i am easily affected.

I am so affected by what I read. Not so much that I believe everything I read. Often times I wish I did, because it would mean that I wasn't so cynical.

The tone of the work is what affects me so deeply. I've been reading quite a bit of John Donne's work lately. I love reading his work in the morning. I had a post written about his Meditation XVII, but for now that just sits in the drafts folder.

I can't get this piece out of my head--its called Nativity. I think it is best read slowly.

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.


It is so beautiful. "how He which fills all place, yet none holds Him..."

My favorite phrase of all is "Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go".

This beckons me to love Jesus in a way that I hadn't really considered before. I feel like in Christianity we often view trials in life as places where God will meet us. But this line paints a picture of starting out in safety, and traveling intentionally into exile. And to add proverbial insult to proverbial injury, it begins with a kiss. The kiss symbolizes a strange hybrid of strength and weakness, of authority and of submission, of deep love and of fear, and of union. The dynamic this describes is so different from the picture that has been painted in the past of what it looks like to interact with this person who is God...Jesus.

This poem gives me chills.