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Coeur Incurvatus in Se– a Poem for the New Year

Coeur Incurvatus in Se– a Poem for the New Year

Last updated on: January 10, 2025 at 1:31 am by Ben Witherington

Coeur Incurvatus in Se– a Poem for the New Year 2025-01-04T08:45:50-05:00 Ben Witherington

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Coeur Incurvatus in Se

(as Luther said)

Self-absorbed in the garden

He became Narcissus

The heart inverted

He’ll never miss us.

Realized he was naked

Fig leaves won’t do,

Hide from your maker,

Who must remake you.

Mirrors and selfies

Self-focus supreme

Who cares about others

If I’m my own dream?

The three persons I love

Me, myself, I

I’m always distant

From others who try

To win my attention

To woo me again

To shatter the mirror

To destroy primal sin

The problem with falling

In love with yourself

It’s a monotonous courtship

A life on the shelf.

It leaves you alone

And lonely as well

It’s not self-fulfilling

It’s the pathway to hell.

No one is an island

A wise man once said

It’s a decline into darkness

It leads to the dead

Yet we long for relations

For love that is true,

But this requires an other

What’s a narcissist to do?

Somewhere long ago

A sage made so clear

‘You must be born again’

The kingdom is near.

The old self must die,

To have life everlasting

It requires more than just trying

More than just fasting.

You need an intervention

An unlikely hero

A demolition man

And I don’t mean Nero.

A radical rescue

Is what is required

A total surrender

Of what self desired.

Not a self-help program

Not five easy steps

Not multiple meditations

Not endless good reps.

Take up your cross

Not mine, Jesus said

Would you rather be living

Or carry on dead?

Not self-fulfillment

Self-sacrifice

Is what’s required

Is the full price.

The cure for heart disease

In our deadly condition

Is a total transplant

By the great physician!

BW3

January 4, 2025

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