Armageddon of Flesh and Spirit

[babylonsfalling]

Be silent my flesh,
be humble and meek.
Give heed to your nature and know you are weak.
Enshrouding the spirit you seek to contain,
bear caution my flesh,
you struggle in vain.

Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed,
be prideful my spirit,
your sin is revealed.

Be still all my children,
and know I am Lord.
The battle is mine and the Word is my Sword.
Exalt in the triumph I give unto you,
be rested my children,
your hearts are made new.

Psalms 46:10
Ezekiel 11:19
Zechariah 2:13

[Jerrybaldy]

Brimstone and treacle. May your God give you an extra big hug as you pass St Peter on your journey to your floating soul. Your postings and your devout worship will not go unseen or unheeded for He reads litnet avidly and likes your punctuation and your christian guilt. He sent fossils to test our faith and all you write has much credibility.
Jerry
Check out the universe.
No other fanatics would be given the respect of the Godsquad.

[tailor STATELY]

Very nice.

Had a problem w/ ref: Ezekiel 26:36; perhaps a typo ?

Have a wonderful Sabbath.

[hillwalker]

The message was completely lost on me (as are the references you list below - you might as well be posting the moves of some invisible chess game).

But as a totally impartial reader I loved the flow and musicality of this - though I did pause to wonder whether the narrator of the first two verses is the same as in the third - my instinct tells me not.

H

[babylonsfalling]

Very nice.

Had a problem w/ ref: Ezekiel 26:36; perhaps a typo ?

Have a wonderful Sabbath.

Thanks for pointing that out. Don't know how it happened but it's more than a type. Should have been...

Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh
to go with the last line of the poem.
Sorry about the confusion....

[Gladys]

...be prideful my spirit,
your sin is revealed.

Why prideful?

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm swept along by your use of the varied first lines, a usage reminiscent of some hymns and spirituals.

In which connection you might enjoy:

http://pjcockrell.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/amazing-grace-just-the-black-notes/

Be patient as it is sometimes slow to load

[Haunted]

Why prideful?

I would go with prideful too.
"be prideful my spirit" is more refined and has a nice cadence , compared to "be proud my spirit". Proud is too pedestrian.

[babylonsfalling]

The message was completely lost on me (as are the references you list below - you might as well be posting the moves of some invisible chess game).

But as a totally impartial reader I loved the flow and musicality of this - though I did pause to wonder whether the narrator of the first two verses is the same as in the third - my instinct tells me not.

H
Psalms 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
refers to the first two lines of the third stanza
The Ezekiel verse was wrong and should have been Ezekiel 11:19,

And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh:
referring to the last line of the last stanza
Zechariah 2:13
Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.
refers to the refers to the first line of the first verse.

The voice in the first stanza is the human spirit (trying to be holy) speaking to human flesh,, trying to keep vices at bay.

The voice in the second stanza is human flesh speaking back to human spirit of the futility of trying resisting temptations.

The voice of the third stanza is God telling everyone to shut up as He is the only One in ultimate control.

I've also renamed it Conversation Between Flesh and Spirit.

[Gladys]

I would go with prideful too.
"be prideful my spirit" is more refined and has a nice cadence , compared to "be proud my spirit". Proud is too pedestrian.

Yes, but proud of what?

[Jerrybaldy]

Avid Skiers sometimes talk off piste. Football fanatics sometimes swap recipes. Alcoholics have the odd lemonade. Musos have been heard to discuss the weather. Sudoko nuts sometimes try the crossword. The Bard had a pop at tragedy, romance and tragedy.

To me your repetitive preachings are just taking up the space of somebody who may want to post anything but this bilge. It fits into a second or two of one degree of free human thought and no doubt you feel that your lines are converting here as you spread the word, to me it belongs elsewhere.

I may as well as bark at the waves I know, but I have checked your profile and you have not commented on a single poem on here. So Man up and admit you have no intention of taking any part in this forum other than your precieved duty to preach to the unconverted you may find here. At least that would be honesty on your part.


The voice of the third stanza is God telling everyone to shut up as He is the only One in ultimate control.

Hmmmmmm.

[babylonsfalling]

Why prideful?

Pride is a type of sin, some believe that all sin starts with pride against God.
What would have there in place of pride?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Avid Skiers sometimes talk off piste. Football fanatics sometimes swap recipes. Alcoholics have the odd lemonade. Musos have been heard to discuss the weather. Sudoko nuts sometimes try the crossword. The Bard had a pop at tragedy, romance and tragedy.

