A Theologian Considers the Consequence REV 11-25-12

[Todd]

A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

Revision 2

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



You, the cloudless day.
Those clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.



The days drone to millennia.

Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.



The sheen on our eyes shifts

as we long to resynchronize

with the limitless.

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.



Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



~~~
Edits from feedback: The second "to" on line two is provisional. I want to look at it for a bit. I moved it back.



Revision

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



You, the cloudless day—
clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each one still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.



The days become millennia.

Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.



We long to resynchronize

with the limitless.

The sheen on our eyes shifts

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.



Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



~~~



Original

You flung the stars like fire-
flies to burn holes
into night’s hunger,
to ignite the shine of galaxies;
dust infused with
the brilliance of your image.

You, the cloudless day—
clouds an afterthought,
a judgement—set aside
the final day to put all at rest
beneath the Tree brought into uniform
motion with your presence.

Our fall,
a sacrifice of light
speed, darkness the event
horizon that made you appear
to slow down.

The days become millennia.
Still you retreat
trapped between
our seconds.

We long to resynchronize
with the limitless.
The sheen on our eyes shifts
to speed past
the horn’s crystal
blast for sound only came first, once.

Our mistake was to believe
that eternity is endless
days, rather than
immutable velocity.

~~~

(Not that I expect anyone to read all the footnotes but I'll leave them there if anyone is interested how this came together)

Footnotes:

Gen. 1:1-3, 14, 26; 1 Jn. 1:5; Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:1-3a; Gen. 3:6-8; 2 Pet. 3:8-9a; 1 Cor. 15:50-52; Rev. 21:23; Rev. 22:5

The speed of light is the same for all observers.
The laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers.
"Uniformly" = "with a constant velocity"
Any uniformly moving observer can consider themselves to be "at rest".
The speed of light is a Universal Constant.
Observers moving relative to each other:
--Do not measure the same times.
--Disagree on what events occur simultaneously.
Space and Time are relative.
United by light into Spacetime.
Only spacetime has an absolute reality independent of the observer.

[billy]

judgement has 2 E's
were i a religious person my feedback would be different i'm sure.
these two lines didn't work that well for me;

dust infused with
the brilliance of your image.
biblically speaking aren't we supposed to be in his image?

other than that i think you did a good job of mixing science with religion.
verse 3, 4, 5, and 6worked really well for me. the 2nd verse feels just a little to much outside the rest of the piece even though you mention uniform motion. (i can't explain why)

the footnotes! not sure they work, non religious people won't be interested in them and those with knowledge of it should be able to see the connections.

the same with the scientific help.

jmo as usual, thanks for the read

[addy]

Fascinating take. The science geek in me is gleeful, and I've always been interested in religion on a philosophical level, so this was really interesting.

I'm probably slow, so the line:
You, the cloudless day—
clouds an afterthought,
a judgement—
is a bit hard for me to tack into the single and very specific image of god as light in the physics sense. But don't get me wrong, it's sounds very beautiful and still works well.

Thanks for the great read.

[Todd]

Billy,

Thank you for the comments. I was reading about M-Theory (strings and stuff) and as I was moving through special relativity I thought of this poem. You don't have to be religious to get it so that's cool (in fact if you were a religious person you might think I was a heretic )

dust infused with
the brilliance of your image.
biblically speaking aren't we supposed to be in his image?

Let me try to answer this question. I'm not necessarily trying to explain the poem it should either fail or succeed without explanation. What I was going for here is what does it mean to be made in the image of God. According to the bible man was made from the dust and had life breathed into him. I used infused purposely because it's a loaded term for how is man righteous (is it inherent or is it as the protestant side would say now is it imputed)...we'll prior to the fall infused probably wins out. Okay too much info ...If God is Light as the bible says what if man being in the image of god means that they take on some of the characteristics of light what if the fall (into darkness) means losing those qualities of light.

Basic idea in a nutshell. Way, Way more than you asked.

I'm usually pretty negative in my god oriented poems (but I have two this one and another one that deal with what does it mean to be in the image of God and they don't strike me as necessarily negative. In the other poem I said the image means that mankind is a namer and can create with words).

Oh well, enough aside...thanks for reading and commenting Billy.

Much appreciated,

Todd

---

Fascinating take. The science geek in me is gleeful, and I've always been interested in religion on a philosophical level, so this was really interesting.

I'm probably slow, so the line:
You, the cloudless day—
clouds an afterthought,
a judgement—
is a bit hard for me to tack into the single and very specific image of god as light in the physics sense. But don't get me wrong, it's sounds very beautiful and still works well.

Thanks for the great read.

Hi Addy, Nice to meet you! Thank you for your comments. I appreciate you taking the time, and I'm glad you liked it. The lines you mentioned (hard to say whether they fail or succeed at this ) are meant to accomplish a couple things:

Introduce god as perfect in a sense

Foreshadow the judgment and the fall of man (clouds tie into Noah ultimately as the text of genesis talks about a mist watering the earth instead of clouds)

Tie in the idea of Sabbath rest and what it symbolized

And introduce the communion between god and humans as being in uniform motion with him

Complicated: YES...maybe too much so.

Thank you again,

Todd

[addy]

Nice to meet you too, Todd! It's such a pleasure reading your posts here. You write beautiful stuff.

Reading that way, it's amazing the layers of meaning you put just in that phrase... and contrary to what I thought, it's not vague at all, at least, not to someone with a basic knowledge of Christianity. Turns out I just confused myself LOL because I was so engrossed with the idea of god being compared to a physical law of a universe (I just loved it so much) that I wasn't able to fully appreciate the Judeo-Christian nuances (which were so very gorgeous, my favorite being the Tree).

[Todd]

Well, I put a revision up. This was a tough one to work with. I hope it's moving forward.

[Todd]

I've modified the revisions for the final time on this pass. Does it work?

[billy]

A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

Revision

You flung the stars like fireflies is 'the' needed?
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.

 this stanza works well on its own
great opening line. the simile works really well and creates a solid image as well as a feeling of something great

You, the cloudless day— again, is 'the' needed?
clouds now forgotten, a judgment should it be judgement, or is that the usa version?
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each one still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.


i think this stanza feels alone, you say that tree, what tree, the tree of knowledge, the capped 'Your' cries out god yet the title cries out a different kind of god than the one we have come to know. the tree takes away from the making of the universe and back into the same old, same old metaphorical garden of adam and eve.

Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.

 now this one works well. it commingles light and god and science.

The days become millennia.

Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.

 this is short and yet i think it embodies the whole idea of god as light.

We long to resynchronize

with the limitless.

The sheen on our eyes shifts

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.



Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



