In sorrow Naomi felt the need to turn away from Moab to find what was left for her in Bethlehem after the death of her husband and her two sons. Ruth, the widow of one of her sons, refused to let her go alone, telling her, Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay, and your people will be my people, and your God will be my God, and where you die, I will die.
In Bethlehem Ruth gleaned from the fields of an older man, Boaz, not knowing he was a near kinsman of Naomi’s deceased husband. After negotiations with another kinsman Boaz redeemed the land belonging to Naomi and married Ruth so she could bear children to raise up the name of her deceased husband upon his inheritance.
As a result of this union, Ruth, a Moabite woman, bore a son and called him Obed. From Obed would come Jesse and from Jesse would come David, the singer of psalms, mighty in battle and a future king, and from David would come, generations later, Jesus, the promised Messiah.
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Denise offers the prompt word “turn” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. For what really happened see the short book of Ruth.
Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Matilda had a problem with her right hand that prevented her from closing her five fingers into a fist to pound it against the side table signaling the power of her displeasure when watching the news on TV. Her husband took her to doctors who listened to her give them a piece of her mind because they clearly had no clue what was wrong with her and one even discretely slipped her husband the name of an exorcist.
When a healer visited a local church her husband figured that a healer was a good enough proxy for an exorcist and encouraged Matilda to stand in line with others needing something or other. Since there were many in line the healer had time to only touch her forehead, as he did all the rest, and move on which annoyed Matilda because she expected a bit more than that. Besides, those on either side of her were jumping with joy that their ailments, likely candy-induced toothaches or well-deserved headaches, were suddenly gone while she was no better off than before.
Mumbling she left the church raising her hand against her husband with a fully clenched fist and letting him have it as he noticed, “Matilda, you’re hand is healed!” which would have been a happy ending to this tale except by the time they got home to test her recovery by giving the table a good wallop she could no longer clench her fist.
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Denise offers the prompt word “power” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
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Breakthrough – A Follow-up Six Sentence Story
Some may be concerned about Matilda.
After her failed healing, after her hand refused to clench into a fist, she began to laugh. Her husband laughed as well. Suddenly she had no desire to clench her fists. As the power of the breakthrough fell upon her she wondered why she ever did.
You need two things to write a poem. You need inspiration and you need to know a few techniques. I’ll cover one of the techniques called meter, but ultimately inspiration is what counts.
Inspiration
Before you can even begin to write a poem, you need something to say. Once you have that then you need words.
Occasionally you will hear poets talk about their muse who tells them what to say and how to say it. To avoid the distraction of Greek mythology, I will stop referring to a muse, which none of the poets who use that word in a modern context believe in anyway, and talk generally about a poet’s source of inspiration. However, the good thing about those poets who acknowledge a source of inspiration is that they know they themselves are not that source no matter how responsible they are for the final product.
Poets who do not believe in a source of inspiration give themselves full credit for what and how they say things. For them, poetry is self-expression. I would like to assert, so there is no ambiguity about my own views, that self-expression is tedious and overrated.
In addition as a poet you are always serving your source of inspiration. You are always serving that spirit who is inspiring you, helping you and comforting you even if you mistakenly believe that you yourself are that spirit.
That spiritual source of inspiration may be a good spirit. It might also be not so good. If you write about topics that glorify, incite or condone anger, lust or some habitually dysfunctional thinking in your readers, then your source of inspiration is not so good. The poem may sound nice and people may write mushy music to sentimentalize it, but that source of inspiration will remain, in spite of all that sugar-coating, not so good.
Once you understand that you are not expressing yourself when you write a poem but you are serving a spiritual source of inspiration and that source may be good or not so good you will begin to see what is morally at stake when you offer a poem to a reader. I hope you won’t mind me drawing the conclusion that any not so good source is a demonic source. It is out to get you so it can use you to get others.
I see the good source of inspiration as the Holy Spirit, a Person of the Trinity with Whom the poet can enter into a relationship. I identify the demonic sources with spirits of antichrist. They are deceivers who manipulate those foolish enough to play with them.
Bottom line: Writing a poem is not a neutral artistic expression of oneself, but a moral act of service to some spiritual source of inspiration. Make sure that spirit is the Holy Spirit.
1 John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Technique
Once you have a topic, you will need to express it. Although the words may come to you from the Holy Spirit, you need to make it melodious. In English that means paying attention to meter.
Meter is the pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in the words you use. The most memorable, and influential, poetry repeats metrical patterns. Some of these patterns are given names such as limericks or common meter, sonnets or blank verse. Others are specific to the poem itself.
As an example, listen to the song, What a Beautiful Name, and try to note which words are accented and which are not in the lyrics. In particular there are four stanzas in this song with an almost identical metrical pattern except for an unaccented syllable on some lines. I’ve listed two of those stanzas below. The ACCENTED syllables I put in italicized bold red capital letters. The unaccented syllables I wrote normally.
YOU have noRI-val. YOU have no E-qual. NOW and for-E-ver,GOD, you REIGN.
YOURS is the KING-dom. YOURS is the GLO-ry. YOURS is the NAME a-BOVE all NAMES.
Were you able to find the other two stanzas?
If so, you know what meter is. You know why those lyrics are powerful even without the music. Make your poems memorable by using metrical patterns.
If not, great! You now have an opportunity to start building your relationship with the Holy Spirit by asking Him to show you what you don’t understand. If you don’t think He’ll talk to you, ask Him anyway, sleep on it and wake up refreshed. Then thank Him regardless what you hear. Giving thanks means you acknowledge that you are in a personal relationship with Him.
Conclusion
There are many tricks that will help any poem be more powerful no matter what the source of inspiration. They are just techniques. One could even program a computer, which is neither intelligent nor inspired, to follow the meter and other aspects of the sound of a poem.
Ultimately what matters is the source of inspiration. To write a poem you need to first choose whom you will serve.
And that’s all there is to it.
Joshua 24:14-15 14 Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. 15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Bart dreamed that a rich man gave him the combination to the lock on his storeroom and told him to take all the gold and jewelry he could carry out. Joyfully he stuffed his pockets.
When a child approached with his hands out the rich man told him to give something to the child, but Bart said, “No, I have to fill my own barn!”
Nonetheless Bart obeyed the rich man giving the child the tiniest gold coin he had crammed away somewhere which turned into a loaf of bread and a fish in the child’s hands. Others seeing what happened rushed to receive something as well.
After Bart opened his eyes from his dream to the morning light and the sound of birds and put on his threadbare clothes to leave the shelter he recalled that his pockets in that dream remained mysteriously full no matter how fast the rivers of living water welled up from within him to give everything away.
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Denise offers this prompt word “combination” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
John 7:37-38 37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 