The Things I Believe
Since I've started blogging, I've fairly regularly shared my favorite hymns, and the last several weeks I've posted them on Saturday night/Sunday morning. This week I'm going to vary a little bit and provide a poem from Bob Benson. This is entitled The Things I Believe and comes from a small devotional/essay book called See You At the House: The Very Best of the Stories He Used to Tell. I found this book largely by accident several years ago and have given away several copies. The book appears to be out of print, though used copies are available from Amazon.
This seemed appropriate to me in light of my link to Tim Challies' discussion of AW Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy.
This seemed appropriate to me in light of my link to Tim Challies' discussion of AW Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy.
The Things I Believe
I have lain in the grass on a soft spring morning
With life chirping and buzzing about me
And these were the things
I said to the buttercups and the crocuses
And sang to the robins.
I’ve walked into a dimly-lit room at night
Illuminated only by the rays of a Donald Duck night light
And these were the things
I whispered over the sleeping forms
Of my little boys.
I was out to the edge for a moment once –
Out where they say you have something
We don’t have a cure for –
And faced with the separation from loved ones,
With uncompleted tasks and unfulfilled dreams,
These were the things that brought me
Warm hope and comfort.
These are the things I believe about God.
I’m more than just toenails and whiskers and elbows
And a social security number
Way down deep inside these are the things that pull me together
And make me a “me.”
I am the measure of the truth I have adopted
And I have believed these things
Until there is no distance between me and them
One by one, I have stripped away the doubts and questions
Until I have possessed these truths
And they have possessed me.
And if you could put your ear
Up tight against my heart
When trials and darkness have stilled me to a whisper
Or if you were there when joy burst forth
In such a loud song that you had to back away –
These are the the things that you would hear
From my voice and
From my very being.
These are the things that are really me,
They are the things that I believe about God.
– Bob Benson
I have lain in the grass on a soft spring morning
With life chirping and buzzing about me
And these were the things
I said to the buttercups and the crocuses
And sang to the robins.
I’ve walked into a dimly-lit room at night
Illuminated only by the rays of a Donald Duck night light
And these were the things
I whispered over the sleeping forms
Of my little boys.
I was out to the edge for a moment once –
Out where they say you have something
We don’t have a cure for –
And faced with the separation from loved ones,
With uncompleted tasks and unfulfilled dreams,
These were the things that brought me
Warm hope and comfort.
These are the things I believe about God.
I’m more than just toenails and whiskers and elbows
And a social security number
Way down deep inside these are the things that pull me together
And make me a “me.”
I am the measure of the truth I have adopted
And I have believed these things
Until there is no distance between me and them
One by one, I have stripped away the doubts and questions
Until I have possessed these truths
And they have possessed me.
And if you could put your ear
Up tight against my heart
When trials and darkness have stilled me to a whisper
Or if you were there when joy burst forth
In such a loud song that you had to back away –
These are the the things that you would hear
From my voice and
From my very being.
These are the things that are really me,
They are the things that I believe about God.
– Bob Benson
posted by Taliesin at 8:12 PM
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