Joseph Kreydt

Tag: reflection

  • The Pain of a Beloved’s Pain

    A handwritten page from a notebook containing a reflective text about dignity, self-worth, and the implications of treating others as divine.
    When someone sees you as a god — a woman degrades herself because she sees you as the one who gives her value — the loving response always involves some sort of crucifixion. For the undignified woman, your own desires and any potential response which does not aim to restore her dignity must be killed, no matter how painfully, in such a way that her own dignity can be restored without shame.

    The pain Christ feels is not because our sins hurt him. It’s because it hurts to see a beloved one degrade or afflict their self. In the crucifixion, he takes our degradation and affliction upon himself. That is the preferable pain when someone you love is hurting.

  • The Lightness of Quiet

    I’ll open the window.
    You, in your warm way,
    Welcome in the nighttime hush.

    The heavy words
    We’ve carried all week
    We’ll offer, quiet, to the breeze.

    To a hearer, between us
    Won’t be much,
    But to a seer will be everything.

    In this witnessed solitude
    Our spirits have a ballroom.
    In the silence between us
    They slow dance.

  • Survival of the Flittest

    A handwritten poem titled 'Survival of the Fittest' on a notebook page, discussing the relationship between machines and nature, featuring themes of power and beauty.
    Driving to work in a machine —
    (For a machine) that gives me power,
    And in other ways, takes my power;
    A machine tuned and perfected
    Over a hundred years;
    A machine upon which
    Cultures have fallen
    And cultures have formed —
    A red cardinal, tiny and fragile,
    Darted across the road
    In front of the machine
    That drives me.
    Panic pulsed through my heart.
    “No! I cannot, atop this other grief,
    Mourn the death of such beauty,
    Such life, to the machine.”
    All in a wingbeat
    With a twisting flit,
    Violent volitation,
    And agile ascension,
    The organism evaded the machine,
    And I held tight to some far off dream.

  • The Pain Is Your Living

    A handwritten poem written in a notebook, expressing themes of individuality, resilience, and the importance of staying true to oneself.
    The world wants you
    To be a tool for its use.
    Refuse.
    Hold your brokenness high.
    Your bleeding wounds, lift up.
    The pain, don’t trade it for anything.
    It is your living.
    Do not fit in,
    Especially when it costs you money,
    Especially, especially, especially
    When it costs you you.
    Give up every happiness
    To stay wild.
    Give up everything
    To love the one who sets you free.

  • Is It Pride?

    A handwritten poem on a dotted notebook page, exploring themes of identity, existence, and belonging, with questions about pride, love, and home.

    it it pride?
    seizes my heart
    clings, desperate
    to be held
    to be known
    to be understood

    where is the wine
    that falls from the skies
    to rain dance
    to baptize

    is letting go
    something you do
    or something
    you don’t do?

    is it death
    or is it life?

    something in me
    longs like a child
    who lost his mother

    where is home?

  • What Simone Weil Means by “Renunciation of God”

    A beloved being who disappoints me. I wrote to him. It is impossible that he should not reply by saying what I have said to myself in his name.

    Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.

    To accept the fact that they are other than the creatures of our imagination is to imitate the renunciation of God.

    I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

    Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

    On page 79 (later on in Gravity and Grace, by Simone Weil), she explains the “renunciation of God.” She doesn’t mean a person renouncing God.

    She means this. God creates us so that he is not everything. He renounces being everything.

    So, to accept that someone is more than what we imagine them to be, to accept that they are subject, not object, is to renounce being everything — I am not the center of the universe.

  • Crowding Out Thorny Worries

    A close-up of handwritten notes in a notebook, reflecting on personal growth and introspection, with phrases about nurturing and managing inner thoughts.
    Inside of me,
    A place where wild things roam,
    A flock I must shepherd,
    A garden I must tend

    Through storms and attacks,
    Famine, entropy, growth...growth
    — Is it not all growth?

    Growth to be hedged and pruned,
    Encouraged here, enticed there,
    To be nurtured into something beautiful.

    And what of these thorny worries?
    I've let them grow, expecting fruit,
    But they've only become a mess.

    I try pruning,
    But they only grow back stronger.
    Instead, I'll try to crowd them out.

    I'll scatter, all among them,
    Little seeds of prayer, and of faith
    That I'll receive the grace
    To handle whatever comes, when it comes.

  • Death Without Death

    Handwritten text on a page discussing selflessness and love for others, featuring a question about dying to oneself and a reference to a biblical quote.

    How do we die to ourselves without suicide?

    We live for another. We give up every part of us that says “I.” We forget ourselves with another who forgets their self. We close the eyes that watch out for the self, and open the eyes that watch out for the other. We do everything for the good of that other, and do nothing for the good of the self except in that it is for the good of the other. In doing this, we strip ourselves of the self God gave us as an act of giving, in love, to God.

    “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

    To die without death is to defeat death, to take away its power.

  • The Way Out of Hate

    The following was originally part of a novel I’m working on. In the editing process, I realized it didn’t fit there, but it still seemed worth sharing, so here it is.

    I used to hate people. Then I figured out why. I still hate them sometimes, but I am mostly able to overcome it now.

    I hated people because I thought people hated me, or at least didn’t care about me. And I thought my value was dependent on what they thought of me. And so I ultimately hated myself because I thought they hated me, and I thought that meant I was less of a human.

    When I hated myself, I hated everyone else, too, because when we hate something, we hate what we perceive as flaws. My friend didn’t call me back, so he must not value me. Either he is flawed because he is wrong about me, about my value, or I am flawed because he is right about me, about my value. And so I hated. I hated flawed-ness. And because I hated flawed-ness, I hated human beings because human beings are flawed.

    You know how that cycle of hatred is broken? I’ve only found one way: forgiveness. You can hate or you can forgive. If you hate, you turn whoever you hate into something less than human in your mind. You reduce them to an object and then throw it away. If you forgive, you love, and if you love, you give your attention.

    I hope that makes sense. It’s important to me. It changed my life. Forgiveness isn’t easy, but it’s really the only way out of hate in a world full of flawed beings.

    Forgiveness doesn’t mean, “you can do whatever you want to me.” It means something more like, “I refuse to see you as an object, to strip you of your humanity. I will see your flaws and still recognize that you are a whole person, so much more than your flaws.”

    I have to remind myself about forgiveness quite often. It’s so easy to fall into hate. But it’s so much better to struggle to love.

  • Goodbye Hello

    Goodbyes hurt.

    I must admit there is beauty in that. The hurt tells me I have a heart, and that I loved. It tells me to connect and stay. These are nice things to say to someone. Still, I’d rather not say goodbye.

    But there are so many goodbyes in this world that we have lost our sense of place. We no longer place flowers on the graves of our kin. Where are they, anyway? They’re not here. They’re in the place we left. Instead, we tithe and sacrifice and build digital monuments to the god of travel. We fly for him. We say goodbye for him. But not all of us. Some of us stay home. Some of us tend the gardens. Some of us keep watch. I prefer place. I like to stay.

    And if you’re the same, I say, hello.