Constantly Risking Absurdity

Lawrence Ferlinghetti has this poignant poem about being a poet that starts: "Constantly risking absurdity/and death whenever he performs / above the heads of his audience / the poet like an acrobat / climbs on rime / to a high-wire of his own making..."

It goes on to talk about how the poet's a "the super realist / who must perforce perceive /taut truth / before the taking of each stance or step /in his supposed advance / toward that still higher perch / where Beauty stands and waits /with gravity..." I won't post the whole thing, but you can read it here if you want to relive the old High School Lit. days. Really, brilliant stuff.

I hear this poem ringing in my head sometimes when I'm in the depths (or on the heights, as the case may be) of sermon preparation. With only a few very vital differences (differences that make all the difference), what Ferlinghetti says about the poet could equally be said of the preacher: "Constantly risking absurdity / and death whenever he proclaims / above the heads of his audience / the preacher like an acrobat / climbs on wind [i.e. ruach] / to a high-wire of no man's making..." And, of course it's not Beauty who waits on the other side of day, but Him from whom beauty itself derives its name.

Some times I feel very sharply the risk of absurdity, and death (though of course this, too, is absurd, for it's not physical death but a deeper death to self that is no real death at all)-- but as I was saying-- I feel that risk sharply sometimes. And sometimes I feel like I'm waving my arms frantically just to keep from slipping off the tightrope altogether. But some other times I feel the exhiliration of having taken just one more tentative step towards the "other side of day."