Symbols

While I am attracted to poetry and cannot help but dabble in the creation of it at times, I know the results of my efforts are feeble attempts at a form of expression that goes beyond my abilities.  Yet, still I work with it.  There is an inner compulsion to the dabbling.  As I was reading in "Anam Cara,"  a book on Celtic spirituality by John O'Donohue, I found an explanation for that compulsion when I read the words, "The symbol never gives itself completely to the light."  Poetry  is a verbal medium that invokes the imagination.    

Our spiritual history is full of symbols.  From the first pages of the Word to the final benediction symbols abound.  They seem to hover over every page.  They point us to what we cannot see and to things that are filled with holy mystery.   And, of course, holy mystery is not something which will ever fit inside our definitions and our finite understandings of the the holy things.  It may also be the reason I find myself so drawn to John's gospel.  There is so much within those words that leave us with no choice except to sit and ponder.    

As O'Donohue wrote,  spiritual symbols never give themselves completely to the light.  They always leave us with things to ponder.  These holy symbols enable us to use our imagination to engage the Holy Word.  Perhaps, this is a part of the reason Jesus used parables and why we find ourselves so intrigued with them.  They are an invitation to "Go figure" as one of my clergy friends used to say.  The symbols within poetry do the same.  And, the figuring of one person is never exactly the same as another which merely speaks to the way God has made us and given us our own unique walk.