To me your repetitive preachings are just taking up the space of somebody who may want to post anything but this bilge. It fits into a second or two of one degree of free human thought and no doubt you feel that your lines are converting here as you spread the word, to me it belongs elsewhere.

I may as well as bark at the waves I know, but I have checked your profile and you have not commented on a single poem on here. So Man up and admit you have no intention of taking any part in this forum other than your precieved duty to preach to the unconverted you may find here. At least that would be honesty on your part.

.

Hmmmmmm.

As you may have noticed, Dude, I too have a problem with proselytizers, or anyone who proclaims This is the truth, G-damnit! The ONLY truth. You better listen...or else...

But, look, it's their form of poetry, the only or the most beautiful/truthful &c. poetry they know... or care to know.

How much our time does it take to just scan it, give it a silent Yo Mama! - and move on?

[hillwalker]

And I'm just as guilty - of trying to convert him from a preacher to a poet.

[Gladys]

What would have there in place of pride?

How about the following?


Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed,
for prideful in spirit,
your sin is revealed.

[PrinceMyshkin]

And I'm just as guilty - of trying to convert him from a preacher to a poet.

And I dare say that those of us who love poetry, truly love it, have had our own experience of "God" or sublimity when we are writing at what we feel to be our best!

[babylonsfalling]

How about the following?


Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed,
for prideful in spirit,
your sin is revealed.


Well it seems to flow well but you're still using the word prideful which is what I thought you were questioning in the first place.

I would still leave it as as because it goes with the other lines, reddened below. Also, the speaking voice in that stanza, the voice saying "Be prideful my spirit" is a tempter, it's the sinful flesh speaking/tempting the spirit to be overcome with pride in it's ability to resist sin, to become self righteous in other words. It's the voice of flesh speaking to it's own coexistent flesh....like satan speaking to Adam in the Garden.

Be silent my flesh,
be humble and meek.
Give heed to your nature and know you are weak.
Enshrouding the spirit you seek to contain,
bear caution my flesh,
you struggle in vain.

Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed,
be prideful my spirit,
your sin is revealed.

Be still all my children,
and know I am Lord.
The battle is mine and the Word is my Sword.
Exalt in the triumph I give unto you,
be rested my children,
your hearts are made new.

[NikolaiI]

Avid Skiers sometimes talk off piste. Football fanatics sometimes swap recipes. Alcoholics have the odd lemonade. Musos have been heard to discuss the weather. Sudoko nuts sometimes try the crossword. The Bard had a pop at tragedy, romance and tragedy.

To me your repetitive preachings are just taking up the space of somebody who may want to post anything but this bilge. It fits into a second or two of one degree of free human thought and no doubt you feel that your lines are converting here as you spread the word, to me it belongs elsewhere.

I may as well as bark at the waves I know, but I have checked your profile and you have not commented on a single poem on here. So Man up and admit you have no intention of taking any part in this forum other than your precieved duty to preach to the unconverted you may find here. At least that would be honesty on your part.

.

Hmmmmmm.

A warm welcome to Lit-net. Okay, first, honestly I'm surprised this has gone undeleted by the moderators. Secondly, it is absurd to say that one has to post comments on others' poetry before posting poems oneself. I have seen this said before, and I was thinking of various reasons against it, but actually not until I see it written do I see that there's so many angles this is not true at all, that there's no point in wasting energy arguing for or finding those angles.

I guess it all comes down to one thing: it would be my vote against yours. Or - that is, it would be the sum of everyone's opinions, every member on Lit-net. Now I have seen 2, or 3 people who have commented that they think there's something wrong with posting poems, while not posting comments on other peoples' poetry. So I will be the first vote against it.

And here are some reasons - first, perhaps they are shy. That is, too shy to post comments on other people's poetry. Or - if that is not the reason, perhaps they are busy or uncomfortable about it for any other reason. It is okay with me. This is not the kind of welcome we should give to a new member, or the threatment we should give to anyone.

It is wrong to immediately jump to the worst conclusion - that they are refraining from commenting on others' poetry out of some spiteful or condescending or other negative motive.

If I have some disagreement about someone's philosophy, that does not in any way give me either a reason nor the right to ---

I had to look up at your actual post, Jerry, to see what it was specifically you said, which was that his poetry was bilge. Perhaps in the way you said it seems like you say so much more.

It's like, if you say what specific thing did you say, and it was calling the poetry bilge, it would seem like it was not that much, but there seems to be much more hostility in the post. Now of course that is subjective, and I am all for complete forgiveness if someone oversteps their bounds, or is rude, or is hurtful. In other words, shrugging off the injury as though it is nothing, this is certainly something I understand.

