OUR SUPREME COURT ISN’T SUPREME

In the 1857 “Dred Scott case,” the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the slave Dred Scott was just a piece of property that had to be returned to his owner. The Justices at the time made their decision in the midst of political controversy and under “blind justice” according to law, not according to a justice based on ethical guidance.

Nearer to our time was the 1973 “Roe vs. Wade case,” where our Supreme Court ruled that a developing  fetus wasn’t a separate, living, human individual but merely tissue which a woman’s right over her own body allowed her to exterminate. This decision, made under political pressure in the midst of ethical controversy, wasn’t guided by scientific evidence or moral insight. Even the woman “Roe” in the case ended up rebuking the Justices who had decided in her favor.

Human misjudgments by appointed judicial authorities are open to rebuke, even if they become the “law of the land.” About 24 years ago, I combined my criticism of both these Supreme Court decisions in the following poem:

DRED SCOTT

Dred Scott, Dred Scott!

What is truth, and what is not?

Do the Justices agree?

In your skin of ebony

does a human being dwell?

“No, Dred Scott, go back to hell!

Born a slave, a slave you’ll be.

Only humans can be free.”

Dred Scott, Dred Scott!

What’s the judgment that you got:

not a person, just a sale,

open to a bull whip’s tail,

open to abortion’s knife,

black-skinned slave without a life,

property until the tomb,

modern baby in a womb?

Dred Scott, Dred Scott!

It’s their choice to let you rot.

Highest Court in all the land

cannot see that you’re a man,

cannot hear your silent scream,

cannot raise the moral steam

to refuse a so-called right:

justice blind to freedom’s light!

Dred Scott, Dred Scott!

Some break laws to change your lot.

Maced, they’re dragged away by cops,

while you plow the slaver’s crops.

What is Congress waiting for?

Do they want the Civil War?

Do they want plantations burned?

Babies die while backs are turned.

Dred Scott, Dred Scott!

Justices Supreme forgot!

In decisions where they lied

God will never let them hide!

Abolitionists will win!

Truth in time exposes sin:

holocausts, the death-camp flames,

Murdered babies without names.

— David L. Hatton 10/14/1991

(from Poems Between Heaven and Hell)

But earlier, when the slaughter of the innocent unborn was sweeping our land, I’d already written this poetic critique exposing the lack of supremacy in our Supreme Court:

COURT JUSTICE SUPREME

Court Justice Supreme,

             awakened from terrestrial dream,

             a ghost before real Justice,

             felt familiar spirits dancing

             through his mind again:

             his own thoughts, so it seemed.

Court Justice Supreme,

             glanced briefly from this prancing team,

             and watched a well-known law

             of deathbed will and testament

             point to an older, mother truth

             of unknown will and tests unseen.

Court Justice Supreme

             saw in her ancient light a stream

             of many pristine untried lives

             with fading echoes in their eyes

             from each one’s last convulsing cry

             for justice from the Court.

Court Justice Supreme

             turned back to join the dancers’ scream,

             and stepping to their song

             of rights to freedom’s ease,

             soon found no way to quit

             the jerking, reeling frenzy

             of the dance in demon darkness:

             sentence of the Highest Court.

— David L. Hatton, 9/14/1990

(from Poems Between Heaven and Hell)

The recent Supreme Court ruling on “marriage” was beyond the legitimate jurisdiction of any human court, because the institution itself predates all earthly governments. But again, this decision came in the midst of nationwide controversy and under an extremely well-organized agenda of political pressure. It’s obvious that the pressure won out, for the unanimous voice of history, culture, biological science and the world's religions did not. But those Justices await their own hearing, where they will have to answer to a much louder Voice than these. And we’re next in line right behind them, for it’s the same Voice to which all of us must eventually listen, trembling either with joyful faith or fearful regret.

In their own upcoming case, these current Justices of our Supreme Court are scheduled to appear before the real SUPREME COURT. At their inevitable arraignment, our Creator and Judge will surely allude to His previous ruling in the first chapter of His Law-Book:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. . .” (Gen 1:27-28a,  ESV)

Perhaps to this He will add, “The gender-distinctive anatomy was there. The physiological reproductive function was there. My authority as the Designer was there. My wisdom as the Inventor of marriage was there. What did you not understand?”

Various shouts, rejoicing or decrying our nation’s Supreme Court decision, are presently flooding the Internet. I stand with the call to show love to all without changing commitment to God given in the official statement of The Wesleyan Church, the denomination in which I’m ordained. But I’ve appreciated the insights and implications in the post by Seedbed’s editor, J. D. Walt: “Why Marriage is not about Marriage and What it is about.” I also agree with the critique and message by the young Catholic, “still virgin” journalist Arleen Spencely, who wrote a post entitled, “Why same-sex marriage won’t spark a marriage crisis.” I’m sure other commentaries on this decision will follow.

In view of the Final Judgment we all must face, I see this recent decision as merely another confirmation of what happens when human wills live in disregard for the will of God. It’s not a time for Christians to get angry, discouraged or apathetic. Our Supreme Court has not and cannot change what marriage really is. But the wayward trend in our social environment confirmed by this contrived legalism offers us a definitive opportunity to refresh our initial commitment to walk simultaneously in God’s love and in His truth.

The call to love and care for those presently celebrating in the LGBT community has not changed in the least. The call to practice and proclaim divinely revealed truth—whether it concerns marriage or any other God-ordained reality abused or redefined by lost souls—is also as firm as ever. In view of eternity, this situation is temporary, transitory, passing, just as all others are in life. But it offers another perfect occasion in morally stormy weather to invite those who’ll listen to come join us under the everlasting shelter of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

STILL MY BEST POEM ON THIS ATROCITY....

