Sonnet Sunday 72: Significance

Another oldie today. This one comes from grad school. I don’t recall the specific life stressors, though I do know that at the time I was 9 months away from finishing my Master’s degree in Digital Rhetoric and Professional Writing, which involved research on the then-new(ish) impacts of social media, and I had also thrown on a certificate in Serious Game Design for extra scholarship, and I was also running a D&D campaign for a group of friends (a lot more stress than just playing). So the things in this poem that sound fun were both fun and work.

So those are the specifics of this particular poem, but the reality is that I could probably just update the intro of this with current social and church and professional commitments, plus a healthy dose of guilt that I Still Haven’t Written That Novel™, and the last two thirds of this poem would still be the same. What’s the gain? I’m asking that some days, and I’m in a job where I can actually point to more eternal significance! I’m a front-line fighter in the war against the sin of pornography! I get paid to write gospel calls! But like everyone else, I too can get bogged down in the details of daily life, and sometimes I too need to remember that I just need to keep walking forward in obedience.

Significance

Originally written March 9, 2008

Where am I really now? I cannot tell—
I’m so bogged down with work, with research, games—
With D&D, the Internet as well—
But what’s the purpose of this? What’s the gain
Of little toils, these strivings in the sun,
These little pleasures, little hopes and dreams,
And what my defense, when my life is done
And I am facing Him who has redeemed?
What will You tell me then? What will I hear?
And do I serve my master faithfully?
And am I holding love and justice dear
Or have I wasted all that You’ve told me?
Lord, help me understand significance
Is here a function of obedience.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash