Mr. Frost

Lately I have been reading a lot of Robert Frost. It’s interesting that I am learning a lot about who I am from America’s country bard. I’m beginning to understand who I am and who I was and how my tastes have change through time.

In my younger days I didn’t get Frost. I found his lyrics slow and quiet. I would read them, and like a dud firecracker when there wasn’t an immediate boom I’d move on to something louder, hungrier and more passionate. Walt Whitman was my choice. He was a man after my own heart. Perhaps I should say he was the madman after my own heart. He went about devouring everything is his path. Whitman’s writings are wild and as unruly as the poet’s feral appearance. Whitman is a machine gun out of control mowing down everything in his path.

With great delight I have rediscovered Frost. His rhyme and structure are ordered, quiet, and subtle. Each one is its own little puzzle that challenges you to think. To find the marrow of Frost’s work you have to look around corners and under rocks for little hidden mysteries. These days, I value that slower pace. I yearn for the quiet. I am intrigued by the deeper meaning hovering underneath Frost’s work. Reading his work is almost a different activity. Whitman sprinted about jumping and shouting while Frost strolled through a quiet meadow and contemplated the meaning of life, love and God hidden in each blade of grass.

It’s funny how I have changed and how evident that is in my taste for poetry. I no longer am in that hurry. I have eased up on the accelerator that was once jammed ever down to the floorboard as I raced through life. I am taking time to stop, look around and take life in. Some days I wish I were younger. It would likely make my relationships much easier. But the truth is that the brash, impulsive person I was in college, the one that wanted to speed recklessly through life with the medal to the metal and consume everything in his path and leave life as a shooting star, that person wouldn’t have made the strong, lasting bonds that I have made with these past two years.

The Lord’s timing is a funny thing. It isn’t always simple or convenient. He works differently then we do. It often isn’t easy for others to understand. But He doesn’t give us what we want. He gives us what we NEED.

I am finding grace in my friendships in places I never expected. I have found people that share my values and goals and want to devout their lives to serving the Lord just as I do. I thank God for putting them in my life.

The Robert Frost reading, more patient Brant is ready to look for the mysterious and unexpected… even if it requires searching under each rock and each blade of grass during long walks in the country. It’s amazing. You never know where you can find love.