~~~




(Not that I expect anyone to read all the footnotes but I'll leave them there if anyone is interested how this came together)

Footnotes:

Gen. 1:1-3, 14, 26; 1 Jn. 1:5; Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:1-3a; Gen. 3:6-8; 2 Pet. 3:8-9a; 1 Cor. 15:50-52; Rev. 21:23; Rev. 22:5

The speed of light is the same for all observers.
The laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers.
"Uniformly" = "with a constant velocity"
Any uniformly moving observer can consider themselves to be "at rest".
The speed of light is a Universal Constant.
Observers moving relative to each other:
--Do not measure the same times.
--Disagree on what events occur simultaneously.
Space and Time are relative.
United by light into Spacetime.
Only spacetime has an absolute reality independent of the observer.

this is a very well crafted poem. on reading the footnotes. i'm now of a mind they detract from the poem. i just read them and forgot about the poem, i want to walk away pondering the poem, pondering god as light.

all the neg thought i have still don't make this any less of a really good poem (apart from the footnotes.) it's a poem that really does need more than a couple of reads. it's a poem that allows the reader to get as involved in it as much as they wish. a true theologian's poem

good edit. sorry i did feedback i never did before. i sort of seen it in a different light this time

thanks for the edit

[Todd]

Thanks Billy, I agree with you on the footnotes that's why I removed them in the revision. Yeah judgment is the US spelling. I'll hold back on the tree for now. I agree with you on the first the omission. I'll change that now. I'm thinking about the other comments appreciate the feedback a lot.

[Wildcard]

If God is Light as the bible says what if man being in the image of god means that they take on some of the characteristics of light what if the fall (into darkness) means losing those qualities of light.

This may be considered off topic, but I had to mention that in the same way the moon reflects the light of the sun, according to biblical teachings, man reflects the light of God.

^I have no other reason for mentioning that, but that it came to me as I was reading.

Speaking as a person who believes in both God and science, I found this piece to be quite thought-provoking.

You, the cloudless day—

You? . . . In my understanding, the cloudless day is referring to Heaven, the Rapture or some spin on the end of this dispensation. Am I reading this wrong?