IT CAME FROM HELL

“We blew it!” pouted Satan at a council held in hell.
“The sacrifice of innocents by Hitler went too well.
Although the ground we gained against our Foe was very great,
Reaction from the world was soon to doom our triumph’s fate.
My memories of gorging on such feasts in human pain
Stir up the evil cravings that have driven me insane!”

“Me! Me!” the demons shouted, to acknowledge they agreed.
They wailed and gnashed their teeth until their lips began to bleed.
“Me! Me!” the caverns echoed, drowning Satan when he spoke.
He speared one noisy imp, who shrieked, exploding into smoke.
“Enough!” the Devil thundered.  You could hear a cinder burn.
“A plan to glut our growing hunger now is our concern!”

“Me! Me!” the horde began again, but this time with restraint.
A shriveled ghost approached to meet his master’s loud complaint.
“Old heinous rituals,” he said, “have always stayed alive,
And even Moloch offerings are starting to revive!
Some fools still praise you, Lucifer, as bearer of the light,
And slay for you their own or children stolen in the night.”

“Me! Me!” the goblins howled. “We want them pure and younger still!
It’s blood of innocence we thirst to fuel our hunger’s will!”
“Just so,” the Devil hushed the crowd, “the youngest brings the worst.
Such murder spreads my damning deep till all their land is cursed.
But I want higher numbers!  More!  Bring forth your darkest dreams!
More subtle still than witchcraft, I want sly but massive schemes!”

“Me! Me!” resounded once again, then from the shadows ran
A pale and grinning demon who bowed down as he began,
“O Master, long ago the oath of old Hippocrates
Prevented men of medicine from helping us to seize
The damning strength in holocaust of life within the womb
That brings so many into hell the day they reach the tomb.”

“But now,” the fiend continued, “they’ve forsaken godly goals.
They treat the world as physical and don’t believe in souls.
If we combine their selfishness with promiscuity,
They’ll sacrifice their unborn babes and call it ‘liberty!’
We’ll bend the will of doctors, capture judges in their courts—
Our motto: Babies tie you down; the prudent girl aborts!”

“How shrewd!” the Devil flattered, as he clapped his hands with greed.
“They’ll massacre their offspring, but they’ll never see their deed
Nor hear their infants wailing, which might cause them to repent.
The spell will twist their faith, and even logic will be bent!”
They went to work the moment Satan’s council had adjourned,
And like a whirlwind through our world, abortion fires burned.

— David L. Hatton, 11/4/1993

(from Poems Between Darkness and Light ©1994)

************************
I have other poems addressing or related to the abortion issue:
"ABORTION" -  "COURT JUSTICE SUPREME" - DRED SCOTT"
SECOND CHANCE" - "THE JUDGMENT" - "CHILD ABUSE"
"GUARDIANS" - "PAS" - "ROCK-A-LIE, BABY"

"OBJECTIFICATION SUSTAINED!"

A couple with a baby and young son sit in a restaurant awaiting their order. When the infant becomes fussy, the mother opens her blouse and begins nursing. After loud whispering from a few tables down, an elderly lady approaches them on a mission.

“Honey,” she scolds, “not in public like this . . . and surely not in front of your little boy. Have some decency and take it to the ladies’ room. For Heaven’s sake, this is a restaurant!”

Sound familiar? It should. Her words echo much of the modern church. Her reaction to open breastfeeding is common among evangelicals. But the attitude expressed is neither godly nor God-honoring. It’s a subtle perversion that slithered its way into popular Christian culture as a “Gospel” standard. God referred to its deceptive source when He found Adam afraid of his nudity and asked, “Who told you that you were naked?” Satan is behind most human-unfriendly ideas.

“But the sight of her breast might lead to lustful thoughts!”

Ask a simple, logical question: “Why?” Who or what imposed a sexually lustful focus on women’s breasts? Some tribal cultures don’t treat the bare female bosom that way, until Western ideals supplant their once wholesome perspective. If you don’t believe this, ask missionaries who’ve witnessed the process. If you don’t believe them, then ask maternity nurses like myself, who fight uphill against a culturally sexualized breast in trying to help moms maintain the normalcy of public breastfeeding when they leave the hospital.

But the breast is not the problem. Jesus addressed the real issue when He said, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” (Mark 7:15). Bare nipples cause immoral enticement only when people are programmed to see them as objects of sexual arousal or lustful fantasy. It requires scrupulous social training to undermine a healthy view of their God-intended purpose as organs of maternal nurture.

“Who’s behind this sexual objectification? Hollywood?”

Movies exploit body parts only by misusing what’s already been sexually targeted. Sadly, the Western church has a long social history of targeting the female body as a sex object—a behavior that “misses the mark” of God’s design. This is a religious sin with social consequences. By sustaining an objectified view of female anatomy, we have significantly assisted those who profit from that objectification in ways that grow progressively more depraved.

Face the tragic reality: wherever prudery is imported , it guarantees the growth of pornography. Take Japan, for instance—once famous for the body acceptance displayed by its nonsexual custom of mixed public bathing. Today, Japanese society exemplifies how Western influence turned a modern, body-friendly culture into one flourishing with pornographic exploitation. Who’s to blame, a pagan Japan or a “Christian” West?

