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Digging Seamus Heaney Between my finger
and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my
window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly
ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining
rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee
was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge
deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool
hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a
bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it,
then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy
peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my
head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. Between my
finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.
(1966)
Hello there! Corinna Laughlin here with the
Poem of the Week. We’ve been away for a while, but Scott, Lisa and I are
back. We’ll bring you a new poem early in each month, and midway through
the month we will share some poems you may have missed from the
archives. This week, we’re reading “Digging” by Seamus Heaney.
Scott Webster will read the poem, and then I’ll be back to offer some
brief commentary. Thank you, Scott. Seamus Heaney was
born in 1939 in rural northern Ireland. He grew up surrounded by cattle
dealers and farmers. A brilliant student, he attended a private Catholic
boarding school on scholarship, and then went to Queen’s University,
Belfast, where he discovered the poetry of Ted Hughes—and his own
vocation as a poet. Vocation is what this poem, “Digging,” is
all about. One of Heaney’s most famous works, it appeared in his first
collection, Death of a Naturalist, in 1966, when Heaney was 27 years
old. “Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests;
snug as a gun.” Heaney is ready to write, but not yet writing – the pen
“rests.” It is as “snug as a gun,” a comparison that works on a couple
of levels: it emphasizes the perfect fit of the “squat pen” in his
fingers, but it also suggests that the pen is powerful; Heaney holds it
as though he is taking aim. In the second stanza, Heaney “zooms
out” to show us where he is – he must be at his father’s house, for
outside the window his father is digging in the garden. He hears the
“clean rasping sound” as the spade hits the gravel, and almost comically
sees “his straining rump among the flowerbeds.” His father bends among
the potatoes and comes up “twenty years away”—this digging has been his
whole life. I think we can pick up on a certain tension between
the poet and his father. Notice the distance—the son is inside, the
father outside; the son is above, the father below – “I look down.” It
seems to be an emotional distance as well as a physical one. But
then the perspective shifts again and that distance disappears. “The
coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft / Against the inside knee was
levered firmly.” He sees his father up close, how neatly and skillfully
he digs, scattering the new potatoes which the children gather, “loving
their cool hardness in our hands.” The poet marvels at what his father
does: “By God, the old man could handle a spade. / Just like his old
man.” We sense from the language that the poet’s grandfather was a
legend in the village: “My grandfather cut more turf in a day / Than any
other man on Toner’s bog.” The poet remembers, as a boy, bringing him
milk, which he paused just long enough to drink, then immediately,
eagerly resumed his work. And again, what Heaney remembers is the skill
involved: “Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods / Over his shoulder,
going down and down / For the good turf. Digging.” Heaney’s
descriptions of digging are extraordinary, evoking his intense memories
of this work. This is “ASMR” long before the internet made it a hashtag!
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap / Of soggy peat,
the curt cuts of an edge / Through living roots.” At the beginning of
the poem, the poet was looking down, out of a window, watching his
father dig; but now he is on the ground, delighting in the smell, the
feel, the sound of digging. “But,” he says, “I’ve no spade to
follow men like them.” And he returns to where he started: “Between my
finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests. / I’ll dig with it.”
Heaney—poet, teacher, scholar—certainly experienced a disconnect with
where he had come from; he chose a very different path from those cattle
dealers and farmers. In this poem, he both acknowledges and, in a way,
erases that distance. He places his vocation is in continuity with his
father and grandfather. All that is different is the tool: they dug with
a spade; he digs with a pen. For him, poetry is work—earthy work.
Sometimes, we humans tend to think of work as a curse—after all, it
wasn’t until after the fall of Adam and Eve that they were told, “by the
sweat of your brow you shall eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). But work is a
blessing. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, “When human beings
work they not only alter things and society, they develop themselves as
well. They learn much, they cultivate their resources, they go outside
of themselves and beyond themselves. Rightly understood this kind of
growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be
garnered.” (Gaudium et Spes, 35) Work has tremendous dignity and value,
and when we do it with all our strength and skill, we discover depths in
ourselves we never knew we had.
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Ithaka BY C. P. CAVAFY TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY As
you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of
adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry
Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that
on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long
as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets
them up in front of you. Hope your road is a long one. May
there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at
Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl
and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many
sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars. Keep Ithaka
always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all
you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have
set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you
find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have
become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what
these Ithakas mean.
Constantine Cavafy was born in 1863
in Alexandria, Egypt, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. A
citizen of Greece, he lived in many places. Cavafy wrote: “I am from
Constantinople by descent, but I was born in Alexandria… I left very
young, and spent much of my childhood in England…. I have also lived in
France. During my adolescence I lived over two years in Constantinople.
It has been many years since I last visited Greece.” Cavafy always had a
day job; he worked as a journalist, and then in the Egyptian Ministry of
Public Works for 30 years. He took an unusual approach to the
publication of his poems. He never published a collection. Instead, his
work appeared in magazines, or on self-published broadsides which he
distributed to his friends. He was a perfectionist, and left only about
150 finished poems, along with hundreds of drafts, abandoned poems, and
fragments. E. M. Forster, who was a friend of Cavafy, described him as
"a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a
slight angle to the universe." T. S. Eliot was another early reader of
Cavafy’s work. It was not until after Cavafy’s death in 1933 that the
first collection of his work appeared and his work really began to be
recognized. This poem, “Ithaka,” was written in 1911. It is
typical of Cavafy in the way it is rooted in ancient Greek history and
literature, and quite contemporary at the same time. The poem builds on
the familiar story of Odysseus, who had gone to fight in the Trojan War
(as described in Homer’s Iliad) and then had many adventures on the way
home—the story told in Homer’s Odyssey. Cavafy’s poem is full
of details from the epic. Ithaka is the island that Odysseus is trying
to get home to, and the Laistrygonians, Cyclops, and Poseidon are some
of the dangers he encounters along the way. But Cavafy’s poem
is not an update of Homer’s epic, nor is it really about Odysseus at
all. Cavafy uses the story to reflect on journeys and destinations. We
know that the journey is what matters most: “hope your road is a long
one.” He lyrically describes the joy of discovery: “May there be many
summer mornings when… you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first
time.” Cavafy reminds us that we human beings are both body and soul,
and there are experiences for both on this journey. We can sample the
“perfumes” of Phoenicia, and we can “learn and go on learning” from
Egyptian scholars. As for the monsters Odysseus encounters—the
Laistrygonians, the Cyclops, and “wild Poseidon”—on this journey, the
dangers come from within. “you won’t encounter them / Unless you bring
them along inside your soul.” But the destination is important,
too. “Keep Ithaka always in your mind.” What is Ithaka for Odysseus? It
is not just his destination; it is home, family, responsibility. It’s
his own place and purpose. “Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.”
Without Ithaka, Odysseus is just a wanderer. Of course, there are
problems back in Ithaka. “If you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled
you. / Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, / you’ll
have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.” Cavafy’s poem
is sometimes read at graduations, and you can see why: it’s a wonderful
invitation to explore the world and to keep on learning. But there’s
more to it. Paradoxically, perhaps, this poem about journeys is also
about staying grounded. “Ithaka” speaks of the importance of staying
connected with our roots, our home and traditions, which give shape to
our journey, no matter how long that journey may be, or how far from
home it may take us. Have a great summer!
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Psalm 114: Miracles Attending Israel’s Journey
Isaac Watts (1674-1748) When Isr’el, freed from Pharaoh’s hand, Left
the proud tyrant and his land, The tribes with cheerful homage own
Their king; and Judah was his throne. Across the deep their
journey lay; The deep divides to make them way. Jordan beheld
their march, and led, With backward current, to his head. The
mountains shook like frighted sheep, Like lambs the little hillocks
leap; Not Sinai on her base could stand, Conscious of sov’reign
pow’r at hand. What pow’r could make the deep divide? Make
Jordan backward roll his tide? Why did ye leap, ye little hills?
And whence the fright that Sinai feels? Let ev’ry mountain,
ev’ry flood, Retire and know th’ approaching God, The King of
Isr’el: see him here! Tremble, thou earth, adore and fear. He
thunders, and all nature mourns; The rock to standing pools he turns,
Flints spring with fountains at his word, And fires and seas confess
the Lord.
Isaac Watts was born in 1674 and died in 1748. From
early childhood, he was both devout and a poet. As the story goes, the
young Watts was caught looking up during prayers in church, instead of
bowing his head and closing his eyes like everyone else. When asked why,
he responded in rhyme: “A little mouse for want of stairs / ran up a
rope to say its prayers.” I don’t know if that is a true story, but I
think it shows a mix of devotion and playfulness which is also evident
in Psalm 114 and in Watts’ metric version of it. The psalms are
the prayer-book of the Bible. They are also the hymn-book of the Bible,
and the poetry-book of the Bible. Watts was a nonconformist minister,
meaning he rejected the Church of England, and had strong Calvinist
roots. For Calvinists, music and poetry were suspect. All singing must
be sacred singing, and the only acceptable songs were the songs of the
Bible—the Psalms. Metric versions of the psalms were of great
importance, because they helped bring the Scriptures to the illiterate,
and music and beauty to worship. Psalm 114 retells the story of
the flight of the Israelites through the Red Sea, but many of the
familiar elements of the Exodus story—Moses and his staff, Pharaoh and
his chariots and charioteers—do not appear. Instead, in some really
charming imagery, the psalm shows all of nature responding to God’s
presence at the Red Sea—the waters retreating in awe, the Jordan river
reversing course. The mountains are sheep and the hills lambs, shaking
and leaping in wonder at the presence of God. In translating
the Psalms into English meter, Watts was more than a versifier. He was a
poet. His care with, and delight in language comes through. In the first
two stanzas, Watts moves back and forth between past tense and present
tense. “When Isr’el… Left the proud tyrant and his land, / The tribes
with cheerful homage own / Their king; and Judah was his throne.” We
move from past, to present, to past. The second stanza does the same
thing: “Across the deep their journey lay; / The deep divides to make
them way. / Jordan beheld their march.” Past tense, present tense, past
tense. What feels like a straightforward narrative really isn’t: this
story seems to be trying to burst from history into the present.
And that is exactly what happens in the second part of the poem. We hear
a series of questions: why did the water divide? What made the mountains
quake and the hills leap? The answer is not in the past: “Let ev’ry
mountain, ev’ry flood, / Retire and know th’approaching God, / The King
of Isr’el: see him here! / Tremble, thou earth, adore and fear.” Watts
and invites the readers, or singers, to recognize God’s presence in the
present: “see him here,” see him now. Watts’ metric versions of
the psalms made him the most widely-read poet of the 18th century, both
in England and in America. Watts acknowledged that he took great delight
in writing verse—perhaps too much delight: “I confess my self to have
been too often tempted away from the more Spiritual Designs I propos'd,
by some gay and flowry Expressions that gratify'd the Fancy; the bright
Images too often prevail'd above the Fire of Divine Affection; and the
Light exceeded the Heat.” But Watts helped start a quiet revolution by
publishing not just metric versions of psalms, but his own original
compositions, and he opened the way for many other writers to do the
same. He showed how the poetry of the Bible, and original poetry, could
live side-by-side in our worship. Whether we realize it or not,
we know Watts’ work well. Many of his hymns and psalm settings are
classics: “When I survey the wondrous cross,” “I sing the mighty power
of God,” “My shepherd will supply my need,” “O God our help in ages
past,” and “Joy to the World.” Today, thanks to poets like Watts, and so
many others down through the centuries, poetry both old and new has a
place at the heart of Christian worship.
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A Song on the End of the World BY CZESLAW MILOSZ TRANSLATED BY
ANTHONY MILOSZ On the day the world ends A bee circles a
clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump
in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the
snake is gold-skinned as it should always be. On the day the
world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas, A
drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn, Vegetable peddlers shout
in the street And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps Do not believe it
is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As
long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now. Only a white-haired old
man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too
busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: There will be no other
end of the world, There will be no other end of the world.
Warsaw, 1944
Czeslaw Milosz was born to Polish parents in
Lithuania in 1911. His family returned to Poland after World War I.
Milosz began writing poetry in his teens, and during his 20s was part of
a school of poets who were later called “catastrophists” because of the
way their poetry ominously foretold the coming of the Second World War.
After the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939, Milosz became part of the
underground Resistance movement. His work for the Resistance was writing
and editing, including a book of poems published under a pseudonym. If
this seems an odd assignment for a resistance fighter, Milosz and his
contemporaries did not see it that way. For them, poetry only became
more important in wartime. He said: “Poets in the East cannot afford to
be preoccupied with themselves. They are drawn to write of the larger
problems of their society… events burdening a whole community are
perceived by a poet as touching him in a most personal manner.” Milosz
defected from communist Poland in 1951, and became a US citizen in 1970.
In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in Krakow
in 2004. Even in its title, this poem is a paradox. “A Song on
the End of the World”: something beautiful; something cataclysmic. That
juxtaposition continues in the first two stanzas, which are full of
beautiful imagery. In fact, “on the day the world ends,” everything
seems to be more beautiful than it normally is: the fisherman’s net is
“glimmering,” porpoises are “happy,” birds play, and even the snake is
“gold-skinned.” People are observed with particular care and attention:
women and men, peddlars and drunkards. On the day the world ends,
evening comes with remarkable beauty: “The voice of a violin lasts in
the air / And leads into a starry night.” This is the day the world ends, Milosz says,
upsetting all expectations. Those who were waiting for drama—lightning
and thunder, the trumpet of an archangel—are “disappointed” and “do not
believe.” And that includes just about everyone: Milosz says that as
long as the sun rises, “As long as rosy infants are born / No one
believes it is happening now.” No one believes. Except one
person: an old man keeps saying, “There will be no other end of the
world.” This man would be a prophet, except that he is “much too busy.”
Even as he repeats his mantra, he is binding up his tomato plants.
Milosz was a Catholic, and this poem is full of echoes of the
Scriptures, especially Matthew 24. That chapter in the Gospel has its
own share of paradoxes. Jesus speaks of the end of the world in
cataclysmic terms: “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give
its light… he will send out his angels with a trumpet blast.” But a few
verses later, Jesus recalls the time of the flood, when people “were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that
Noah entered the ark.” The day the world ends will take us by surprise:
in the words of our poet, it may well be a day when bees are in clover,
when infants are born, when the sun shines. At the end of the
poem, Milosz adds these significant words – “Warsaw, 1944.” That was the
year of the Warsaw Uprising, when the Polish Resistance sought to
liberate the city from Nazi occupation. Fierce fighting went on for
three months. By the end of the uprising, 16,000 resistance fighters
were dead, along with as many as 200,000 civilians, most of whom died in
mass executions. By the time the Germans abandoned Warsaw in January of
1945, 85% of the city had been destroyed. Situating the poem
within this historical context, Milosz invites us to reflect on the end
of the world, not as a vague future event, but as something that comes
when we do not expect it—something that is happening now. Milosz is that
prophet among the tomato plants, quietly but insistently urging us to
look around and recognize the signs. A critic has written of Milosz: his
poetry “does not promise any final solutions to the unleashed elements
of nature and history here on earth, but it enlarges the space in which
one can await the Coming with hope.”
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The Poor By Roberto Sosa (Translated from
Spanish by Spencer Reece) The poor are many and so—
impossible to forget. No doubt, as day breaks, they see
the buildings where they wish they could live with their children.
They can steady the coffin of a constellation on their
shoulders. They can wreck the air like furious birds, blocking
out the sun. But not knowing these gifts, they enter and exit
through mirrors of blood, walking and dying slowly. And so,
one cannot forget them.
Roberto Sosa is one of the
best-known poets of central America. Born in Yoro, Honduras in 1930, he
spent many years working in low-paying jobs to support his family. He
went on to publish a number of books of poetry, including Los
Pobres, The Poor, in 1968. Commentator Dave Bonta has
written of Honduras: “poets are held in very high esteem in that
country… Hondurans of all classes have tended to view poets as
uncorruptible truth-tellers — a valuable and perilous profession in a
country where political corruption is so deeply engrained.”
Roberto Sosa is one of these truth-tellers. He has said, “literature
doesn’t provoke revolutions… but it does assist in social
reconstruction, both immediate and far-reaching. It’s an aesthetic
reflection of the way things are, to the extent that it captures the
critical elements of a society: corruption, for example, betrayal,
treason, impunity, injustice.” This social awareness is very
much in evidence in “Los Pobres,” one of Sosa’s best-known poems.
The first part of the poem seems to look at the poor from the outside:
“The poor are many,” the poem begins, “and so--/impossible to forget.”
“No doubt, / as day breaks, / they see the buildings / where they wish /
they could live with their children.” It is an outsider’s perspective on
the poor, imagining that they must wake up wishing they could live in
nicer homes, wanting what others have. With the third stanza,
there is a shift in diction. From matter-of-fact phrases, we move into
striking, poetic language: “They / can steady the coffin / of a
constellation on their shoulders. / They can wreck / the air like
furious birds, / blocking out the sun.” The poor are strong—strong
enough to be pallbearers for a star. They know how to deal with death.
When they come together in anger, like a flock of “furious birds,” they
are powerful, capable of “wreck[ing] the air” and “blocking out the
sun.” But the poor are unaware of their power: “not knowing
these gifts, / they enter and exit through mirrors of blood, / walking
and dying slowly.” The poor do not know their potential—the strength and
force inherent in them, and so they “enter and exit,” “walking and dying
slowly.” The poem ends as it began: “And so, / one cannot forget them.”
At the end, that phrase has new layers of meaning. Now it is not just a
statement about how numerous the poor are: it is almost a warning.
Knowing the potential of the poor to endure and to enact change, “one
cannot forget them.” Translator and poet Spencer Reece has said,
“in its sparse language, it captures the pain of that overlooked
country. Stripped of baroque excess, the poem hangs on the page like a
crucifix.” While Sosa’s poem is not explicitly religious, it does
resonate with the Catholic Church’s teaching about the poor. One of the
first things Pope Francis said after his election was, “I want a Church
which is poor and for the poor.” He has consistently reminded us of the
Church’s “preferential option” for the poor. He writes: “God’s heart has
a special place for the poor, so much so that he himself became poor….
