Mid-month Mention: Rabbit Room and Poets

 

Perhaps a year ago, I stumbled upon the Rabbit Room Chinwag Facebook group. What a treat! Like-minded creatives and individuals who seek to honor God.

It was here I discovered a poem by Christopher Owen that I appreciate on many levels. I love the rhythm and sound. I appreciate the description of God's intention for His creation and for the glory He will assume when He returns to reclaim us for His kingdom. The poem is called, "This is Beginning to End." Follow the link to watch him recite it because it has a wonderful "spoken word" feel. I sometimes listen to the Button Poetry offerings when they come up on my Facebook feed. How I wish for a Christian equivalent! If there was one, Christopher Owen's poem would fit perfectly. I am with him in his desire for Christ to come quickly! We are waiting!

Randy Edwards is another poet from the Rabbit Room group. He often shares his poetry on his Backward Mutters blog (see the blog for the title's reference). Or find him on Instagram: @backward.mutters - Randy is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Kernersville, North Carolina. I immediately fell in love with the first poem I heard him recite, a poem about luck and grace, full of beautiful images with deep meanings:

When Craig Stapleton jumped

Into 8000 feet of space

He thought himself lucky

To do this thing he loved.

But when his parachute

Tangled and twirled?

He fell like some

Lafayette Escadrille

Shot down by the Red Baron.

If he was able to feel

(Let alone think)

More than terror, he knew

His luck had turned.

But when his backup did the same?

He knew it was for the worst,

That he must be the unluckiest

Skydiver on earth.

He hit the flat ground

Of California’s Central Valley

With a splat, doing around

30 miles an hour—

A field where the farmer

Had just tilled the earth

And thought himself the

Luckiest one around

To be catching the rain

At just the right time.

Where water soaked furrows

Swole the clods up like pillows.

When Craig came to his senses,

When he realized

The sound of that splat

Was just the mud? That

This man who’d fallen

In a death-spiral like a winged duck?

When he realized that

He had not died?

But in fact alive and had survived?

It was not Luck he thanked.

It was personal.

Now this don’t mean

Luck ain’t no thing,

Nor that he didn’t feel lucky.

True luck is like grace,

Is an unlooked for blessing

That breaks as a smile on a face

Breaks a fall of certain death

And gives you back

What you’d thought you’d lost

Or worse, had left.

For further exploration, here's an article about the harrowing 8000 foot skydiving fall that prompted this poem's contemplation.

Here's a link to a recitation of another Randy Edwards poem called "The Dragon's Mouth," based on Revelation 12:15. The focus of this year's Bible Study Fellowship is the book of Revelation. I will have to remember to share this poem during the week we discuss chapter 12.

I'm looking forward to hearing more from Christopher Owen and Randy Edwards!