Humility

 

The adrenaline joyride car of possibility

burned out stopped dead engine hissing bonnet up

at 8:30 on a Wednesday morning in the desert plain

of a banal cramped seminar room filled with stupid people

Here were we of all the people in the state: here we were

to move the world   come to academic sense of God

here we were a scattering of dowdy Christians

on some higher calling bringing so much faith

but so little brains so little energy so little life

 

Someone’s cold and strong instant coffee blew up my nostrils

the very anthem of the moment

 

I’d come here to change the world: to gorge myself on theology,

fill myself with glorious liberating knowledge and answer all the problems

to live and breathe in a hothouse of glorious minds contemplating the divine

with ideas and discussions and lectures to fire the mind

 

but my glorious new life was actually

a slow Wednesday morning with bad coffee and bad jokes.

 

- Nathan Hobby 23/2/2000