Not of This Worldview

Poetry for the Kingdom Among Us

Richard S. Briggs

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781789591583
• eBook ISBN: 9781789591606
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

God is at work among us. The "kingdom of God"—that dynamic, active power that breaks in to the hardest of hearts and places—is on the move. And how may we have eyes to see and ears to hear all that is truly taking place in, with and under the reality of our daily lives?

Here the gift of poetry may come to our aid. In poems that range from loose informality to tight structure, and from the humorous to the sombre, Richard Briggs seeks to let poetry open our eyes and ears to the strange and elusive work of God among us. He seeks out a voice that will let us celebrate the everyday, rejoice in the remarkable, and at the same time will enable us to weep with those who weep. He writes with gentle humour of his own path from zeal towards wisdom, and encourages us to follow.

Life is a gift, and Not of This Worldview offers a response to accompany us wherever we are in the ups and downs of that life—from the mountain top to the pit, as the Psalmists once said, and at all locations in between.

The Strange New World of Genesis 1

Not a translation of Genesis 1, but a celebration of its style

God begins: it’s heaven-and-earth time.

Well the earth was like a wishy-washy mish-mash

And there above the deepest darkest deep

The Spirit-God / the breath of God / the wind of God

Was hushing all the wildness to sleep.

And God said “What we need in here is light”

The light was pretty good, He had to say

He split the light and darkness from each other

And right away He had him night and day.

Pretty good!

What a (night and) day that was

A first day.

A dome was placed amidst the massive waters

To separate the waters from the waters

So that’s . . .

A dome and some separated waters

And water everywhere in watery flow

With water up above the dome

And water underneath the dome

—It was wet (and it was good) and it was so.

That dome needs a name.

Let’s call it heaven.

What a day that was

Day two.

Now the water under heaven over here

Piles up and lets the solid ground appear

Call these gathered waters earth and seas

Then fill the earth richly

And thus it unwinds:

Sprouting things will sprout,

Herbs and seeding things will seed

Trees with fruit

Will do their fruit

According to their need

And all the things with seeds in

Each according to their kinds.

Pretty good!

What a day that was

Day three.

The lights are like the tabernacle lights

The lights that mark the day out from the night

They mark the signs and seasons and the years

And mark the days they lead on out to birth

They fly across the vast expanse of dome-iness

The big light and the small light giving light upon the earth.

Oh and the stars.

The big light and the small light and the stars

Lighting up the dome around the earth.

Pretty good!

What a day that was

Day four.

The swarming things are swarming in the water

The living souls of swarming things are there

The flying things are flying in the water that is sky

And the great sea-monsters underneath are going by

And every living thing,

And now they’re swarming in the water

All the winged flying things according to their kinds

All the flying swarmers are turning up for blessing

And fruitfulness and multiplying swarm and fill the sky.

Pretty good!

What a day that was

Day five.

It’s filling time.

Living creatures fill the earth, each, kind, and so forth

Living things, creeping things, behemoth, earth-fillers

And here they come: beasting, and living, and ground-creeping

And it’s pretty good.

Then Adam, as the image of God

—causing a pause for underlining—

As the image of God He made him

That’s male and female, as He created them

—but enough underlining, as onward we go:

With blessing!

With being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth and subduing it

And dominating the fish

No wait, not just the fish

But the birds in the dome
and all the creeping things on earth

As much as there is to live and fly and creep and breathe—

With a vegan diet thrown in.

Did we leave anything out?

. . . No, we did not.

That’s not just pretty good. It’s really pretty very good.

What a day that was!

Day six.

Dome and planet finished.

Oh and the stars.

God is finished working, God is sabbathing

Call it the seventh day, call it sabbath.

A blessing,

Holiness,

It is done.

And that’s the story of the heavens and the earth.

Did you enjoy it?

Do you want another one?

Take Two: Genesis 2

Retelling the tale as adventure

Man is in need of a mate

Stuff about rivers

And stuff about trees

A God who just loves to create

God made th...

Table of contents

• Prelude
• A Prayer
• The Gift of Eyes to See
• Durham Cathedral
• The Village Church of St Mary the Virgin, Sherburn
• Conversion Takes Its Time
• The Strange New World of Genesis 1
• Take Two: Genesis 2
• Look! The Rhythms of Grace
• Your Kingdom Coming
• Summer Mission Team
• Three Funeral Visits and a Wedding: Parish Life
• How We Brought the Good News to Ghent
• Mid-Week Bible Study
• Not of this Worldview
• Covenant
• Everyone is Always the First
• Reading Behind The Lines
• Watching the American Dream Go By
• Sabbath
• Simple Joy
• Skipping Along to Another Big Story
• Eternal City
• And to Think That We Saw It in Vatican Square
• Sunset in Tuscany
• The Reader and the Wall
• Old and Not Yet Old
• Literally
• The Greatest Bookshop in the World
• The Ordered Life
• St Catherine’s House
• You’ve Got a Friend who’s not in California
• First Class Second Class
• The Song After the Night Before
• Love
• To Keith Green
• The John the Baptist Files
• My Life as the Search for the Perfect Book
• Unexpected Interviews with Holy Men
• Return Visit
• Pharaoh Ponders Brexit
• A Light Psalm
• Assistant Worship Leader Seeks Meaningful Relationship
• Slow
• Memories
• Raffle Winners
• Compassion
• The Promise of Life: Four Vows and a Funeral
• 91“Why Are You Wanting Jimmy Baptized?”
• In Two Minds
• Writing a Sermon
• Hearing a Sermon
• Prayer Walk at Barney
• The Valley of the Shadow
• Portrait of the Zealot as an Old Man: An Autobiography
• Acknowledgements