When cross-culturally savvy missionaries witnessed this same degrading trend among primitive tribes, it forced them to do their math. They saw that nudity was our own cultural problem, not theirs. So, they had to quit preaching clothing as part of Christ’s Gospel to naked people groups—a doctrinal sacrilege of which their predecessors were unwittingly guilty. The church at home gained no wisdom from this cross-cultural error abroad. Yet how we cringe in embarrassment when college professors of cultural anthropology tattle on us for this part of our missionary past!

Laura Bates

“So, are you blaming this on the church?”

A spiritually healthy church is quick to acknowledge its errors and correct them. Sadly, we often postpone our reform until compelled by a critical mass of secular outrage from those who logically connect the dots that we chose to ignore. Outside the church, many secular voices are addressing the causative factors of female exploitation and are calling for its end. (See these TED Talks: “Everyday Sexism” by Laura Bates and “The Sexy Lie” by Caroline Heldman, for starters).

Caroline Heldman

We can’t hide the implicating trail of evidence left by our persistent complicity in female objectification:

• our Victorian redefinition of biblical “modesty” from practicing humility to hiding skin
• the unforgettable evangelical episode of measuring girls’ skirt lengths on Christian campuses
• the tactic of  “eye-bouncing” in “every man’s battle” against the sexual allure of female bodies
• the existence of church cry-rooms for babies who wouldn’t be fussy if breast-fed in the pews

These and other behaviors—religiously baptized as “Christian morality”—have broadcast a united cultural message that females and their bodies are sex objects.

Our pulpits have tried to insure that women in general, and young girls in particular, accept an unavoidable self-identity as “sexual targets.” Instead, we should have trained them to stand up alongside men and assert their right to be treated as unique individuals, never as enticing stacks of body parts. Sermons should have preached feminine beauty as a divine stimulus for praise to the Creator. Instead, we have earmarked the gender-distinctive anatomy of our sisters as a dangerous pitfall from which spiritual men should flee in fear. That fearful flight, however, allowed exploiters, porn-mongers, and human-traffickers to seize control of a crucial realm of creation that belongs to God. We prudishly abandoned our stewardship of that realm.

“Can we repair the damage?”

The human body is God’s holy turf. The hands that surrendered it must retrieve it. We have a duty to retake this lost territory, first by cleansing our own minds from any sentimental allegiance to an objectification of our sexual physiology. Porno-prudery is both theologically heretical and socially destructive. Religiously, it sabotages the credibility of our presentation of the biblical message of sexual morality. We must rebuild into corporate Christian thinking a wholesome attitude about the nitty-gritty physical reality of the human body’s sexual dynamics.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of in this area except for our own near-Gnostic reputation of hesitation or silence when it comes to the body’s gender-specific anatomy. Ours is a shameful neglect that has effectively marginalized the church’s impact on society’s sexual ideas and practices. The Bible’s healthy, incarnational understanding of how our fleshly “male and female” nature images the Creator ought to be well-known in the social arena. But, as in times past, whenever we weren’t doing our theology properly and proclaiming it powerfully, we now have immense “catching up” to do.

If we are going to liberate women from religious attitudes and social actions that showcase them as sex objects, we must start by confessing our personal and ecclesiastical failures. If the repentance is authentic, reform and restitution will follow. This will require new strategies and bold changes, such as:

• Encouraging Christian moms to nurse their babies in public and especially in the congregation, so that the next generation can learn why God made breasts in the first place
• Preaching on the “milk of the Word” (1 Peter 2:2) by expounding how the analogy comes from the familiar, healthy sight of breastfeeding in Bible times
• Preaching from Isaiah 66:9-13, where God uses His functional design of the female body to illustrate His own birthing and nurturing care
• Encouraging young Christian artists to excel in depicting God’s fleshly temple by ignoring the legalism that made the nude models in anatomical drawing classes a religious taboo
• Cross-examining “lust” myths about the body by having Christian healthcare workers—expert witnesses—describe the mundane reality of routinely working with non-sexual nudity
• Hosting conferences for youth and parents where Christian biology teachers bring frank, sex-education talks that explicitly address gender-distinctive human anatomy and sexuality with visual aids that confront porno-prudery directly

Will such radical moves toward a healthier viewpoint eradicate sexual lust? Although coed latrines and public bathing in Bible times may have helped limit it, they didn’t eliminate it. But recapturing the common body acceptance implicit in those ancient customs can point us in a more sane direction. It can lead toward re-subjectifying the body—associating physical anatomy with the person who lives there. It can help us theologically disengage the sight of external skin from its present misuse as an explanation for internal lust. Only by dispensing with misplaced suspicions and vain imaginations about body parts can we refocus on God’s target: human hearts.

If you need more ideas and ammunition for your reform efforts, I’ve written two other articles on this issue of the sexual objectification of women: “Teaching God’s Design for BREASTS - A Message about ‘the Visible Breast’ for Christian Leaders” and “A Dangerous Male MYTH: ‘Men are visual.’”

WHY I'M CATHOLIC, BUT NOT ROMAN

When a friend of mine, an accomplished Bible scholar, recently embraced Roman Catholicism and became a priest, I recalled my own attraction to what I call “that denomination.”As with all other churches, baptism or church membership is no guarantee of authentic faith. Yet only the most bigoted Protestants will deny that many of those comprising the one truly catholic (“universal”) Church of Jesus Christ are from this Roman branch of Christianity.

What attracts people to the church of Rome? By clear examples, it boasts historical length, geographic breadth, devotional height and philosophical depth. Other denominations may excel in one or more of these areas, but this concurrent, multi-faceted combination in the Roman church has significant drawing power.