This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all
Christians…. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by [the
poor]…. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their
causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for
them and to embrace the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with
us through them.” Accompanying and learning from the poor in
this way leads to solidarity—and real solidarity has real consequences.
To quote Pope Francis again, Solidarity is “something more than a few
sporadic acts of generosity.…. solidarity must be lived as the decision
to restore to the poor what belongs to them.” For Christian believers,
the poor are “impossible to forget.”
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From The Last Seven Words BY MARK STRAND
Someday some one will write a story set in a place called The Skull,
and it will tell, among other things, of a parting between mother
and son, of how she wandered off, of how he vanished in air. But
before that happens, it will describe how their faces shone with a
feeble light and how the son was moved to say, ‘Woman, look at your
son,’ then to a friend nearby, ‘Son, look at your mother.’ At
which point the writer will put down his pen and imagine that while
those words were spoken something else happened, something unusual
like a purpose revealed, a secret exchanged, a truth to which
they, the mother and son, would be bound, but what it was no one
would know. Not even the writer.
Mark Strand was born in
Canada in 1934, and died in New York in 2014, after a long and
distinguished career as a poet, essayist, translator, and educator.
If you participated in the Tre Ore service on Good Friday this year,
Mark Strand’s poem will sound familiar to you: Father Tom Lucas
used this cycle of poems as the basis of his reflections on the Seven
Last Words, the words Jesus spoke from the cross as recorded in the
Gospels. This poem takes us back to Good Friday, but it also
looks forward, into the ongoing role of Mary in the mystery of
salvation. And mystery is what Strand captures so well in this poem.
From the very first line, the poem plays with time. “Someday some
one will write a story set / in a place called The Skull.” “A place
called The Skull” is the mount of Calvary, where Jesus was crucified—the
story someone will write someday is the Gospel. The poem places us
before the writing of the Gospel. It is as if we are standing at the
foot of the cross. Nothing has been written down yet, and all that seems
to matter in this moment is the son who hangs on the cross, and his
mother who stands beside him. Strand says that the story “will tell, /
among other things, of a parting between mother / and son, of how she
wandered off, of how he vanished / in air.” Mary will eventually
disappear from the narrative, and Jesus will “vanish” in the Ascension
at the end of the Gospel. But in this moment, the relationship between
mother and son is all that matters: everything else that happens is
contained in that understated phrase, “among other things.” The
way Strand retells this familiar story makes us take a fresh look at it.
Strand never says “Jesus,” “Mary,” “John,” “the beloved disciple.”
Instead, we have “the son,” “the mother,” and “the friend.” We see each
person in terms of their relationship to the others. Strand describes
the moment quite dramatically—their faces “shone with a feeble light,”
he says—he shines a spotlight on these three figures, as the familiar
words are uttered: “Woman, look at your son,” and “Son, look at your
mother.” In the second part of the poem, Strand imagines the
writer putting down his pen, and following a train of thought, imagining
that “while those words were spoken / something else happened, something
unusual like / a purpose revealed, a secret exchanged, a truth / to
which they, the mother and son, would be bound.” The writer has recorded
what happened; but what it means even the writer does not know.
It’s a wonderful reflection on the mystery of the life of Jesus and the
power of the Gospels. At one level, Jesus is making sure that his mother
will have a place in the world, entrusting her to the care of his
friend. But at another level, something quite different is happening—a
purpose, a secret, a truth: Jesus is entrusting the Church to Mary, and
Mary is accepting her role in the mystery of salvation. I think
some words of Mark Strand in an interview can help us read this poem.
Strand said: “I’m not absolutely sure what it is that I’m saying. I’m
just willing to let it be. Because if I were absolutely sure of whatever
it was that I said in my poems, if I were sure, and could verify it and
check it out and feel, yes, I’ve said what I intended…. I think the poem
would be, finally, a reducible item. It’s this ‘beyondness,’ that depth
that you reach in a poem, that keeps you returning to it…. It’s really
that place which is unreachable, or mysterious, at which the poem
becomes ours, finally, becomes the possession of the reader…. We come
into possession of a mystery.” In this poem, the Gospel writer
is like the poet, whose words have meaning beyond what he can explain.
Reading the Gospels is different from any other kind of reading. Jesus
is not in the past; Jesus is risen, and we are in relationship with him.
Thus the story we read is our story. When we read the Gospel—to quote
Mark Strand—“we come into possession of a mystery.”
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Prayer Christian Wiman For all the pain passed
down the genes or latent in the very grain of
being; for the lordless mornings, the smear of
spirit words intuit and inter; for all the
nightfall neverness inking into me even now, my
prayer is that a mind blurred by anxiety or
despair might find here a trace of peace.
We met Christian Wiman a few weeks ago in this series, when we read
his poem “From a Window.” In his late 30’s, Wiman almost died from a
rare form of cancer, and his experience of sickness and recovery, and
his Christian faith, inform his poetry. Typical of Wiman’s
poetry, this poem is condensed and controlled—every word counts. Wiman
starts the poem with suffering, the kind of suffering that is part of
the human condition, that seems to be born with us and grow with us:
“the pain / passed down / the genes / or latent / in the very grain / of
being.” And there is spiritual pain, too: “the lordless mornings,” the
days without faith. And then there is poetry, which sometimes opens up
glimpses of the spirit, but sometimes obscures it—even buries it: “the
smear of spirit words intuit and inter.” And then there is the sense of
fear of life itself coming to an end: “the nightfall / neverness /
inking / into me.” The short lines – many of them a single word—are
narrow, constricted, reflecting the mood of the poem. In the midst of all these fears, Wiman’s poem
concludes with a glimmer of hope: “my prayer / is that a mind / blurred
/ by anxiety / or despair / might find / here / a trace / of peace.” In
prayer, even a mind confused by “anxiety / or despair” can find
consolation—“a trace / of peace.” This poem is called “prayer,”
but in a sense, I think it’s about poetry as well. Some of the language
Wiman uses evokes the act of writing itself: “the smear of spirit,” the
“neverness / inking into me.” In prayer, and “here,” in the poem itself,
peace can be found. Wiman acknowledges the darkness that is
part of life: the physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering that
beset us; pain, anxiety, even despair. And yet, through prayer, through
poetry, “a trace / of peace” can be found. In an interview with Bill
Moyers, Wiman spoke about the intersection of poetry, faith and
suffering. We’ll let Wiman have the last word in this reflection.
“Simone Weil comes to mind. She says that you know, the greatness of
Christianity is not that it gives you a remedy for suffering, and I must
say I've never felt a remedy, a religious remedy from suffering or for
suffering. It's not that it gives you a remedy for it, but it gives a
use for it. It puts suffering in a place. It gives a pattern. The
complete consort dancing together as Eliot put it, it makes suffering
part of the meaning of your life. And not this meaningless thing that
destroys us. We go through life and suddenly we're destroyed by
suffering. You know, all life becomes is just a way to avoid suffering.
And I think Christianity gives meaning to it.” Watch the whole
interview here:
https://billmoyers.com/segment/poet-christian-wiman-on-love-faith-and-cancer/
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The Windhover Gerard Manley Hopkins To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High
there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy!
then off, off forth on swing, As a skate's heel
sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, – the
achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour
and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND
the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier,
more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and
blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall
themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
This sonnet by
Gerard Manley Hopkins pushes the boundaries. I think it comes about as
close to cinematography as words can get: Hopkins describes the motion
of a windhover (a kestrel) and how the bird hovers, watching for its
prey, with brilliant detail and observation of the natural world. But,
as usual in his poetry, Hopkins doesn’t just describe. The rhythms of
the language and the long lines of the first part of the poem recreate
the motion of the bird, hovering on the air, riding the wind. From the
very beginning, we know this bird more than a bird: the windhover is
“morning’s minion,” “kingdom of daylight dauphin,” a prince, a
“dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon.” The poet himself is very much
present in the poem, which begins “I caught.” The poet did not “catch”
the windhover, of course; he saw it. But, as one commentator has
observed, this is not a poem about birdwatching! Witnessing the
windhover was an event for him: “My heart in hiding / Stirred for a
bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.” It’s a thread through
Hopkins’ poems: the experience of joy at witnessing something, or
someone, doing what they were made to do. In the second part of
the sonnet, there is a dramatic shift, both in the windhover’s flight
and in the poetic language. As the windhover suddenly dives for its
prey, language seems to fail and we get a staccato series of words:
“Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here / Buckle!”
The windhover’s flight was beautiful, but its dive is magnificent: “a
billion / Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!” The last
lines of the poem use two unusual images to reflect on this explosion of
beauty in the bird’s dive—seemingly dead embers, when they fall from the
grate, burst open to reveal the “gold-vermillion” that still burns
within. The same sense is evoked in the line “sheer plod makes plough
down sillion shine.” As a farmer has explained in a commentary on this
poem, “When freshly cut a plastic soil with a high clay content does
take on a sheen and, from a distance, the whole field may gleam for a
while in low sunshine.” Only when cut open does the soil shine.
And that’s where the subtitle comes in: “To Christ our Lord.” Is the
poem dedicated to Christ—or addressed to Christ? I think it’s both.
There’s a little detail in the last lines of the poem that I think is
worth pointing out. Who is Hopkins talking to when he says “blue-bleak
embers, ah my dear, / Fall, gall themselves”? That phrase, “ah my
dear,” echoes a famous poem by George Herbert, a favorite of Hopkins. In
“Love (III),” Herbert addressed Christ with those same words: “ah,
my dear, I cannot look on thee.” And in that poem, too, there is a
wistful sadness at what this dear Christ has undergone for our sake.
For Hopkins, the windhover is an image of Christ. The bird is the
master of the wind, but in its plunge, its greatest beauty and power is
released. This is Christ at Easter: he descends to the very depths, and
in rising is “a billion times told lovelier.” Happy Easter!
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Andrew Marvell, “A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body”
SOUL O who shall, from this dungeon, raise A soul enslav’d so many
ways? With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands In feet, and
manacled in hands; Here blinded with an eye, and there Deaf with
the drumming of an ear; A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains Of
nerves, and arteries, and veins; Tortur’d, besides each other part,
In a vain head, and double heart. BODY O who shall me deliver
whole From bonds of this tyrannic soul? Which, stretch’d upright,
impales me so That mine own precipice I go; And warms and moves
this needless frame, (A fever could but do the same) And, wanting
where its spite to try, Has made me live to let me die. A body
that could never rest, Since this ill spirit it possest. SOUL
What magic could me thus confine Within another’s grief to pine?
Where whatsoever it complain, I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;
And all my care itself employs; That to preserve which me destroys;
Constrain’d not only to endure Diseases, but, what’s worse, the cure;
And ready oft the port to gain, Am shipwreck’d into health again.
BODY But physic yet could never reach The maladies thou me
dost teach; Whom first the cramp of hope does tear, And then the
palsy shakes of fear; The pestilence of love does heat, Or
hatred’s hidden ulcer eat; Joy’s cheerful madness does perplex, Or
sorrow’s other madness vex; Which knowledge forces me to know, And
memory will not forego. What but a soul could have the wit To
build me up for sin so fit? So architects do square and hew Green
trees that in the forest grew.
This extraordinary poem
is by Andrew Marvell, who—along with writers like John Donne, Henry
Vaughan, and George Herbert—is one of the “metaphysical poets,” who
explored spiritual themes with often very earthy imagery.
Marvell was born in 1621. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and
there is a story, which has never been proved or disproved, that he ran
away to become a Catholic—and a Jesuit priest! Be that as it may,
Marvell’s father followed him to London and brought him home again.
Marvell became a convinced Puritan, and in later life published many
satires in which the royal family—and the Catholic Church—do not come
off very well. He also wrote poetry. Marvell’s most quoted poem is “To
His Coy Mistress”: “Had we but world enough, and time….” “A
Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body” is a fascinating poem in which
Marvell’s use of language is on full display. This is a dualistic view
of the human person, to say the least. The soul is imprisoned in the
body—“bolts of bones,” “fettered in feet,” “manacled in hands,” and is
prevented from real perception by the limitations of the body: “blinded
with an eye,” “deaf with the drumming of an ear.” For the soul, the body
is an alien environment - a prison. The body speaks next, and
has a similar feeling of being trapped—this time, in the bonds of a
tyrant. It is the soul that makes the body restless, and possesses the
body like an “ill spirit.” The spirit gives life, but only to take it
away: spitefully, the soul “has made me live to let me die.” The Body
seems to be saying that the Soul puts the Body in constant danger –
making the Body its own “precipice”—liable to fall at any moment.
These opposite forces are stuck together. The Soul laments that every
pain the body feels, the Soul must suffer as well—and even worse than
the disease is the cure. Death would bring release, but, “ready oft the
port to gain / Am shipwreck’d into health again.” And meanwhile the Body
feels the same, suffering agonies from hate and love, hope and fear, joy
and sadness—which are merely “madness” and the “other madness.” “What
but a soul could have the wit / To build me up for sin so fit?” If the
body fails (says the Body) it is because the Soul makes it inevitable.
I think one of the most extraordinary things about this poem is
the ending: the Body says, “So architects do square and hew / Green
trees that in the forest grew.” We do not get the tidy ending we might
expect, with the triumph of the Soul. Instead, the Body gets the last
word. The Body is like a tree that grew in the forest, but has been
reshaped by an architect into something else. This ambiguous ending is
perhaps not what we would expect from a Puritan. Today, we try
not to look at our being so dualistically. We know we are embodied
creatures, body and soul together. And yet, in this season of Lent, we
acknowledge the tension that Marvell so brilliantly captures in this
poem. We begin Lent with ashes, that remind us that we are dust, and to
dust we will return. Through the Lenten disciplines of fasting and
abstinence, we strive to get the better of our earthly desires—to let
the Soul prevail, rather than the Body. As we pray in one of the
Collects of the Lenten season, may “those who by self-denial are
restrained in body… be renewed in mind.” The dialogue between the Soul
and the Body goes on in each one of us.
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From a Window BY CHRISTIAN WIMAN
Incurable and unbelieving in any truth but the truth of grieving,
I saw a tree inside a tree rise kaleidoscopically as if
the leaves had livelier ghosts. I pressed my face as close to
the pane as I could get to watch that fitful, fluent spirit
that seemed a single being undefined or countless beings of one mind
haul its strange cohesion beyond the limits of my vision
over the house heavenwards. Of course I knew those leaves were birds.
Of course that old tree stood exactly as it had and would
(but why should it seem fuller now?) and though a man's mind might
endow even a tree with some excess of life to which a man
seems witness, that life is not the life of men. And that is
where the joy came in.
Hello there. Corinna
Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week. This week, we’re reading
Christian Wiman’s “From a Window.” Scott Webster will read the poem, and
then I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Thank you, Scott.
Christian Wiman is quite a young poet, born in west Texas in 1966.
He has published several collections of poetry and essays. He edited
Poetry magazine for ten years, and now teaches at Yale Divinity School.
Wiman was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, but for
many years did not consider himself a believer. But in his late 30s,
several transformational experiences happened to him at about the same
time—he fell in love, he rediscovered his faith, and he was diagnosed
with a rare blood cancer which was thought to be terminal. These
experiences changed Wiman, and they changed his writing. His collection
Every Riven Thing includes many poems where Wiman wrestles with the big
questions of life and death—including the poem Scott read. At
the beginning of the poem, we sense a profound emptiness: “Incurable and
unbelieving / In any truth but the truth of grieving.” That word
“incurable” has special resonance, given that we know that Wiman was
grappling with a terminal diagnosis when he wrote this poem. He seems to
have nothing left but grief—to be empty of everything except the sense
of loss. But at this moment of deprivation, something happens--something
that seems impossible: “I saw a tree inside a tree / rise
kaleidoscopically / as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.” He glimpses
the soul of the tree—but more; it is as if each leaf of the tree has its
own inner life, its own “livelier ghost.” And yet there is total unity:
“a single being undefined,” or “countless beings of one mind.”
What is happening here? Is he having a vision? Wiman goes on: “Of
course I knew those leaves were birds”; “the old tree stood / exactly as
it had and would.” Notice how the diction changes—from fluid and complex
language to short, one-syllable, matter-of-fact words. He knows what
we’re going to say: you were imagining things, and insists that he knows
exactly what he is seeing: birds in a tree. So the poet’s feet
are firmly on the ground. Nevertheless, something has changed. Because
of that glimpse, the tree seems “fuller now”—full of life. And even if
it was his mind and imagination that endowed the tree “with some excess
/ of life,” he recognizes that this is not the whole story. “That life
is not the life of men. / And that is where the joy came in.” He has had
a deeper insight into the reality before him; he has seen into the soul
of things, and “that is where the joy came in.” I’m reminded of Gerard
Manley Hopkins and his concept of “inscape,” the inner soul of all
created things. As Wiman has said, “Poetry takes you fully into the
present, not out of the present.” “What a moment of poetic perception
can do is make the present moment of reality absolutely apparent, almost
touchable.” This poem describes a moment—a second or two,
probably—of dazzling recognition and transformation. “Incurable and
unbelieving” at the beginning of the poem, he ends with joy. And in
between those two extremes is this glimpse of the soul, the unity at the
heart of created things—a glimpse, we might say, of God. I want
to end this reflection with some words of Christian Wiman, from a 2019
interview, that I think resonate with this poem that moves from
emptiness to joy. “Art comes out of emptiness, but also out of joy,
superabundance, excess. Part of my maturation as an artist and a person
is learning to recognize those moments of joy.” Two compelling
conversations with the poet:
https://billmoyers.com/segment/poet-christian-wiman-on-love-faith-and-cancer/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Wh3MCFBqs
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Emmett Till James Emanuel I hear a
whistling Through the water. Little Emmett Won't be still.
He keeps floating Round the darkness, Edging through The silent
chill. Tell me, please, That bedtime story Of the fairy
River Boy Who swims forever, Deep in treasures, Necklaced in
A coral toy.
James Emanuel was born in Nebraska in 1921. He
served in the army during World War II, and after his discharge he
attended Howard University, eventually earning a doctorate at Columbia.
