Daily Presenceনমুনা

I composed the following devotional poem after a writing workshop directed by the former Poet Laureate of Louisiana, who invited participants in a creative writing exercise to close our eyes and recall the imagery of some experience in our past that we associated with a “summer song.” That was easy for me: Immediately, my imagination carried me to the rural church upbringing of my childhood, specifically to the recollection of the imagery—the sights, fragrances, sounds—of a revival meeting on a hot July night in sultry South Louisiana. Here’s the piece that came from that session, entitled “New Zion,” after the name of the church.

If I am anyone

Owes much to where I’ve been.

So be still a while.

Listen.

“Every head bowed, every eye closed.”

And hear the summer song 50 years ago,

After cow milkin’s done.

Sense the fragrance of sturdy folk --

Scrubbed with well water,

Groomed with Wild Root and talcum powder,

As they head to the church house,

A neat frame building dressed in white asbestos slate.

The summer song from sturdy voices

Drifts across the pasture

From windows flung open wide

To hot July:

“Jesus saves, Jesus saves!”

If I am anyone

Owes much to where I’ve been.

This piece came to mind after reading the account of Moses receiving the instructions from God for building the Ark of the Covenant, because the Ark was a symbol to Old Testament Jews of God’s presence. In fact, they believed the Ark was literally a place where God was present. And for me, the New Zion church is a symbol, a monument in my memory, to my earliest awareness of God’s presence when I was an elementary-aged child.

I know now, as we all know from the full revelation of Truth in the New Testament, that God doesn’t need us to provide Him a physical place so he can hang out with us. He desires space for his presence in our hearts, and that’s far superior to any physical space we could construct or design for Him.

At the same time, God also instilled an impulse within us to consecrate as holy the association and memory of specific places where we experienced significant, life-changing, encounters with God and His Holy Spirit. We do well to remember those places and to preserve those memories as place holders of the high spiritual moments and seasons that lead us into the presence of the Almighty.