Rome’s patronage of the arts is also attractive. Artistically minded souls may abandon the visually impoverished atmosphere of an evangelical service for the liturgical decor in a Roman or Orthodox setting. Zealous Protestant leaders were wrong to ban visual beauty from their churches. Worship environments rich in sacred symbolism and sacramental ritual meet a legitimate human need—a reality divinely revealed and extensively illustrated in the Old Testament.

While such features personally draw me, my greatest attraction is to Roman Catholic friends with whom I share Christian fellowship and to authors loyal to Rome from whom I continue to learn Christian truth. Henri Nouwen, G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Merton, and Pope John Paul II are some favorites. I’m in the midst of studying Thomas Oden’s Systematic Theology, based mostly on early Catholic thinkers, and my daily devotions include the Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scriptures, a compilation of writings by the Catholic church fathers.

So, if I faithfully confess the “catholic” faith succinctly stated by the ancient Catholic church in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, why haven’t I become a Roman Catholic? Frankly, some of Rome’s later creeds contain doctrines which I cannot embrace. Since my Scriptural reasons against these Roman innovations are well expounded by other Protestant pens, I needn’t rehearse them here. Instead, let me describe what I consider the kingpin doctrinal error that has allowed all the others: “Peter’s chair.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”— Matthew 16:16-19 (ESV)

By politically interpreting these verses, successive bishops of Rome claim to preside over the entire Church by sitting in “Peter’s chair.” They insist that Jesus was establishing a perpetual pontifical office and installing the Apostle Peter as its first pope. Beyond inserting into Christ’s words the idea of “succession,” Rome goes on to confer authoritative infallibility on each man filling this papal seat. Such foreign additions—while laying the foundation for a political interpretation of this passage—have tragically obscured its confessional nature.

Protestants see Christ’s focus not on Peter but on his confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” A few verses later, based on Peter’s words, Jesus calls him “Satan” (Matthew 16:23). So here, based on this creedal statement of “Simon Bar-Jonah,” Jesus calls him “Peter” (petros; literally, “a rock or stone”) and immediately says, “on this rock I will build my church.” But in this second phrase, Jesus didn’t use petros, but a different word, petra, which literally means “a rock, cliff or ledge” and is elsewhere often associated both with Christ’s teachings (Matthew7:24-25) and with Christ Himself (Romans 9:33; 1 Corinthians 10:4).

The Holy Spirit carefully selected the wording He ordained for Scripture. Just as a petra is much greater than a petros, so the identity of Jesus is much greater than the man confessing it. If, by this divinely inspired word-play, God meant to distinguish Peter himself from his confession, then it was “on this rock”—on this petra, a confession divinely “revealed” to Peter—that Christ was saying, “I will build my church.”

Such poetic language was indeed prophetic of Peter’s Gospel role at Pentecost (Acts 2:14-41), in Samaria (Acts 8:14-25), and at the household of Cornelius (Acts 10), but none of these events won him a special ecclesiastical office. The emphasis of the Matthew passage, and of those cited in Acts, is on the power of Peter’s evangelistic confession, which becomes the same power in the mouth of all true followers who confess Christ. The promises given by Jesus in connection with Peter’s original confession were not political and official but creedal and spiritual, therefore transferable to the whole catholic church.

So, whose take on this Matthew passage is right, Rome’s or that of Rome’s would-be Reformers? Which group is interpreting correctly?

The Bible points toward a confessional interpretation. Peter’s initial leadership role in the early church was soon overshadowed by James in Jerusalem and by Paul in the Roman Empire. A frank reading of the New Testament shows Peter using his confessional “keys of the kingdom” to open the Gospel door for both the Jewish and the Gentile churches. Peter then fades from the scene of political activity in the church until we find Paul confronting him later in Antioch for his failure in leadership (Galatians 2:11-13).

The New Testament’s final record of Peter’s influence on the early church are his two Epistles. These letters confirmed not his political role as the church’s head bishop but his continued spiritual role of expounding the implications of his original faith confession. Only on the basis of extra-biblical stories can Rome claim that Peter sat down in a rudimentary papal “chair.” When these and other Roman stories became the criteria for creedal doctrine, Rome boldly stepped into the place of authority that God had reserved for His Word alone.

Roman persecutions provide even more clarity in evaluating the validity of Rome’s political interpretation of Matthew 16:16-19. Following the example of the Roman Empire in killing those who confessed Christ, later Roman pontiffs also initiated and orchestrated policies of harshly persecuting Christ-confessors. The detailed accounts of the Waldensian slaughter in Italy, or the bloody Huguenot massacre in France, or the well-organized extermination of Protestant believers by the Inquisition, shamefully expose the dangerous religious stand taken by bishops who ruled politically from “Peter’s chair.”

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is a painfully humbling read for most Roman Catholics. Its sections that record the atrocities perpetrated by Rome’s “Dark Ages” became the critical mass behind this article and a heavy emotional burden that found mental catharsis only through writing the following poem:

INQUISITION 

From its height of papal glory,
Rome still bears a stain:
Cruelties and tortures gory
Of believers slain;
Hung or flayed to die of bleeding,
Burned alive in prayer,
Slaughtered for their Scripture-reading,
All by “Peter’s chair.” 

Had their protestation perished
Under fire and lash
Or their hope for freedoms cherished
Vanished in the ash,
We today would too be liable,
As that martyred host,
Just because we owned a Bible
Or made Christ our boast.