He was teaching in Europe when his only son committed suicide after a
brutal police beating. After that, Emanuel vowed never to return to the
United States. He died in Paris in 2013. The poem Lisa read is
an elegy for Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old Black boy from Chicago who
was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of
whistling at a white woman in a store. He was beaten, mutilated, and
shot, and his body thrown into the Tallahatchie River. Till’s mother
insisted on an open casket at his funeral, so that the world could see
what had been done to her son. Till’s murderers were found not guilty,
though they admitted to the crime a year after their acquittal. Emmett
Till’s death became a turning-point in the Civil Right Movement.
James Emanuel knew he wanted to write a poem about Emmett Till, but he
struggled for a long time, because, as he said, “the subject was such a
terrible thing.” In fact, he worked on the poem for seven years, before
it finally came together in less than twenty minutes. Emanuel
drew on his wide reading in building the rich imagery of this poem. He
remembered “The Prioress’s Tale” from Chaucer, a story in which a boy is
murdered and thrown into a cesspit, and yet continues to sing. He
certainly remembered Shakespeare’s “Full Fathom Five,” one of the songs
in The Tempest, in which a drowned man is imagined as transformed—“those
are pearls that were his eyes; / Of his bones are coral made.” And he
remembered, too, something Yeats had said—“in time, people will not
react to violence; but, if you turn your subject into a legend, then
they will remember.” In his poem, Emanuel does just that—he
remembers Emmett Till with the language of poetry and myth. Here
Emmett—like the murdered boy in Chaucer—will not lie still. Instead of
singing, those passing by the water where his body was thrown hear the
sound of whistling, the echo of that alleged whistle which was the
pretext for Till’s lynching. Emanuel evokes the fear and horror of the
place: “He keeps floating / Round the darkness, / Edging through / The
silent chill.” The end of the poem, with its use of childlike
diction, is perhaps even more chilling. Emanuel imagines a child asking
for “That bedtime story / Of the fairy / River Boy.” Nothing could be
less like a bedtime story, nothing could be less childlike—but then we
remember that Till himself was a child, just fourteen years old. Emanuel
turns Emmett Till into a legend, because he knows, as Yeats did, that
people who have learned to ignore violence will pay attention to legend.
It was not until fifty years after Emmett Till’s death, in
2005, that markers were placed in Money, Mississippi, to honor Emmett
and acknowledge what happened to him. These markers have been repeatedly
vandalized, sprayed with bullets, knocked over, and even thrown into the
Tallahatchie River where Emmett’s body was thrown. Just last September,
another sign was knocked down. Some in America would like to forget
Emmett Till, but, as Emanuel writes in this poem, “Little Emmett / Won’t
lie still.” When asked why poetry is important, James Emanuel
said: “A person reading a new poem expects to encounter unusual
combinations of familiar words; thus he has agreed to accept changes,
however small—and hence however vast—in his being…. we might claim that
reading or writing poetry could lead to revolutionary thought. Dictators
keep their eyes on libraries, and in our truly thoughtful moments we
know why.” As we conclude this reflection, here’s James Emanuel
himself reading “Emmett Till.”
https://youtu.be/YnZFPSPugNk
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Island Langston Hughes Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now: I see the island Still ahead somehow.
I see the island And its sands are fair: Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.
This poem
by Langston Hughes is probably the shortest poem we’ve looked at in this
series – just eight short lines, 30 words in all. But there is a lot
happening in those 30 words! February is Black History Month,
and so it seems fitting to start this month off with a poem by Langston
Hughes, one of the leading figures in American literature in the 20th
century. Hughes was born in Joplin, Mississippi in 1901. His father left
the family when Hughes was still an infant, and settled in Mexico City.
Hughes was raised mostly in Lawrence, Kansas, by his maternal
grandmother, who instilled in him a love for the oral tradition, and a
strong sense of pride in his race and his people. Nevertheless, it was a
lonely childhood. Hughes wrote: “I was unhappy for a long time, and very
lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to
happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the
wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in
beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas.” He fell
in love with books and poetry. Hughes’ father agreed to fund
his education at Columbia University in New York City, on condition that
his son study engineering. But Hughes was more drawn to the vibrant
cultural life of Harlem. He dropped out and worked various jobs in
Harlem, meanwhile dedicating more and more time to his writing.
Eventually, he attended Lincoln University, where he was a classmate of
Thurgood Marshall. Hughes was a prolific writer of poetry,
essays, and short stories. He was hailed, as well as criticized, for
introducing authentic Black voices and jazz rhythms into his poetry.
Hughes died in 1967 at the age of 66. The poem Scott read,
“Island,” is typical of Hughes in its brevity and the simplicity of its
language (Hughes later said jokingly that the longest poem he ever wrote
was 16 lines, written when he was serving as class poet in high school.)
In Hughes’ poetry, every word matters. “Wave of sorrow / do not
drown me now.” The poem is a single extended metaphor: we do not know
how the speaker ended up in these waves. Was he shipwrecked? He is
almost drowning in sorrow. And yet, he can see “the island.” Is the
island his destination—or just a place of safety? We don’t know; all we
know is that the island is “fair” in his eyes. The poem ends, “wave of
sorrow, / Take me there.” We can read this short poem in
various ways. On the one hand, it could be a purely personal subject:
Hughes would not be the first poet to represent grief or depression as
drowning waves. That idea goes back to the psalms: “your billows and all
your waves swept over me” (Psalm 42:8). The poem could be the prayer of
any who feel overwhelmed and yet still hopes for a haven, even if it is
far away. On the other hand, Hughes was often described as a “spokesman”
for his race, and he took that role seriously. From that perspective,
the poem speaks powerfully to the struggle for racial justice which
spanned Hughes’ whole lifetime. The endless disappointments, the
barbarity of Jim Crow, and the seemingly limitless power of the
opposition, could have crushed the spirit of resistance among Black
Americans. Instead, it gave impetus to the Civil Rights Movement. The
“wave of sorrow” that threatens to drown is also the wave that will
carry him on to the island, to the promise. In this poem, the
waters of sorrow are both drowning waters, and the way forward. Waters
were a persistent image in Hughes’ work. In his first published poem—and
one of his most famous—water is a way of connecting with the Black
experience. To conclude this reflection, here is Hughes himself, reading
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cKDOGhghMU
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Those Winter Sundays BY ROBERT HAYDEN
Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the
blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in
the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms
were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing
the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely
offices?
Robert Hayden was born Asa Bundy Sheffey in 1913 in
Detroit’s Paradise Valley neighborhood. His parents separated before he
was born, and his mother was not able to care for the boy on her own—he
was taken in by neighbors, the Haydens. It was a difficult, even a
traumatic childhood. During the Great Depression, the young
Robert Hayden joined the WPA and researched Black history and folk
culture. He married and went back to school at the University of
Michigan. He studied under W. H. Auden, one of his major poetic
influences. Hayden taught at the University of Michigan for several
years before moving to Fisk University in Nashville. His work received
wide recognition, and he was the first Black American to serve as
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—the role we now refer to
as “Poet Laureate.” He died in 1980 at the age of 66.br> “Those Winter Sundays” is Hayden’s best-known
poem, and has appeared in countless anthologies. In some ways it is
conventional in its structure. Parts of the poem are in iambic
pentameter (ten syllables per line)—one of the most common verse
patterns in English poetry. And the poem has 14 lines, suggesting
the traditional sonnet form. But that’s where the conventionality stops.
The poem does not stick to iambic pentameter, nor does it fall neatly
into the pattern of a Shakespearean or a Petrarchan sonnet. I think the
way the poem breaks with familiar structures is significant in this
poem, which comes to recognize love that doesn’t appear in familiar
forms. “Sundays too my father got up early.” There is so much in
that line. It tells us that this is a hard-working man, a man who
doesn’t take a day off. Even on Sundays he is up early – getting dressed
“in the blueblack cold.” Hayden’s coinage—"blueblack”—evokes both how
early he gets up, and how cold it is. With his “cracked” and aching
hands, he builds the fires in each room. “No one ever thanked him,” the
first stanza ends. That comes as a shock. We expect a contrast between
the cold outside, and the warmth within—but instead we get “no one ever
thanked him.” It’s cold inside as well as outside. In the second
stanza, we meet the son. He is still in bed, and listens to “the cold
splintering, breaking.” Only when the rooms are warm does the father
call. Even then, “slowly I would rise and dress, / fearing the chronic
angers of that house.” When he comes out of his room, he speaks
“indifferently” to the father. In the last stanza, we see how,
in hindsight, the son’s attitude has changed. He recognizes what his
father did for the family: driving out the cold by getting up before
everyone to light the fires, even polishing his son’s shoes. These
little acts were “love’s austere and lonely offices”—expressions of
love. The repetition of the phrase, “what did I know, what did I know,”
suggests the son’s sense of regret that his child-self did not recognize
or reciprocate these acts of love. Hayden’s poem is about
family love—love that is not expressed in words or embraces. This love
is “austere” and even “lonely,” performed not in the midst of the
family, but alone and without thanks—without interaction. But there is
love nevertheless, love that has “driven out the cold.” “Those
Winter Sundays” has been described as a “heart-wrenching domestic
masterpiece,” a poem that defines “unspoken love” (David Biespiel). I
think its power comes from its unsentimentality. This was not an ideal
home—the boy feared the “chronic angers” of the house, which, more than
the cold, made him reluctant to get up in the morning. And yet, looking
back, he recognizes that love was present as well. Maybe
reading and reflecting on this remarkable poem can prompt us to look
back through our memories, and recognize the people who performed
“love’s austere and lonely offices” for us—perhaps without ever saying a
word.
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The Darkling Thrush BY THOMAS HARDY I
leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey, And
Winter's dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled
bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all
mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The
ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And
every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I. At once a
voice arose among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted
evensong Of joy illimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and
small, In blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such
ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh
around, That I could think there trembled through His happy
good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was
unaware. Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Higher
Bockhampton, Dorset, to a working-class family. Though his intellectual
brilliance was recognized early, a university education was out of
reach, and he trained as an architect, only later dedicating himself
full-time to writing. He wrote novels, plays and poetry. Almost all of
his work was set in and around his beloved Dorset. In some ways, Hardy
was a bridge between the Victorian and modern periods. His work can be
quite Victorian in its construction, but it is modern in its theme—he is
famous for his fatalism, his use of irony, his critique of social
inequities, and his horror of war. His work was admired by such moderns
as Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, who otherwise had little use for
Victorians. Hardy’s last novel Jude the Obscure appeared in
1895, and it is said that the harsh reviews of that work contributed to
Hardy’s decision to abandon novel-writing and focus on poetry.
The poem Scott read, “The Darkling Thrush,” was originally entitled “By
the Century’s Deathbed”—it was written in 1899, as the 19th century was
ending. As we mark the end of 2021—a difficult year in so many ways—this
seems like the perfect poem to reflect on. The word “darkling”
is a word found only in poetry. It means “growing dark.” All the imagery
contributes to a sense of gloom and desolation. It is cold, but not
beautiful: “Frost was spectre-grey,” and all around the poet are the
desolate “dregs” of winter. Above him, the bare branches seem “like
strings of broken lyres”—if there was once music in this world, there is
music no more. The bleak scene reflects the bleakness of the
broader world. The “sharp features” of the landscape seem like “the
Century’s corpse”—the dead body of the century that is ending. The
clouds are the crypt, the wind is the “death-lament.” The hard, dry, and
lifeless ground also reflects the poet’s his inner state: “every spirit
upon earth / Seemed fervourless as I.” In early drafts of the poem,
Hardy struggled to find the right word for this line. In one version, he
wrote “morrowless”—without a future. But Hardy landed on “fervourless,”
a word which brings a religious sensibility into the poem. Just
at this low ebb, when the world, both without and within, seems drained
of life and energy, something happens. A thrush begins to sing. In many
ways, the thrush shares the influence of the bleak landscape: he is no
bright-eyed young bird, but “an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, /
In blast-beruffled plume.” And yet, the thrush sings, “in a full-hearted
evensong / Of joy illimited.” “Evensong,” of course, means more than
just a song at evening. It’s one name for the Church’s liturgy of
evening prayer. The old thrush doesn’t just sing, he carols joyfully; he
“fling[s] his soul / Upon the growing gloom.” The poet is
astonished, because there is nothing in view, far or near, that suggests
a cause for this ecstatic singing. The cause, then, must be not in what
is seen, but in what is unseen. The poem ends with doubt—a wholesome
doubt. Perhaps there is something beyond the gloom, cold, and darkness
of the world. Perhaps there is “some blessed Hope, whereof he knew / And
I was unaware.” As the nineteenth century ended, Hardy found it
difficult to look forward in hope to what the new century would bring.
As we start this new year, 2022, I think many of us are filled with that
same trepidation. What will happen with the pandemic? Will our family
and friends stay safe? Will we be able to see our family and friends?
Will our nation and our world know times of peace and stability, or will
it be another year of violence, bigotry, nativism, and reckless
disregard for the poor and for the planet? We can’t know the answers to
any of those questions, of course. But we can, like Hardy’s old thrush,
sing the “full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited,” the song of faith
in our blessed Hope—Jesus, the love and mercy of a loving and merciful
God.
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“Peace” by Henry Vaughan My Soul, there is a country Afar
beyond the stars, Where stands a winged sentry All skillful in the
wars; There, above noise and danger Sweet Peace sits, crown’d with
smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend And (O my Soul awake!) Did in pure love
descend, To die here for thy sake. If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flow’r of peace, The rose that cannot wither, Thy
fortress, and thy ease. Leave then thy foolish ranges, For none
can thee secure, But One, who never changes, Thy God, thy life,
thy cure.
Henry Vaughan and his twin brother, Thomas, were
born on April 17, 1621, in Wales. The Vaughans had a typical upper
middle-class childhood. They received an excellent classical education
at home, and in their late teens, they both went up to Oxford. Thomas
pursued a degree, while Henry went to London where he studied law.
Poetry was a favorite pursuit of his, and for many years he wrote
typical “Cavalier” poems, in the footsteps of Ben Jonson. The
English Civil War marked a turning-point in Vaughan’s life. He was
firmly on the side of the Royalists, even serving in the army at one
point. When they were defeated, the consequences were severe: Vaughan
lost his home. He also lost his freedom of worship: Anglican churches
were shuttered and Anglican worship was forbidden. In this
context, Vaughan had a conversion—and so did his poetry. He attributed
this conversion to the great Anglican priest and poet, George Herbert,
whom Vaughan described as a “blessed man… whose holy life and verse
gained many converts (of whom I am the least).” Many of
Vaughan’s poems from this period are filled with a tension between two
worlds: between this world and the world to come; between childhood and
maturity; between soul and body. The poem that Lisa read is no
exception—it is filled with longing for heaven, while remaining firmly
planted on earth. “Peace” dates to 1650. “My soul, there is a country /
Afar beyond the stars,” is the reassuring beginning. In that beautiful
place, the child “born in a manger” commands, and “sweet peace” is
“crowned with smiles.” There alone “grows the flow’r of peace, / The
rose that cannot wither.” Even though the poem is called
“Peace,” in some ways, this is a war poem. It is full of battle imagery.
The peace of that far-off country is secured by “a winged sentry / all
skillful in the wars” – an angel with fighting experience stands guard.
Christ is referenced in his vulnerability—“the child born in the
manger”—and yet he is described as a general, commanding “beauteous
files”—troops of soldiers. To arrive in that country is to arrive in a
“fortress” that can never be breached. What is all this imagery
doing in a poem about peace? I think we get the answer to that
question in the poem itself. At the exact midpoint of the poem, Vaughan
writes about Christ, the “gracious friend” who “did in pure love
descend, / To die here for thy sake.” The death of Jesus could be seen
as the ultimate triumph of violence: God himself has been put to death.
But we know that the cross is the opposite of that. The cross is the
decisive answer to violence, the triumph of love. In his dying and
rising, Jesus shows us how the cycle of violence can be broken.
In the words of St. Oscar Romero, “The church believes in only one
violence, that of Christ, who was nailed to the cross, taking upon
himself all the violence of hatred and misunderstanding, so that we
humans might forgive one another, love one another, and feel ourselves
brothers and sisters.” At Christmas time, the Scriptures we
read and the carols we sing are filled with the same paradox that we
encounter in Vaughan’s poem. The world we live in—like the world of
Henry Vaughan—is filled with violence and injustice, and yet Jesus is
born into this world, proclaiming “peace on earth to people of good
will.” Christmas is not a time to forget, for a few short days of
festivity, that violence and suffering exist in our world. Rather,
Christmas is a time to be reminded that peace is possible, because
Christ is our peace.
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Sabbaths 2001 Wendell Berry He wakes in darkness. All
around are sounds of stones shifting, locks unlocking. As if some
one had lifted away a great weight, light falls on him. He has
been asleep or simply gone. He has known a long suffering of
himself, himself shapen by the pain of his wound of separation he now
no longer minds, for the pain is only himself now, grown small,
become a little growing longing joy. Something teaches him to
rise, to stand and move out through the opening the light has made.
He stands on the green hilltop amid the cedars, the skewed stones,
the earth all opened doors. Half blind with light, he traces with
a forefinger the moss-grown furrows of his name, hearing among the
others one woman’s cry. She is crying and laughing, her voice a
stream of silver he seems to see: “Oh, William, honey is it you? Oh!”
Wendell Berry was born in 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky.
Berry grew up on a small tobacco farm. He studied at the University of
Kentucky and Stanford, and then taught writing, living for a while in
New York City. In 1964, he changed course: he and his wife Tanya moved
home to Kentucky. They bought a farm of their own, eventually becoming a
full-time organic farmers. Berry has been a major voice for small-scale
farming and agriculture as well as a writer of essays, novels, and
poetry. He is also known as an environmentalist and peace activist.
Berry is a Christian, and his Christian belief infuses his writing. He
has said of religion: “I tried to get along without it, because I
thought I was going to be a modern person. But you can’t think about the
issues [I write] about without finally having to talk about mystery….
the gospels, for me, were not a church discovery. I had to carry them
into the woods and read them there in order to see my need for them.”
Today, Berry says, he does go to church, “in bad weather.” For him,
poetry is a form of church-going. Beginning in 1979, Berry began writing
what he calls “Sabbath poems.” On Sunday mornings, he walks out on the
land, “free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, and so my mind
becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to
call inspiration.” The Sabbath poems are a kind of “spiritual practice,”
rooted in Sunday and in the land that Berry works the rest of the week.
