Convictions

Please, do not get offended. After all it's not what the poem is for, I'm not wanting to start a debate. D: This poet simply, needs your help. Thanks. <3

This is no longer "I don't like you-
'cause I like blue and you don't."
I think it's time to realize
that Kindergarten is long gone.

We are all free to believe what we want,
we have the liberty to choose.
So if I'm not trying to change you,
Why the aggressive attitude?

My convictions couldn't be clearer,
and you're even hesitating to believe yours.
If you haven't found what makes you complete,
Why are you telling me who I should be?

I apologize if I've been disrespectful,
but I'm a human as well.
If you're doubting what I'm saying,
I'll clarify it in the most concise way;

I try to be what God wants me to be,
what you know would be better for the world;
Love you, forgive you, help you with what you need,
understand you, trying to cause no harm.

But sadly, I am not perfect,
I get upset, mad, and moody just like you.
I can be mean and incompressible,
'cause being Christian doesn't make me saint.

I understand I'm not better than you,
we're all worth too much in our Creator's eyes.
And if you want to hit me for my convictions, like you say,
all I'll do is shrug and gladly receive the punch.

On the other hand,
I could love you, if you'd let me,
but you're stubborn as a rock.
Sadly, what John Lennon imagined
is an utopia and nothing more.

First of all, I can relate to this poem 100%!!! I'm actually not Christian (I'm Jewish) but the idea works for any religion. It's funny because I always look up John Lennon's song when I am upset or confused or questioning my faith and say "what if" even though I know that the world will never become John Lennon's utopia, as you put it.

The last stanza was so powerful and a perfect way to end the poem!!!

Just one grammatical error I caught real quick:

we're all worth too much on our Creator's eyes.

we're all worth too much IN our Creator's eyes.

Overall, LOVE IT!!!!!

Hi there!

I really don't have anything to say about this except that I love it! I totally agree with everything you said in this and you did a good job describing your feelings. The poem flows well and has a definite rhythm to it.

My favorite part:

And if you want to hit me for my convictions, like you say,all I'll do is shrug and gladly recieve the punch.

Turn the other cheek, yes?

Overall this is a great, great poem. Keep writing!

And you speak my mind once again.
I agree with this whole-heartedly.

So if I'm not trying to change you,
Why the aggressive attitude?

My convictions couldn't be clearer,
and you're even hesitating to believe yours.
If you haven't found what makes you complete,
Why are you telling me who I should be?

Too often, I find that everyone else's definition of 'coexisting' only applies to the Christians, while others are free to insult God and bash the innocent even when we try to peacefully practice. SO I love this poem, because it shows this sad truth in a calm and assertive way.
*claps*
It kind of equals out in my opinion. Some Christians try to convert others into believing in God and hope and all that, and others forcefully do the opposite. It's hypocrisy to say the least.
So thanks for this deep and lovely poem.

As for the 'offense'.. well.. if people get hurt by this truthful point of view, then it sort of proves the point, eh?

Spoiler

'Offense' will always happen. People get offended when I say 'blue". It's life-and just another way to avoid hearing the other perspective. Don't be so scared to say the obvious.

Great job!

------------
-Jojo

Bravo Sol! I couldn't have said it better! I find it amazing how you can convey controversial things so smoothly in poetry...

One things is that

recieve

should be "receive."

Great poem <3

Good morning, Sol!

You said it needs help, and I don’t see any help given so far—just praise, so I’m going to be harsh on your baby here; however, I’m not going to shred for the sake of shredding, but I want you to learn things in the process as I’ve had to learn—and am still learning—and understand the value of what you put into a poem. With that said, let me show you the maximum amount of words that this poem should have to give the meaning it’s given:

Yes, I love Jesus,
but it’s okay if you don’t;
John Lennon was wrong.

But since you asked for help with the poem, and don’t want it to just be another CFW (Christian Featured Work), let’s begin.

You start off with a very simplistic mention that there’s some destruction in a friendship or relationship. It’s vague, but it’s a foundation. I actually like the way you used the idea of not liking blue as an excuse not to be friends; however, I want you to consider something that may or may not affect you as a person. That means it might offend you.

