Scripture Is Poetry Because Life Is Too Large for Prose
The cocoon, the acorn, the Beatitudes, and the mystery of becoming
Some of the most profound passages in Scripture are also some of the most beautiful.
The creation story.
Ecclesiastes 3.
The Psalms.
The prophets.
The Beatitudes.
We know many of these passages so well that their beauty can actually become a problem. We become comfortable with the poetry and fail to see the existential truth hiding inside it.
“In the beginning God created…”
“There is a time to be born, and a time to die…”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
Beautiful words.
But they are not merely beautiful words.
They are attempting to tell us something about what it means to be human.
And sometimes truth has to become poetry because ordinary language isn't large enough to contain it.
The Creation Story Is Also Our Story
Genesis begins with chaos.
Darkness.
Formlessness.
An abyss.
And then God speaks.
“Let there be light.”
Something begins emerging from nothing.
Chaos becomes order.
Darkness becomes light.
The waters separate.
Dry ground appears.
Seeds become plants.
The earth begins producing life.
And finally:
“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”
— Genesis 1:26
We can spend enormous amounts of time arguing about the mechanics of creation and completely miss the existential beauty of the story.
God brings life from chaos.
And He is still doing it.
Including within us.
There are places inside every human being that remain tohu va-bohu—formless and empty.
Places where light has not yet penetrated.
Places waiting for God to say again:
Let there be light.
That is creation.
But it is also transformation.
Perhaps creation never completely stopped.
Perhaps God is still creating us.
There Is a Season for Everything
Then we arrive at Ecclesiastes:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
A time to be born.
A time to die.
A time to plant.
A time to uproot.
A time to weep.
A time to laugh.
A time to mourn.
A time to dance.
Again, beautiful poetry.
We read it at weddings and funerals.
We put it on plaques.
But Qoheleth isn't decorating our lives with pleasant words.
He is describing the existential reality of being alive.
You will gain things.
You will lose things.
You will love people.
You will lose people.
Your body will grow stronger.
Eventually it will grow weaker.
You will build things that someday someone else may tear down.
You will experience moments when God seems extraordinarily close and moments when heaven seems strangely silent.
There will be dancing.
And there will be mourning.
The wisdom isn't learning how to avoid half the poem.
The wisdom is learning how to become fully human through all of it.
The Cocoon
I sometimes think we have misunderstood transformation because we imagine it primarily as self-improvement.
Become nicer.
Become more religious.
Control our behavior.
Go to church more.
Read more Scripture.
Pray more.
All worthwhile things.
But Scripture uses a much more radical word.
Paul writes:
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
— Romans 12:2
The Greek word is metamorphoō.
Metamorphosis.
The same idea from which we get our word describing what happens inside a cocoon.
A caterpillar doesn't become a better caterpillar.
It becomes something it could barely have imagined.
A butterfly.
That may be closer to the Christian understanding of transformation.
God isn't merely trying to improve the person we have constructed.
He is calling forth the person He created.
That is the journey I call Soulprint.
The Acorn Doesn't Look Like an Oak
Consider an acorn.
Hold one in your hand.
Nothing about it looks particularly impressive.
Yet somehow encoded within that tiny seed is the possibility of an enormous oak tree.
Branches.
Leaves.
Shade.
Roots stretching through the earth.
Perhaps hundreds of years of life.
The oak is somehow already hidden inside the acorn.
But the acorn cannot become an oak sitting on a shelf.
It requires soil.
Water.
Sunlight.
Time.
And something else we don't talk about nearly enough:
The acorn has to cease being an acorn.
Its shell must break.
The seed must open.
The form that protected it must eventually surrender itself so that the life hidden inside it can emerge.
Jesus understood this:
“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
— John 12:24
Nature has been preaching resurrection since the beginning.
Seeds disappear into darkness and emerge as life.
Caterpillars disappear into cocoons and emerge with wings.
Perhaps some things we call endings are actually beginnings we cannot yet recognize.
But What About the Soil?
This is where the metaphor becomes more complicated.
Because seeds don't grow equally everywhere.
Jesus tells a story about a farmer scattering seed.
Some lands on a path.
Some among rocks.
Some among thorns.
Some in good soil.
The same seed.
Different soil.
And dramatically different outcomes.
We have some ability to cultivate the soil of our souls.
We choose what we read.
What we watch.
Who influences us.
What voices we listen to.
Whether we cultivate resentment or gratitude.
Whether we practice contemplation or constant distraction.
Whether we forgive.
Whether we remain curious.
Whether we become hardened.
These choices matter.
Free will matters.
Spiritual practice matters.
But then life asks us a much harder question.
What about people who never received good soil?
The Unequal Soil of Human Existence
This is where simplistic spirituality begins to break down.
We are not all born into the same circumstances.
Some children are born into loving homes.
Others into violence.
Some receive excellent educations.
Others struggle simply to attend school.
Some inherit wealth.
Others inherit debt.
