My crisis of faith started as soon as I stepped foot into the Greenville College freshman honors class two years ago. Everything since then has been a desperate search for humanity and love, even in the darkest of places.
One person who was instrumental in showing me love and humanity is Christopher Poindexter. He's a poet from Chicago who wrote the collection of poetry called Naked Human . His voice is sincere and sarcastic, full of life and love and just pure humanity. That's all there is to it.
Let me give you an example.
"i have spent time in cathedrals, worshiped
in churches, bruised my knees at altars.
i have carried god in my pocket like a little
pill that makes one feel warm, energetic,
joyous. . . .
i have searched for meaning and purpose in many ways,
. . .
but nothing comes close to simply being kind.
just being purely fucking generous."
One of the mottos of my college is "All Truth is God's Truth." And Christopher Poindexter shows me truth in every word he writes, whether it's about his alcoholic father or the gay man he meets on the street. Or even when it comes to faith.
The lines, "i have carried god in my pocket like a little / pill that makes one feel warm, energetic, / joyous" speak a truth that hits particularly close to home for me. It reminds me of those faith rock things that Christian bookstores have that you can get and they say "Pray" or "Faith" or "Believe." A rock in my pocket isn't going to make me think about God. What makes me think about God is my best friend who's struggling with her relationship, my boyfriend who struggles with his faith, my issues with depression. The trees who point to heaven and the dogs who wag their tails. The perfection in a flower, the imperfection in humans. These things point to God more than any "religion" ever will for me. I find God in the imperfection, the sadness, and the tears. Because God is with us more in those moments than He is at any other time.
All I know is, Christopher Poindexter is a voice in the darkness for me. He writes about such a variety of subjects, but all of them are unmistakably and beautifully human. And that's what I love about him. He writes about the naked human in all of its beauty.