I don’t like you ‘cause I like blue and you don’t.
I don’t like you ‘cause I like Jesus and you don’t.

And that’s what your argument boils down to. So, in actuality, your first stanza is a lie. From a third-person stance (imagine you don’t know the weight behind the name Jesus for Christians), Jesus means nothing more than the color blue. So that means that the rest of your poem boils down to your narrator acting like they are in Kindergarten again. Because you like Jesus and I don’t. So, first off, I want you to go through this entire piece and consider your words carefully. If you’re going to write a poem defending your choice to have a faith, then you may as well have a solid argument, and that’s something you don’t have at this point.

Stanza two annoys me. By my experience, Christians are the ones being aggressive, though this may be completely different for you. But it strikes me through the remainder of the poem that you are trying to change the person you’re talking to through displaying Christ in such a miraculous, glorified light. So consider, in all honesty, taking Jesus out of the poem. I think you may hit a note that’s very seldom hit in Christian Literature—that of a non-biased Christian.

Stanza three is nothing more than you trying to prove a point—that Christ completes you. The remainder of the stanzas until you get down to John Lennon can be scrapped. There’s nothing new here. If you want them, change them to some sort of imagery instead of a rant into which you decided to put line breaks. Poetry demands more than that. I don’t feel a single thing from this poem except annoyance, and I doubt that’s what you were trying to do to me. Imagery, poeticism: you need to find it and stop writing rants with line breaks because it does nothing but hold back your own talent. Never, ever let what you believe stop your talent from evolving.

The John Lennon stanza doesn’t mesh with this poem; it comes out of nowhere and is disconnected from the rest. It just seems like you wanted to plug a bash against one of the world’s signature songs. In the length of stanzas you’ll be remolding in the middle, I suggest working your way up to this point, if you choose to keep it.

My second issue with this poem (the first being content) is that you lack flow. If you can’t read a poem and feel like your breath is beautiful, then you’re doing something wrong. That’s where imagery and beautiful phrasing come into play. These things take time, and they’re not something you can just smear into a post box in five minutes, which, I’m sorry to say, this feels like. It’s just one argumentative stream of consciousness that doesn’t connect to its reader unless they’re a Christian.

So why would you write it?

If you believe in what you believe, and so do they, why do you constantly feel the need to shove new, empty poems into one another’s guts? It sounds like force-feeding to me, like each one is sick and constantly needs medicine. If you want to thrive off of literature and your faith at the same time, I suggest that they both be beautiful. If you think God is beautiful, that Heaven is beautiful and that it will someday make you beautiful as well, then for God’s sake, make your writing beautiful as well.

If a poem I write about love can make a reader feel warmth inside their chest when they haven’t been in love, then a poem you write about God should be just as effective, if not more, given what you believe.

All-in-all, there’s nothing new here. There’s nothing that makes me want to read more of your work or any other Christian Literature on this site. It just makes me want to listen to John Lennon.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments, and I hope that this helps, if only a little.

-Lumi

Hey there, GeeLyria.

I like this more than the other Christian writings that populate the Featured Works section because it doesn't sacrifice the entire point of a piece of writing in favor of preaching to the choir. You actually try to make a point, bring something new to the table, engage the audience, and I appreciate that.

First off, though, don't start off something by telling people not to be offended. Please. This is a common hackneyed phrase used by people who write, well, things that are going to offend people, and no one can control whether or not they're offended, anyway. This isn't exactly the most offensive of Christian poems that have been posted to YWS, but still, the intro almost made me just think "Alright, I know what this is going to be like, time to close the page before I start to feel suicidal," and dismiss it.

As far as the words themselves and the poem from a technical standpoint, my general opinion is that it's not terrible, but it could be a lot better. Why is this a poem, exactly? You don't give your words much meaning or art, and it almost feels like it would have been better as an essay. Try thinking about ways to express your words rather than simply saying them, as it is it just didn't feel much like poetry. If you had gotten rid of the stanzas, and everything else, and just divide it into paragraphs and sentences as if it were prose, I don't think I'd have been able to guess you meant it to be a poem.

