Two Poems by Oz Hardwick: “Reverberation” and “Fall”

Reverberation

Do not flinch from the day’s whisper,
the words on the page, the reverberation
of air. Grip them tight in prickling palms
until your eyes weep flowers.

For there are those who would steal names,
wind dead artists in neat flags
in sterile rooms that none may enter.
Draw your pen from stone. Write the day.

 

Fall

In a castle open to the stars,
a girl, neither princess nor servant,
sews a coat of leaves, red and gold,
threaded with earthscent, cries of crows.

She can’t remember why, but knows
that, come morning, she will wrap herself close
in its moist rustling, crown her locks with frost,
and step her shadow through chestnut lanes.

Oz Hardwick
Originally published as Poem 337 in HIV Here & Now

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Theology 101: It’s All Plan B

Ever get the feeling that, somehow, your Plan A is out the window, and you’ve slipped into something less that perfect, less than what you hoped or imagine God intended, something that we might call, from a cultural and colloquial perspective, Plan B?

It’s a haunting feeling. It can become oppressive in its strength. After all, Plan B is that alternative strategy we try to apply when Plan A has failed or proved impossible to realize.

But recently it occurred to me that it’s all Plan B.

What God originally intended was Eden: perfect love — between God and man, between man and woman — in a bright and fruitful garden where we could live forever and never die. We were going to do meaningful work, experience joy, and create in imitation of the Creator, building up our beautiful world and bringing forth new life.

But sin, death, and the Fall marred God’s Plan A. All of human history has been affected ever since. So we’ve been living in God’s Plan B: redemption.  

I know Jesus is the Redeemer, and I am so thankful for the way that he has redeemed my life, not only from childhood trauma and loss, but at every stage of my growing into a person. It’s helpful to me to remember that no matter what aspect of my Plan A has gone wrong this week, God has a plan to redeem.

I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my body has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God.

Job 19:25-26

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Wild Color Rioting

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