Roman faith, if it has merit,
Cringes at these tales.
Mass and Mary can’t repair it;
Explanation fails.
But the popes who wrote this story
Pray without refrain
That those flames be purgatory
Where their souls remain.

— David L. Hatton, 4/13/2015

Salvation is found neither by church membership nor by filling an exalted church office, but only by placing authentic faith in Christ. Countless multitudes of those who confessed Christ in this way perished in horrendously cruel ways for being designated “heretics” by papal edict. Were they unwilling to confess the Apostles and Nicene Creeds? Far from it! Instead, they were tortured to death for refusing to embrace those additions to the later creeds that Rome politically enforced as essential doctrines, and which Protestants have never stopped resisting as unbiblical errors.

According to a creedal belief in “the communion of saints,” all Roman, Orthodox and Protestant believers confessing Trinitarian faith form one “holy catholic Church.” When Rome began killing Protestants for their “heretical” loyalty to Scripture, the historical departure of “Peter’s chair” from Peter’s creed became indelibly manifested. This holocaust of Christian martyrs, lasting for hundreds of years, politically confirmed a creedally Roman church, while spiritually nullifying its boast of being creedally catholic. In fact, Roman believers today should ethically reevaluate using the name “Catholic” for self-identification. Rome’s self-concept of exclusivity precludes true catholicity. In light of those early creeds, “Roman Catholic” is a self-contradictory phrase. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Because of my “born again” nature in Christ and my orthodoxy in creedal confession, I am first catholic and secondarily Protestant. Roman Catholics can think this way too, and should. But when Rome tried eradicating believers like me, it identified itself as primarily Roman and only “catholic” within the context of its own political power structure. Even today, Rome still treats me as not quite catholic—designating me as part of the “separated brethren.” That’s not the fault of my catholic faith but of the Roman politics that perpetuates this artificial separation.

Christ, however, placed in my hands, as He did in Peter’s, the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” to “bind” the powers of darkness with truth and to “loose” the powers of healing with love. While boldly confessing that Jesus Christ is “the Son of the living God” and that He is still in direct charge of building His church, I use that “key” of love to join my Lord in supporting the catholic nature of His Church and in outwitting the mistaken polity of him who sits in “Peter’s chair”:

“He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.”
(from “Outwitted” by Edwin Markham)

POEMS BETWEEN BIRTH AND RESURRECTION - Introduction

(My books are available on Amazon at this link.)

(Before becoming a preacher, a nurse, an amateur artist, or a massage therapist, I was a poet. I still am. Getting my poetry published in more than homemade binders had been a dream for years. Health challenges and the rise of modern book-publishing technology merged to motivate me to make the effort. This and my other books are published through Kindle Direct Publishing in both paperback and Kindle editions.

I wanted to put the introductory essays for each poetry collection on my blog. If you want to know what makes me tick, my poems tell it better than a biography.

This "Introduction" and the concluding poem are from my 4th book of poems. To read the posts from my others, click on these links:

Poems Between Heaven and Hell

Poems Between Darkness and Light;

Poems Between Death and Life;

Poems Between Here and Beyond;

Poems Between Fear and Faith;

Poems Between the Beginning and the End.)

“Introduction” to

Poems Between Birth and Resurrection

My life journey has brought me delightful discoveries, all of them best described in their relationship to love and truth. Loving brings joy, whether through sending a check to a worthy cause, putting extra care into someone’s body-work massage, or holding my wife in an affectionate embrace. Joy rises especially strong when a sudden burst of love for God overflows in silent, verbal, or poetic praise. But love’s nature is fully experienced only when fully reciprocated. I find the same joy in loving as in being loved and appreciated, whether by my wife, family, Christian friends, hospital co-workers, or grateful new parents I’ve helped with newborns. Love returns to us in sincere “thank you” notes, in spontaneous hugs, in a silent presence at times of grief. The God of love has prescribed equally mixed proportions of loving and being loved as the divine epoxy glue that binds human hearts together. He ordains this mutually reciprocating love to characterize our journey from the womb to the tomb. It’s our calling during this present life and for the eternal glory beyond it.

In a similar way, love itself must be tempered with truth, and vice versa. As loving draws us closer to the God of love, so discovering and embracing truth draws us closer to the God of truth. Truth liberates love from the dysfunctional rut of sentimental lies. Love emancipates truth from the chains of stifling legalisms. The wedding of love and truth gives birth both to an abundant life and to an authentic lifestyle.

Two special theological truths make the Christian Gospel the most alive and human-friendly faith in existence. One is the Incarnation. God, our Creator, “became flesh to dwell among us.” He was born into this world as a real human being to teach us, as our Master; to die for us, as our Redeemer; and to restore us and the rest of creation, as our Deliverer. The other human-friendly truth is the Resurrection. This same incarnate God-Man was physically raised from death to be the body-spirit Mediator and priestly Ruler of all worlds, cosmic and celestial. His bodily resurrection is the guarantee of our own, for which the whole “creation waits in eager expectation” (Romans 8:19-23). In His own physically resurrected human body, God—as King of the universe—will forever lead the rest of redeemed and resurrected humanity in ruling over the whole material and spiritual creation. Nothing is more human-friendly than these two truths: in His Incarnation, Jesus is Savior; in His Resurrection, Jesus is Lord.

