I Cannot Think Unless I Have Been Thought

 Poems by J. Steve Bruner

I cannot think unless I have first been thought.
I cannot speak unless I have first been spoken.

There is a Mind behind the mind from which I see,
a Wisdom I did not discover
that somehow keeps discovering me.

I cannot teach except that which I have first been taught.
I cannot break the bread
unless I have first received Communion.

I cannot love
unless I have first been loved.

I cannot forgive
unless somewhere within me
I have tasted forgiveness.

I cannot awaken
unless Someone has already whispered my name
into the darkness.

I cannot seek God
unless God has first been seeking me.

I cannot hunger for eternity
unless eternity has somehow been planted within me.

I cannot recognize beauty
unless Beauty has left its fingerprints upon my soul.

I cannot hear the music
unless somewhere beyond the silence
there is a Song.

I cannot long for home
unless there is a Home
for which I was made.

I cannot know myself
unless I have first been known.

I cannot become
unless somewhere in the mind of God
I already am.

Perhaps this is the mystery of being created
in the image of God:

that my deepest thoughts
are echoes,

my greatest loves
are reflections,

my hunger for meaning
is remembrance,

and my longing for God
is God longing within me.

There is a Mind behind my mind,
a Breath beneath my breathing,
a Word beneath my words,
a Light behind my seeing,
a Love beneath my loving,
a Life beneath my living.

And perhaps the great journey of the soul
is not becoming someone I have never been,

but awakening to the One
who thought of me
before I could think,

who knew me
before I could know,

who loved me
before I could love,

and who whispered my secret name
before there was a world
to call me anything else.

I cannot think
unless I have first been thought.

And perhaps that is why I am here:

to spend this brief and beautiful life
discovering the Thought
God had
when He thought of me.