I have a fair number of friends in seminary, entering or already exited from seminary. I love that kind of person or rather - those kinds of people, since they're a varied and heterogeneous bunch. (Some kinda heterodox, too, but you didn't hear that from me.)
But with all of them there's a common thread of scholarship and respect for the good things intense, devoted study brings. Personally I don't have the patience or language skills for Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic verb tenses, not to mention I'm already tired of hearing the name "Paul Tillich" and I've never read any of his books! Still and all, I envy those who exegete - bringing meaning out of texts with skill and confidence, slow and tentative though that endeavor might be.
I think they'll appreciate this poem: it's the kind of inventive, quick, unusual thinking I've come to expect from biblical scholars. A quick concordance search didn't turn up which verse this poem references, though. Any ideas?
The Gospel of the Gospel
Michael Chitwood
dwell in sadness, but be glad in the day."
The word used for heart has two translations:
One is as a door through which a blue sky
over white-washed stone steps can be glimpsed
and the other has to do with a kind of clearing
in a forest of hemlock and white pine.
Sadness references the turning-inward look
of a shy child in a roomful of strangers.
Glad has a connotation of the same weight
and earthiness of certain flower bulbs
that can lie dormant or be transported
great distances in their dry drowse
and then brought to blossom when replanted.
The phrase "in the day" is a guess, but a good guess,
given that time passed then as now.
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