In the poem Scott read, “Sabbaths 2001,” we get an extraordinary
vision. A man wakes in darkness; something is happening around him, but
he does not know what; nor is he quite certain of who he is. What is
going on here? Gradually, we realize that Berry is imagining the
resurrection of the dead. We are in a cemetery, and the “stones
shifting, locks / unlocking” are the gravestones moving aside, the tombs
opening. The “alabaster chambers” Emily Dickinson talked about in the
poem we looked at last time are unlocked at last, and the sleepers
awake. The man does not know what has happened at first, or
where he has been—“he has been asleep or simply / gone.” There is the
memory of pain and separation: “ long suffering of himself, himself
shapen by the pain / of his wound of separation he now / no longer
minds.” The suffering is neither erased nor forgotten. How can it be
when he is “shapen by the pain”? He would not be himself without it. But
that “wound of separation” is transformed into “a little growing /
longing joy.” Darkness gives way to light. The man stands and
moves into the light—notice how Berry says “something teaches him to
rise.” He is not in charge here—he is obedient to an invitation from
elsewhere—from God, though God is not mentioned. The man finds
himself on a “green hilltop.” Here we see a cemetery broken open:
“skewed stones, the earth all / open doors.” The man turns to his own
grave, and “traces with a forefinger the moss-grown furrows of his
name.” He died a long time ago—perhaps centuries. At the same time, he
hears voices around him—one voice in particular, “crying and laughing,”
and calling out to him in recognition: “Oh, William, honey, is it you?”
Only when it is spoken by someone who loves him do we learn the man’s
name, “William.” And that is where this vision of the resurrection ends,
with the homey and familiar language of his wife’s voice—“William,
honey, is it you?” The resurrection of the dead brings reunion, not in a
generic way—but with wonderful specificity. With its imagery of
light, of open doors, and of joyful reunion, Berry’s poem reminds me of
the Catholic funeral rite, which is full of those same images: “let
perpetual light shine upon them… open the gates of paradise to your
servants… until we all meet in Christ and are with you and with
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Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (124) Emily Dickinson
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers - Untouched by Morning - and
untouched by noon - Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone - Grand go the Years, In
the Crescent above them - Worlds scoop their Arcs - and
Firmaments - row - Diadems - drop - And Doges surrender -
Soundless as Dots, On a Disk of Snow. Emily Dickinson
is well-known as a recluse whose poems were virtually unknown in her
lifetime. But, as Dickinson scholar Martha Ackmann demonstrates in a new
book (These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily
Dickinson), Emily Dickinson was no amateur. She was serious about her
writing. She shared her poems with people she respected, she listened to
advice, she revised, and she published. One of the poems that was
published in her lifetime was “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers.”
This poem is a beautiful, and unsettling, reflection on death. It is
typical of Dickinson to have imagery that is at once cozy, domestic, and
strange. The dead are in their “chambers,” their rooms—but these
chambers are of “alabaster,” with “satin” rafters and “stone”
roofs—materials that evoke coffins and cemetery monuments. The dead are
“safe”: “untouched by Morning--/and untouched by noon.” They are beyond
the passage of time—and yet there is something sad in that phrase
“untouched by morning.” They are beyond time, but they are also beyond
fresh beginnings. And yet, they are not finished yet. These are “the
meek members of the Resurrection”: they are not dead, but sleeping, and
awaiting the Resurrection. The second stanza takes a sweeping
glance of time and history. “Grand go the years” above these sleepers.
Planets complete their orbits, and “firmaments row”—continents move.
“Diadems” and “doges,” kingdoms and nations fall—but to the dead, all of
this movement and action is as “soundless as Dots, / On a Disk of Snow.”
There is something reassuring in this: Dickinson was writing in 1862, at
the beginning of the Civil War. The dead are beyond the reach of war and
violence. But there is also something chilling, we might say, about the
image of those “dots on a disk of snow.” It evokes the silence, the
peace of the world of the dead, but, as Martha Ackmann points out, the
image is also “cold as ice.” These “alabaster chambers” are not exactly
cozy! I think Dickinson’s poem is a good one for this month of
November, a time when the Church prays for the dead. We profess our
belief in the resurrection of the dead every Sunday when we pray the
Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of
the world to come.” What does it mean to believe in the resurrection of
the dead? It means we believe that not only our souls, but, one day, our
bodies, will be raised to new life in God. As we read in the Old
Testament book of Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will
at last stand forth upon the dust; Whom I myself shall see: My own eyes,
not another’s, shall behold him; And from my flesh I shall see God” (Job
19:25-26). The Church does not profess that we will be raised
symbolically or metaphorically; the Church professes that at Christ’s
coming, we will be reunited with our bodies—not to return to an earthly
life, but to live in a new way in “the world to come” (cf. Catechism,
997ff). How this will happen, the Church has never claimed to know; but
that it will happen, is a Christian certainty. That is why the Church
takes such care with the mortal remains of the dead. When we are laid to
rest, we become the “meek members of the Resurrection,” awaiting
transformation in God’s good time. Back to Dickinson. Emily
Dickinson actually wrote two endings to this poem, which is revealing.
Here’s how the poem originally ended. Light laughs the breeze
In her castle above them, Babbles the bee in a stolid ear, Pipe
the sweet birds in ignorant cadence: Ah! What sagacity perished here!
In the first ending, Dickinson emphasized all the beauty of the
earth which the dead are missing out on: the laughing breeze, the bee,
the song of the birds. “What sagacity,” what wisdom died with these
dead! But in the revised, final version of the poem, Dickinson
takes quite a different approach. It is the world above that is
perishing—“diadems drop and doges surrender.” The dead sleep safely
through all that upheaval and change. In this poem, Dickinson
wonders, not always comfortably, about death and resurrection. In this
season, may it inspire each of us to do some wondering, too.
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Autumn Rainer Maria Rilke The leaves
fall, fall as from far, Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
They fall with slow and lingering descent. And in the nights the
heavy Earth, too, falls From out the stars into the Solitude.
Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall And lo! the other
one:—it is the law. But there is One who holds this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke is one of the great poets in the
German language. We met him earlier in this series when we read his
wonderful poem “You, Neighbor God.” This poem, “Autumn,” was published
in 1902, in Rilke’s collection The Book of Images, when the poet was 26
years old. This poem is particularly timely this year. It seems
to me that we have had an unusually beautiful autumn, with more colors
than we usually see in the Pacific Northwest. Falling leaves are all
around us these days. In Rilke’s poem, the falling leaves lead
to a meditation that takes us deep into the cosmos. “The leaves
fall, fall as from far, / Like distant gardens withered in the heavens.”
Looking at the falling leaves, the poet imagines them falling, not from
the branches of trees, but from much farther away—from unseen gardens,
“withered in the heavens.” We see the leaves, but we do not see where
they have come from. In this poem, the leaves are immediately more than
leaves: they are a mystery. As Rilke describes them, the leaves
fall, not cheerfully, or even randomly, but reluctantly, “with slow and
lingering descent.” Other translations of the poem make this reluctance
even more clear. One translation says, “Each leaf falls as if it were
motioning ‘no,’” and another says: “they fall as if refusing their
descent.” The leaves, already far from their gardens in the heavens,
already falling, are still saying “no” all the way down. That
pattern of reluctant falling, “with slow and lingering descent,” is
echoed in the cosmos itself. The earth, too, Rilke says in the second
stanza, is falling, out of the stars “into the Solitude.” This poem was
written in 1902, before the theory of the expanding universe was
developed, but to me, it perfectly captures that haunting idea of the
earth itself moving into deeper loneliness and isolation, in a starless
emptiness. In the third stanza, the poet recognizes that this
falling is a universal pattern. It is in all of us, too. The poet looks
at his hand, so active now, and knows that it will fall, just as the
rest of creation falls. It is unavoidable: “it is the law.” We
are those falling leaves, aren’t we—we know we will fall to earth, too,
but we say “no” all the way down. Falling is inevitable, but that
doesn’t mean we accept it. But the poem ends hopefully, because
Rilke’s reflection leads him to God. There is “One” who holds all of
this falling—the leaves, the universe, and ourselves—“infinitely softly”
in his hands. In the first part of the poem, we get movement,
instability, and resistance: only in the last lines do we encounter
something—someone—who is stable: God, who “holds” everything, even this
universal falling, gently in his hands. In a universe of change and
transition, God is unchanging. St Teresa of Avila said it in
another way in the poem known as “St. Teresa’s Bookmark”: Let
nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee All things are
passing; God never changes. Short poem, short reflection!
During the coming days, I hope you find time for an autumn walk to
reflect, with Rilke, on the falling leaves.
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You’re Sylvia Plath Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled, Gilled like a fish. A
common-sense Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode. Wrapped up in
yourself like a spool, Trawling your dark as owls do. Mute as a
turnip from the Fourth Of July to All Fools’ Day, O high-riser, my
little loaf. Vague as fog and looked for like mail. Farther
off than Australia. Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn. Snug as
a bud and at home Like a sprat in a pickle jug. A creel of eels,
all ripples. Jumpy as a Mexican bean. Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.
Sylvia Plath is
among the most written-about poets of the twentieth century. Since her
death in 1963, more than 100 books and countless articles have appeared
about Plath and her work. Plath’s story is well known. She was
born in Massachusetts in 1932. Her father, a college professor, died
when she was eight years old. She published her first poem even before
she began studying at Smith College! Plath’s struggles with mental
illness began when she was a student, including a suicide attempt, all
of which is vividly described in her novel The Bell Jar. After
graduation from Smith, she earned a Fulbright and studied at Cambridge
University, where she met English poet Ted Hughes. They married and had
two children. The marriage came apart at the end of 1961. Plath took her
own life on February 11, 1963, when she was just 30 years old. Her
second collection of poems, Ariel, appeared posthumously and was
immediately famous. It includes such poems as “Daddy” and “Lady
Lazarus,” poems which were immediately hailed as masterpieces of
confessional poetry and feminist icons. Plath’s poems,
especially those in Ariel, are often written about as though they were
inseparable from the way she died, and her suicide is spoken of as
though it was inevitable. One reader has described her work as:
“Thrashing, hyperactive, perpetually accelerated… throwing off images
and phrases with the energy of a runaway horse or a machine with its
throttle stuck wide open. All the violence in her work returns to that
violence of imagination, a frenzied brilliance and conviction.” (Robert
Pinsky) But there is more to Plath than her suicide, and more to
Ariel than darkness (though the darkness is certainly there). Plath was
a loving mother to her two children with Ted Hughes, Frieda and
Nicholas, and several of the poems in Ariel are about pregnancy and
motherhood. As Plath said of one of these poems, the mother “finds in
[her child] a beauty which, while it may not ward off the world’s ill,
does redeem her share of it.” That redeeming beauty of the child is at
the foundation of this poem as well. “You’re” is a delightfully
clever poem addressed to Plath’s unborn child. In typical Plath style,
it piles images on images, borrowing comparisons from everywhere—animals
and vegetables, earth, air, and water. Also typical of Plath, it feels
spontaneous but is carefully structured. Each of the two stanzas has
nine lines, reflecting the nine months of pregnancy. The poem
starts with the word “clownlike,” and there is a playfulness throughout
the poem. The first stanza speaks of the early stages of the fetus as it
grows—“feet to the stars,” “moon-skulled,” ‘gilled like a fish.” The
lines speak of the early stages of the embryo: there is an otherness
about it—it’s “gilled like a fish”—but it’s also somehow cosmic; Plath
references both moon and stars. The fetus is “wrapped up in yourself
like a spool,” living in the dark, like an owl, and “mute as a turnip”
from the Fourth of July to All Fools’ Day. (The Fourth of July to
All Fools’ Day is, of course, almost exactly nine months—and Plath’s
daughter Frieda was born on April 1!) Strange and silent though the
fetus is at this point, there’s a definite affection in how the poet
addresses it: “my little loaf.” In the second stanza, the unborn
child becomes increasingly active: “our traveled prawn… like a sprat in
a pickle jug… A creel of eels, all ripples / Jumpy as a Mexican
bean”—all images of movement. This baby is constantly moving, even
bouncing. As the poem ends, we sense that we are also coming to the end
of the pregnancy: the baby is “Right, like a well-done sum. / A clean
slate, with your own face on.” A “clean slate” is a blank page, a fresh
start: a new life that is just beginning. But, Plath says, the child has
“your own face on.” Like several of Plath’s poems about her children,
the poem emphasizes the uniqueness, the mystery of the child. She does
not see her unborn child as merely an extension of herself and her body,
but as a being in its own right. In a sense, the poem ends where it
began: “You’re.” You are: the title acknowledges the unique being that
grows in the mother’s womb. As we mark Respect Life Month this
October, I thought this lesser-known poem from Sylvia Plath’s Ariel
would be a good one to help us reflect on the uniqueness and mystery of
every life—in the womb, and out of it.
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Pangur Bán BY ANONYMOUS TRANSLATED BY SEAMUS HEANEY From
the ninth-century Irish poem Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk: His whole instinct is to hunt, Mine
to free the meaning pent. More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove. Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den. Truth to tell, just being
here, Housed alone, housed together, Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art. Next thing an unwary mouse Bares
his flank: Pangur pounces. Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield. All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I Focus my less piercing gaze On the
challenge of the page. With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills. When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult. So it goes. To each his own. No
vying. No vexation. Taking pleasure, taking pains, Kindred
spirits, veterans. Day and night, soft purr, soft pad, Pangur
Bán has learned his trade. Day and night, my own hard work Solves
the cruxes, makes a mark.
This week’s we’re reading a poem by
an anonymous Irish monk of the 9th century – “Pangur Ban.” This
wonderful poem was written by a monk, about his cat—probably a white
cat, since the word “Ban” means white. The poem is found in only one
manuscript, the Reichenau Primer, which dates to the early 800s. It was
written by an Irish monk at Reichenau Abbey in Germany. How did
an Irish monk end up in Germany? Irish monks were everywhere—in the
early Middle Ages, Irish monasteries sent missionaries and scholars all
over Europe. Reichenau was a thriving center for the arts, perhaps best
known for a book of Gospel readings called the Pericopes of Henry II,
which contains magnificent illuminations. The “primer” or
notebook in which the poem is found gives us a glimpse into the wide
range of interests of an Irish monk. It includes a glossary of Greek
words, as well as notes on Homer’s Aeneid, on angels, on places
mentioned in the Bible, and on astronomy, not to mention several poems
written in old Irish. In this poem, the monk works alone in his
cell—well, not quite alone, because Pangur Ban, the cat, is there as
well. The monk compares his own work with that of Pangur Ban. Monastery
cats had work to do; their job was to control the monastery population
of mice! The poem cleverly juxtaposes the task of scholarship
with the task of the cat. The cat hunts for mice; the monk hunts for
meanings. Both of them work in silence; and sometimes they have to wait
patiently for a long time. But eventually “an unwary mouse / Bares his
flank” to Pangur, and in the same way the difficult texts the monk is
working on gradually begin to yield up their meaning. The monk marvels
at Pangur’s determination: “his round bright eye / Fixes on the wall,”
waiting for any sign of a mouse, while the poet’s “less piercing gaze”
is focused on “the challenge of the page.” The cat and the scholar are
both exultant when the mouse is caught; when the meaning is captured.
This little poem opens a window on life in a 9th century monastery,
giving us a glimpse of people like us: people who spend days working at
a desk; people who delight in the company of their favorite animals.
Pangur may be there because he has a job to do, but the affection the
monk has for the cat is unmistakable. In fact, he seems to get along
better with the cat than anyone else: they work in harmony with each
other, “adepts, equals,” “no vying, no vexation.” They are “kindred
spirits, veterans”—in other words, they are friends. Pangur Ban
is a celebration of the intellectual life, the joy that comes with
discovery and understanding. It’s also a celebration of animals and the
way they enrich our lives. Though it was written almost four hundred
years before St. Francis of Assisi was born, these words about Saint
Francis could be said of the anonymous poet as well: “He rejoices in all
the works of the Lord’s hands, and through their delightful display he
gazes on their life-giving reason and cause. In beautiful things he
discerns Beauty Itself; all good things cry out to him: ‘The One who
made us is the Best.’” (Thomas of Celano)
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From “Divina Commedia” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Oft have
I seen at some cathedral door A laborer, pausing in the dust and
heat, Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet Enter, and cross
himself, and on the floor Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
Far off the noises of the world retreat; The loud vociferations of
the street Become an undistinguishable roar. So, as I enter here
from day to day, And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time
disconsolate To inarticulate murmurs dies away, While the eternal
ages watch and wait.
On one level, this sonnet is a beautiful reflection on
cathedrals. Longfellow wonderfully evokes an experience we’ve all had at
some point—that feeling of stepping out of a hot, noisy world into the
cool and quiet of a cathedral. Longfellow describes how a
laborer—an ordinary working person, not unlike us—comes into the
cathedral. He first sets down his burden—literally, and figuratively,
too—then kneels and prays his “paternoster.” “Paternoster” is “Our
Father” in Latin, but the word also refers to the rosary. As he prays,
the “loud vociferations of the street / Become an indistinguishable
roar.” The noise and the business of the street are momentarily set
aside in this place of calm: the grand, quiet house of God. But
Longfellow is not really talking about cathedrals. In the second part of
the sonnet, he says “I enter here from day to day, / And leave my burden
at this minster gate.” The cathedral Longfellow is talking about is a
cathedral of poetry: Dante’s Divina Commedia, the Divine
Comedy. Longfellow spent many years translating Dante’s masterpiece—in
fact, his translation of Dante’s masterpiece is perhaps his masterpiece!
Each day, Longfellow says, he takes up the Divine Comedy as though he is
entering a cathedral—with reverence, “kneeling in prayer, and not
ashamed to pray.” And something happens: the noise of the world fades,
in the presence of something eternal. Entering the cathedral of
Dante’s thought is not an escape from “the time disconsolate,” a
soundproof box where all the troubles of the world can be forgotten.