The message is a common one, and I've heard it plenty of times. You're trying to preach acceptance and so on, but as you do you're accusing atheism (and let's be frank, here, atheism is who you're talking to in this poem) of all sorts of things.

What is this aggressive attitude you speak of? Why do you claim that atheists "haven't found what makes them complete", or that they are telling you who you should be anymore than Christians tell atheists who they should be?

Penn Jillette, famous atheist, isn't as offensive as his show P&T: B.S. makes him seem (that show is mostly just meant to be entertainment for people who already agree with him), and he did a video on why proselytizing is fine. If you want to check it out, you can click here, though it's kind of a long watch.

The basic gist is that he understands perfectly why someone would try to convert him into Christianity, and it must be terrible to stand by while someone is going towards eternal hellfire. You've got to try to convert someone at least once, right? If someone is completely blind to a truck hurtling towards them, you've got to dive at them to get them out of the way at some point, and this is even worse than that, this is eternal torment.

Proselytizing is fine, everyone needs to try at some point to convert their friends and people they respect to their views and beliefs.

Back to the point though, this poem's subtext is mostly just that atheists attack Christians frequently, while Christians lay off. Some stupid atheists can at times be rude, insensitive, or the like, but overwhelmingly in my own life experience it is people motivated by A: "This person is going to hell if I don't fix them" rather than B: "This person will waste some of their life believing in something that isn't real, which sucks because it's the only life they've got" that are more forceful and aggressive.

Both A and B are legitimate reasons to proselytize, but obviously A is a more compelling and urgent motivation.

Finally, what's up with the John Lennon reference at the end? Lumi thought you were trying to say that it was a bad song, but I'm not sure. It seems like you're possibly confused about the meaning of the song, what it's talking about is a world in which everyone is atheist.

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

So on so forth, you've obviously heard the song. The point is that if everyone just lived for today because there was no afterlife to look forward to, without religion to wage war over, the world would be a happier place. I can easily see Christians making the point (and I have known some to make the point) that this would indeed be a happier world, even if it would then mean going to hell, making it an undesirable alternative due to the major con of burning in hell afterwards.

However, it doesn't seem that this is what you're angling at.

At the end you say this is would be a utopia if it was possible, but this is in direct contrast to previous parts in the poem about how atheists can't find anything to make them complete because they are without God, and etc. It's a pretty weird end that seems to come out of nowhere, regardless of how it was intended, whether you were bashing Imagine or complimenting it as an impossible fantasy.

So in the end, I think this is a misrepresentative piece. It's better than other CFW, as Lumi put it, but you need to work harder on making it an actual poem, for one, and you should try to make it about actual acceptance on all sides, instead of pulling old childish insults out like "atheists have no meaning" and "atheists hate us Christians". And figure out what you meant by that link to atheist propaganda near the end.

~Aet

Ohhai, Lumidear. <333 Good morning. ^_^

Lumi wrote: You start off with a very simplistic mention that there’s some destruction in a friendship or relationship. It’s vague, but it’s a foundation. I actually like the way you used the idea of not liking blue as an excuse not to be friends; however, I want you to consider something that may or may not affect you as a person. That means it might offend you.

I don’t like you ‘cause I like blue and you don’t.
I don’t like you ‘cause I like Jesus and you don’t.

And that’s what your argument boils down to. So, in actuality, your first stanza is a lie. From a third-person stance (imagine you don’t know the weight behind the name Jesus for Christians), Jesus means nothing more than the color blue.

Oh. I thought that the line that says something like "this is not kindergarden anymore", would contradict points of view like that. I think that when you look at life in general, kindergarden and real life are way different. And adults constantly say it. xD Hehe
Kindergarden is a classroom: the things you'll probably see are numbers, coloring, playing, fairy tales and rainbows.
Life is in the real world: there are plenty of subjects as you may know. xP Money, violence, greed, time, of course, religion... etc. And well, like John Lennon says they all equal war, and I greatly agree, 'cause the truth is that we are not meant to think the same thing, and each person may want to prove their opinion is the "right one".

