I Want To Be A Radish

God has massively challenged me over the last couple of days, and today I wrote a poem trying to express some of what that has been about! Hope you enjoy. (You can read it and listen to it, hopefully the soundcloud thing works!)

https://soundcloud.com/mike-hood-11/i-want-to-be-a-radish

I want to be radical like a radish.

Because radish and radical have the same root word
Which is 'root'. Or, 'radix'.

Radix; radish.

Radix; radical.

I want to be radical.
I want to be deeply, dangerously different,
I want to be part of a people who were previously perfect strangers,
But who purposely, not perfectly but still persistently
Have knit themselves together as a people of peace.
A peaceful people.
A people who have learnt the long way,
the slow way,
the lowly way,
that the lonely way

of my plans, my ambitions,
my life so get out of my way
is a bad way.
A lost way.
A people who have learnt the long way,
the slow way,
the lowly way,

to really love.
To lay down their lives for each other

day after day.

But there's still a long, long way for me to go.
Because me,
my default,
is to try to be
a rootless radical.

Radical
So impactful
So dynamical
Unforgettable.
Doing everything at once
So much on my plate

Wake up early
Stay up late
Harder
Better
Faster
Stronger
If only I had a little bit longer.
Stress to impress.
Once in a generation
I want to be the best.
I say “we”
“We did it”
But if I'm being honest
I really mean “me”.
And what about 'me'?
I'm all show no substance
Talk the talk
And I walk the walk
But if I just sat still for a minute
I might not feel
quite so strong,
Might start to see
there's something wrong.

Because a radish is all about the root.
That's the big, fat, juicy bit.
The deep down bit
that most of the time you can't even see.
Once there was a Hebrew prophet,
a man of weeping and of words,

and he wrote:

Blessed is the one who trusts in God,
whose trust is in Him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes,

its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought,
and never fails to bear fruit.

Because the tree is all about the root.
I want to be deeply, dangerously different.
I want to be part of a people who were previously perfect strangers,
But who purposely, not perfectly but still persistently
are ploughing up the sun-baked soil
of perfectionism

and professionalism,
of impatience
and impersonalism,
and putting down deep roots.
The long way,

the slow way,

the lowly way,

of knowing we are not alone today.
Of loving God more than we love ourselves today.
Of loving people,
Of loving peace,

Of knowing that that

gentle, humble, faithful love

will never cease.

I don't want to be a rootless radical,
Reckless, restless, breathless, worthless.
I don't want to spend my life
drawing masterpieces in the sand
and just pretend that they won't vanish.
So God please plant me in your fertile land,
'Cos I want to be a radish.

Today. (A sort of semi-journal.)

21/07/2015, 11:02am

Today, I feel overwhelmed.

I feel like a hundred thousand things depend on me.

I feel like I will buckle under the weight of the stuff I've picked up.
I feel like it wasn't this heavy when I picked it up, but it's just multiplying in my arms.

But today, I know the Father.
I know that he is in me and all around me and there's nowhere I can go that's out of his reach.
I know that he loves me to death.
I know that he it utterly capable of doing anything and everything that he wants.
I know that what he wants is always what is good and what is best.
I know that he can do these things without me.

I know that he can do these things with me.
I know that if all I could do for the next six months was lay, curled up in bed, achieving nothing, he would love me just as passionately, be just as proud of me as his kid, as if I'd done a thousand amazing things.
Today, like every other day, I am a fragmented person, shattered into pieces by the fall of man, so what I know and what I feel are not in perfect unison.
I feel much more fearful and confused than I know I need to be.
But I know that I won't always feel like this.
Because I know that the Father loves to help me grow what I feel into the shape of what I know.

Who I know.

21/07/2015, 12:48am

And then I mentioned to a guy I barely know called John that I do poetry, and he asked me with unexpected excitement whether I did written or performance poetry – and when I said performance he stood up and said he'd like us to share some poems with each other! So we went and found a bench and spoke poems to each other for an hour or so, and it was one of the most deeply refreshing things I have ever done. Because he was a great poet, his words were fascinating and strange and felt like the tip of an iceberg of thought and feeling that I had only the tiniest hints about. But more than that, because he was an incredible audience. Here was someone who not only understood with his head, but knew in his heart the reality of what my poems are talking about, and he was laughing and weeping and gritting his teeth with a kind of intense delight that my words, if they were just my words, could never produce. And it made me realise that telling true stories, telling The True Story to people who are willing to hear it, is the most precious imaginable privilege. So today has become a very good day.