One of my best classes in university was Advanced Poetry. Just 5 girls, a teacher, and me. They were English majors, and I was a Psych major. I learned a lot about rhyme & cadence, and imagery & imagination.
One of the great Romantic poets I studied was John Keats, who in 1817 wrote a letter to his brothers articulating a concept that I have found helpful in life and ministry. He called it “Negative Capability,” which he defined as the ability to be “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Negative Capability" involves: Being comfortable with uncertainty and patient before action.
I have discovered that to live efficiently and to minister effectively requires a significant amount of this capability. For Christians living in a modern, decadent culture, we must be resilient in uncertain times, always maintaining an optimism based on Biblical realism.
The Bible provides for us that which is ideal and that which is real, and that is because the Bible tells us what is true - that which corresponds to reality. As Lord Byron reminds us; “What is a lie but the truth in masquerade.”
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
Serving Him with you
Until He comes for us, Fred | 