Some grow up surrounded by books, mentors, opportunity, safety, and encouragement.
Others begin life in poverty where nearly every decision carries consequences those of us with resources rarely have to consider.
It would be spiritually dishonest to pretend that every human being possesses exactly the same choices.
They don't.
Poverty reduces choices.
Trauma reduces choices.
War reduces choices.
Disease reduces choices.
Social structures can reduce choices.
Where you are born can determine possibilities you never consciously chose.
And yet here is one of the great mysteries of the human soul:
People with remarkably few external choices sometimes discover an internal freedom that people with enormous wealth never find.
And people who possess nearly everything sometimes remain desperately unhappy.
Why?
Because there are things money can purchase, and there are things it cannot.
Money can buy comfort.
It cannot guarantee peace.
Money can buy entertainment.
It cannot guarantee joy.
Money can buy a magnificent house.
It cannot make it a home.
Money can buy access.
It cannot buy belonging.
Money can buy the finest mattress in the world.
It cannot guarantee sleep.
And money can surround us with people without giving us a single genuine friend.
Perhaps this is why Jesus says something that sounds almost absurd to modern ears.
Blessed Are…
Jesus climbs a hillside, sits down, and begins teaching:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
“Blessed are those who mourn…”
“Blessed are the meek…”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”
Again:
Poetry.
Beautiful poetry.
But beneath the poetry is an explosive understanding of human existence.
Jesus is turning the world's hierarchy upside down.
The world says:
Blessed are the powerful.
Blessed are the wealthy.
Blessed are the winners.
Blessed are the admired.
Blessed are those who never need anyone.
Jesus looks at the broken, grieving, humble, merciful, hungry, persecuted people sitting around Him and says:
Ashray.
Blessed.
Flourishing.
Walking the right path.
Not because poverty is good.
Not because suffering is good.
Not because mourning is pleasant.
But because circumstances the world calls failure do not determine the condition or ultimate value of the soul.
That is revolutionary.
Maybe Happiness Is the Wrong Word
We spend enormous amounts of energy trying to become happy.
Perhaps happiness is too small a goal.
Happiness often depends upon what happens.
The word itself hints at circumstance—hap, chance, happening.
Jesus seems to be talking about something deeper.
Flourishing.
Wholeness.
A life rooted deeply enough that circumstances cannot completely determine its meaning.
The oak survives storms because of what happened beneath the ground long before the storm arrived.
Roots.
The invisible life beneath the visible life.
And perhaps this is where much spiritual wisdom ultimately leads us.
Pay attention to your roots.
What Are You Allowing Into Your Soil?
Every day something is being planted in us.
News.
Fear.
Advertising.
Anger.
Scripture.
Beauty.
Resentment.
Gratitude.
Social media.
Prayer.
Comparison.
Love.
Silence.
We become, in part, the soil we cultivate.
Jesus said:
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
— Matthew 6:21
Maybe we could say it another way:
Show me what you continually plant in your soul, and eventually I will show you what grows there.
That doesn't mean we control everything that happens to us.
Ecclesiastes destroys that illusion.
There is a time to be born and a time to die.
There are seasons we choose.
And there are seasons that choose us.
The spiritual question is not:
How do I control every season?
It is:
What kind of person am I becoming within this season?
The Soulprint
That question lies near the center of The Soulprint Project.
I don't believe the spiritual journey is primarily about constructing a new identity.
I think it is about discovering, recovering, and becoming the person God created us to be.
Imago Dei.
The image of God.
The Soulprint.
Like the oak hidden inside the acorn, there is something within us that precedes our résumé, our possessions, our failures, our successes, our wounds, and the identities the world has assigned us.
But becoming that person requires transformation.
And transformation sometimes requires the cocoon.
Darkness.
Waiting.
Uncertainty.
Surrender.
The breaking open of the seed.
Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a season for all of it.
Genesis reminds us that God can bring order from chaos.
The Beatitudes remind us that flourishing is not determined by wealth, power, status, or circumstances.
Jesus reminds us that a seed sometimes has to fall into the earth before its hidden life can emerge.
And Paul reminds us:
Be transformed.
Metamorphosis.
Then How Shall I Live?
Maybe the great spiritual question isn't:
How can I make my life turn out exactly the way I want?
Perhaps it is:
Given the life I have actually been given, how shall I live?
What soil will I cultivate?
What seeds will I plant?
What must I release?
What season am I in?
What darkness must I stop fearing?
What shell must finally break?
What false identity must I surrender?
And what might God already have planted inside me that is still waiting to become?
The caterpillar cannot imagine flight.
The acorn cannot comprehend the oak.
And perhaps we cannot yet imagine what we might become when we finally surrender ourselves to the transforming work of God.
Scripture calls it transformation.
Jesus called it abundant life.
I call the journey Soulprint.
And perhaps the poetry has been trying to tell us this all along:
You are not merely here to survive the seasons of your life.
You are here to become.