THE MAN WHO DEFEATED DEATH

Thank you very much, Em-ily. I appreciate it very much.

I'll point out later just how and why this piece of yours is conceptually confused, syntactically muddled, and theologically ill-informed.  But for now, here's my response to  what is essentially  a message about how selfish  and self interested you are and how your love for Jesus is grounded not in the fact that it is the right thing to do, but  in what he can do for you.

Is it not true that if,
as I proclaim,
my reason for
desiring a relationship
with anyone through whom
good God on high
defeated death
is principally the cold  self serving,
selfish  one
that I be granted the fulfillment of
my frightened wish to stay alive eternally
I do not love that Jewish  “savior”
for his sake
but more, much more,  for mine?

I am waiting for something more from your side.

Really?  Funny how you don't wait to respond to those who compliment you on what they take to be the message of your submissions.

Moreover, given your track record of not speaking directly to the things I say about  how and why the way you write is less than artful,  or your telling me that I know nothing about what is entailed in writing well, I'm wondering if I should even bother writing up notes on how and why this piece of yours is so lacking in art and so cloyingly pious that it's hardly worth reading.

Will you promise to **demonstrate** how and why **each and every one** of any remarks I make about your piece are off the mark  if I send them to you?

Here is why I think this piece of yours not only lacks poetic art, but that  it is mostly nonsense.  
 
“I need you and l want to feel you're near  
as l can't see a man who can help me  
except the one Who can assure me that  
there is no end to life which is so dear.”  
   
This is conceptually muddled not only because you don’t state what needs to be stated for what you are saying to be clear,  i.e.,   what it is that you need help with, or for, or help to do,  but because given the way you set things out here,  it looks like the one who can assure you there is no end to a life which is “so dear” is NOT the person to whom you are speaking .  And because you can’t see a man who could help you with whatever you need help with, for, or to do,  does NOT mean that there is no one except the person whom you believe can offer you a particular assurance.   Why not say that Muhammed can?   BTE,  the Buddha was one who gave assurances that death is not something to be feared and that the fear of it could be overcome.  And Norsemen were convinced that the priests of Odin could do so.  
   
“When man feels that there is a coming end,  
the freshness of his hope gets stale and frail.  
Its tendrils can't join hands with his home wall  
to get a great delight to longing eyes.”  
   
Here we have a (for you typical) sacrificing of sense on the altar of rhyme.  Freshness is not something that gets “frail”.  Moreover, your syntax, in which hope is the antecedent of “its and walls is what the object of “join”,  makes you say that hope has tendrils and that a wall has hands that tendrils can join..   And one does not “get” a delight.  And It is also not in any way clear, no matter how much imagination one uses, how tendrils or hope (neither of which have hands) somehow grasping  walls would bring delight to any kind of eyes (which they also do not have).  
   
And the implicit claim that you make about what always happens  when “man” feels an (unspecified) end (of what?  A movie, a books, a sermon? A road?)  is imminent, i.e.  any hope (for what?) he has gets stale (?) is question begging.  It’s simply not true.  
   
“What is the use if man is counting years.  
   
“the use”. Again deixis.  What is the use of what?  
   
“There are no numbers which will not expire”.  
   
Numbers do not expire.   They are not living things.  
   
“How man can get the pleasure of success  
if death is sealing fright on his scared face.”  
   
Is fright something that can be sealed on anything? And if a man already has a disquieted face, isn’t sealing it with fright  (whatever that means) superfluous?    
 
And is it really true that having a disquieted face **always** prevents “man” from getting the pleasure of success? Fear can be a great motivator.  And fear of death had not always prevented "men" from realizing their goals.  
   
Once again, you overstep yourself in pretending to a wisdom about the way the world works that you do not have.  
   
Moreover, is the theme of your piece “what prevents “man” from gaining the pleasure that comes from being successful (at what, BTW?)"?    
   
“No one can build the trust except that Man,  
Who has defeated death and smeared his brow”.  
   
“the trust” is deictic.  Trust in what?  
   
And is smearing one’s brow (with what, BTW?) that which  allows the man who does so to build “the trust”?  
   
“Death feared the Lord, Who doffed His thorn crown”  
   
Lousy meter here.  More importantly, to doff a crown is to take it off one’s head.  
https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/doff  
   
“and placed it on his skull to turn it red.”  
   
So leaving aside the fact that according to the Gospels,  Jesus had nothing to do with placing the crown of thorns on his head. It was Roman soldiers who did so. And are you saying that it was Jesus’ intention to turn his skull red.  And even if it was,  he didn’t succeed, did he --because his skull was covered in hair and skin.  
   
Sorry,  but this is tripe.  
   
Now please do what shows you are my friend and **demonstrate** (not declare) that each of the points I raised above are indeed off the mark if you think they are. Telling me that they are not worth speaking to only signifies that you are unable to deal with them.

Thank you very much for your great effort. Indeed, it needs a lot of time to write this long winded criticism, Baldwin.

I have to wonder if you are capable of responding to anything I write to you in a responsible  and unchurlish way.  "Longwinded" is an insult.  And it is unwarranted (though par for the course coming from you). There is nothing tedious about my remarks  since they are no more and no less than what needed to be said to  speak adequately and truthfully to all of the major faults in your piece.  And if you think there is tediousness there,  it's your obligation to demonstrate that that's the case.  Ah the hypocrisy in your claim that  you wanted to be friends with me.    

And the issue isn't how much time it took to write what I wrote.  It's whether what I wrote was deserved and on point -- something which, once again,  you haven't addressed or **shown** to be  untrue.