This is not a good way to treat someone as a welcome.

Sorry if I've gone on too long and I feel I have.

So regardless,

Babylonsfalling,

warmest welcome to Lit-net, hope you consider this your welcome. Hope you like it here, thanks for coming and joining our community.

It's an international community, with people from nearly every place of the globe, and from every religion and many without any religion.

Anyway, there's no rule that you have to post comments on other people's poetry. I've heard a few people say things about this, using it as a moral grounds against them. There's no reason for that kind of unfriendliness. Hope you don't take it to heart.

About your poetry, I liked a lot of your early poetry more, I'm sorry if I didn't post then. Then I kind of thought you were just copying Bible verses, so there were a few I didn't really read closely.

On this poetry, I like the third verse. In the first two I do have a disagreement with your philosophy: that is, and this is very important I believe, I disagree with the Christian use of the idea of total depravity or original sin. That is, I disagree with the idea of saying that there is inherently anything weak in our bodies, that being in flesh binds us to flesh. To say that there's inherently something sinful in our existence is to say that it's inevitable in our lives. To say this, ever, at all, itself is the only thing you could do that is sinful.

Weakness is the only sin, and to say that we are weak therefore only makes us sinful. I know you may disagree but trust me, there's a direct and nearly absolute connection there. I only say nearly because nothing in the relative world is absolute - though there does exist an Absolute, and that the relative world really is a reflection of it, and that it does have the capacity to evolve in to the perfection of the Absolute.

The body is not weak, is not evil, is not sinful - it is divinely beautiful. The cells in our body are the most beautiful pattern of energy that has ever been created. The cells in the body of a bird are also this exactly same, most beautiful pattern of energy that's ever been created. Cells - atoms, formation of galaxies, pebbles on the sand, the ocean, mountains and rock-spires, ponds in trees in temperate climates - every one of these is the same beautiful pattern of energy. Each is a universe, with the same rules - existence, growth, experience, etc., and at the highest level of the 'experience' is the divine experience, the divine consciousness, divine knowledge, peace and bliss. It is the divine consciousness that is God.

The body is not weak or sinful but is a beautiful, as creative, as perfect, as any creation in the universe. We search for everything and ultimately behind every search is the search for the complete understanding of that beauty, and of the bliss and peace of our existence, the highest peace we can attain - but the clue is that it's always around us, it's always with us from birth. It's that we came to it and will return to it, and that at every moment in between, we are with it.

It is that self-knowledge is the highest knowledge. Knowledge of other things help us become aware, and knowledge is good, it is fruitful, it is nourishing, but self-knowledge is not dependent on any level of worldly knowledge.

Self-knowledge is the final goal because that's when you feel more of your existence. Self-knowledge is feeling your own existence, and knowing your own existence, that is, knowing the range of your existence. Knowing the vastness of your unconscious, and of your conscious.

Anyway you have your own ideas, experiences, knowledge, and all of these valuable. Who you are is who you are today, and each day is new and everything in your life is new each day. You have reliance upon that which you rely on, and you give strength everything which you are connected to. I have mine and also do, and every person alive also gives strength to every other.

[zoolane]

Personal I think it own personal experiences and your beliefs that make you who are. That what poetry is about put your ideas into words. It up the reader to interpretation how they what to.

[Jerrybaldy]

Nik
If only I could ever be arsed to read that much rhetoric.

[hillwalker]

Oops - I seem to have strayed onto the Religion Forum.

[NikolaiI]

Anyone who joins has the right to post on the poetry thread, H. And if someone posts something you disagree with, responding with a hateful/hostile post in the attempt to run them off with your hostility is not the way we should be behaving. And if when I put a post here defending the person, I get hateful PMs, well, I guess you can blame that on me, can't you?

[Gladys]

I would still leave it as as because it goes with the other lines, reddened below ... It's the voice of flesh speaking to it's own coexistent flesh....like satan speaking to Adam in the Garden.

I gather you are using "Be" and other imperatives in two ways but, for me, your usage seems ambiguous. I am unclear whether God's Spirit or The Tempter is educing each command. The Spirit's influence I show below in white, Satan's in black, and uncertain influences in magenta.


Be silent my flesh,
be humble and meek.
Give heed to your nature and know you are weak.
Enshrouding the spirit you seek to contain,
bear caution my flesh,
you struggle in vain.

Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed,
be prideful my spirit,
your sin is revealed.

