Where the Yellow Leads

I can't tell you why, but apparently I returned from Ireland/UK bleeding poetry. (jump to poem)

You may not know this, but before I ever began writing music, I used to write poems. (Loads of them, in fact, including one written later about a Sweetpea Danderfluff of Fair Downs, but that's another story. Hint: that's Grace's name in Hobbit. I'm such a dork!) Happy poems, sappy poems, sad poems... it wasn't until one day staring at one of my poems that a melody sounded off in my head, which led to everywhere I've been ever since.

But I was quite rigid in my writing (read: I still am). Meter, rhyme, syllabic stress—all of it. I treated all other forms of poetry as less than, which is pretty similar to my approach to visual arts and hating all forms of abstract art until fairly recently. It seems something is being shifted inside me.

Since returning, I’ve been writing at a prolific pace (as of today, 55 poems in just 33 days!). Taking off the shackles of iambic pentameter and rhyme has unlocked something else—focusing more again on what I’m saying, not simply the rules through which to say it. In some ways, it feels like a coalescence of all my years manuscripting sermon, writing lyrics, and even Facebook statuses.

Enough introduction. (Now you understand why I included a jump-to-recipe-ish button above!)

Along with more blogposts around Creative Compass, I'll be sharing some pics and memories from our trip overseas—including a poem or two each time. Below is the very first writing that opened the floodgates (more of a poetic essay, but who's counting), inspired by some bees I saw buzzing about, which the Lord seemed to keep drawing my attention to throughout our time there.

Where The Yellow Leads

There’s something holy in the way a bumblebee moves—slowly, deliberately, humming with an energy too alive to be contained. I’ve come to see my life this way: a buzzing presence among the blooms, moving from one bright patch of yellow to another, each a tiny sun, each an invitation. Yellow, in Van Gogh’s hand, was glory—divine light made visible, radiant in its defiance of the dark. In my life, yellow is calling. Yellow is purpose. Yellow is God whispering, “Here. Now. Again.”

Like a bumblebee, I hover, land, and lift. Cross-pollinating, I do the unnoticed work of connection—making the world richer, more alive, though few can find the pattern. There are no straight lines to what I do, no schedules that make it legible to human eyes. But to heaven, perhaps, the choreography is clear. Each flower I visit is changed by my passing, and I am changed as well. There’s an intimacy to this labor, this ministry of touch and flight, of brushing glory from one place to another.

But I remember the chapel.

Near the window, a bumblebee was caught behind the glass. With yellow light pouring in—warm and golden, like all it was ever made to love, the bee couldn’t reach it. Rising, fighting, smacking the pane, falling, trying again. The sound of its wings was frantic—devoted, even—but still it couldn’t find a way through. Light drawing close, glass holding back.

And I stood there, strangely still. Watching. I knew that ache—that strange distance between what we’re drawn to and where we actually are. So close to the sacred, yet somehow stuck.

Then, someone came.

Not with panic, not with pity. Just stillness. Care. They reached, gently cupping the bee, and opened the door. For a moment it paused, stunned by the sudden wideness of the air. Then—up. It flew. Not wildly, but surely. Not away, but onward. Back to the yellow. Back to the glory. Back to what it was made for.

That moment stays with me.

Because sometimes I am that bumblebee. Tired. Devoted. Buzzing in the wrong direction. But God comes—unforced and unhurried—and cups me in strong, kind hands. Carries me out. Sets me free.

Not to escape. 

To return.

To the work. To the beauty. To the next yellow bloom waiting just for me.