Darlene Rose

I watched a secular movie today

Dead Poets Society

Picked apart as humanistic in spirit, but

I don’t care what they call it;

I saw You there in it

“Poetry stirs up passion;

Sucking the marrow of the bone dry”

Was how one dead poet put it.

I know they left You out of the picture

But I didnt

I saw You there in it.

I saw a man today weeding his garden

Playing his music loudly and worshiping You, God

He’s not accepted in church, he said.

He left it feeling sucked dry to the marrow of his bone.

Picked apart due to his sin

But right in his garden, I saw You there in it

What are You saying that I have not heard

Wherever I look, Look!

There You are in Your Word

If I look past what I see;

For Your word lives in me, and

As Living Waters rise they must flood past my eyes

So that all that I see is through the eyes

Of the Perfect One

Who also loves me

Every thing in life,

Everything and everyone in life

Must point to You.

Every place I go

Everywhere and everyplace I go

Must point to You

This is now my goal

This is now my heart and my soul

That I point to You

For You have brought me high

You have brought me low and then again, high

That I would point to You

You have made me as a sign,

A sign and a wonder

A miracle of grace, and a product of thunder

You have made me to shine as though my own life

Was well oiled;

Never having been picked apart and sucked dry

Nor tarnished and soiled

All of this I know yet I’m still learning

I’ve got so far to go yet I’m discerning

Isn’t this Your heart

Isn’t this where You want us all to be?

Looking for Your heart

Seeing with Your eyes

Reaching for Your love

Extending with Your hand

And seeing You at the Center

Of everything we do

Everyplace we go

Everyone we meet

And all we’ll ever know, is

There You are.

This was a spontaneous poem I had written after watching Dead Poet’s Society, a movie about a group of young, elite, college kids from 1959 who are inspired greatly by their English teacher, through the study of poetry.  They formed a Dead Poet’s Society, where they could learn more about the famous poet’s of old.

As I watched, I saw the Lord’s signature woven all the way through.  I didn’t try to see Him, I just did.

Later that day, my neighbor at the time, a gay man, being out in his garden, was singing to the Lord.   I watched him, and I saw the Lord right there with him.  My neighbor called out to me when he looked up, and we talked awhile.  There, he shared with me his struggles with church because he is gay but he felt close to God.  (I am NOT saying God condones his sin, but I learned something that day – that God had not picked him apart and sucked his marrow dry BECAUSE of his sin.  He loved my neighbor and was pleased to dwell with him IN THAT MOMENT).

This morning, June 17, I was praying.  I asked the Lord to stir up my spirit to sense His presence all around me again; like He did years ago.  What got in the way?

I turned to my reading for this morning – Psalm 77.   “Call to remembrance the days of old. ”

I looked at old poems and read Dead Poet’s Society, the spontaneous poem above.

He doesn’t pick me apart and suck all the life out of my bones.
Behavior needs to be repented of, but not struggled with.  We only need to acknowledge our emptiness and then seek His face.  If we struggle with our sin and see our sin always before us, we will feel as if we are picked apart and sucked dry but rivers of living waters fill our bellies and flood our being when our eyes are upon Him.  The eyes being upon Him is what floods our being with His presence and sanctification, and overcoming.