The Contemplative Life
© Mark Pettigrew
To live the contemplative life is something I desire.
To leave behind a legacy that points to something higher.
Yet, practical reality intrudes at every turn.
To balance in-between the two is something I must learn.
The dull, mundane realities I face from day to day
are merely temporary things which soon will pass away.
The thing which makes a life worthwhile is what one leaves behind.
And so I focus on the Truth, and discipline my mind.
Some men expire before they die; they’re merely marking time.
I pray my growth will never cease, for that would be a crime.
I soak up knowledge like a sponge, I thirst for even more.
I want to do a greater thing than what’s been done before.
And when I die, I pray that I will hear the words, “Well done.”
The only praise that really counts is praise from God’s own son.
Yet any praise I might receive is trivial indeed
compared with praise owed to the One who meets my every need.
To live the contemplative life is something I desire.
To leave behind a legacy that points to something higher.
Yet, practical reality intrudes at every turn.
To balance in-between the two is something I must learn.
The dull, mundane realities I face from day to day
are merely temporary things which soon will pass away.
The thing which makes a life worthwhile is what one leaves behind.
And so I focus on the Truth, and discipline my mind.
Some men expire before they die; they’re merely marking time.
I pray my growth will never cease, for that would be a crime.
I soak up knowledge like a sponge, I thirst for even more.
I want to do a greater thing than what’s been done before.
And when I die, I pray that I will hear the words, “Well done.”
The only praise that really counts is praise from God’s own son.
Yet any praise I might receive is trivial indeed
compared with praise owed to the One who meets my every need.
No doubt, some people will think that the above poem is trite, or pretentious, or that it isn't sufficiently "hip" because it actually rhymes. (I personally think that "free verse" is just another term for "prose which is artfully arranged on the page by the typesetter".) Oh, well, you can't please everyone, but as the last few lines make plain, it isn't important to please everyone, anyway. Pleasing God is ultimately all that matters.
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NOTE: To download additional Christ-centered poems I've written (stored online in the form of PDF files which can be downloaded from a public SkyDrive folder), visit this link, then select the poem in which you have an interest, and then click the Download button.
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