Saturday, February 25, 2006

A Day at Home

Sitting in the warm room,
Rain patters the cloudy glass
A symbol of the piercing cold beyond.
Warmth envelops me as I stare.
Cosiness covers my body and yet,
The sight before me chills my bones.
Amidst the comfort, I sneeze.
A snuffle, a sniffle while resting
In the hazy orange light.
I look out unto the night:

Dark now, a faint pittering of rain
Tells me what is happening beyond.
Miniature streams full of ambition
Run down the driveway together.
Pinpricks of light, street-lamps,
Or are they something else?
A dark form; the car just visible
And the sight seems to me so miserable.

The sickness ravages my head.
My throat burns
As my stomach churns.

The ethereal lights bring me back.
I gaze out the window
From my sheltered seat
Mystical, magical lights guide the way.
Brighten the road for the raindrops,
Showing them the way to freedom.
As I sit in hypnosis I shiver,
Imagining the coldness of the river.

Yet I am detached, removed.
In an obscure, sickness-ridden mind,
I want to be a glint of light
Among the millions, but I am held back.
My legs betray my demands,
My arms disobey and stay still.
As I sit in the warmth and heat,
The coldness is in here around my seat.


I wrote this poem a few years ago, at a time when I felt helpless about the world and my purpose in it. I saw other people doing incredible works for God and I was caught up in my own comfort and lack of responsibility. It was a form of paralysis. I recognised who God was but I wasn't able to do anything about it. I later realised that only God could do something about it, I just had to let Him. To succeed, I had to stop trying to by myself. To be free, I had to become a slave. To be victorious, I had to surrender. Which is what God made me do in the end.

So the paralysis didn't last, God moved me on. Shortly after that, I became involved in Limerick's Christian youth group, Awakenings. I'm now a youth worker on the team of leaders for it. But since then, I've become involved in a lot of different Christian activities. At this moment in time, I've been re-assessing a lot of stuff that's been on my mind. I've been stretching myself a bit thinly over the last two weeks but reading this poem reminded me of the magnitude of the commitment I've made and part of the reason why I made it. And why I'm going to keep running the race...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Again, Sam, I didn't know you where that good at English! And that having been written "a few years ago"! Wow!

It's really cool to hear how far you've come in the last few years! Unfortunately, I've missed a lot of the change since I've only really known you since the start of Uni.