My new booklet of poetry bears the title Blessed Fall, a translation of the Latin phrase felix culpa, often said alternatively as happy fault. Used in Christian worship since ancient times, it is part of the Easter Proclamation, “O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer.” An expression of thanks for our exile from paradise, felix culpa flips our relationship with suffering on its head, praising the necessary precursor to Christ’s salvific work – the fall of our original condition from the harmony of Eden. There could be no Second Adam without the first.
Perhaps our fall from grace is actually a blessing in disguise. After all, scripture tells us every fruit in the garden is good for eating. Just as Christ was nailed to a tree before escaping the tomb, every soul must lose its self-determination at the hands of an unjust world before spiritual liberation begins. Our wounds are not undone either, they are sanctified. Jesus still bears the marks of crucifixion in his resurrected body, restoring the faith of Doubting Thomas.
In every death there is a resurrection for those with eyes to see. The cycles of nature remind us that every cold night is warmed by the rising sun, who sets once more after running his course across the sky. Scripture tells us the Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world. Death and resurrection are woven into the fabric of creation. If we bear the darkness of suffering long enough, eventually we also bear witness to the light, even though pain feels forever while we are in it.
The poems in this booklet were composed over the course of several years, the last of which were a time of great suffering. A spiritual death left me writhing in pain on the floor, riddled with a rapidly worsening nerve condition combined with all-consuming flashbacks which lasted hours, days, even weeks at their worst. I will spare you all the gory details, not out of hesitation to speak them aloud, simply because the details of such an occurrence are hardly important. What is important is this – after years of agonising physical and mental suffering, I emerged with a new heart and a new mind, a new man.
Once a nomadic street kid sleeping in parks and bank lobbies, eating out of dumpsters and begging for change on the sidewalk, I stumbled my way into university and from there to Christian ministry. The whole time I was unknowingly dissociated, numb from the neck up, my nerves aflame with unresolved trauma. I awoke from my stupor a middle-aged father with a townhouse in the suburbs. Irony of ironies, the last place an outlaw like me expected to find myself. So many friends who shared that world with me have passed away in recent years. I wept for each of them. By grace, my death was only a spiritual one.
Though I could not perceive the way God was working within me at the time, I slowly coalesced into the man I was meant to be. My true identity in Christ no longer buried under years of accumulated chaos. These poems describe my journey in theological terms I hope others find helpful. We cannot avoid the path of descent, but a good map makes the transition a little less overwhelming and, perhaps, may even provide some direction.
In the most hopeless hour of my dark night, ten songs written in pairs came to my soul. They came rather quickly, all of them in the span of a week, using tunes of familiar hymns and folk songs I often sing for my children. I decided to include them at the end of Blessed Fall. Perhaps, in some small way, my soul participated in the spirit of Moses, fasting for forty days before meeting God in a wild storm on top of a mountain. Just like Moses, I returned from my encounter with spiritual gifts for the people. Rather than ten commandments written in stone, God gave me ten virtues written in verse.
Blessed Fall is available for purchase online.
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