That is not the purpose of a cathedral or of Dante’s work! Rather, in
this holy space, the many competing voices fade, so that we can become
aware of something, someone, who transcends time. Here, “the eternal
ages watch and wait.” Dante died on September 14, 1321, which
means that this year marks the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. This
anniversary offers us an opportunity to discover or rediscover, the
genius of Dante. There is so much more to the Divine Comedy than the
tortured souls of the Inferno! The poem describes a journey, through
hell to Purgatory and all the circles of heaven. The poem is full of
references to people Dante knew – friends and enemies in 14th-century
Florence. But the poem is also timeless, packed with splendid poetry and
unforgettable imagery. Above all, the poem is imbued with the poet’s
ardent faith in God’s redeeming plan for humanity. Dante is
special. No other poet has been so honored by the Church. Pope Paul VI
wrote, “There may be some who ask why the Catholic Church… is so
concerned to cultivate the memory and celebrate the glory of the
Florentine poet. Our response is easy: …Dante is ours! Ours… for he
radiated love for Christ; ours, because he loved the Church deeply and
sang her glories,” even as he also “spoke scathingly of more than one
Pope.” In a recent letter marking this 700th anniversary of the
poet’s death, Pope Francis urges all to rediscover Dante as a figure
with particular resonance for our own day. “At this particular moment in
history, overclouded by situations of profound inhumanity and a lack of
confidence and prospects for the future, the figure of Dante, prophet of
hope and witness to the human desire for happiness, can still provide us
with words and examples that encourage us on our journey. Dante can help
us to advance with serenity and courage on the pilgrimage of life and
faith that each of us is called to make, until our hearts find true
peace and true joy, until we arrive at the ultimate goal of all
humanity: The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”
Dante’s Divine Comedy is not easy. But it is well worth the
effort—a literary masterpiece that is also a work of true devotion. As
Longfellow describes so well, it is a poem with the scope, the dignity,
and the holiness of a great cathedral.
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A Noiseless Patient Spider Walt Whitman A
noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it
stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever
unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul
where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of
space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres
to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the
ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch
somewhere, O my soul.
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Well, we’re back after our summer
hiatus! We will bring you a new poem to ponder every other week this
fall. The name Walt Whitman is synonymous with American poetry.
Whitman’s importance was mostly unrecognized in his own lifetime—though
Emerson, one of his heroes, described Leaves of Grass as “the most
extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.”
Still, his contemporaries could not have imagined that Whitman would
come to be hailed as “America’s world poet—a latter-day successor to
Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.” (Poetry Foundation)
Whitman’s description of America in the introduction to Leaves of Grass
is also a pretty good description of himself and his work: “Here
is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action
untied. . . . . Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness
and nonchalance that the soul loves. Here the performance disdaining the
trivial… spreads with crampless and flowing breadth and showers its
prolific and splendid extravagance.” Whitman’s poetic voice was
utterly unique. He did not use rhyme—instead, he wrote in long, flowing
cadences, influenced by the poetry of the Bible. His subject was
ordinary people, and he wrote with exuberant frankness about every
aspect of human life, both spiritual and physical. That frankness got
him into trouble sometimes! I think the short poem “A Noiseless
Patient Spider,” included in Leaves of Grass, is a good introduction to
Whitman and his style. The poem starts with close observation.
Whitman seldom disappears from his poems—there is almost always a strong
“I,” a compelling personal voice. “I mark’d,” a spider, he says, “on a
little promontory… isolated.” The spider stands in the midst of a
“vacant vast,” surrounded, it would seem, by nothingness. But
nevertheless the little creature explores its world: “it launch’d forth
filament, filament, filament out of itself, / Ever unreeling them, ever
tirelessly speeding them.” The spider patiently finds connections and
builds its web. In the second stanza, Whitman moves from
spiders to souls—it’s a leap that only Whitman could make so
effortlessly! Like the spider, the soul is surrounded by
immensity—Whitman wonderfully evokes the sense of how small and alone we
can feel in the universe: “surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans
of space.” Like the spider on its promontory, the soul restlessly
reaches out in every direction: “ceaselessly musing, venturing,
throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,” until at last “the
bridge you will need be form’d,” “till the gossamer thread you fling
catch somewhere.” It’s all about connection: the spider connects with
its environment, patiently and creatively spinning forth filaments “out
of itself.” And the soul must do the same: “musing, venturing, throwing,
seeking.” The soul is not alone, any more than the spider is. Through
the process of exploration, we find connection, and the thread we fling
catches, becoming a “bridge.” This poem speaks of Whitman’s
approach to poetry and to life: “ceaselessly musing, venturing,
throwing, seeking.” The creative process is about flinging something of
one’s own being into the unknown, like the spider spinning the filament
out of its very self. I think the poem can also be read as a
meditation on the spiritual life. Whitman urges his soul to be active,
not passive. He does not simply wait to be connected with, but launches
out again and again in search of connection. I’m reminded of the words
of Jesus: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks,
receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the
door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). Jesus urges us to be active in our
spiritual life, to reach out to God constantly, asking, seeking,
knocking—or, in Whitman’s words, “musing, venturing, throwing,
seeking”—like that noiseless, patient spider.
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A Summer Day BY MARY OLIVER Who made the
world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the
grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung
herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is
gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts
her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her
wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how
to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll
through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell
me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and
too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild
and precious life? (1992)
This week, we’re reading a
poem by the renowned American poet Mary Oliver.
Chances are you’ve heard the last couple of lines of this Mary Oliver
poem before: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild
and precious life?” They’re probably Oliver’s most quoted lines, and
they get a lot of use around this time of year – graduation time. They
are an enthusiastic reminder that life is precious, and we only have one
apiece—so make it count. But, I think when we hear those lines in the
context of the poem, they mean something quite different from the
sentiments on greeting cards for high school and college graduations.
The poem begins with a series of questions. “Who made the
world? / Who made the swan, and the black bear? / Who made the
grasshopper?” The poet does not go on to answer those questions, but
instead seems to get distracted—“This grasshopper, I mean.” She marvels
at a grasshopper, who has hopped into her hand to eat the sugar she is
holding. The poet is still and observant, noticing every detail. She
watches how the grasshopper’s jaws move back and forth instead of up and
down, and studies the “enormous and complicated eyes.” She looks at how
the grasshopper washes her face. Notice the surprising word choices that
come from direct observation of the natural world: the grasshopper has
“pale forearms” and wings that “snap” open, and her motion is described
as floating, not flying or jumping. This is a specific grasshopper, not
just a generic one! After the grasshopper “floats” away, the
poem makes another shift. The poet does not return to the questions she
asked at the beginning of the poem—“who made the grasshopper.” She
doesn’t need to, since she knows the answer: she knows that God made
everything. We can follow her thought process as she she turns
suddenly—but not surprisingly—to the subject of prayer. “I don’t know
exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention, how to fall
down / into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, / how to be idle
and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, / which is what I have
been doing all day.” She says she doesn’t know what a prayer is, but
obviously, she knows how to pray. She knows “how to fall down / into the
grass”—how to be in the world—and “how to kneel down in the grass”—how
to be reverent in the world. She knows “how to be idle and blessed.” She
knows that simply to “pay attention” to all God has created is to pray.
At the end of the poem, she comes back to questions. “Tell me, what
else should I have done? / Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
/ Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious
life?” The questions at the beginning of the poem pointed
towards God; the questions at the end point towards the poet—and the
reader. Should she be doing something else with her time? But the answer
is clearly no. Everything dies, “and too soon.” We have only this life,
this moment, to look around us. So when the poet asks, at the end of the
poem, “what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious
life,” she is not asking about where you’re going to college or your
career choices! Quite the reverse. Oliver is suggesting that if we can
just learn to be in the world, to marvel at the transient beauty of
created things, to be “idle and blessed,” that would be enough. Good
advice for a lifetime – or at least for a summer day.
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Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15) BY LAWRENCE
FERLINGHETTI Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be For
he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the
Poem of the Week. This week, we’re reading a poem by Lawrence
Ferlinghetti. Scott Webster will read “Constantly Risking Absurdity,”
and then I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Thank you,
Scott. Obviously, this poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is not a
religious poem. But it’s one of my favorite poems about poetry, and
since we’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on poems, it seems like a
good fit for our series. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in 1919.
He was famous as a poet, a publisher of poetry, and a bookseller—he was
the cofounder of the famous City Lights bookshop in San Francisco.
Ferlinghetti is often considered one of the “Beat” poets, though he
always insisted he was not a Beat himself. Nevertheless, as the
publisher of Allan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, among others, he was
certainly part of the movement. Ferlinghetti died earlier this year at
the age of 101. In this poem from Ferlinghetti’s most famous
collection, Coney Island of the Mind, Ferlinghetti is writing about the
art of poetry itself. The poem is an extended metaphor, comparing the
poet to a circus performer. It’s a surprising move, a mix of popular
culture with high art—which is exactly his point. Ferlinghetti’s mantra
was that “art should be accessible to all people, not just a handful of
highly educated intellectuals,” and that “truth is not the secret of a
few.” That being said, this is quite a sophisticated poem.
“Constantly risking absurdity / and death / whenever he performs / above
the heads / of his audience / the poet like an acrobat / climbs on rime
/ to a high wire of his own making.” Just as the acrobat takes risks
every time he steps on the high wire, so does the poet. I love the
juxtaposition of “absurdity / and death.” If the acrobat makes a
mistake, he might look very silly – or he might die. For Ferlinghetti,
the stakes are high for the poet as well – “absurdity / and death.”
Ferlinghetti cleverly uses poetic wordplay, as he describes the
poet climbing “on rime,” “balancing on eyebeams / above a sea of faces,”
performing “sleight-of-foot tricks / and other high theatrics.” In
poetry, there is art, performance, and play. And, as Ferlinghetti
suggests here, there is also an element of deception—“sleight-of-foot
tricks.” (“Foot,” of course, is a poetic term, used in counting the
stressed and unstressed syllables of a poem.) Poetry is, in a way, a
magic trick—a game. But it is a serious game. As Ferlinghetti
says, the poet dances on the high wire, but “all without mistaking / any
thing / for what it may not be.” The poet may play “tricks,” but never
loses sight of things as they really are. The acrobat may seem to be
playing around, improvising, but, of course, every move is
choreographed. In the same way, the poet is “the super realist / who
must perforce perceive / taut truth / before the taking of each stance
or step.” We think of poets as dreamy types, but Ferlinghetti rejects
that idea. The poet is the “realist,” and everything he does comes from
his clear-sighted recognition of “taut truth.” But there’s
more. “Taut truth” is the sure way “toward that still higher perch /
where Beauty stands and waits / with gravity / to start her
death-defying leap.” This acrobatic performance is not a solo act; the
poet’s task is to catch Beauty. Ferlinghetti’s poem ends, quite
literally, in mid-air, with the poet reaching out to catch the “fair
eternal form” of Beauty, which he “may or may not” do. The end of the
poem brings us back to the opening line: “Constantly risking absurdity.”
We see the poet, an absurd figure, “a little charleychaplin man,” and
we’re unsure whether he will catch Beauty, or land in absurdity.
It seems as though Beauty also risks absurdity, in a way – we see her
“spreadeagled in the empty air / of existence,” obviously trusting and
hoping that the poet will catch her—meeting him halfway. To be
a poet, to write a poem, is to take a risk—the risk of falling flat, the
risk of absurdity. But Ferlinghetti’s poem also captures the immense
possibility of poetry. As we’ve seen with so many of the poems we’ve
looked at in this series, when the poet makes that connection and
catches Beauty, we get a glimpse of something eternal—something we would
otherwise have missed—and the results are amazing.
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Like the Samaritan Woman by the Well By Sister
Claudia Hae-In Lee (1945 - ) Translated from the Korean by
Brother Anthony of Taizé Lord, won’t you come and quietly
speak as if asking me for one cup of water first like you did the
Samaritan woman who came to draw water out of Jacob’s Well? You
know that I’m a sinner I lack courage— Speak quickly, please,
I want to hear directly from you today who I am and who you are
and what our encounter means. I keep drawing water for you
from the well of daily life in my small shabby bucket but won’t
you show me a way to draw water without any bucket at all?
From the moment you took your place beside me, deep pure well of
water that you are, every day has been a new festival for me. My
long stagnant sorrow and thirst like drops of water in my jar Have
risen up to dance, all smiling now. The happiness of meeting you
is such I may forget for a moment how sinful I am; I hope you will
forgive me? Lord, the happiness of loving you can really not be
kept hidden. Grant me now to go running farther like that
Samaritan woman beside the well who left her pitcher and ran to the
village. To bring many others to you and also to tell about the
living water—
This week, we’re reading “Like the Samaritan Woman by the Well,” a
poem of Sister Claudia Hae-in Lee of Korea. Sister Claudia was
born in South Korea in 1945. She joined the Olivetan Benedictine Sisters
of Busan in 1964, after her graduation from high school. She holds a
degree in English from St. Louis University in the Philippines and
published her first collection of poems in 1976, at the age of 31.
Since that time, she has taught and held various leadership positions in
her congregation. She has also lectured widely, including in the United
States. In 2008, she had a serious bout with cancer. She has said:
"After fighting cancer, I started using more words like happiness and
enjoyment which I didn't use often before. I realized that pain can
become an opportunity for blessing.” In 2015, a news report circulated
that she had died, and her “last poem” was widely shared. Reports of her
death were greatly exaggerated. Lee said, “I could forgive the fake
news, but I can’t go easy on the fake poem.” Sister Claudia is
still alive today, a beloved and best-selling poet in Korea. In
the poem that Jackie read, Sister Claudia reflects on the Gospel story
of the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well.
In that familiar story, which we hear every year during Lent, Jesus
encounters a woman who has come to draw water from a well. She is not
just any woman! She is a Samaritan—the archenemies of the Jewish
people—and she has a checkered past. But Jesus enters into conversation
with her, and gradually the conversation deepens, as Jesus leads her
from the water of the well, to himself, the living water. By the end of
the passage, the woman has run home to tell others about Jesus, the
source of living water. Lee’s poem begins with a prayer for a
similar encounter. “Lord, won’t you come and quietly speak / as if
asking me for one cup of water first / like you did the Samaritan woman
who came / to draw water out of Jacob’s Well?” She identifies
closely with the Samaritan woman. “You know that I’m a sinner / I lack
courage.” She longs for a meaningful dialogue with Jesus, like the woman
at the well had. In that encounter, the woman not only learned who Jesus
was; Jesus also revealed to her who she really was. “I want to hear
directly from you today / who I am / and who you are / and what our
encounter means.” It’s a wonderfully simple prayer, isn’t it, for a
relationship with Jesus. She wants something deeper and more meaningful
than she has now: “I keep drawing water for you / from the well of
daily life / in my small shabby bucket.” She longs for the living water:
for a relationship that is not rote or mechanical, but that springs up
naturally. In the second part of the poem, we get a glimpse of
what that deeper relationship looks like. “From the moment you took your
place beside me, / deep pure well of water that you are, / every day has
been a new festival for me.” Sorrow and thirst “have risen up to dance.”
This encounter is so joyful that “I may forget for a moment how sinful I
am; / I hope you will forgive me.” When she encounters Jesus, it’s all
about Jesus, and the joy of this encounter overwhelms everything
else—she forgets her own sinfulness, her own checkered past, and simply
wants to share the encounter with others. The poem ends with a prayer
that she might “go running… To bring many others to you / and also / to
tell about the living water.” The story of the Samaritan woman
at the well is a story about becoming a disciple. A chance encounter
leads to dialogue, which leads to relationship. But relationship with
Jesus is never exclusive, for ourselves alone. Relationship with Jesus
send the Samaritan woman running, as she tells the people of her
village: “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he
possibly be the Messiah?” Relationship with Jesus leads to discipleship,
prompting us to share the joy we have found, and inviting others to meet
Jesus. This encounter with Jesus, this journey to discipleship, is about
coming to know Jesus, and in the process, discovering who we really are.
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A General Communion (1921) Alice Meynell
I saw the throng, so deeply separate, Fed at one only board— The
devout people, moved, intent, elate, And the devoted Lord.
Oh struck apart! not side from human side, But soul from human soul,
As each asunder absorbed the multiplied, The ever unparted whole.
I saw this people as a field of flowers, Each grown at such a
price The sum of unimaginable powers Did no more than suffice.
A thousand single central daisies they, A thousand of the one;
For each, the entire monopoly of day; For each, the whole of the
devoted sun. This week, we’re reading Alice Meynell’s “A General
Communion.”
Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson was born in 1847 in London, and
spent much of her childhood here and there in Europe. Her family was
well-connected—her father was a good friend of Charles Dickens. At the
age of 21, while recovering from an illness, she converted to
Catholicism. Eventually, her whole family followed her into the Church.
Alice married Wilfrid Meynell, another Catholic convert, in 1877,
and together they edited Merry England, a widely-read Catholic magazine,
and had eight children. Alice Meynell published several collections of
poetry, and advocated for various social causes, including improving
slum conditions, preventing cruelty to animals, and, most notably,
advancing the cause of women’s suffrage. When a priest in Liverpool
preached against votes for women, arguing that it could bring “a
revolution of the first magnitude,” Meynell responded: “I say, most
gravely, the vaster the magnitude of the revolution, the better.”
Alice Meynell was considered for the post of Poet Laureate, but like
every other woman poet up until 2009, she was passed over. She died in
1922 at the age of 75. In the poem Scott read, Meynell writes
about “A General Communion.” A “general communion” is simply when the
entire congregation comes forward to receive Holy Communion. It’s what
we witness every Sunday, but at the time Meynell was writing, a “general
communion” would have been a relatively rare and striking sight. Most of
the time, just some of the congregation would go forward to receive
communion—most often after Mass had concluded. A general communion was
usually associated with a special feast day or a parish mission.
As the poet watches the people move to the altar to receive communion,
she calls them a “throng,” a “crowd”—collective nouns—but she emphasizes
their distinctness: they are “deeply separate,” “struck apart,” “each
asunder.” And yet, in receiving communion, they receive “the ever
unparted whole”—Christ’s real presence in the sacrament. In
the last two stanzas, Meynell imagines the people like a great field of
flowers—each of them precious, “grown at such a price.” Upon each of
these “thousand… daisies” the sun shines: “For each, the entire
monopoly of day; / For each, the whole of the devoted sun.”
Meynell’s poem accurately reflects Catholic teaching about the
Eucharist. When the bread is broken and shared, each of us receives just
a fragment of the bread; but we do not receive a fragment of Christ.