In my journey of digging out rich gems from these two deep mines of doctrinal truth, I’ve had to grapple with some human-unfriendly attitudes toward the material world, and toward our physical bodies in particular, which seem firmly embedded in the popular “Christian” view of earthly life. This first happened in my job as an RN, when my frank view of unclad female bodies didn’t arouse in me the immoral, lustful thoughts that all my life had been faithfully preached to me as inevitable. Many years of experiencing this discrepancy between religious teaching and realized truth led to intense research about the phenomenon of human nakedness, not just by a careful review of Scripture, but by a laborious investigation of various historical, aesthetic, and psycho-social disciplines. The resulting fruits of this educational pursuit was nothing less than a major paradigm shift in my thinking. That bold intellectual endeavor helped me see the heretical Gnostic influences behind the “body shame” issues in the typical modern church. It led me full circle, back to the awesome implications for human destiny in those two doctrines, Christ’s Incarnation and His Resurrection.

Some people do personal journaling. I do poetic journeying. My poetry often records personal experiences of love and truth during my earthly sojourn. The title of this fourth book of my poetry, Poems Between Birth and Resurrection, describes the source of many of the themes in my poetry since the turn of the century. Much in the world has changed, especially in this last decade, and much has changed in me. A poet’s poems cannot help being autobiographical, but I’ve always wished mine to be prophetic, in the sense of proclaiming truth that corrects and reforms.

Contemplating the truths of the incarnate birth and resurrection of God’s Son have brought my theological thinking “down to earth,” where it belongs. I’ve gained a new awareness of humanity’s original, God-given responsibilities as body-spirit beings, and of our duty to recognize the God-pronounced goodness of this physical world, even while it still groans under sin’s curse. These twin doctrines have dramatically changed my attitude toward the wholesomeness of the human body, with or without man-made, fig-leaf dress.

This shift in attitude toward human embodiment led me into taking art classes, learning massage therapy, and trying to practice natural ways of health maintenance. These involvements, overflowing into my poetry, reveal the direction and depth of this conceptual shift. If I sometimes sound radical and startling, it’s on purpose. Shocking minds to alertness is often the only effective prelude to dislodging long-believed lies and sacred half-truths. If the surprising reality about the human body hadn’t jolted me awake, I couldn’t share some of these poems. I felt consciously called to write them, and now feel relieved of a prophetic burden in publishing them. Through them, I hope my readers can experience an epiphany similar to what gave them birth.

God bless your journey between birth and resurrection! May these poems inspire your life as they have mine. Don’t miss any of your life’s mission in the here-and-now by an otherworldly focus on the hereafter. God intends our eternal life in Christ to be lived out with overflowing abundance in these “fearfully and wonderfully made” earthen vessels from the cradle to the grave, and beyond.

— David L. Hatton

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

GOD’S NAKED LAMB


When Jesus died stark naked on the Tree
Prescribed by Roman minds for cruelty,
Shrewd Pilate had his will against the hoard
Who pushed his hand to crucify our Lord.
Above Christ’s head he made the placard stay
That said, “Here dies the King of Jews today.”

Stripped to the skin of every Jewish thread,
His body, bare, had one thing left they read
That marked His place distinctly by the sign
Of promise in the Abrahamic line:
That tender cut received eight days from birth
To seal God’s vow of blessing all the earth.

But we, who like to cover up His loins,
Forgetting how He went for thirty coins
The way nude slaves did in the marketplace,
We blush to look, so miss the glow of grace
That shines from His exposed humanity
To light salvation’s path to sanity.

The unclad body of our Lord displayed
That God took up the very flesh He made
To show by sacrifice without His robe
That every human tribe around the globe
Was purchased in a body like their own.
We see this in God’s naked Lamb alone.

— David L. Hatton, 2/14/2008
(Poems Between Birth and Resurrection,  © 2013)

For more single poems from this volume, visit my website's “Poetry Page.”

POEMS BETWEEN DEATH AND LIFE - Introduction

(My books are available on Amazon at this link.)

(Before becoming a preacher, a nurse, an amateur artist, or a massage therapist, I was a poet. I still am. Getting my poetry published in more than homemade binders had been a dream for years. Health challenges and the rise of modern book-publishing technology merged to motivate me to make the effort. This and my other books are published through Kindle Direct Publishing in both paperback and Kindle editions.

I wanted to put the introductory essays for each poetry collection on my blog. If you want to know what makes me tick, my poems tell it better than a biography.

This "Introduction" and the concluding poem are from my 3rd book of poems. To read the posts from my others, click on these links:

Poems Between Heaven and Hell

Poems Between Darkness and Light;

Poems Between Birth and Resurrection;

Poems Between Here and Beyond;

Poems Between Fear and Faith;

Poems Between the Beginning and the End.)

“Introduction” to

Poems Between Death and Life

Death is something we have to live with, but that does not stop us from trying to ignore it. We hide it from ourselves by sweeping its inevitability under the carpet of busy schedules and daily routines. When its alien countenance creeps up to stare us in the face, we cringe. When its foreign hand grips someone we love, we are devastated. Death’s approach captures our full attention. Its arrival gives birth to the powerful, heart-rending emotion of grief. It awakens us to the reality of our human condition, brought about in the Garden, when our first parents embraced death’s mother: sin. Yet, failing to stay alert to death, or neglecting to live with it properly, can set us up inadvertently to fail at life.

A common exhortation to spiritual seekers woven into the mystical writings of monks in the Orthodox tradition is this: “Meditate on the day of your death.” You might protest, “How morbid! How depressing!” But there is deep wisdom in such a practice. Those who frequently recall the brevity of life, and the uncertainty of its limit, are more apt to place proper value on every minute of time that God grants them. A daily recollection of death’s certainty can emancipate us from squandering precious hours in trivial pursuits. Intentionally remembering that one day, any day, we will die, helps to keep us on the pathway of freedom from a thoughtless, aimless dissipation of life. Also, regular meditation on departing from this life motivates our sober preparation to face God as Judge of how we have lived our earthly lives. We all must, and will, have our “day in court” with our Maker. Death is a reminder that, sooner or later, we will definitely keep that appointment.

