Our Mighty Fortress

"Mom, when are you going to put that stuff away? You've been working on it all weekend!"  Dylan said to me on Sunday night, pointing at a mess I had on our coffee table...sigh...

The thing is that I actually spent the entire weekend stressed out looking for fun ways to teach a poem to my classes today.  The reason I was stressed out about it was because students in these classes despise anything to do with literature.  They are absolutely NOT interested...especially in poetry...They don't get it.  They think is boring.  They don't see the point of it.  They don't want to have anything to do with it.  They can't relate.  So, I was tempted to skip the poem and move on to a film.  But I said, no...I am going to teach them the poem.  But that resolve cost me hours upon hours working on a strategy that would not put them to sleep. 

After thinking about it from many different angles, I came up with my intro line:  songs are poems we sing.  And poems...and songs...always tell us a story.  Sometimes we don't fully understand the story we've been told in a poem, but there's always one.  

From there, I proceeded to read the poem, which contained several words that I knew they would not understand...but that was part of the learning experience.

Yesterday at church we sang one of my favorite hymns: "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."  I don't know what it is about that song, but it speaks to me.  Not unlike the poem I was teaching in class today, this hymn contains many words I don't understand.  I don't even know how to pronounce many of them.  But, I can't help it to be inspired and moved by it.  Regardless of my shortcomings with the language...  there is something about it that makes me want to take a deep breath and go fetch my armor of God.  It's a battle cry.  It's a call to arms.  It's a reminder of Who He Is and why He is deserving of all of our worship.

The hymn tells us the story of God's mighty power, and of His strength.  It tells us the story of how the enemy tries to devour us, but his efforts are futile, for "one little word shall fail him."  And even if the body is killed, it doesn't matter, not one bit, because, "God’s truth abideth still/His kingdom is forever."

...sigh...

The lesson today flowed in unexpected ways in my classes.  Not all got it.  Not everyone showed intense interest.  I doubt it that I made my students suddenly love poetry.  But the story was told.  I didn't skip it.  I believe that by making them do this exercise, they experienced the power of words...the power of rhythm...the power of beat...and for that, I believe they are better off.  Just like I'm better off having been exposed to The Mighty Fortress that is Our God ... "a bulwark never failing."