How To Disappear Completely

"And what is heaven but this?
To know even as fully known."

Yes - I remember that was one of the first things as a child that excited me about Heaven and about Chrisitianity. Later I realized Paul was talking primarily about knowing God, but I think it has applicability to our knowing as well.

Well, I DID mean it more in a relational way than a factual way...which is why I followed it immediately with the text "but I speak of the mystery of Christ and the church," a verse that comes within the context of the most intimate of human relationships (that reflect that mystery of Christ's relation to the church)...this whole poem is about what it is easy to use words for and what it is difficult to use words for. And I guess another thing about my poems is that I very much deliberately chose Scripture verses based on their context and intend for that context to "enter in" to the poem and inflect interpretation of the poem (...I'm so influenced by the "intertextuality" of postmodernism on this point...fascinated by Warhol, Ives, Eliot, Bahktin). On the other hand, I usually refrain from spelling this all out, because I enjoy the art that makes me figure the layers piece by piece.

But anyway, yes, I look forward to knowing things as well.

I think you misunderstood me - I meant relational knowing, but I think that Paul in 1 Cor. 13 was referring principally to our relational knowing of God, though like I said, it can be extended to how we know other people - since our knowing will be knowing in Christ, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer insists.

Ohhhhhhh.......I get you.