Lumi wrote:By my experience, Christians are the ones being aggressive, though this may be completely different for you. But it strikes me through the remainder of the poem that you are trying to change the person you’re talking to through displaying Christ in such a miraculous, glorified light. So consider, in all honesty, taking Jesus out of the poem. I think you may hit a note that’s very seldom hit in Christian Literature—that of a non-biased Christian.

Oh. Well, I thought a person's personality was created by what they believe and what they think, therefor that's what they'll express. I don't think that when someone tells an opinion, they're necessarily trying to change someone. If the other person's thoughts/beliefs are clear, they wouldn't doubt once they hear other's. Which is exactly what I tried to say in the third stanza.

Lumi wrote:The remainder of the stanzas until you get down to John Lennon can be scrapped. There’s nothing new here. If you want them, change them to some sort of imagery instead of a rant into which you decided to put line breaks. Poetry demands more than that. I don’t feel a single thing from this poem except annoyance, and I doubt that’s what you were trying to do to me. Imagery, poeticism: you need to find it and stop writing rants with line breaks because it does nothing but hold back your own talent. Never, ever let what you believe stop your talent from evolving.

Hmmm... Good advice. Okay!

Lumi wrote:If you think God is beautiful, that Heaven is beautiful and that it will someday make you beautiful as well, then for God’s sake, make your writing beautiful as well.

Hahah. I thought beautiful is something that is defined differently by each person. Again, Kindergarden example: Most girls like pink. But others don't, they'd rather use blue. It's okay if you don't find this beautiful. But if I re-write this poem with your kind of beautiful, not everyone would find it beautiful. It would be the same thing, don't you think? Except cause it would make it more yours than mine.

Lumi wrote:If a poem I write about love can make a reader feel warmth inside their chest when they haven’t been in love, then a poem you write about God should be just as effective, if not more, given what you believe.

Yeah, a poem about love could make a reader feel touched. I don't think everyone can be touched by everything, even if it's the most beautiful thing. 'Cause you can't get touched by two poems when one is written about how amazing love is and the other one was written by a philophobic, you'll end up believing in just one, not both, that would be paradoxical... it would put an end to the world's problem, though. XD We could like them both, yes, but we'd all have to be empathic, and I don't think that will happen soon.

Lumi wrote:It just makes me want to listen to John Lennon.

Hahahahaha. Cool, 'cause he's amazing! ^_^

All I've said are opinions, and they're not necessarily right, 'cause I'm not perfect (and I don't wanna be, lol).

Of course, thank you. You gave me a lot to think. <333

Very well written. I think combining the godness element with your feeling is greatly increasing the mystery. This is one of not many songs you just can't stop reading. generally, fantastic.
Keep writing, you've got it

HEEEEY MAI SOLLYPLUSHIEEEE <3 *yup you are mine OO I don't know why yet....*
So this is another great poem! I haven't done a review in quite a while so this will probably be a very poor one. Yup and a short one too...
Okay so I spotted one grammatical error! Yay for me XD lolz just kidding.

I think it's time to realize
that Kindergarten is long gone.

I think kindergarten should be kindergarden...right? * stares at the annoying red line underneath kindergarden* Oh my OO It was totally right..*dies all embarrassed*

*ahem* Okay so I guess I didn't see a grammatical error after all...lolz and I'm totally not removing that mistake because I'm in ROFL mood...you know why XD *dies of laughter*
*ahem* Okay so this is a really great write and I like the ideas behind it. Especially this part:

But sadly, I am not perfect,
I get upset, mad, and moody just like you.
I can be mean and incompressible,
'cause being Christian doesn't make me saint.

That counts for all of us and it's so true. <3 it

Okay so that was all..*nods*
keep writing awesome stuff!
Loffle you sis <33333

Lol. Thanks QARAQARADEAR!!!! <3333333333

XDDDD I'm kinda ROFLing now too. xP Mwhahahahahahah!