Rather, we receive the whole Christ in Holy Communion: body, blood, soul
and divinity. And Christ is as present in one small fragment of a host
as he is in the whole loaf: as the Catechism reminds us, “the breaking
of the bread does not divide Christ” (CCC, 1377). No matter how many
receive communion, all receive the same. To use Meynell’s comparison, it
is as though each flower received “the whole of the devoted sun.”
Meynell’s poem stops there. But as we prepare to celebrate the feast of
Corpus Christi this weekend, I think it’s good to be reminded that
something more happens when we receive Holy Communion. “Deeply separate”
as we are, we are made one in the Eucharist: one with Jesus, truly
present in the sacrament, and one with each other as well. When we
celebrate the Eucharist together, the “throng,” the “crowd” that Meynell
speaks of becomes something more than a crowd—more even than a family.
We become “one body, one spirit in Christ” (Roman Missal). As Pope
Benedict XVI has written: “Union with Christ is also union with all
those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself;
I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who
will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and
thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become ‘one body’,
completely joined in a single existence…. ‘Worship’ itself, Eucharistic
communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others
in turn.” (Deus Caritas Est, 14)
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Christianity Was Once an Eagle Message Nils
Bolander (1902-1959) Translated from the Swedish by Martin S. Allwood
Christianity was once an eagle message Sprung from the nest on
the highest mountain peak On diving wings that glittered. But we
chastened its bold feathers, Competently straightened its cutting
beak And lo!—it was a black bird, A tame loquacious raven.
Christianity was once a lion gospel Always seeking a warm and living
prey, A young lion of Judah. But we clipped its sharp, crooked
claws, Stilled its thirst for the blood of the heart And turned it
into a purring cottage cat. Christianity was once a desert
sermon, Mean and sharp as the terrible africus, Burning as the
desert sand. But we turned it into a garden idyll, Mignonettes,
asters and pious roses, A romantic mood in Gethsemane. Lord,
take care of our pious cowardice! Give it swift eagle wings and sharp
lion’s claws! Give it scent of wild honey and simoom And then say
with the Baptist’s voice: This is the victory that conquers the
world. This is Christianity. This week, we’re reading a
poem by Swedish poet Nils Bolander. Nils Bolander was born in
Vasteras, Sweden, in 1902. His family was always involved in church –
his father was a cathedral organist! – and Bolander became a minister of
the Church of Sweden. He served as a pastor, and in 1958 became the
Bishop of Lund. He was a bishop for just one year before he died in
1959. Bolander was known not only for his pastoral work, but for his
writing, including poems and hymns. In this poem, Bolander uses
images from the Scriptures, and a definite touch of humor, to reflect on
modern Christianity. In the first stanza, he writes: “Christianity was
once an eagle message / Sprung from the nest on the highest mountain
peak.” The eagle is one of the “four living creatures” of the
Scriptures, which Christian tradition has associated with the four
Gospels. The eagle is the image of St. John: as Venerable Bede wrote,
“he is likened to the flying eagle… for indeed the eagle flies higher
than all birds and is accustomed to thrust his gaze, more keen than that
of all living things, into the rays of the sun.” Bolander evokes the
power and the strangeness of the Gospel, sprung from the heights. But
what have we done to this eagle? “We chastened its bold feathers, /
Competently straightened its cutting beak.” We made it unable to soar—we
turned the soaring eagle into “a black bird, / A tame loquacious raven.”
The wild power of the Gospel has been domesticated. I love how Bolander
says we’ve done this “competently.” We have been very effective at
domesticating the Gospel! “Christianity was once a lion gospel,”
Bolander writes in the second stanza, “Always seeking a warm and living
prey, / A young lion of Judah.” The “lion of Judah” is an image from the
book of Genesis, with deep roots in the Jewish tradition; in the Book of
Revelation, it is one of many images for Jesus. The lion is also
associated with the Gospel of Mark. It is an image of power, strength,
dignity—and wildness. This lion is on the hunt, seeking “a warm and
living prey.” But, just as we clipped the eagle’s wings, we trimmed the
“sharp, crooked claws” of the lion, and “Stilled its thirst for the
blood of the heart.” We turned the lion Gospel “into a purring cottage
cat.” We made it comfortable – cozy, even. In the third stanza,
Bolander evokes the preaching of St. John the Baptist. “Christianity was
once a desert sermon, / Mean and sharp” as the desert plants, and
“burning as the desert sand.” But this, too, we have tamed. We have
managed to turn the desert into “a garden idyll,” with commonplace
flowers and “pious roses”—“A romantic mood in Gethsemane.” That line
captures the contradiction Bolander sees between Christianity as it
really is and Christianity as it is practiced. In the garden of
Gethsemane, Jesus was in such agony that he sweated blood; for us,
Gethsemane is just a garden, a “romantic mood.” What Bolander
laments, all through this poem, is the domestication of Christianity.
This is not something that just happens: it’s something we actively do.
The Gospel is strong, wild, and uncontainable—an eagle, a lion. But we
are afraid to let Christ take us to the heights, to give him our heart’s
blood, or to hear the “mean and sharp” words of the desert sermon. That
would be asking too much of us. We want something we can hold on to,
contain, control. Bolander’s poem ends with a prayer, asking God
to “take care of our pious cowardice,” and to give our faith “swift
eagle wings and sharp lion’s claws,” the “scent of wild honey,” and the
voice of the Baptist. “This,” Bolander exclaims, “This is Christianity”!
As a pastor in Europe during World War II, Nils Bolander saw
first-hand how Christianity could be domesticated—how it could be
neutralized. He saw how many church leaders failed to respond to the
crisis of their day, or put up any resistance to the powers-that-be. Are
we still doing that today? Is our Christianity a soaring eagle—or a tame
raven? A lion—or a cat? This poem calls Christians to take another look
at the Gospel, and to let it shock our certainties, and challenge even
our pieties.
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Mysterious Wealth Ku Sang (1919- )
Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé
Feeling today like the Prodigal Son
just arrived back in his father’s arms, I observe the world and all
it contains. June’s milky sky glimpsed through a window, the
sunlight dancing over fresh green leaves, clusters of sparrows that
scatter, chirping, full-blown petunias in pots on verandas, all
strike me as infinitely new, astonishing and miraculous. My
grandson, too, rushing round the living-room and chattering away for
all he’s worth, my wife, with her glasses on, embroidering a
pillow-case, and the neighbors, each with their particularities,
coming and going in the lane below, all are extremely lovable,
most trustworthy, significant. Oh, mysterious, immeasurable
wealth! Not to be compared with storeroom riches! Truly, all that
belongs to my Father in Heaven, all, all is mine! This
week, we’re reading a poem by Korean poet Ku Sang. Ku Sang was
born in Seoul, Korea, in 1919, and died there in 2005 at the age of 84.
He is among Korea’s best-known poets. Ku Sang was born into a deeply
Catholic family (his brother became a priest) but Ku himself left the
practice of his faith as a young man, finding his way back to his
Catholic roots only later in life. Ku wrote poetry from an early age. It has
been said that Ku Sang “rejects both an artistic sensibility that lacks
spiritual depth and a crude intellect that lacks a historical
consciousness.” For Ku, as for so many of the poets we’ve read in this
series, poetry is not an escape into a world of fantasy, but a clearer
way of looking at the world as it really is. His poems deal with
questions of faith, war, and peace, and an array of social justice
issues, including care for the environment. It’s no surprise that it was
not only Ku’s journalism but his poetry that got him in trouble with
Communist authorities after World War II! The poem Scott read,
“Mysterious Wealth,” is typical of Ku’s poetry in the directness of the
language, and in the way it builds on simple and relatable experiences,
to a transcendent conclusion. “I observe the world and all it
contains,” the poet says at the beginning of the poem – quite a grand
statement, isn’t it? To “observe the world and all it contains” is to
see not as human beings see, but as God sees. And what does the poet see
in this moment of insight? The “milky sky” of June through the window,
sunlight on leaves, sparrows chirping, petunias—pleasant but quite
ordinary things on an early summer day. And yet, “all strike me as
infinitely new, / astonishing and miraculous.” This
transformation of the ordinary extends to the people that inhabit this
world with him. He sees them in great detail: “My grandson… rushing
round the living room… my wife, with her glasses on, embroidering a
pillow-case.” The neighbors “coming and going in the lane below,” are
not a homogenous group, but individuals: “each with their
particularities.” Seeing as God sees, the poet recognizes that “all are
extremely lovable, / most trustworthy, significant.” This is how God
sees us: not as a crowd, but as unique, lovable, and “significant”—every
one of us. The last stanza is a burst of joy. “Oh, mysterious,
immeasurable wealth! / Not to be compared with storeroom riches! /
Truly, all that belongs to my Father in Heaven, / all, all is mine!” The
imagery here (and in the poem’s title) comes from the 13th chapter of
Matthew’s Gospel. “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a
field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and
sells all that he has and buys that field.” This is indeed “mysterious
wealth,” found, yet hidden, worth trading everything for. In the last
stanza, Ku Sang sounds very much like the person in that parable of
Jesus: “Truly, all that belongs to my Father in Heaven, / all, all is
mine!” How is it that the poet sees the world in this way? How
is it that he is able to look through God’s eyes? I think the answer
lies in the first stanza of the poem. “Feeling today like the Prodigal
Son / just arrived back in his father’s arms, / I observe the world and
all it contains.” The poet sees the beauty in everything—the world and
the people around him—because he himself is “in his father’s arms,” like
the Prodigal Son. Perspective is everything, and the poet looks at the
world from vantage point of a loved, forgiven child, safe in the arms of
the father. He looks through the lens of God’s mercy. And through that
lens, everything is new, astonishing, miraculous, lovable, trustworthy,
significant. Ku Sang’s wonderful poem reminds me of Thomas
Merton’s famous epiphany at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in
Louisville, Kentucky. Standing on an ordinary street corner amid people
just going about their day, Merton wrote, “it was as if I suddenly saw
the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where
neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their
reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could
all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other
that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no
more cruelty, no more greed.”
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Song to the Virgin St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
Translated from the Latin by Barbara Newman Never was leaf
so green, for you branched from the spirited blast of the quest
of the saints. When it came time for your boughs to blossom
(I salute you!) your scent was like balsam distilled in the sun.
And your flower made all spices fragrant dry though they
were: they burst into verdure. So the skies rained dew on the
grass and the whole earth exulted, for her womb brought forth
wheat, for the birds of heaven made their nests in it.
Keepers of the feast, rejoice! The banquet’s ready. And you sweet
maid-child are a fount of gladness. But Eve? She despised
every joy. Praise nonetheless, praise to the highest.
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of the
Week. This week, we’re reading a poem by Hildegard of
Bingen—nun, leader, visionary, poet, musician, doctor, preacher, saint,
and doctor of the Church. Jackie O’Ryan will read Hildegard’s “Song to
the Virgin” (O frondens virga) and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. Thank you, Jackie. St. Hildegard of Bingen
was born to a noble German family in 1098. From early childhood, she was
extraordinary. She wrote: “When I was three years old, I saw such a
light that my soul was shaken by it; yet because I was a child, I could
say nothing about it.” As she grew up, she continued to have mystical
visions, but she soon realized that no one around her saw what she saw,
and began to keep her visions to herself. As a young girl,
Hildegard’s education was entrusted to a brilliant Benedictine abbess,
Jutta of Spanheim. When she grew up, Hildegard wanted to enter religious
life herself, When Jutta died, Hildegard succeeded her as abbess. When
she was 42, Hildegard’s life changed. She had had visions from
childhood; but this was different: “I heard a voice from heaven saying
to me, ‘Tell these wonders and write them as they are taught.” And for
the first time, Hildegard began to share her visions with others.
As always in such cases, Church authorities hesitated. Hildegard’s
bishop submitted some of her writings to Pope Eugene III. He read them
and wrote to Hildegard: “We marvel, my daughter, and we marvel beyond
what one can believe, that God shows new miracles in our times, as when
he pours his Spirit upon you.” In the years that followed,
Hildegard corresponded with Popes and Bishops and even challenged the
Holy Roman Emperor. She traveled around Germany, and bishops welcomed
her to preach in their cathedrals. She combined extraordinary artistic
gifts with a scientific mind, and wrote innovative works of theology,
poetry, drama, and medicine. She also directed the creation of truly
remarkable illuminations of her visions. The poem Jackie read is
one of Hildegard’s best-known poems. The poem reflects Hildegard’s close
observation of the natural world. Mary is compared to a leaf. “Never was
leaf so green, / for you branched from the spirited / blast of the quest
/ of the saints.” The color green is very significant for Hildegard: in
another work, she wrote that the soul is the “green of the body”—the
very life within it. Green means life – and the first thing Hildegard
says about Mary is that Mary is deeply alive, with a life that comes
from the Holy Spirit. Christ is the flower blooms from the
living branch that is Mary. Hildegard lovingly speaks of the fragrance
of this flower: “like balsam / distilled in the sun.” This flower gives
fragrance to all flowers, and restores life to what was dry.
The way the poem leaps from image to image is typical of Hildegard’s
poetry. We move from a “close up” on a flower to a broad view of the
whole earth, soaking up the dew, and bringing forth life from its womb:
wheat that gives life and shelter to the birds. The wheat calls to mind
the Eucharist, an allusion that becomes explicit in the next lines of
the poem: “Keepers of the feast, rejoice! / The banquet’s ready.” All of
this, the poet reminds us, came through Mary: “you / sweet maid-child /
are a fount of gladness.” Hildegard’s vision is less about being caught
up into heaven, and more about recognizing God’s sanctifying presence
here. At the end of the poem, Hildegard contrasts Mary and Eve.
“But Eve? / She despised every joy. / Praise nonetheless, / praise to
the highest.” While this comparison is conventional, and dates back to
the early Church Fathers, in this poem it highlights Hildegard’s
unabashedly and unapologetically feminine viewpoint. Mary and Eve
reflect opposite poles—not just yes and no, grace and sin, but joy and
joylessness. This poem is wonderfully captured in a window in
the Cathedral sacristy. The work of Hans Gottfried von Stockhausen, the
window was inspired by this poem, which is written in German in the
border of the window. The imagery reflects the joyful fruitfulness of
Mary, and the sweet fragrance of Christ. Of course, there’s one
more dimension to this poem, and that is Hildegard’s extraordinary
music. We’ll conclude with the first stanza of the poem, in Hildegard’s
own setting. St. Hildegard, pray for us!
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Lines Written in Early Spring BY William
Wordsworth (1770-1850) I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant
thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works
did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it
grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through
primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its
wreaths; And ’tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it
breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their
thoughts I cannot measure:— But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out
their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I
can, That there was pleasure there. If this belief from
heaven be sent, If such be Nature’s holy plan, Have I not reason
to lament What man has made of man?
This week, we’re
reading William Wordsworth’s poem, “Lines Written in Early Spring.”
The setting of this poem is quintessentially Romantic: a poet is
sitting outside in springtime, surrounded by flora and fauna, filled
with poetic thoughts. It is also quintessentially Romantic in the
tension we sense between the speaker and the natural world. The speaker
is deeply aware of the life all around him, a life which flows through
him as well; but at the same time, he is conscious of a painful
disconnect between humanity and the natural world. Wordsworth
famously wrote, “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings.” This poem is about just that kind of spontaneous overflow of
feeling, which for Wordsworth is the very source of poetry. Sitting in a
grove on a day in early spring, listening to “a thousand blended
notes”—the song of birds, the sounds of the wood around him—the poet is
in a “sweet mood,” full of “pleasant thoughts”—and that very sweetness
and pleasure leads to “sad thoughts” and painful reflection. “To her
fair works did Nature link / The human soul that through me ran; / And
much it grieved my heart to think / What man has made of man.” The poet
feels deeply connected with the beauty and life around him; he senses
that in some sense, he was made for this connection with the created
world. But that very connection leads to sadness at “what man has made
of man.” In the next three stanzas, the poet looks around him,
and what he sees, everywhere he looks, is joy. On the ground, he sees
periwinkle growing through tufts of primrose, and says, “’tis my faith
that every flower / Enjoys the air it breathes.” That is quite a
statement, isn’t it? The flowers do not just open in the spring air;
they enjoy it. He looks at the birds hopping around him, and senses “a
thrill of pleasure” in every motion they make. They are not just hunting
for worms or twigs; they are having fun. They are enjoying their lives!
Looking up at the leaves opening on every twig in this spring season,
the poet says he cannot help but think “there was pleasure there” as
well. Flowers, birds, trees—Wordsworth does not speak of them as
unthinking things, objects to be looked at or used. They are beings that
take pleasure in their very existence, in doing what they are made for –
blooming, growing, living. In the last stanza, Wordsworth comes
back to humanity and the lament with which the poem started. “If this
belief from heaven be sent,” he asks, “If such be Nature’s holy plan, /
Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man?” What
has man made of man? Wordsworth does not answer that question directly.
But I think what the poet laments—what leads to that note of sadness in
the midst of all the joy around him—is that we human beings seem to have
lost that sheer joy in existence which is all around us. Moments of
connection with the natural world are precious but they are rare. And,
as Wordsworth reiterates, this is something we have done to ourselves.
It’s what “man has made of man”—and it goes against our own deepest
nature, and against nature’s “holy plan” for us. For me,
Wordsworth’s poem, and his sense of the profound importance of even the
smallest creatures around him, calls to mind Pope Francis in Laudato
Si’. The Holy Father writes: “Rather than a problem to be solved, the
world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.”
(12) “We are not disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in
a splendid universal communion. As believers, we do not look at the
world from without but from within, conscious of the bonds with which
the Father has linked us to all beings.” (220) I don’t know if
Pope Francis reads Wordsworth, but I think he would find a lot to agree
with in this particular poem!
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Mezzo Cammin Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1807-1882) Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled The
aspiration of my youth, to build Some tower of song with
lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled, But
sorrow, and a care that almost killed, Kept me from what
I may accomplish yet; Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,— A city in
the twilight dim and vast, With smoking roofs, soft bells, and
gleaming lights,— And hear above me on the autumnal
blast The cataract of Death far thundering from the
heights. This week, we’re reading a sonnet by American poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I’ve always found this sonnet by Longfellow
to be haunting, both because of the story behind it and because of what
it expresses. For me, it’s one of the poems that made me love poems!
