(Ben Witherington III,
one of Asbury's own professors, is a world-renown scholar and author.
He's also a mighty fine poet. We're proud to feature another excerpt from his
first poetry collection, The Living Legacy: The Soul in Paraphrase, the Heart in Pilgrimage.)
THE SECRET
Hidden reality
Like life in the womb
Hidden reality
Like death in the tomb
Hidden away
For the appropriate day
Wrapped in enigma, cloaked in secrecy,
Awaiting a wake up call with urgency.
But how shall such a song be sung?
A tale that's never told,
A trail that's long gone cold,
A mystery unrevealed,
A truth that is concealed,
Seems useless on first glance.
Who said there was a secret,
Who told us we must keep it
Who set the search in motion
And stirred up our devotion
If 'clueless' was our stance?
Call forth the revelator,
Who hinted something greater
A light that has been hidden
A though that comes unbidden
And is not mere romance.
Go to the old gate keeper,
And wake the guardian sleeper,
Arouse the story teller
Seek out the boundary dweller
Lulled into tragic trance.
For sometimes revelation
Awaits the new creation
Propitious point in time
When insight is sublime
And we're prepared to dance
The time may fully come
The race be fully run,
The truth could then be heard,
And taken at its word,
As happy happenstance.
Thus mystery has a point
When times are out of joint
And no one wants to hear
About the truth they fear
Because of circumstance.
In one sense all of history
Apocalyptic mystery
With secrets kept and told
By prophets young or old
Who speak, suggest, recant.
For too much information
Obscures the revelation
Prevents a clear reception
May even cause deception
Instead of some advance.
So let us treasure mystery
And truths that unveil history
Spoken in due season
Reflecting divine reason,
And never left to chance.
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