But while it may be helpful in spurring us on in life, death is still our enemy. We were created for life, not death. The whole tenor of Scripture sets the two in opposition: death to be avoided, life to be sought (Deuteronomy 30:19). Not only did death enter God’s creation as a foreign power, but somehow, perhaps through some spiritual transaction in the nature of the Fall, its power was seized by the malicious hands of another foreign foe of humanity. That enemy, Satan, held Adam’s race in bondage through the “fear of death”, until the Author of Life gave His life to destroy “him who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). Jesus Christ became for us both the Way out of death and the Way into life. God invaded our death-ridden planet, incarnating Himself to live in our skin, so that Life could challenge death to a duel. Augustine wrote, “The Immortal One took on mortality to die for us and by His death to destroy ours.” It was the only way: God’s Life for our death, so that His death and resurrection life could bring new birth to Adam’s death-bound race.

While living with death and growing toward dying, we should live faithfully. Much of Christian faith is anchored in a sure future with God, when death shall be no more. But right now, we still have dusty feet, walking on trails of dust to which our bodies, these vehicles for our souls, will return. The contrast is stark: we burst into this world screaming with vitality and promise, but approach our earthly exit with progressive decay and a concluding moan. So, a legitimate earthly faith must hold these two realities in tension, not denying or trifling with death, but neither allowing it to spoil life. Let’s not slip back into the bondage of fearing death, while remembering its reality. Let death remind us to live real life and to flee the lethal trap of a sinful lifestyle. Carelessness with life is not truly living at all.

For years, as an emergency room nurse, I often watched death at work. Presently, as an obstetric nurse, I often watch the advent of new life. As a part-time pastor, I am called to assist people spiritually on their journey between those two realities. As a poet, I have tried to share my thoughts and feelings “between death and life.” And so, like my other two books of poetry, this one also bears the title, “Poems Between . . .” Not everything in this book is of a spiritual nature. Some of these poems are from my teen years and exhibit my early poetic experiments in structure and style. Others merely reflect feelings of gladness or sadness that I wanted to capture in poetry. But most of what I’ve compiled here is from the past six years and reflects my own personal journey between life and death.

My deepest desire in writing poetry is to promote the gift of divine life offered to us through God’s Son. Karl Barth wrote, “Already in this life the wise person lives beyond death. Already here and now we may begin to live eternally.” If I help introduce life in Christ or nurture it in my readers, I will count my work successful. In particular, I hope you see why I place “death” first, before “life” in my title. Historically, we were “dead in trespasses and sins” before we were “alive in Christ.” Spiritually, we enter the abundant life in Christ only by submitting to and experiencing death to self. This is a choice Jesus holds before any would-be disciple in His words, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” Somewhere between birth and death, we must embrace this self-denying “death” in order to live out “new birth” in its fullness. Somewhere in our journey, we must grasp and apply what Christ meant in saying, “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25, NIV) That loss, difficult as it might seem, is nearly insignificant in comparison to the treasure of divine life in Christ, both for the rest of our earthly journey and for all eternity beyond.

— David L. Hatton

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

CAUGHT BY LOVE

Love of God, You awesome Seeker,
Searching for our straying heart,
Gaining speed as we grow weaker,
Closing in to end the chase.
Love of God, You ardent Hunter,
Waiting for our will’s head start;
Watching, till our path grows bleaker,
Then begins Your steady race.

“Let me go!” screams out the quarry,
“Let go; let Me!” the Hunter calls.
So persists God’s passion-story;
Stubborn Love has set the pace.
“Let me go, You ardent Hunter!”
But we fail to see the walls
Limiting our flight from glory,
As we run from Love’s embrace.

Slamming into such protection,
Stopped and spared from suicide,
We are trapped by God’s affection,
Forced to hear Love face to Face.
“Let go; let Me!” repeats the Hunter,
“Let Me heal the wounds you hide:
First, your sins; then hurts . . . rejection . . . .
Let Me bathe them in My grace.”

Caught by Love’s intent pursuing,
Captured for eternal bliss,
Fools we were to flee the wooing
Our retreat could not erase.
Let go; let God, the loving Hunter
Catch your hand and plant His kiss.
Our escape was our undoing;
His arrest, our resting-place.

— David L. Hatton, 8/15/1998
(Poems Between Death and Life,  © 1999, 2014)

For more single poems from this volume, visit my website's “Poetry Page.”

POEMS BETWEEN DARKNESS AND LIGHT - Introduction

(My books are available on Amazon at this link.)

(Before becoming a preacher, a nurse, an amateur artist, or a massage therapist, I was a poet. I still am. Getting my poetry published in more than homemade binders had been a dream for years. Health challenges and the rise of modern book-publishing technology merged to motivate me to make the effort. This and my other books are published through Kindle Direct Publishing in both paperback and Kindle editions.

I wanted to put the introductory essays for each poetry collection on my blog. If you want to know what makes me tick, my poems tell it better than a biography.

This "Introduction" and the concluding poem are from my 2nd book of poems. To read the posts from my others, click on these links:

Poems Between Heaven and Hell;

Poems Between Death and Life;

Poems Between Birth and Resurrection;

Poems Between Here and Beyond;

Poems Between Fear and Faith;

Poems Between the Beginning and the End.)