To start with the title. “Mezzo Cammin” is Italian for “middle of
the journey.” It comes from the first line of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
“Midway upon the journey of our life / I found myself within a forest
dark, / For the straightforward pathway had been lost” (Longfellow’s
translation). “Mezzo cammin” means “midway upon the journey,” “halfway
there.” But “Mezzo cammin” is not a place. When the action of Divine
Comedy takes place, Dante is 35 years old, halfway through his life,
according to the Bible: as Psalm 90 says, “our span is seventy years, or
eighty for those who are strong.” Thus, “Mezzo cammin” refers to the
midpoint of life. And the midpoint of life—halfway through—can be a
difficult time: as Dante describes it, “I found myself within a forest
dark, / For the straightforward pathway was lost.” Longfellow
wrote “Mezzo Cammin” in 1842, when he himself was 35 years old. For
Longfellow, as for Dante, 35 was a time when “the straightforward
pathway was lost.” His early years had been bright and promising. He was
born to a distinguished family in Portland, Maine; he studied at Bowdoin
College, where he showed great promise. He knew from a young age that he
wanted to be a poet. He wrote: “I most eagerly aspire after future
eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it.”
Unlike many poets, he met with little resistance; his dreams and his
gifts were encouraged. After graduation, he traveled through Europe,
learning languages and absorbing cultures. He married a childhood
friend, Mary Storer Potter. He was offered a professorship at Harvard.
Everything was looking up for Longfellow. But then Mary suffered a
miscarriage, and died at the age of 22. Longfellow was consumed with
grief. This is the context for this sonnet. Reflecting on his
life to this point, and looking to the future, Longfellow has a strong
sense of failure. “Half of my life is gone, and I have let / The years
slip from me and have not fulfilled / The aspiration of my youth, to
build / Some tower of song with lofty parapet.” He is getting older, and
his dream of writing a great poem has not been achieved. Longfellow
knows that this is not his fault. The things that prevent so many others
from accomplishing the dreams of their youth—laziness, the pursuit of
pleasure, “restless passions”—are not what have gotten in his way, but
rather, “sorrow, and a care that almost killed.” The death of his young
wife, and his grief, have stopped him in his tracks. Longfellow
knows his life not over, and that he may yet accomplish what he has
dreamed of doing. But the poem ends with a memento mori, a reminder of
death. “Halfway up the hill,” he looks back upon the past, which lies
below him like “a city in the twilight dim and vast,” filled with
wonderful “sounds and sights.” But even as he looks behind, he can hear
above him “the cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.” It’s
such a vivid image, and it’s especially striking because of the way
Longfellow adds extra syllables to that last line. The poem is in iambic
pentameter (ten syllables per line) but that last line has 13 syllables.
The breakdown of the meter echoes and emphasizes the thunderous sound of
that “cataract” which is Death. Here, at the midpoint of life, he can
hear that sound more clearly than ever before. This poem was not
published until after Longfellow’s death in 1882—by which time he had,
of course, built many “towers of song with lofty parapet”—and
experienced yet more loss and sorrow. I think reading “Mezzo Cammin” is
an invitation to take stock of our lives and how we are spending our
time—and how we are doing on our vocation in life. It invites us to our
own memento mori moment, to keep in mind that death waits at the end of
the journey for every one of us. Thinking about death in this way should
not make us gloomy or despairing, but rather spur us on to live the
lives we are meant to live. As we read in the book of Sirach, “Remember
your last days and set enmity aside; / remember death and decay, and
cease from sin!” (Sirach 28:6).
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spring song BY LUCILLE CLIFTON (1936-2010)
the green of Jesus is breaking the ground and the sweet smell
of delicious Jesus is opening the house and the dance of Jesus
music has hold of the air and the world is turning in the body
of Jesus and the future is possible Hello there. Corinna
Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week. This week, we’re reading
“Spring Song” by Lucille Clifton. Jackie O’Ryan will read the poem, and
then I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Thank you, Jackie,
and thank you to Eric Evans for the beautiful video that accompanied
Jackie’s reading. Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 and died in
2010. She grew up in Buffalo, New York, and attended Howard
University and later SUNY Fredonia. Her poetry was discovered by the
great Langston Hughes in the late 1960s, and included in his famous 1970
anthology, The Poetry of the Negro. Clifton was widely recognized during
her lifetime: she was the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets,
won the Ruth Lilly Award, the National Book Award, and was twice a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her poetry is known for its depth and
brevity. Peggy Rosenthal has written of Clifton’s work: “The first thing
that strikes us about Lucille Clifton’s poetry is what is missing:
capitalization, punctuation, long and plentiful lines. We see a poetry
so pared down that its spaces take on substance, become a shaping
presence as much as the words themselves.” In the words of another
critic, Clifton writes “physically small poems with enormous and
profound inner worlds.” Her poetry is known for its “moral quality,” its
“looming humaneness” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton).
All of that is certainly true of “spring song.” This poem is just
45 words long, but it evokes a world. It’s spring and Clifton uses
language that appeals to different senses: “green… breaking the ground”;
a “sweet / smell,”; music that “has hold of the air”—sights, smells,
sounds. Spring is an immersive experience! But these sensory experiences
are more than merely physical. The name of Jesus leaps out at us again
and again: four times in ten short lines. “the green of Jesus / is
breaking the ground,” “the sweet / smell of delicious Jesus / is opening
the house and / the dance of Jesus music / has hold of the air.” Where
we anticipate hearing about new shoots pushing through the earth, or the
smell of flowers or the music of songbirds, we get Jesus… Jesus… Jesus.
The poem ends, “the world is turning / in the body of Jesus and / the
future is possible.” Jesus is everywhere. With remarkable
brevity, this poem captures the hope of spring—which, for Christians (at
least those living in the northern hemisphere!) is inextricably tied
with the hope of Easter. As a medieval hymn has it, “Lo, the fair beauty
of earth, from the death of the winter arising! Every good gift of the
year now with its Savior returns.” Spring is more than a season: it is a
reminder, a metaphor, a sign of the rising of Jesus. And the
Resurrection of Jesus is not just an event, but a pervading, living
reality, which fills everything, keeps the world turning, and, as
Clifton says, makes the future possible. Short poem, short
commentary! I want to let Lucille Clifton have the last word.
Here, she shares some wonderful insights in video reflections she did
for the Academy of American Poets. Watch the videos here:
Lucille Clifton: What is poetry?
https://youtu.be/qfYCRZ9LVh4
Lucille Clifton: Where ideas come from
https://youtu.be/50cQSk_sF4Q
Hear Lucille Clifton read “Spring Song”
https://youtu.be/WoG29TbMW9A
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“I got me flowers” from Easter George Herbert (set by Ralph
Vaughan Williams) I got me flowers to strew thy way; I got me
boughs off many a tree: But thou wast up by break of day, And
brought'st thy sweets along with thee. The Sunne arising in the
East. Though he give light, and th'East perfume; If they should
offer to contest With thy arising, they presume. Can there be
any day but this, Though many sunnes to shine endeavour? We count
three hundred, but we misse: There is but one, and that one ever.
This week, we’re doing something a little different! I’m
collaborating with Cathedral musician David Hoffman. This Friday
evening, as part of our weekly musical prayer series, David will be
singing Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, settings of five
poems by George Herbert. So, David will sing Herbert’s poem “I got me
flowers” (Easter), and then I’ll be back with some brief commentary.
At the time he wrote these settings of Herbert’s poems, Ralph
Vaughan Williams was a self-described atheist. It will be no surprise to
those who listen to his settings of religious verse that later in life,
he came to describe himself as a “cheerful agnostic.” His settings
capture the meditative quality and the sheer beauty of Herbert’s
language, and like the poems themselves, his settings have a depth to
them that reward close listening. In his setting of “Easter,” for
example, he plays with Gregorian modalities—and you can hear echoes of
Gregorian chant throughout the Five Mystical Songs. Herbert’s
poem, too, has many layers. Herbert is playing with a familiar trope of
Baroque poetry: the morning poem. What usually happens in this kind of
poem is that the speaker urges the lover to awake, and to come and enjoy
the spring flowers, because time is wasting and life is short. (A famous
example of this is “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert
Herrick, Herbert’s contemporary and, like Herbert, a priest of the
Church of England. It includes the famous line, “Gather ye rosebuds
while ye may.”) Herbert turns that trope on its head in this
poem. “I got me flowers to strew thy way; / I got me boughs off many a
tree: / But thou wast up by break of day, / And brought’st thy sweets
along with thee.” The speaker does not need to urge the beloved to wake
up and come forth; his beloved has anticipated him, both in arising
early—“by break of day”—and in bringing “sweets.” We know who
this lover is, of course: this is Easter morning, and it is Christ
who was “up by break of day,” Christ who needs no spring flowers, since
he has come with “sweets”—with the perfume of his rising from the dead.
“The Sunne arising in the East, / Though he give light, and th’East
perfume; / If they should offer to contest / With thy arising, they
presume.” The sun and the perfumes of spring cannot hope to compete with
this rising of Christ! The third stanza speaks of time. In the
poem by Robert Herrick I mentioned earlier, time is a key concept.
“Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, / Old Time is still a-flying…. The
glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, / The higher he’s a-getting, / The
sooner will his race be run, / And nearer he’s to setting.” Time
passes; life is short. Seize the day. But here again, Herbert turns the
familiar idea upside down. This day is not short, nor is time flying.
This day is eternal. “Can there be any day but this, / Though many
sunnes to shine endeavor? / We count three hundred, but we misse: /
There is but one, and that one ever.” There is no other day but this
Easter day; and this day will never end. As with all Herbert’s
poems, the language is simple, but profound and many-layered. “Easter”
is a love poem to Christ on the morning of his Resurrection: a spring
day with flowers that never fade, a sun that never sets, a love that
never dies, and a life that never ends.
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Victimae Paschali Laudes Traditional chant, c. 1000
Christians, to the paschal victim offer your thankful praises -- a
lamb the sheep redeemeth; Christ, who only is sinless, reconcileth
sinners to the Father. Death and life have contended in that
combat stupendous; the prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
Speak, Mary, declaring what thou sawest, wayfaring. "The tomb
of Christ, who is living, the glory of Jesus' resurrection; bright
angels attesting, the shroud and napkin resting. Christ my hope is
arisen; to Galilee he goes before you." Christ indeed from
death is risen, our new life obtaining. Have mercy, victor King,
ever reigning! Amen. This week, we’re going to explore a
poem which is part of the liturgy: the Easter Sequence,
“Christians, to the Paschal Victim.” Two of our Cathedral cantors will
sing this medieval poem for us, and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. The liturgy is full of poetry. We pray and sing
poems from the book of Psalms, as well as the hymns and canticles which
are scattered through both the Old and New Testaments. The liturgy also
includes non-Scriptural poems, like the beautiful chant we just heard,
“Christians to the Paschal Victim.” This poem was composed around the
11th century, probably by a German priest named Wipo who was chaplain to
the Holy Roman Emperor. It has entered into the Easter liturgy, and is
sung before the Alleluia at every Mass on Easter Sunday and during the
Easter Octave. At one time, the liturgy includes many such poems (called
“sequences”); today, we have just a few. That this one survives is a
testament to the beauty and depth both of the language and of the
traditional chant. There is an inherent drama in the text, with
its questioning of St. Mary Magdalene, and Mary’s response; indeed, in
the Middle Ages, this sequence was sometimes performed dramatically, and
even incorporated into mystery plays about the Resurrection of Jesus.
There is so much we could say about this fascinating poem, but
I want to highlight two of the themes that stand out. In the
first section of the poem, we get some truly dramatic imagery: “Death
and life have contended / In that combat stupendous. / The Prince of
Life, who died, reigns immortal.” The poem is alluding to the harrowing
of hell. This ancient doctrine, which is held in many but not all parts
of the Christian family, says that on Holy Saturday, while his body
rested in the tomb, Jesus was anything but passive! He descended to the
dead, as we say in the Apostles’ Creed, to save the just who had died
before his coming, including the patriarchs and prophets. In traditional
icons of this scene, we see Jesus, holding Adam and Eve by the hand,
leading them out of the realm of the dead. There are broken chains and
shackles at his feet. The harrowing of hell is, in a sense, a jailbreak!
Jesus has come to the realm of the dead, where he has overcome the power
of death, and led the just into freedom. The poem emphasizes the
strength and power of Jesus, the “victor King” who has won the “combat
stupendous.” The second section turns to a new subject, Mary
Magdalene, and a new melody. “Speak, Mary,” the poem says, and tell us
what you saw on the way. And Mary replies: “The tomb of Christ, who is
living, / the glory of Jesus' resurrection; / bright angels attesting, /
the shroud and napkin resting.” Mary testifies to what she has seen—the
empty tomb, the burial cloths lying there, the angels; but that is not
all. Mary also declares her faith, and passes along the message Jesus
entrusted to her: “Christ my hope is arisen; / to Galilee he goes before
you.” Mary is called the “Apostle to the Apostles” not because she was
the first to see the risen Christ, but because she was sent to the
apostles with a message, a message which got them moving to Galilee. In
a sense, Mary’s mission is the same as Jesus’ mission. Jesus broke open
the gates of hell, and shattered the chains of death, and he sends Mary
to open the locked upper room where the apostles are sheltering in fear,
and call them forth to a whole new life—a new world. The Easter
Sequence wonderfully expresses the joy and freedom that Jesus’
Resurrection brings, and it ends by drawing us into the story: “Christ
indeed from death is risen, / our new life obtaining. / Have mercy,
victor King, ever reigning!” Jesus continues to share his victory over
death and fear—with all of us. Happy Easter!
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Emily Dickinson “One Crucifixion” (553) One Crucifixion is
recorded – only – How many be Is not affirmed of Mathematics—
Or History— One Calvary—exhibited to Stranger— As many be
As persons – or Peninsulas – Gethsemane – Is but a Province
– in the Being’s Centre – Judea – For Journey – or Crusade’s
Achieving – Too near – Our Lord – indeed – made Compound
Witness – And yet – There’s newer – nearer Crucifixion Than
That – (1862) In this Holy Week edition, we’re
reading Emily Dickinson.
Emily Dickinson is probably the most famous recluse in American
literature—who knows, maybe in world literature! For most of her
life, she never left the boundaries of her family home and garden. And
yet her diction—her word choices—would suggest just the opposite.
Dickinson’s poems are full of distance and space. She loves to use words
and images from geography, like circumference, firmament, peninsula,
globe; and from astronomy - universe, worlds, stars. Her poems are full
of the names of places she never visited but clearly spent time
imagining: Tunis, Haworth, Turkey, Geneva, Gibraltar, and dozens of
others. In this poem, Dickinson reflects on the crucifixion and
on places associated with the life and death of Jesus. The 19th-century
Protestant world in which Dickinson lived had a great fascination with
the Holy Land. While they found Catholic ideas of touching relics and
making pilgrimages quite suspect, they had a deep desire to discover the
historical Jesus—where he lived, what he saw, heard, and felt. The
paintings of Biblical landscapes and scenes by Holman Hunt, and Lew
Wallace’s famous novel Ben-Hur, both of which shared an obsession with
depicting the world of Jesus in accurate detail, are two examples of
this movement. Dickinson herself would surely have encountered people
who had made the journey to the Holy Land in an effort to ‘bring the
Bible to life.’ But, as always, Dickinson has a unique
perspective. “One Crucifixion is recorded – only – / How many be /
Is not affirmed of Mathematics— / Or History.” We only speak of one
Crucifixion, that of Jesus. But there were many others, not counted by
“mathematics” or recorded in “history.” Dickinson extends this
reflection in the second stanza. Just one Calvary is “exhibited to
Stranger.” There is one place that is shown to pious visitors to
Jerusalem—but there are more Calvarys than that. In fact, she says,
there are as many Calvarys as there are “persons” or “peninsulas.” The
place of crucifixion is everyone, and everywhere. And Gethsemane, the
garden where Jesus prayed in agony before his arrest, is not simply a
geographical place. “Gethsemane - / Is but a Province – in the Being’s
Centre.” To find Gethsemane, we need to look not without but within.
Judea, the land where Jesus lived, is “too near” for a journey, too
close at hand for a crusade. Dickinson began her poem with the
“One Crucifixion,” that of Jesus, and she comes back to that idea in the
last stanza. “Our Lord – indeed – made Compound Witness.” The saving
death of Jesus on the cross, once for all, has “Compound Witness”—it
overflows in grace for all of humanity. But, Dickinson writes, “There’s
newer – nearer Crucifixion / Than That –.” Every person carries their
own cross, their own suffering and pain, their own Calvary.
Dickinson’s poem reminds me of the words of Jesus when he spoke of his
approaching passion to his disciples: “Whoever wishes to come after me
must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24) .To
participate in the life of Jesus, to have a share in his saving work,
does not mean we will be spared the cross. Quite the reverse. Jesus
promises that each of us will carry their own cross. For Dickinson, the
whole life of Jesus—from Judea to Gethsemane to Calvary—is not far away,
but within us—in our suffering. I think this poem is an
appropriate one to reflect on as we enter into the Triduum. Holy Week is
not a “virtual pilgrimage” to the Holy Land, a sort of poor substitute
for going to Jerusalem. In Holy Week, the mysteries we celebrate are not
far away or in the past, but, in the words of Dickinson, “new” and
“near.” On Holy Thursday, as at every Mass, we do what Jesus did—take
bread and break it—but we know by faith that this is not a dramatic
reenactment of the Last Supper. Jesus is as present to us, here and now,
as he was to his disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem long ago. On
Good Friday, when we venerate the cross, the liturgy does not say,
“Behold an image of the crucifixion,” but “Behold the wood of the cross
on which hung the salvation of the world.” We stand not before a cross,
but before the cross, because the Paschal Mystery of Christ is not bound
by time or space. And at the Easter Vigil, the Church says again and
again, “this is the night.” Jesus rose, yes; but Jesus is risen.
In Holy Week, the Church confidently asserts that Jerusalem is not a
far-away place. It is, in the words of Emily Dickinson, “a Province / In
the Being’s Centre.”
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March 23, 2021--our fiftieth episode! The Coming R. S.
