the best of times, the worst of times

This started as a scribble today during the sermon inspired by Ephesians 3:13—"Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory."

As I prayed over it, though, the addition of one more stanza and a meditation over Philippians 3:10-11—"that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead"—completed the whole poem. I write this inspired by the Resurrection Sunday contest at christians, which has the theme of "Resurrection Power" this year: Resurrection Sunday Contest.

There were three main meditations that went into this. The first is that we as Christians glory in our sufferings, boast about our weaknesses, and find joy amidst brokenness. This can only be because we know that we are fellowshipping with Christ's sufferings. The second is that we know that suffering is not the worst evil in the world, as many of the godless believe. That is why to so many in the world, it is preferable even to die than to live in pain or to live poorly. The third is that Christ has power over all, both life and death, and demonstrated himself triumphant in both because of his resurrection.

Stylistically, I started off writing simple iambic pentameter quatrains with a simple ABCB scheme. However, I found that I was unwittingly creating caesurae, and I found that splitting that second line would be particularly effective in conveying that weakness. The lower case is also symbolic of the weakness we experience (I don't make poems all lower case for no reason), and indeed the entire poem has only one highly important capitalized word.

The title and opening line is a reference to A Tale of Two Cities, in case that wasn't clear enough.