We long to resynchronize

with the limitless.


Would 'the infinite' work?

Anyway, thanks for sharing

[Todd]

Mark,

Thanks for the comments, for me cloudless day was referring to genesis where it said mist used to water the Earth. It was ultimately a reference to the flood of Noah. You the cloudless day is You( God) who holds back judgment. That was the strophe I've had to tinker with the most, so any lack of clarity is mine.

Appreciate you reading it.

---

Oh, and I'll give infinite some thought.

[penguin]

Well, I've read a fair few attempts to marry science and poetry and almost always a sinking feeling arrives before long. I got to the 4th verse before it arrived so you've done well.

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



The first 2 lines are so good they almost make the 3rd superfluous

You, the cloudless day—
clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water - I understand the judgment and the waters but not "clouds now forgotten". Surely they come after the cloudless day?
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit - no longer inhabits?
the shell, but each one still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day - I like what you're saying here but why "lisping"?

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.



The above verse is where you lose me. It's almost certainly my fault not yours, but it reads like gobbledegook.

[Leanne]

I'm just going to address the revision today, Todd. I must say, I loved every bit of it -- the concept is wonderful and appeals to every nerdy little fibre of my being

A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

Revision

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,
 -- have you considered putting "to" up on this line?
to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



You, the cloudless day— -- maybe a full stop would work better here
clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each one still speaks -- I'd take out "one"
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping -- lovely ambiguity on the verb, a great use of enjambment (and nice assonance too)
toward that final day

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.

 -- I love your interweaving of science and religion, which is especially obvious in this strophe

The days become millennia.
 -- is "become" the best word? I'm thinking something like "the days melt into millenia"
Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.



We long to resynchronize
 -- were we ever synchronized in the first place?
with the limitless.

The sheen on our eyes shifts

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.

 -- these lines took a couple of reads for me to get the subject, so I think a little clarification might help here, with emphasis on "for sound only came first, once"

Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



A small side note: "judgment" is the correct spelling in both the UK and the US when used in a legal sense (and I'm going to give God the benefit of being a bit of a lawmaker). In British spelling, "judgement" is really only used for things like "use your own judgement" -- and without the "e" is acceptable as well.

[tectak]

A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

Revision

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



You, the cloudless day—
clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each one still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.



The days become millennia.

Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.



We long to resynchronize

with the limitless.

The sheen on our eyes shifts

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.



Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



~~~



Original

You flung the stars like fire-
flies to burn holes
into night’s hunger,
to ignite the shine of galaxies;
dust infused with
the brilliance of your image.

You, the cloudless day—
clouds an afterthought,
a judgement—set aside
the final day to put all at rest
beneath the Tree brought into uniform
motion with your presence.

Our fall,
a sacrifice of light
speed, darkness the event
horizon that made you appear
to slow down.

The days become millennia.
Still you retreat
trapped between
our seconds.

We long to resynchronize
with the limitless.
The sheen on our eyes shifts
to speed past
the horn’s crystal
blast for sound only came first, once.

Our mistake was to believe
that eternity is endless
days, rather than
immutable velocity.

~~~

(Not that I expect anyone to read all the footnotes but I'll leave them there if anyone is interested how this came together)

Footnotes:

Gen. 1:1-3, 14, 26; 1 Jn. 1:5; Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:1-3a; Gen. 3:6-8; 2 Pet. 3:8-9a; 1 Cor. 15:50-52; Rev. 21:23; Rev. 22:5

The speed of light is the same for all observers.
The laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers.
"Uniformly" = "with a constant velocity"
Any uniformly moving observer can consider themselves to be "at rest".
The speed of light is a Universal Constant. but is a different constant in each universe. Hope this doesn't bugger up the whole theory!

Observers moving relative to each other:
--Do not measure the same times.
--Disagree on what events occur simultaneously.
Space and Time are relative.
United by light into Spacetime.
Only spacetime has an absolute reality independent of the observer.

[Todd]

Tectak, given that I'm only worried about this particular universe and these particular inhabitants, I'm fine. Exploring the multiverse of M theory with its harmonic, invisible strings will be for the next poem.

I'll respond to everyone else later when I'm not typing this on my phone.

Thanks,

Tec

[Todd]

Hi penguin,

Thank you for spending the time and giving me the comments. I can appreciate your statements on science and poetry. When I conceived this one I did a ton of reading and realized very quickly as I was moving through the layers that I couldn't do A Scientist considers...I'm glad I made it to the fourth verse with you.

