Get Out of Your Head

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Burleson</B></div> <div> <B>“Get Out of Your Head, a Poem to Myself” </B></div> <div> <I><B>For the fourth Sunday in Advent</B></I></div> <div> <B>Luke 2: 39-56</B></div> <div> <B>December 24, 2006</B></div> <bR> <div> Y<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >ou are too much in your head.  You are, admit it.</FONT></div> <div>      Thinking about thinking and you just can’t quit it.</div> <div> You think you can know… from your mind, from critique?</div> <div>      Know from analysis where there is no mystique?</div> <div> You’ve got to get out of your head.</div> <bR> <div> Especially now, in this time of year… </div> <div>      You’re got to break free… Christmas is here.</div> <div> It’s what you most want, it’s what you wish for,</div> <div>      That you could sing like Mary and have your heart soar.</div> <div> That your soul could magnify and your spirit celebrate.</div> <div>      Because you’re filled up with wonder so great.</div> <div> But… you’ll have to get out of your head.</div> <bR> <div> Because you know how you are… how you always have been.</div> <div>      You can’t seem to help it… it’s the way that you tend. </div> <div> It’s a Scrooge like thing… It’s a Christmas steeling Grinch.  </div> <div>      Making a cold winters’ night in the soul, that’s a cinch.</div> <div> There’s a cynical voice saying, <B>“You’d better find the key.”</B></div> <div> <B>     “Make sense of it all? How can this be?”  </B></div> <div> Your so stuck in your head.</div> <bR> <div> And when the voice asks you’ll go down the mind’s ladder, </div> <div>      Into that gray place, into the gray matter.</div> <div> Where you’ll think and think that thinking’s your art.</div> <div>      There where you think rather than ponder in your heart</div> <div> You’re in your head… you’ve gone there again.</div> <bR> <div> I suppose, you can’t help it… can’t stop that ole’ mind…</div> <div>      It’s just in you, for sure, look inside and you’ll find….</div> <div> Some instinct to say <B>“Why and how come?”</B></div> <div> <B>     </B>An instinct in you, that can’t be undone.</div> <div>  </div> <div> It’s the condition of your condition. It’s the illusion of your intellect.</div> <div>      It’s a modern mess, a gamey game.</div> <div> That someday you’ll pluck, right out of the air,</div> <div>      some piece of the puzzle to make it all clear.</div> <div> You’ll read the right book and think the right thing</div> <div>      You’ll unwrap the mystery and then… finally… you’ll sing.</div> <div>      </div> <div> But you can’t… and you know it… but still you will try.</div> <div> Examining … not living.</div> <div>      Critiquing… not giving.</div> <div> You’ll state your hypothesis… you’ll test your theory.</div> <div>      You’ll think and debate and query ‘till your weary.</div> <div> But you’ll only do that with that small, little mind.</div> <div>      Which is too small to know, that it’s too small to find.</div> <bR> <div> You know what it’s like, that little bitty mind?</div> <div>      As it presumes to know truth and questions the Divine.</div> <div> Why, it’s like a beetle staring at you, thinking he can understand.</div> <div>      Or like a blind man on a beach who’s counting the sand. </div> <div> It’s really much worse, more silly and sad</div> <div>      It’s arrogant and haughty and down right mad.</div> <div> It’s like a seed who presumptuously says from inside</div> <div>      What the apple is like in which it abides.   <I>(a Church Father image)</I></div> <bR> <div> Please, please get out of your head.  Get out of your mind.</div> <div>      Yes it’s a gift for sure, it’s one of a kind.</div> <div> But you haven’t confessed that it’s not such a star…</div> <div>      And curses are just blessings taken to far.</div> <div> So rather than living in some deep surrender,</div> <div>      You trust in your thinking hoping to render…</div> <div> A notion, a concept, a doctrine, a plan</div> <div>      All idols of yours, held tight in your hand.</div> <div> Your critiques and questions have become golden calves</div> <div>      Easily molded from concepts you have.</div> <div>      </div> <div> Get out of your head.  God… is not a concept.</div> <div> God is not handled! God is not tamed.</div> <div>           God is not grasped or reduced to a name.</div> <div> And not finally known by that small mind of yours.</div> <div>      You’re stuck in your head, you are, for sure.</div> <bR> <div> There is a way out… there is a way on.</div> <div>           There’s another kind of knowing, to which we are drawn.</div> <div> Where we know… but know as we always been known,</div> <div>                Beyond all the thinking that we think is our own.</div> <div> It’s a knowing that finds us and lifts us and leads us.</div> <div>           A knowing that loves us and sees us and frees us.</div> <div> But a knowing that is out of your head.</div> <bR> <div> Shouldn’t you get out of your head?  Wouldn’t you?</div> <div>      Will you?  Won’t you?</div> <div>      Can’t you?  Can you?</div> <bR> <div> Can you be like Mary and begin with wonder?</div> <div>           Can you kneel in prayer and in your heart, ponder?</div> <div> In awe and excitement, in worship and in play</div> <div>      Can you get out of your head and follow her way.</div> <div> Into surrender and on into singing.</div> <div>      Present to life and a heart that is ringing.</div> <div> Can you be now and not back then?</div> <div>      Can you be now, not in some when?</div> <bR> <div> You can?  </div> <div>      It’s time to get out of your head.</div> <div> That your soul might magnify and your heart might rejoice.</div> <div>      As you reverence a mystery and lift up your voice.</div> <div> You must!  You will!  You can!</div> <div>      Amen and amen and amen!</div> <bR> <div> Copyright, Burt L. Burleson, 2006</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>