and darker. 
But this vessel is hopeless to remain if unanchored when the tides rise,
Tossed and turned to eventually be wreckage
Washed up on some foreign shore. 
No.
I am to live and move and have my being, 
But earthed in the source and ground of existence Himself. 
Without this tie, the kite not only does not fly but lies lifeless on the grass. 
I turn. I turn. 

27 Sep 2014

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Apologetics, Hip Hop, Music

Wish It Were True E.P

“Make good men wish it were true; then show them that it is”
Blaise Pascal, Pensées

We seem to go through life never fully satisfied with what this world has to offer. Things, achievements, power, sex–they all leave us wanting more in the end. The closest we get to satisfaction, and the thing which we really want above all else, is in true and loving relationships with other people. Those moments when we feel that connection, that sense of being truly known and yet truly loved, give us a sense of what life should feel like. And yet, even those things eventually come to an end. Again, we are left with the desire for more.

So is this desire just an evolutionary mistake? Is everything that we hope about life and the universe–that there are such things as love, justice, meaning and truth–really just an illusion? Or do those deep desires point us to a reality outside of ourselves, a personality beyond this universe?

Everything within us says that those feelings are not meaningless and that they do have an end. Wouldn’t it be strange if we felt thirst in a world with no water? Wouldn’t it be strange if I had within me an insatiable desire for relationship, if there were no infinite, all-loving being I was created to relate to?

We wish that it were true. But what if, instead of merely wishing, we actually came into contact with that being? What if he entered our reality and initiated a relationship with us? In this short project, Neuma wrestles with these questions and argues that not only can we wish, but we can know that it is true. We can meet Him. And once we do, our entire view of the world will is transformed.

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Apologetics, Theology

“Your Sins Are Forgiven”

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Sometimes it seems crazy that Jesus would forgive someone else’s sins. It has often been pointed out that this only makes sense if he were God, since who has the right to do that? This is true. Yet, you might wonder why all sins are against God, when he is not the one that has been hurt by the words or actions committed.

But when you think about the nature of reality it makes perfect sense for all sins to ultimately be against God though they are also against others. Imagine you are at a large dinner with the people you generally know and do business with in life, but you also have a special guest, a king or president or honorable figure who sits near enough to hear your conversation and see whatever you might do.

Now imagine you verbally disrespect another guest, or break out into a fight with them, or steal some of their food, or ogle their wife. Your crime would certainly be against that person, but you would also be offending the honour of your esteemed guest. In fact the shock and reproach of doing those things in their presence would be much more than if they had not been there. It makes the real offence, the deepest most ugly offence, against them, not even against the person to whom it was consciously directed, even though their hurt remains. You have really, with your actions, proclaimed that the King’s presence demands no better behaviour from you. In other words, you don’t care what he thinks. Ultimately, you have tarnished his name and reputation and made him a mockery. To be forgiven, you would require not only the forgiveness of the particular person, but also of your guest. The more esteemed, the worse the offence.

This situation is easy to get our heads around. And yet this is a description of the reality that we live in. God is present and near us at every moment. The nature of the universe is wrapped up in the Trinity, the perfect, eternal community of love. When we violate that nature, we offend not only human persons, but the divine person. We are ultimately transgressing, not just some abstract law, but the law of his character from which the moral law comes.

Now Jesus’ words are seen in a new light. They are both astounding, as he is claiming to be the very fabric of that moral law, and compassionate, as he would be willing to excuse our rebellion in his presence.

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