What is Life? New Second Edition (July 2024)

What is Life?

From the 2015 Archive

Image Courtesy of News Event Images via Google with all rights reserved to the photographer

Author Note

This poem was inspired while listening to this extended version of John Murphy’s Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor) super extended version 

an hour ago,

in this link …

Written on 6 September 2015 in Gloucestershire and is dedicated to Frau Rita Schneeweiß

in traversing the heights and depths,
in conquering all,
we prepare to rebuild bridges where bridges have fallen or been knocked down,
and build bridges where none before existed.
We step forward,
confident,
that lightness in our step. Why?
We have overcome,
and will overcome, all!

… And do that which, at life’s end,
we can say with grace and humility
We did what we were expected to do!

We lived,
We loved,
We set an example,
We have that unspoken faith and confidence
Recalled
From schooldays distant
*
And this is the confidence that we have in Him
That we do according to His will
And if we know that we do his will
then we know that we have the confidence
that he has reposed in us
as it is written [i]

Und das ist die Freudigkeit, die wir haben zu ihm,
daß, so wir etwas bitten nach seinem Willen,
so hört er uns.
Und so wir wissen, daß er uns hört,
was wir bitten, so wissen wir,
daß wir die Bitte haben,
die wir von ihm gebeten haben. [ii]

WHAT is Life?

It is the beauty of freedom

It is the awareness of our source

It is the realisation that regardless

of religion and ideology,

we do have a source …

The Source

Life beyond our imagination

A cycle of seasons never ending,

A realisation that whatever sacred

text we read,

Whatever its source,

It is but a poor substitute

to the witnessing of The Spirit

to our spirit

The awakening of our soul …

Everlasting

Indestructible

LIFE is in our love for each other

In every aspect of Creation

Love for the utter incredulity 

and magnificence of the Multiverse

The Heavens stretched out way above

and before us,

and even deep into the Oceans

where darkness abides,

but not the darkness of evil,

the darkness of light ordinarily impenetrable

but which is now opening up to us

even subterranean oceans,

beholding species we never knew existed,

bringing to us ever greater evidence

of some Superior Intelligence

of which our own is a very poor reflection

in a mirror

but nevertheless true

LIFE is in the act of forgiveness

LIFE is in stretching out the hand of friendship

LIFE is in not walking by on the other side.

LIFE is in assisting in whatever way we can

Those who have by misfortune

suffer war, insurrection and famine,

Suffer the most horrific wars

Suffer the most horrific acts of barbarism

Suffer the horror of terrorism

and the most heinous act of all

Suffer evil by deluded hands, vicious minds

who scream

that it is the victim who is evil

LIFE determines to “rid the world 

of this brute oppression, tyranny and fear” [iii]

… Yes, such evil as has ever 

corrupted the human breast.” [iv]

LIFE is in the beauty of the day

The Sunrise

The Sunset

The Rolling Oceans

The Plains and Mountain Ranges

LIFE is in The Spirit

moving across the deserted places

laid waste by twisted minds

LIFE is in the mobilisation of Forces

to defend Freedom

to fight for what we have and love

to resist the horror of perverted

religious or political ideology,

and those who seek to propagate such hatred

AND having done so,

to be magnaminous in victory

to learn from our past mistakes

to rebuild civilisation on the basis of

Freedom for all

Freedom from slavery

Freedom from child abuse

Freedom from sexual abuse

Freedom from female genital mutilation

Freedom from misogyny

Freedom of education for all

Freedom regardless of gender

Freedom regardless of sexuality

Freedom to love

Freedom to speak

Freedom to hold each other

Freedom to accept all Genders

Freedom to LIVE

This freedom is innate within every being

It stands out in sacred texts,

It stands within the hearts of those

who seek no need for theism,

Just as GOD stands outside ‘time’.

Where do we find G-d?

However we perceive this 

Intelligence?

From within out hearts

God as the ancients portray

is but imagination’s figment.

Yet within myth

We find the occasional truth.

I do not see as man sees

I look upon the heart

Not upon the outward appearance

[v] 

HERE IS LIFE!

Life is in Theism and Atheism

It is subordinate mind

that seeks to emulate that famous line

I will be like the Most High

I will ascend above the very stars of heaven

But that is man writing

with humankind’s perception.

Freedom is to stand true,

and to stand firm.

Firm, when all around us are down

Firm, we remain standing and still stand [iii]

And Freedom grants us the 

ability and desire 

To converse,

To negotiate

To seek the common good

To live and let live

To love and let love

To banish dark entities

To make clear freedom’s price tag.

A line beyond which freedom will not permit

humankind to transgress,

A Burgundian Line.

Such transgression is too awful to contemplate

for as it is written,

It is a terrible thing

to fall into the Hands

of the Living GOD

 [vi]

Selah
[vii]

Let us, therefore, step forward

With Faith

With Hope

With Determination

With Confidence

With Forbearance

With Perseverance

With Patience

With LOVE

ƒinis

24 July 2024
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL

© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb © 2024 Ian Bradley Marshall

Digital Artwork by KTW IBM unless otherwise credited

Written on 6 September 2015, in Gloucestershire although my home was still in Liverpool
Last published on 26 August 2022

Afterword

This poem was inspired while listening to John Murphy’s extended version of Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor) super extended version an hour ago, which can be found on the link below.  

[i] 1 John 5 : 14 these are the words I learned at primary school and I have always presumed that they were from the Authorised Version, and seem very loosely to dovetail or reflect 1 John 5: 14-15 KJV and NKJV
[ii] 1Johannes 5: 14-15 Der Lutheran Bibel
[iii] Speech by Winston Churchill 1940 following the Fall of France in 1940
[iv] ibid
[v] 1 Samuel 16 : 7
[vi] Hebrews 10 : 31
[vii] Selah is the Hebraic term that variously has three meanings where it regularly appears in the Book of Psalms in the Tanakh (the Older Testament). | Forever | raise voices in praise | make the instruments louder (Source: Logos Bible Software). Although I am now far, far removed from christianity per se, my faith remains very firmly intact. I prefer to see a much wider sphere, where perspectives and dimensions live and breathe and flex outside the strictness of constraint that every religion demands of its followers. But there is oine phrase that has always inspired me in the litany of the Anglican Church Prayer Book, and it is that wondrous phrase that wisks me back to infany, standing amongst the Grown-Ups in the colossal Church when all the grown-Ups resounded as one :

And all the People said AMEN and again Amen

At this point I’d suddenly hear from far, far above me over the top of all the long coats and skirts and sensible heels and stockinged legs and polished black gentlemen’s shoes

Ken, close your mouth, Dear!