Well, I've read a fair few attempts to marry science and poetry and almost always a sinking feeling arrives before long. I got to the 4th verse before it arrived so you've done well.

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,

to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



The first 2 lines are so good they almost make the 3rd superfluous

You, the cloudless day—
clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water - I understand the judgment and the waters but not "clouds now forgotten". Surely they come after the cloudless day?
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit - no longer inhabits?
the shell, but each one still speaks
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping
toward that final day - I like what you're saying here but why "lisping"?

I am one of those explain the poem and its failed guys. I think I read that you fall in that camp too. I'll go a little way though. When the bible says that God is light that there is no shadow at all. I was looking for a doxological title for God and went with cloudless day to give a sense of that kind of lack of obscurity. Than I moved to the first biblical (not scientific) example of clouds. Maybe it should be those clouds forgotten. I have specific clouds in mind so probably yes. The shells I want them to be those who died in the flood. The lisping was how I heard it.

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.



The above verse is where you lose me. It's almost certainly my fault not yours, but it reads like gobbledegook.

--I understand. I'm going to hold back on any explanation for now. It could just as easily be poor execution on my part.

Thank you again.

Best,

Todd

---

Thanks Leanne. I appreciate the comments.

I'm just going to address the revision today, Todd. I must say, I loved every bit of it -- the concept is wonderful and appeals to every nerdy little fibre of my being

A Theologian Considers the Consequence of Relativity on a God Who Is Light

Revision

You flung stars like fireflies
to burn holes into night’s hunger,
 -- have you considered putting "to" up on this line?
to ignite the shine of galaxies;

dust infused with the brilliance
of Your image.



Maybe we should discuss this further. I will almost never break a line on a preposition. I can see how it would work with ignite, but I'm not fully there yet. It feels wrong to me.


You, the cloudless day— -- maybe a full stop would work better here
clouds now forgotten, a judgment
beyond remembrance, as the water
that rose. The ocean does not inhabit
the shell, but each one still speaks -- I'd take out "one"
in bloodless whispers
of the drowned lisping -- lovely ambiguity on the verb, a great use of enjambment (and nice assonance too)
toward that final day

love the edits thank you. I'll incorporate them. Especially the full stop. It fixes a lot of issues.

when all shall be put to rest
beneath that Tree
brought into uniform motion
with Your presence.



Our fall,

a sacrifice of light

speed, darkness the event

horizon that made You appear

to slow down.

 -- I love your interweaving of science and religion, which is especially obvious in this strophe

The days become millennia.
 -- is "become" the best word? I'm thinking something like "the days melt into millenia"
Still You retreat

trapped between

our seconds.



become yeah better to have something visual. I'll give it some thought

We long to resynchronize
 -- were we ever synchronized in the first place?
with the limitless.

The sheen on our eyes shifts

to speed past the horn’s crystal

blast for sound only came first, once.

 -- these lines took a couple of reads for me to get the subject, so I think a little clarification might help here, with emphasis on "for sound only came first, once"

I see the issue now in those lines I think I can smooth it out. By my cosmology we were synchronized before the fall of genesis 3

Our mistake was to believe

that eternity is endless

days, rather than

immutable velocity.



A small side note: "judgment" is the correct spelling in both the UK and the US when used in a legal sense (and I'm going to give God the benefit of being a bit of a lawmaker). In British spelling, "judgement" is really only used for things like "use your own judgement" -- and without the "e" is acceptable as well.

Thanks for clearing up judgment. I got a lot out of your comments.

Much appreciated.

Best,

Todd

[Leanne]

"to" makes bookends... I like pretty patterns I used to share the aversion to breaking on a preposition until I worked out that readers value the first and last words in a line equally -- and "ignite" is, in my opinion, too valuable a word to bury in second place.

[Todd]

I see what you mean. I'll give it some thought. I haven't considered that aspect of lines before, but it makes sense.

[Leanne]

Think of your poem as a box. Readers notice the edges more than the centre -- first line, last line, first word on each line, last word on each line. People love borders.

[Todd]

I'm totally with you on first and last lines. I see your point on the words. So ignite to you as a first word is worth the trade off of robbing hunger of its end spot. Is that because ignite is more active than passive? Or is it just a feel thing?