"Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus Through God's Will," poetry

Revised Edition: LukivPress (Victoria, BC), 2022.

Introduction

Paul, writing to the Ephesians, highlights the importance of the Christian personality. Through holy spirit, he writes, "You were taught to put away the old personality that conforms to your former course of conduct and that is being corrupted according to its deceptive desires. And you should continue to be made new in your dominant mental attitude, and should put on the new personality that was created according to God's will in true righteousness and loyalty."-Eph. 4:22-24. We find a Christ-like premise for this "new personality" in verses two to four of the same chapter: "humility[,]...mildness,...patience,...love,...the oneness of the spirit...[, and] peace." Certainly such a premise would promote unity and joy among brothers and sisters.

An excerpt, chapter 4

"We should no longer be children, tossed about as by waves and carried here and there by every wind of teaching by means of the trickery of men, by means of cunning in deceptive schemes."-Ephesians 4:14.

Of the good-for-nothing men,

What deeds cling to me?

Do their omens,

About their futility,

Stick like sap to my exposed

Skin? Do their night-projects

Wrap around my legs,

As if tentacles of doom have

Prepared me to fall?

Do their flies with legs caked

In dung land on my tongue?

Do their words like lice

Infest my hair?

Do their lies enter my ear canals

And turn to wax that hardens,

Paralyzing my little drums?

Do they leap out of darkness

As a lion from a thicket,

Unnerving my heart?

Do they sprinkle parasites

Upon my food, infesting me

With a future of worms

With treacherous teeth? Do they

Fill my clothing with the unnatural

Odor of carrion? O!,

Of the good-for-nothing men,

What deeds cling to me?

The author

Dan Lukiv, published in 19 countries, is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). As a creative writer, he apprenticed with Canada's Professor Robert Harlow (recipient of the George Woodcock Achievement award for an outstanding literary career), the USA's Paul Bagdon (Spur Award finalist for Best Original Paperback), and England's D. M. Thomas (recipient of the Cheltenham Prize for Literature, Orwell Prize [biography], Los Angeles Fiction Prize, and Cholmondeley award for poetry). He attended The University of British Columbia (creative writing department), the acclaimed Humber School for Writers (poetry writing program), and Writer's Digest University (novel writing program).