Donne's Compass

The poet, Donne, quite complex was in images and themes,
Set point of compass on the page, then to a circle leaned;
He said it spoke of his great love when with his work he roamed –
His heart inclined back to his wife, and hers to his from home.

We used that poem back in days I helped out on a Res –
Like golden plate beat thin and fine through travels, like Donne says,
It helped us turn our circumstance to good side, let it bless –
And we survived, though tough, our love intact now nonetheless.

But this new road, quite different is – new land for all of us;
Though quite familiar in a sense, no doubt there'll be some fuss –
For change has swept across this world from when we lived as kids,
And everyone has felt those winds of change here in our midst.

So many have moved on from here to jobs, careers, and chance
To find a new life other places, given happenstance;
But we have chosen this as home, not for its easy bliss
But just because our circumstance says best we stick with this.

It's now Your word comes back to me, O Lord, before you left
Your sorry band of men behind, with heavy hearts, bereft;
You said not ‘Go’, but ‘Having gone’ out into world around
Through jobs, vacation, strife, or chance – where in the end they found –

Themselves when landing on their bums (it mattered not quite where),
You challenge them ‘Disciple’ those whose lives are lived out there.
Not ‘got’ to do so, ‘get’ to do so, if the need arise;
Nor all the time, just when it's right for each before each dies.

And as for how to do that task, ‘Baptize’ and ‘share my word’ –
The things I've said and done with you as you my gospel heard;
Like salt, and light, and leaven, take this ‘Judaism lite’
To flavour, fluff their cultures up, and give their darkness light.

Baptism means a burial in water (just a bit),
To symbolize their deadness to old lives which no more fit;
So they can rise up, here with me on resurrection ground,
And live new lives right where they are, so joy and life be found.

Discipling is mentoring in current mode of speech;
Entire fish, not just the mouth, to catch – the goal of each
Of you, just as you were with Me – we walked a while apace –
So walk with others, brighten up their few remaining days.

So though I may not travel much in this world with my chore,
The world is whirling ’neath our feet like treadmill's whirling roar;
Not just for us, but for mankind, connections they feel broke
With nature and with universe, and with the other folk.

So let's be different, travel not, enclined each to the other
But right up close and personal, in fair or stormy weather;
Let others flow on through our lives as they are wont to go;
Then as we speak into their lives, a richer life they'll know.

Our hearts can then encline to others on their road of life,
Our love for them beat fine and thin like gold, in books I write,
And pictures made, or poems writ, as I produce Stu-Art;
Thus settle down and savour life, and share the sweeter part.

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