Poets and Sunsets

If you look at a sunset anywhere in the world and let the beauty of the sun kissing the day goodbye sink into your memory, it gives you a poet’s mind. If you look at a sunset anywhere in the world and see with clarity the shade of orange and the state of the cloud as a shadow stretches taut, it gives you a prophet’s vision. If you look at a sunset anywhere in the world and hope in the sunrise coming, it gives you a disciple’s heart.

 Poets and prophets live in all of us. It is becoming faithful in loving God that makes poets and prophets disciples. Becoming a disciple means becoming a servant and trusting the spirit will come like the sunrise. All of us are born with everything we need to make the journey. Everyone can see visions: Visions are sight, filled with grace. Everyone can be a poet: Poets are people who see visions and are willing to bear witness to them. Everyone can be a Prophet: Prophets are people who are willing to speak the truth of their visions to the world. But to become a disciple, a hopeful servant of a loving God, takes us a lifetime of sunsets.

We could write poetry forever about the subtly of the pink in sunsets but if we are not caring for the creation, we are wasting precious paper. We could preach forever, railing against the injustices of the principalities, but if we are not acting to ease one another’s burdens, the words are hollow and self-serving. The story of becoming servants of God is unfolding in the great span of time before and after sunsets. It is the story of a practice of love lived out in our individual and communal life.