Be still all my children,
and know I am Lord.
The battle is mine and the Word is my Sword.
Exalt in the triumph I give unto you,
be rested my children,
your hearts are made new.



At first, I read all your imperatives as internal monologue, whispers of the Holy Spirit, making be prideful incongruous. Now only the last verse remains clearly the God's voice. If Satan's one and only whisper occurs in be prideful my spirit, the second verse might be rendered:


Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed.
Be prideful in spirit?
Your sin lies revealed!


And why not, for clarity, rewrite the last verse in the third rather than first person singular?


Be still all His children,
and know He is Lord.
The battle is His and the Word is His Sword.
Exalt in the triumph He gives unto you,
be rested His children,
your hearts are made new.

[babylonsfalling]

I gather you are using "Be" and other imperatives in two ways but, for me, your usage seems ambiguous. I am unclear whether God's Spirit or The Tempter is educing each command. The Spirit's influence I show below in white, Satan's in black, and uncertain influences in magenta.


Be silent my flesh,
be humble and meek.
Give heed to your nature and know you are weak.
Enshrouding the spirit you seek to contain,
bear caution my flesh,
you struggle in vain.

Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed,
be prideful my spirit,
your sin is revealed.

Be still all my children,
and know I am Lord.
The battle is mine and the Word is my Sword.
Exalt in the triumph I give unto you,
be rested my children,
your hearts are made new.



At first, I read all your imperatives as internal monologue, whispers of the Holy Spirit, making be prideful incongruous. Now only the last verse remains clearly the God's voice. If Satan's one and only whisper occurs in be prideful my spirit, the second verse might be rendered:


Be wary my spirit,
be never deceived.
Your power in battle is wrongly perceived.
Your trappings of strength are but weakness concealed.
Be prideful in spirit?
Your sin lies revealed!


And why not, for clarity, rewrite the last verse in the third rather than first person singular?


Be still all His children,
and know He is Lord.
The battle is His and the Word is His Sword.
Exalt in the triumph He gives unto you,
be rested His children,
your hearts are made new.


The voice in the first stanza is the higher spirit of a human being telling it's sinful flesh to calm down. It shows man trying to be unsinful.

The voice in the second stanza is flesh responding...telling our spirit to be cautious and wary...that we are not really strong enough to conquer the lusts of the flesh.

The voice in the third stanza is God's voice telling them both to shut up and understand that He is in control.

Three voices...one in each stanza. The voice of our spirit speaking to our flesh, then the voice of our flesh responding to our spirit, and lastly the voice of God speaking to both.

[billl]

I now see the OP's intention, but the difficulty here is real. Beginning a new stanza is not (for a first-time reader) sufficient warning that there is a new narrator/point of view.

Obviously, something was going on that wasn't adding up within a single narrative voice, and maybe the Biblical cues were good enough clues... I don't know.

[billl]

This poem actually seems to go from Extreme Humility to Extreme Vanity (i.e., equating with God). If people want to do that, this might be a good poem to get them in the mood, but I think such experiments should be limited, and other approaches should be sought when exploring spirituality (or when returning from such explorations). Or at least some sense of caution/perspective should sneak in somewhere... (Just an opinion!) I think it is natural that strangers might be confused or taken aback by such an ambitious/haughty stance.

[hillwalker]

Anyone who joins has the right to post on the poetry thread, H. And if someone posts something you disagree with, responding with a hateful/hostile post in the attempt to run them off with your hostility is not the way we should be behaving. And if when I put a post here defending the person, I get hateful PMs, well, I guess you can blame that on me, can't you?

You have obviously failed to read any of my previous responses to this member's other poems; praising his efforts and trying to encourage more 'poetic' input.

Hostility? - Hateful PMs?
Well - neither apply to me. If someone else is giving you a hard time it's no real wonder, but keep ME out of it if you wouldn;t mind.

H

[babylonsfalling]

Thanks.
That was much more a theological critique than anything else, but that's good too.
So you think people are born sinless and acquire sin later?...or that there is no sin at all?
The Christians I know believe that all are born sinful, which is supported by the Bible. One could say that it's not our fault that we're born that way but "it is what it is".
The concept of "sin" may not be correctly used sometimes. I don't think it means a person is diabolically evil, just that it means we're all short of Godly perfection....by an immeasurable distance, infinitely greater than even the distance between an amoeba and a human.



A warm welcome to Lit-net. Okay, first, honestly I'm surprised this has gone undeleted by the moderators. Secondly, it is absurd to say that one has to post comments on others' poetry before posting poems oneself. I have seen this said before, and I was thinking of various reasons against it, but actually not until I see it written do I see that there's so many angles this is not true at all, that there's no point in wasting energy arguing for or finding those angles.

