Some choice we have ...

Monday, April 7, 2014. Yesterday I have been listening to a poetry slam. It was a young women who, in a lecture hall full of young and old people, presented a poem about her feelings and her thoughts … A fantastic performance!

You have a choice …

We really have a choice to do what we want. We have a choice to do, what is right. We have a choice to change the world. This change will not necessarily come because we are so powerful. We will usually find others who are in power, and who follow their particular personal goals. But we can make a difference by what we say, what we feel, what we do.

I was really impressed by the authenticity of the poems. Of course, the young women who performed, had quite some experience. She had already been an actress in a TV series - she knew how to stand in front of a camera, and how to behave in front of an audience. But still - she did very well!

It is not so much the form, though the form is important. It is more the content, which has touched my heart and reached into my mind. I got excited about a little poem (no so little in fact, it took about 4 minutes to perform). It is as if the poetry slams recovers an old art, which has found enthusiasts over many centuries.

Faith …

I thought that the poems I listened to yesterday came close to what the New Testaments tell us, though they did not fully reach the spirit of Jesus. They talked about love and meaning, about being serious and courageous. They talked about being there for one another. They talked about the courage to step out of well-set ways - and exploring a fantastic world.

Following faith is such an adventure. It is exploring this world, and exploring a great God. It is about finding a home, in the middle our daily challenges. It is about a heavenly father, who wants us and searches us. It is about the great love of our life, which is much deeper and much wider than humans ever can be. We need courage to come to the Lord. And we need trust to live with him, to be changed by him, by his truth and purity and love.

We have a choice, ever single moment we have a choice. And when we find the courage to talk to the Lord in prayer, we will experience his presence and his possibilities as if we would discover a new world, which is in and around and beyond this world. And we have the choice to follow his spirit and live the way he has shown us: being fully authentic and full of faith. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts