Poetic Vision

Pastor Page, February 27, 2008

Poiéō, pronounced “poi-éh-oh,” is a Greek verb that appears frequently in the New Testament. If you look it up in a lexicon you’ll find it has an interesting cluster of meanings. Here are some from the BAG, beloved by pastors everywhere: “to produce something material, make, manufacture, produce”, “to undertake or do something that brings about an event, state, or condition, do, cause, bring about, accomplish, prepare, etc.” and simply “to do, make.” Notice that the meaning constellates around the notion of doing, producing, creating . . . it is the word for God’s creative force, as well as our own. Poiéō means to create, to make, to do; it connotes activity, creativity, generativity.

A well-known English cognate of poiéō is "poetry," and if you think about it, the cluster of meanings surrounding the Greek word applies to it as well. A major quality of poetry—often cited as what makes something “poetic”—is metaphor, yet another Greek cognate with the connotation of transference. In a metaphor, the meanings associated with one word (called the figure) are transferred to another (called the ground). Take for example Shakespeare’s well-known “All the world’s a stage”: “stage” is the figure and “world” is the ground. By comparing the two, meaning is transferred from stage to world—we ask ourselves, sometimes quite subconsciously, what is it about the world that is like a stage? Is it that it has a proscenium arch? Does the world have footlights or a curtain? We create meaning for “world” from its association in our mind with “stage;” what results is a new, enriched, meaning constructed in our heads.

That’s why it’s appropriate that an art-form consisting largely of metaphor be called “poetry.” At its best, the words of a poem create within us a rich associative construction of meaning, far beyond what might be expected from the sparse words on the page. Like its Greek cognate implies, good poetry creates, makes and constructs. In that sense, a poem is like we are: created to create.

The Seekers have produced a first-draft of a vision statement that is very deliberately a poem: we want to create in everyone’s minds a slew of possibilities, a rich variety of possible futures for our church. We want the congregation dreaming, creating, constructing, and if you nail it down too early, if you make it too concrete, it shuts down other possibilities. If, instead of “we stand in the gaps,” we write “we provide dance-lessons, arts-programs and breakfast for shut-ins,” it closes off possibility. So read the poem, admire it for what it is—a first draft of an eventual guiding vision—and tell us what you think, where it needs to be tweaked and shaped and molded. But most of all, let the words work on you, let them interact within you, let them create within you visions of what might be.