Reading for Transformation

In my first teams a few weeks ago, we discussed about all things being spiritual. I think this applies to “Reading for Transformation” because it implies that poetry does not necessarily need to be Biblical for it to be considered spiritually enhancing. We cannot limit ourselves to the Bible alone as our way to feed our souls. I think that poetry is God’s beautiful way of speaking. Because poetry is not so direct in its message at times, it challenges one to really meditate and seek wisdom about what is being said. It challnges you , causes questions to arise, leads to conversation, leads to an escape from “the surface.” “To really enter the world before the text… is to be changed, to come back different, where one does nto come back at all but moves forward into a newness of being. From the genuine encounter with the true in the beautiful one cannot go home again.” To think of poetry as having the potential to be that life changing is rather radical. When I read this quote, I immediately thought of Kim Walker’s version of “How he loves us”. Towards the end of the song, there is a part where she says “Tonight God wants to encounter you. He wants to feel his love, his amazing love. Without it, these are just songs, these are just words, these are just instruments. Without the love of God, we’re just making noise. But the love of God changes us and we’re never the same after you encounter the love of God. And If you’ve never encountered the love of God, you would know. Cus you would never be the same. You would never be the same again.” She then prays that every heart would be open for a love encounter from God that night. I do not like to compare the love of God to poetry, because there is of course nothing worthy. However, it is relatable. Just as our worship and relationship with God can be merely kept at a safe level, still taking in knowledge, just sticking our toes in the water, we can read poetry without really diving in and experiencing its potency. Without reading poetry as transformational, it is just words. We can read it. We can study it. We can even memorize it. But has it ever overwhelmed us? Did we finish with a sense of newness? Are we the exact same? ( I am not inferring that I believe that you should have a life-changing experience with every poem that you read by any means.) Overwhelm being: to empower somebody emotionally, overcome somebody physically, surge over somebody or something I am not sure if this reading and the quote from the song would spark the same connection to anyone else, but it did for me. We become so satisfied with just doing it. Just doing what is necessary. We become okay with getting the same “revelation” from something as everyone else. We probably did not even get this revelation from it personally, but have just heard it from someone else as that being what we were supposed to receive from it. But if this “revelation” really was such a “revelation”, I believe it should be life changing. There is power in words. Therefore, there is power in poetry. Power has potential for transformation.