“Introduction” to

Poems Between Darkness and Light

Everyone appreciates sleep, and along with it, the darkness of night. For those like myself, who work at night and sleep in the day, closing the eyelids is not sufficient for escaping light. Most of us also darken the room for sleeping. Yet upon waking, if we found neither sunlight nor lamplight to dispel the darkness, we would panic. Darkness is fine for the inactivity of sleep, but for the business of living, we need light. All people, even the blind who have learned to see with their ears and hands, want to know what is going on around them, who is present nearby, which direction is clear to walk in. Whatever lies in the darkness or in the unknown becomes apparent with light or with enlightenment.

Many people have poisoned themselves by taking medications in the dark. False assumptions can be dangerous. I remember one of my nursing instructors insisting on our doing “under-cover rounds” for all our patient assessments. It meant to pull back the covers, lift up the gowns and examine bare bodies. Merely presuming that all was well could result in negligent care. At first, I felt uncomfortable crossing a stranger’s normal boundaries of privacy to gather the physical facts. But as a seasoned nurse, I would now feel uncomfortable and even delinquent in not doing so.

Sufficient light banishes both doubt and inaccurate conjecture. It endows us with the priceless knowledge of reality. After all, we want the truth, don’t we? Without the light of truth, the world of humanity is dysfunctional and abusive. Purposeful lies, sly half-truths, ignorant falsehoods, or whatever else wields the power to mislead thought and action: these are the central agents of disintegration in a friendship, a home, a nation, a world. Although the gift of imagination is magnificent, we fail at life if we live in a world of dreams which are never brought into reality by our planning, prayer, and personal sweat.

In keeping with the thematic title of my first book, Poems Between Heaven and Hell, I have entitled this one Poems Between Darkness and Light. On earth we are in the midst of a tension between the forces of good and evil, between the holy influence of Heaven and the damning incitements of Hell. There is such complexity in life’s mixtures of good and evil, so many shades of darkness, so much filtering of light’s intensity, that ultimate choices become confusing. Humanity’s common plight in this world of thick mist and shadow is a lost sense of direction and destiny. At the core of our muddled thinking is a divided heart. We were created for and crave unity with our Maker, yet, at the same time, try to avoid Him. Perhaps our sleep has become too precious. We fear a God whose light obliterates the comfort of dreamy pillows and the secrecy of thick blankets. But our only legitimate fear is that of not fearing, not heeding, not obeying such a loving God whose commitment to truth causes Him to call us to, and insist upon, the same commitment.

The God who is love is also light. Light is not subtle or complex, but simply pure and revealing. If the God of light hides Himself at all, it is for our own preservation. In our inner selves, we often house such a turbulent amalgamation of good and evil, truth and error, light and darkness, that His fully directed focus, like the blast of a high-powered laser beam, would blow us away in an instant. In His love and kindness, God bestows little glimpses of truth here and there during the course of our lives in order to turn us away from the darkness of selfishness toward the light of holiness and love. But often this slow process is only to prepare us for an essential “crisis” experience where a sudden pouring in of His light catches us off guard, exposing our true situation and our danger. At such moments, the choice is clear. We either turn back willfully toward the deceptive comfort of our darkness or enter a new, bright journey on the highway of God’s will. At such a crossroad, choosing not to choose is by default to sink back into the darkness, which may not only be costly, but even damning.

This book has been compiled without categorical or chronological arrangement. As in my first book, I have included some older poems, along with others which do not necessarily follow this introductory theme. Some of them are merely poetic experimentation. But for the most part, the poetry in this volume captures my insights on the human condition, in which light and darkness are so intertwined. I have tried to embody in poetry a message that exposes the blind spots that prevent our world from recognizing the truth. In these areas especially, I pray that my poems succeed in pointing readers away from darkness and toward the light. Where I have included poems of a personal nature, whether humorous, sentimental, or descriptive of life experience and observation, I hope they do not detract from the central theme of this introduction.

As a Christian, I am not ashamed to state my absolute confidence in God’s Word, the Bible, as His guiding light for our lives in this world of shadows. Many of these poems express my longing for closer union with God, and I hope they engender that same desire in all who read them. Above all, I want my readers to know that God’s invitation is open to everyone for a new life in His Son, Jesus Christ. This God of love and light waits for all of us to come to Him, and the nearer, the better—the closer, the brighter.

— David L. Hatton

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

THE PERFECT POEM

When a poet is a prophet,

When the singing strikes and stings

At the shifting social conscience

Modern foolish thinking brings,

We’re reminded of the Poem

From God’s lips of love sublime:

Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate,

Perfect rhythm, perfect rhyme.

God spoke nature into being:

Beasts and rivers, rocks and hills,

Trees and sunsets, stars and seasons,

Human passions, human wills . . .

Then, because we failed to listen,

God in perfect harmony,

With Himself the Song and Music,

Sang to us His Melody.

Passions twisted and perverted

By our wills that went astray

Wander blindly through a wasteland

That we know so well today.

But God’s law still speaks within us

By true guilt when we are wrong,

And true grace will only greet us

At the singing of His Song.

There is hope for our confusion—

Dissonance from sins we sung.

Hear the rhapsody of passion

On the cross where Jesus hung:

Perfect words for perfect healing,

Peace throughout eternity

In the chorus choir of Heaven,

If we choose God’s Poetry.

— David L. Hatton, 5/19/92

(Poems Between Darkness and Light,  © 1994, 2014)

For more single poems from this volume, visit my website's “Poetry Page.”