I’ve been so long tending this old fire in my chest, that I forget what sparked it. But it still keeps me warm when I worry that I might someday be wrong.
I’ve been so long raging against things I couldn’t know, like a line of cleansing fire taking field and forest too, like a pyre for the witch, for the stranger, for the son.
I am angry at so many things and none of them at all. I can’t look straight enough along the lines to see the source. But I fear it’s nearer still than all of these.
ii. look, the sky
Look, the sky is unfolding like a magnolia blossom and the long tender ears of corn are reaching up and up to touch it, bounty to bounty, sea green to rose gold, but this idiot is driving five under in the passing lane.
iii. wrath is a man
Wrath is a man
who is righteous
but was just told
otherwise.
Wrath is a man
who has never
lost anything
until now.
Wrath is a man
who loves for
what he gets
not receiving.
Wrath is a man
on the brink of
seeing himself
for the first time.
iv. whales and worms
I am too easy with anger for someone with no control, like a prophet under a broad green leaf, hands extended in hope of brimstone warmth.
And the heat is in the word: the tip of a whip opening your cheek. How is it that I pierce this heart that I hold so close to my own, beating together after the blow? How is it that we ever recover from these wounds?
Sometimes it takes whales and worms, sometimes different words. Sometimes it takes long and lonesome to quench this flame until you matter more than me.
Shortly after I posted my first poetry set on the affection of joy, I realized that I should probably clarify what this poetry project is, and why I decided to make it my focus this year.
This year, I am writing monthly poetry sets (3-5 poems per set) with the goal of exploring different affections.
affections as faithful motive power
The best way that I’ve come to understand affections is by contrasting them with emotions. Emotion is something that happens to you. We experience and exhibit various strong feelings as responses to various stimuli — a person, a place, a picture, etc. Often emotions are fleeting, superficial, and not necessarily related to action.
Affections, on the other hand, are connected to both mind and body in a more holistic way. Jonathan Edwards contrasts them with “passions” (or emotions) this way:
“The affections and passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet, in the more common use of speech, there is in some respect a difference; and affection is a word, that in its ordinary signification, seems to be something more extensive than passion; being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination; but passion for those that are more sudden, and whose effects on the animal spirits are more violent, and the mind more overpowered, and less in its own command.” (from Religious Affections)
Ultimately, affections are vitally connected to faith by the inclinations of the will.
When we accept Christ, our deepest desires experience a fundamental shift. While we still struggle with wanting those things we wanted in our natural human state, we begin to desire those things that are of God. We are awakened, in a sense, to the loveliness of our Father and alerted to the ugliness of our sin and everything that opposes our Father.
A war of attraction
In a regenerated person, our affections often war against our emotions and seek to submit them to this new paradigm of glorifying and enjoying our God. As we encounter attractions to things that are evil still existent in ourselves, we must fight against them for the sake of a higher attraction. Edwards says it this way:
“As all the exercises of the inclination and will, are either in approving and liking, or disapproving and rejecting; so the affections are of two sorts; they are those by which the soul is carried out to what is in view, cleaving to it, or seeking it; or those by which it is averse from it, and opposes it.
Of the former sort are love, desire, hope, joy, gratitude, complacence. Of the latter kind, are hatred, fear, anger, grief, and such like; which it is needless now to stand particularly to define.
And there are some affections wherein there is a composition of each of the aforementioned kinds of actings of the will; as in the affection of pity, there is something of the former kind, towards the person suffering, and something of the latter, towards what he suffers. And so in zeal, there is in it high approbation of some person or thing, together with vigorous opposition to what is conceived to be contrary to it.”
Part of my interest in exploring the affections is to develop a deeper understanding of how to let those affections thrive that make me love God more and more each day, and hate my sin and all that stands in opposition to Him. I’ve realized a deep need in my heart to love the Giver above the gifts He gives to me. So in some sense, the object of each affection I write about can be understood in this way.
poetry as exploration
I don’t ascribe to the viewpoint that poetry is exacting about its subject. Rather, I believe that poetry jumps into something and swims around for a while, getting used to its textures and dimensions, tasting, smelling, generally seeking to experience its subject rather than define it. It can be proclamation (“Hey, this is salty!”) or confession (“I can’t swim!”) or any other number of reactions – including definition. For me, poetry is primarily exploration, which is perfect for this project.
Lists of affections and/or emotions are numerous, so for the sake of my project I have selected 12 interrelated affections, as follows:
Joy → Envy
Grief → Contempt
Peace → Gluttony/Greed
Anger → Rage
Humility → Fear
Confidence → Pride
Some of these represent aspects of the same affection, but carry different directional motives or belief systems. I hope to explore them in such a way that the differences and similarities may become clear.
Anyway, thanks for once again granting me a moment of your time to pontificate about things I’m interested in. I’d love to hear from you about your current creative projects and what draws you to them in the comments!
I woke today
to scrabbling in the nest,
an irresistible urge
to leap.
In looking past the edge
of all I knew
I saw a vast expanse,
alive and impossible,
and in taking a lungful of it
I knew that
embracing air
was all it would take.
So I woke to the world,
I woke to the sky,
and I took it as it stood:
empty and full.
In climbing to its back
I spread my wings
and met the ground
violently,
like an old friend.
And I knew I could
never walk again.
ii. albatross
The battered beams below
frame fathoms of color, and I am
as one who paints – immersed
in another world. The horizons
spread like boundary lines
of pleasant places,
pleasant all the more
for the freedom to stay within them,
and I journey,
awash in aquamarine.
Paint me an ocean
of far-off hope, brimming
with white-caps,
ringed ‘round about by
luminescent creatures,
an end to the longing.
The current lunges
sleek beneath me, and I am
as one who fights – forgetful
of another world. I taste salt
filming like blood, the scent of
quickening metal,
quickening all the more
for the unknown dangers below,
and I am lifted,
awash with fear and fire within.
Guide me by little lights
above and below, dimming
only when consumed
by brighter joys. Set me
upon the wind,
that I may end.
iii. snowbird
If not for
seed flung aside
by raucous jays,
the winter
would be lean.
If not for
vibrant plumage
that draws the gaze,
the talons
would be keen.
Let me be
small and brown
and content
with thistledown.
iv. blackbird
It’s always spring
when I hear it – feathers in the wind,
the hollow-boned chirrup
of the red-winged blackbirds.
They perch
perpendicular
upon the weathered posts,
old boundary spikes
at the edge of the next field,
naked of wire and lonely
as a wintered heart.
They perch there,
like petals pinned to bracken,
a thicket of red –
and they sing.
I don’t remember the song
until I hear it, but I think
the lonely thorns
can’t help but
love the rose.
And I, a passing soul,
remember things I’d forgotten
and go forth
rejoicing
with the blackbirds.
