INVITING CHAOS

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Submitted Date 04/09/2019
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Inviting Chaos
Age 17, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, 1962
-- This is one poem, in an autobiographical series of poems, I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --

Note about the pictures for this poem: The title images are microscopic photographs of snow crystals (snowflakes) taken by WA Bentley around 1900 in black and white and then colorized by Rick Doble. Through years of work, Bentley discovered that every snowflake is different.

That Sunday the minister
unleashed unknown forces
forces that still affect me today

at the church service
required by the school
the man I knew well as a teacher
usually talked in the abstract
about choices and decisions
but in this sermon
he told a personal story

he was in his twenties and
thinking about getting married
as so many of his friends were doing
so he made a mental list of the women he knew
of the qualities he wanted
and began to look around -
when out of nowhere
he met a woman unlike any he had ever known
who soon became his wife

it was like a revelation
it was his metaphor for life
and for faith

you work hard at finding an answer
then - if you are receptive -
the answer may appear
at unexpected times
in unexpected ways

more being moved than moving
more being given than taking
more accepting than demanding

it opened a new pathway
where ideas and feelings
could come to me
like a voice in the wilderness

 

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