I guess it all comes down to one thing: it would be my vote against yours. Or - that is, it would be the sum of everyone's opinions, every member on Lit-net. Now I have seen 2, or 3 people who have commented that they think there's something wrong with posting poems, while not posting comments on other peoples' poetry. So I will be the first vote against it.

And here are some reasons - first, perhaps they are shy. That is, too shy to post comments on other people's poetry. Or - if that is not the reason, perhaps they are busy or uncomfortable about it for any other reason. It is okay with me. This is not the kind of welcome we should give to a new member, or the threatment we should give to anyone.

It is wrong to immediately jump to the worst conclusion - that they are refraining from commenting on others' poetry out of some spiteful or condescending or other negative motive.

If I have some disagreement about someone's philosophy, that does not in any way give me either a reason nor the right to ---

I had to look up at your actual post, Jerry, to see what it was specifically you said, which was that his poetry was bilge. Perhaps in the way you said it seems like you say so much more.

It's like, if you say what specific thing did you say, and it was calling the poetry bilge, it would seem like it was not that much, but there seems to be much more hostility in the post. Now of course that is subjective, and I am all for complete forgiveness if someone oversteps their bounds, or is rude, or is hurtful. In other words, shrugging off the injury as though it is nothing, this is certainly something I understand.

This is not a good way to treat someone as a welcome.

Sorry if I've gone on too long and I feel I have.

So regardless,

Babylonsfalling,

warmest welcome to Lit-net, hope you consider this your welcome. Hope you like it here, thanks for coming and joining our community.

It's an international community, with people from nearly every place of the globe, and from every religion and many without any religion.

Anyway, there's no rule that you have to post comments on other people's poetry. I've heard a few people say things about this, using it as a moral grounds against them. There's no reason for that kind of unfriendliness. Hope you don't take it to heart.

About your poetry, I liked a lot of your early poetry more, I'm sorry if I didn't post then. Then I kind of thought you were just copying Bible verses, so there were a few I didn't really read closely.

On this poetry, I like the third verse. In the first two I do have a disagreement with your philosophy: that is, and this is very important I believe, I disagree with the Christian use of the idea of total depravity or original sin. That is, I disagree with the idea of saying that there is inherently anything weak in our bodies, that being in flesh binds us to flesh. To say that there's inherently something sinful in our existence is to say that it's inevitable in our lives. To say this, ever, at all, itself is the only thing you could do that is sinful.

Weakness is the only sin, and to say that we are weak therefore only makes us sinful. I know you may disagree but trust me, there's a direct and nearly absolute connection there. I only say nearly because nothing in the relative world is absolute - though there does exist an Absolute, and that the relative world really is a reflection of it, and that it does have the capacity to evolve in to the perfection of the Absolute.

The body is not weak, is not evil, is not sinful - it is divinely beautiful. The cells in our body are the most beautiful pattern of energy that has ever been created. The cells in the body of a bird are also this exactly same, most beautiful pattern of energy that's ever been created. Cells - atoms, formation of galaxies, pebbles on the sand, the ocean, mountains and rock-spires, ponds in trees in temperate climates - every one of these is the same beautiful pattern of energy. Each is a universe, with the same rules - existence, growth, experience, etc., and at the highest level of the 'experience' is the divine experience, the divine consciousness, divine knowledge, peace and bliss. It is the divine consciousness that is God.

The body is not weak or sinful but is a beautiful, as creative, as perfect, as any creation in the universe. We search for everything and ultimately behind every search is the search for the complete understanding of that beauty, and of the bliss and peace of our existence, the highest peace we can attain - but the clue is that it's always around us, it's always with us from birth. It's that we came to it and will return to it, and that at every moment in between, we are with it.

It is that self-knowledge is the highest knowledge. Knowledge of other things help us become aware, and knowledge is good, it is fruitful, it is nourishing, but self-knowledge is not dependent on any level of worldly knowledge.

Self-knowledge is the final goal because that's when you feel more of your existence. Self-knowledge is feeling your own existence, and knowing your own existence, that is, knowing the range of your existence. Knowing the vastness of your unconscious, and of your conscious.

Anyway you have your own ideas, experiences, knowledge, and all of these valuable. Who you are is who you are today, and each day is new and everything in your life is new each day. You have reliance upon that which you rely on, and you give strength everything which you are connected to. I have mine and also do, and every person alive also gives strength to every other.