The Edge of Your Old Known World

Listen to these words of secular poet David Whyte, and see if you think he hasn't discovered God-ordered truths... about the longing of the heart to find a unique contribution in the world.

Think poetry... creativity... imagination... (not precise theology :)

"The soul is that part of the human attempting to belong to the largest story it can. The soul is not interested in success or failure and doesn't care two cents about your career, your successes, or even the latest medical breakthroughs. It only wants to know if it was your failure, your experience, or were you trying to imitate someone else... The most terrifying discovery of all is to discover at midlife that you are not living your life, but someone else's life."

"More than we'd like to think, we all find or put ourselves in small, limited stories, barley vignettes really, the "plot" pretty much limited to keeping safe and secure,m doing what society's rulebook mandates. Soul doesn't figure largely in these narrow, puny tales... You are heir to an endless, fathomless sea of imagination..."

"Give up your foolish attempt to impose order, predictability, and control on existence! It won't work, and it robs you of what's most precious about life. Don't try to know everything in advance, or act only when you're assured it will all work out all right. You don't have to quit your job (necessarily), abandon your loved ones, change your name... all you have to do is go to the end of your old known world--and then, maybe, take the tiniest step forward into the dark."

A sample of Whyte's poetry:

This is not
the age of information.
This is not
the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.
People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.