Spoken Word Poetry: New MP3 Audio Upload: “The Dividing Line”

It has been way too long since I’ve posted some poetic work for the tickling of your ears. What can I say? 2008 was a year of significant change for me. Obviously, my blogging fell off tremendously as I went through the events of the year. Even so, somewhere within the year, I managed to write new pieces and even perform a time or two.

What you are about to hear is an original piece entitled, “The Dividing Line”. I wrote this piece to assist with kicking off the Fall sermon series at Westlake Bible Church. Special thanks again go to Brad Thomas (Senior Pastor), Don Ellsworth (Worship Pastor), and Eddie Willis (Worship Leader) for taking a risk on someone (me) relatively unknown to them. Oh, and let me not forget to thank Jeff Tucker, who mixed all of this together as we did this live at Westlake.

Now whether you are Christian or not, if you appreciate poetry, I want you to listen to this piece and consider the power of poetry magnified. I don’t say this because I’m some internationally-recognized poet or some great lyricist. Consider how poetry can be packed with so much meaning that it requires a shovel to dig through everything said. I say this because I believe this is one of the more meaningful pieces I’ve had to write. I was challenged to pack in a lot of ideas into the span of five (5) minutes. I greatly struggled with writing this.

Sometimes, in writing poetry, the words just flow and I simply write them out. There’s really no need to think through imagery or structure; the piece just seemingly knocks on the door and I invite it to come in. However, this piece did not come so easily.

The challenge came from the need to craft a coherent story that touched on a number of things. The sermon series followed this notion of chaos to order. There is chaos concerning spirituality. Even within Christian churches, there is chaos and conflict concerning belief and practice. Can order be found through a clear understanding of the truth of Christ and the Bible? Is the Bible reliable? Can Christ be trusted? Was He something more than just a carpenter and a teacher? Is Jesus different than any other religious figure, past or present?

Sometimes, having a title in place helps to get things moving forward. At this time, I can’t honestly remember which came first: the title or the first stanza (or something like a stanza… who knows, given the way I write). Even more, I was under a couple of tight deadlines. That was something a little different for me as a poet. I’ve had to write with deadlines before, but a performance was never part of the plan. Even more, because this was going to be done with a backing track, I needed to have my lyrics done by a certain time.

The Dividing Line: Lo-Fi Version

The Dividing Line: Hi-Fi Version

There’s more to the story behind this piece. I will post the lyrics in another post with some commentary attached. All I can say is this: this was an adventure! Yet, at the end, it was truly satisfying.