Thomas And God held in his hand A small globe. Look he
said. The son looked. Far off, As through water, he saw A
scorched land of fierce Colour. The light burned There;
crusted buildings Cast their shadows: a bright Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant With slime.
On a bare Hill a bare tree saddened The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms To it, as though waiting For a vanished
April To return to its crossed Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said. Hello there. Corinna
Laughlin here with the poem of the week. This is our 50th episode!
Thank you for joining Scott, Jackie and me during this past year. I hope
you’ve enjoyed the poems and commentaries as much as we’ve enjoyed
preparing them for you. This week, we’re reading a poem by R.
S. Thomas, the Welsh poet and Anglican priest. This poem is called “The
Coming,” and the “Coming” referred to is Christ’s coming. I had planned
to do this poem in Advent, which is, of course, the liturgical season
that is all about the coming of Christ. But the more I read this poem,
the more I realized that it’s really an Easter poem. “And God.”
The first words of the poem take us immediately into the language of the
Bible, and to the account of creation in the book of Genesis. In the
King James Version of the Bible, those words “And God” are repeated
again and again in the first chapter of Genesis – 28 times in 31 verses!
Thomas did not start the poem this way by accident. In choosing to begin
“and God,” Thomas situates his poem in the world of the Bible, and
specifically in the Creation account, when God has rolled up his
sleeves, so to speak, to summon the world out of chaos, and put
everything in order: earth, sky, water, human beings. God is
not alone in this realm. The Son is with him. In the Christian
worldview, Jesus is no latecomer. As we read in the Gospel of John, “he
was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and
without him, nothing came to be” (John 1:2-3). Christian art frequently
shows creation in this way – Jesus is front and center; through him,
creation happens. In Thomas’s poem, the Father and the Son
contemplate the “small globe” of the earth. The dense imagery creates
complex vision of our world. We get the basic elements from the Genesis
account of creation – water, dry land, light, darkness are all
mentioned. But Thomas uses quite unsettling images. This world is
“scorched,” “fierce,” “burned,” “crusted”—a harsh landscape. But at the
same time, this world is rich in color; it has a beauty about it, as we
see in the description of a river: “a bright / Serpent, a river /
Uncoiled itself, radiant / With slime.” The word “Serpent” immediately
tells us that this is a fallen world, suggesting the serpent of Genesis.
The phrase “radiant / With slime” says it all – ugliness and beauty,
seemingly inseparable. In the second part of the poem, we
glimpse the human family. “On a bare / Hill a bare tree saddened / The
sky. Looking into this harsh, yet beautiful landscape, the Father and
the Son see a bare tree on a bare hillside. Isn’t that a great line—“a
bare tree saddened / The sky.” The bareness of the tree saddens the
landscape, and yet there are people there, many of them, who reach out
“thin arms” to that tree, “as though waiting / For a vanished April / To
return to its crossed / Boughs.” But this is not just a tree in
a landscape. Remember where we started—“And God….” This is the world of
the Bible, and the tree on the hillside evokes the cross. Thomas writes:
“The son watched / Them. Let me go there, he said.” Watching the people
reach out to the bare tree, the Son wants to go there, to that small
globe in the hand of the Father. While Thomas avoids emotional or
sentimental language, we sense that it is compassion that causes the
Father to show this world to the Son, and compassion that sends the Son
to that bare tree, to bring life to its dead branches, to herald the
return of April. I think this is the perfect poem to reflect on
as we prepare for Holy Week. On Good Friday, the whole Church does what
the people in this poem are doing: hold out our arms to the crossed
branches of a tree. And with Easter, the “vanished April” does indeed
return. The Church venerates the cross because it is not a dead tree,
but the source of life. In the words of the liturgy of Good Friday, “We
adore your Cross, O Lord, we praise and glorify your holy Resurrection,
for behold, because of the wood of a tree joy has come to the whole
world.”
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A Better Resurrection By Christina Rossetti
(1830-94) I have no wit, no words, no tears; My heart within
me like a stone Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears; Look right,
look left, I dwell alone; I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see; My life is in the falling leaf: O
Jesus, quicken me. My life is like a faded leaf, My harvest
dwindled to a husk: Truly my life is void and brief And tedious in
the barren dusk; My life is like a frozen thing, No bud nor
greenness can I see: Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring; O Jesus,
rise in me. My life is like a broken bowl, A broken bowl that
cannot hold One drop of water for my soul Or cordial in the
searching cold; Cast in the fire the perish'd thing; Melt and
remould it, till it be A royal cup for Him, my King: O Jesus,
drink of me. (1857) We have met Victorian poet Christina
Rossetti several times in this series. I think Rossetti and Ruth
Burrows, whose poem “I made a garden for God” we read a couple of weeks
ago, might have some interesting conversations! Both of them are people
of deep faith and conviction, whose spirituality is neither simple nor
untroubled. They are both poets who write of spiritual darkness and
separation, rather than rapturous union. Rossetti’s poems are
not all gloomy. The same year that she wrote this poem, she wrote “A
Birthday,” one of her most famous poems, in which she says, “My heart is
like a singing bird… My heart is like an apple tree… My heart is like a
rainbow shell.” But here she says, “my heart within me like a stone.”
Rossetti’s spiritual poetry is seldom bright or joy-filled. Perhaps
that’s because for her, poetry was a form of prayer, and she turned to
God in prayer most especially when she felt distant from God. This is
just my speculation, of course, but I think it’s borne out in “A Better
Resurrection.” Each of the three stanzas of the poem follows the
same pattern. The speaker describes her life in a wide array of images,
and concludes with a petition to Jesus. In the first stanza, she writes
that she has “no wit, no words, no tears”: her intellectual and
emotional faculties are numbed. This numbness does not come from
indifference, but from isolation and grief: “Look right, look left, I
dwell alone”; her eyes are “dimm’d with grief.” The language is full of
Scriptural allusions: “I lift mine eyes” comes from Psalm 121, which is
a prayer of confidence in time of need: “I lift my eyes to the
mountains; from where shall come my help? My help comes from the Lord
who made heaven and earth.” The echo of the Psalm is joined with the
familiar phrase “everlasting hills,” which comes from Jacob’s blessing
of his sons in Genesis, which is a prayer for abundance of life. The
stanza ends with a direct address to Jesus, a prayer - “O Jesus, quicken
me.” Bring me to life. In the second stanza, the dense
Scriptural allusions continue. The voice of the speaker sounds a bit
like the speaker of Ecclesiastes: “truly my life is void and brief / And
tedious in the barren dusk” the poet writes, and in Ecclesiastes we
read: “All things are wearisome, too wearisome for words…. All is vanity
and a chasing after wind” (1:8; 2:17). But, like the speaker of
Ecclesiastes, this speaker is not without hope. “My life is like a
frozen thing, / No bud nor greenness can I see: / Yet rise it shall –
the sap of Spring; / O Jesus, rise in me.” Where the first stanza ends
with a prayer for life, the second stanza ends with a confident
expression that she will rise again. This prayer is more intimate: “O
Jesus, rise in me.” It’s a prayer not just for the restoration of her
life, but for Jesus to live in her. The last stanza again draws
on Scriptural images. In Ecclesiastes, life is described as a “golden
bowl” that is broken; Isaiah speaks of God as a potter, who can form and
reform us as a potter forms clay. Furnaces, hot enough to melt gold, are
mentioned many times in the Bible, often in terms of the purification
and testing of God’s people. The speaker describes her life as a broken
bowl. She prays that Jesus will “cast in the fire the perish’d thing”
and remake it into “a royal cup for Him, my King.” For me, the
last line of the poem comes as a surprise: “O Jesus, drink of me.” The
speaker says that her broken bowl cannot hold even a drop of water or
cordial—to quench her thirst, to warm her in the cold. I expect her to
conclude by asking, like the Samaritan woman, for living water,
springing up within her. Instead, she asks to be made into a royal cup,
for Jesus to drink of. This poem, which powerfully expresses
the speaker’s sense of isolation, of dryness, of uselessness, also
expresses her longing for a deeper union with Jesus. She not only asks
Jesus to live in her, but even to drink of her: she wants this sharing
of life to go both ways – she wants to give life as well as receive it.
When she writes of spiritual difficulties, Rossetti does so by
leaning on the Bible. The more distance she feels from God, the more
intensely she prays for union. And that’s why I think that ultimately,
“A Better Resurrection” is a very hopeful poem.
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Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent
BY JOHN MILTON (1608-1674) When I consider how my light is
spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with
me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and
present My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask.
But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not
need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is Kingly.
Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’er Land and
Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and
wait.”
John Milton was born in 1608 and died in 1674. He lived through a
time of incredible political and religious upheaval. He was born during
the reign of King James I, served in the government of Oliver Cromwell,
and witnessed the fall of the commonwealth and the restoration of the
monarchy under King Charles II. Milton had a special gift for
languages, and wrote skillfully in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and
Hebrew, not to mention English. As a young man, he traveled extensively
in Europe, and even met Galileo, whose fortitude under house-arrest made
a great impression on him. Milton’s life was also full of
suffering. He was widowed twice, and none of his three marriages was
particularly happy. Two of his children died in infancy. And just as he
set out on an illustrious career in politics and literature, Milton’s
eyesight began to fail. By 1652, in his mid-forties, he was completely
blind. In the marvelous sonnet Scott read, we get some insight
into how Milton thought about his own blindness and his vocation, and
the frustration he experienced as he struggled to move forward. “When I
consider how my light is spent / Ere half my days in this dark world and
wide.” He is just entering middle age – he is only halfway through his
life, and already his “light is spent,” used up. It’s interesting that
he speaks of the world itself as “dark” and “wide”; it is as though the
darkness is not in him, but around him; the world itself has fallen
dark. Inside, he is on fire to do and to accomplish, to use “that one
Talent, which is death to hide.” Milton alludes here to the
parable of the talents, and feels convicted by it. In this parable, the
landowner who gives one of his servants ten talents, another five, and
another one, and then goes on a journey. While two of the servants
invest their talents and make a profit, the third buries the master’s
money and does nothing at all with it. Milton identifies himself with
that least of the three servants. In his blindness, how is he to invest
his “one talent”? What will happen when he presents an accounting
to his Maker? Will there be wailing and grinding of teeth for him, as
for the servant in the parable? He asks the agonizing question: “Doth
God exact day-labor, light denied?” How will he fulfill his mission now
that he is blind? What is God asking of him? The poet turns for
hope to a different parable – that of the workers in the vineyard. Some
start first thing in the morning and work the whole day; others start at
noon, others in midafternoon, and some are hired when there is just an
hour left in which to work. “Doth God exact day-labor, light denied”?
And the answer, of course, is no. And then another voice, that of
“Patience,” responds to his fears. “God doth not need / Either man’s
work or his own gifts.” Rather, those “who best/ Bear his mild yoke,
they serve him best.” Patience offers a vision of God’s “kingly” state.
Thousands come and go in his service, crossing “Land and Ocean without
rest.” God’s kingdom is happening, even though the poet himself feels
powerless and useless. The most surprising line of the poem
comes at the end: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” This famous
line is Milton’s wonderful reading of the parable of the workers in the
vineyard. We typically think of that parable as a story about fairness.
Why do those who worked only one hour get the same pay as those who
worked the whole day? But Milton sees it differently. He notices a
detail in the parable that is easy to overlook. The eleventh hour
workers didn’t just show up at the eleventh hour to ask for work. They
have been waiting in the marketplace all day long, and no one has hired
them. That waiting is itself a form of service. “They also serve who
only stand and wait.” At the end of the poem, the poet still
doesn’t know the answer to the “why me” question. But he is no longer
asking it. He recognizes that God’s vision is broader and longer than
his own. In God’s time, not his own, he will be called to work in the
vineyard, to invest “that one Talent” God has given him. In the
meantime, waiting and bearing the yoke God has given him is its own form
of service.
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I made a garden for God Ruth Burrows I
made a garden for God. No, do not misunderstand me It was not on
some lovely estate or even in a pretty suburb. I made a garden for
God in the slum of my heart a sunless space between grimy walls
the reek of cabbage water in the air refuse strewn on the cracked
asphalt…. the ground of my garden! This was where I laboured
night and day over the long years in dismal smog and cold…..
there was nothing to show for my toil. Like a child I could have
pretended: my slum transformed….. an oasis of flowers and graceful
trees how pleasant to work in such a garden! I could have lost
heart and neglected my garden to do something else for God. But
I was making a garden for God not for myself for his delight not
mine and so I worked on in the slum of my heart. Was he concerned
with my garden? Did he see my labour and tears? I never saw him
looking never felt him there Yet I knew (though it felt as if I
did not know) that he was there with me waiting…… He has come
into his garden Is it beautiful at last? Are there flowers and
perfumes? I do not know the garden is not mine but his— God
asked only for my little space to be prepared and given. This is
‘garden’ for him and my joy is full.
I had never heard of Ruth Burrows until Father Steve Sundborg
mentioned her in a homily a few weeks ago. Ruth Burrows is the pen name
of Rachel Gregory, an English Carmelite nun who is now approaching her
98th birthday. Her story might seem a simple one. As a teenager, she
experienced a call to religious life, and at age 18, she turned down a
place at Oxford and entered a Carmelite monastery instead. The end! Of
course, that is not how the story goes! She has written, “If one
measures experience merely by such things as the number of countries one
has visited, jobs one has held down and so on, then my experience is
nil. But if it is measured by penetration into life, into human nature,
then mine is great.” Sister Rachel became the prioress of her Carmel,
and helped guide her community through the reform and renewal of the
Second Vatican Council. She published her first book in 1975, at the age
of 52, and many more books have followed. Sister Rachel did not
find the religious life easy. As Michelle Jones has written, “Rachel
yearned for ‘inside’ prayer, for union with the living God,” but she
“experienced herself to be a living contradiction and a failure.” Her
experience in prayer was “total nothingness.” Eventually, she realized
that “this raw nothingness is the very place where Jesus dwelt and
uttered his self-emptying ‘Yes’ to the Father’s outpoured love. While
conventional wisdom would tell her somehow to get a grip, the secret was
rather to abide empty-handed in Jesus, in him surrendering her poverty
to God in trust.” (Ruth Burrows: Essential Writings, edited by Michelle
Jones) I think that provides some context for some of the
surprises of this poem of Ruth Burrows, “I made a garden for God.” In
some ways, this poem is utterly conventional. The image of the spiritual
life as a garden which we tend and maintain is not a new one. It would
certainly have been familiar to Sister Rachel in her years of formation
as a Carmelite. St. Therese frequently uses similar imagery – famously
comparing herself to a “little flower,” hence her familiar nickname! But
Sister Rachel immediately takes the image in a surprising direction. “Do
not misunderstand me,” she says. “It was not on some lovely estate or
even in a pretty suburb. / I made a garden for God / in the slum of my
heart.” It is not that she chooses the slum over the estate or the
suburb; the slum is all she has. And so, in this “sunless space between
grimy walls,” smelly and dirty as it is, she “labored / night and day /
over the long years.” The result? There are no results: “there was
nothing to show for my toil.” What could grow there, without light,
without sun, without grass? But she refuses to pretend, like a child.
She refuses to give up and do something else. She simply keeps on.
“Was he concerned with my garden? / Did he see my labour and tears?” she
asks. “I never saw him looking / never felt him there.” The garden is
for God, but she has no idea if God is there or if he cares about the
garden or the labor she is expending on it. But in a curious way, this
not knowing is a way of knowing. “Yet I knew (though it felt as if I did
not know) / that he was there with me / waiting.” She feels
that God is absent; but she knows that God is present. And this is all
the satisfaction we are going to get. At the end of the poem, she says,
“he has come into his garden.” But what God finds, we do not know. Has
she been able to grow beautiful flowers? Has the smell of “cabbage
water” been replaced with “perfumes”? Even at the end, she relinquishes
any sort of satisfaction. “God asked only for my little space / to be
prepared and given. / This is my ‘garden’ for him / and my joy is full.”
It is in her own spiritual emptiness, in her lack of spiritual
satisfaction, if you will, that Ruth Burrows finds her greatest insight
into the mystery of Christian life. In her own poverty, she recognized
all human weakness and poverty, and our need for a Savior. She discovers
the secret of coming before God with empty hands. As we continue
through this season of Lent, I think Ruth Burrows is a good companion.
In Lent, we commit ourselves to prayer, fasting, and works of mercy .
But Lent is really like preparing that garden in the slum of the heart.
We carry out our Lenten practices not because we think our efforts will
be self-improving or somehow worthy of God, but simply because God asks
them of us, and God is there. Ruth Burrows invites us to a spirituality
that lets go of the need to see results, whether here or hereafter.
Read an interview with Ruth Burrows here:
https://www.eden.co.uk/blog/where-i-can-best-give-myself-wholly-to-god-p1760
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The Collar BY GEORGE HERBERT I struck the board, and
cried, "No more;
I will abroad! What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life
are free, free as the road, Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me
blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it. Is the
year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it, No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted? Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands. Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double
pleasures: leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy
cage,
Thy rope of sands, Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law, While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
I will abroad. Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
He that forbears To
suit and serve his need
Deserves his load." But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word, Methought I heard one calling, Child!
And I replied My Lord.
This poem by George Herbert is not an
easy one for modern readers, but I think it is the perfect poem for the
beginning of Lent. It’s called “The Collar,” meaning “yoke.” In
the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden
light” (Matthew 11:30). The speaker of this poem finds the
yoke, the collar, anything but easy. He pounds the table and says, “no
more; / I will abroad.” He’s done. He’s getting out of town. Why “sigh
and pine,” when he could be free—in Herbert’s wonderful phrase, “free as
the road.” He could go anywhere; why stay here, to fret over his sins?
This life of faith is just too difficult. It seems to be bearing no
fruit. “Have I no harvest but a thorn?” he asks, a reference to Christ’s
crown of thorns. Why should he not taste “cordial fruit”? Why should he
not enjoy the fruits of this earth—“corn” or wheat; “bays” of success;
“flowers,” and “garlands.” The poet answers himself. “Not so,
my heart… there is fruit / And thou hast hands.” He urges himself to go
for it, to stop worrying about “what is fit and not,” and instead to
seek “double pleasures.” Leave behind the “cage” of conscience, which is
but a “rope of sands,” after all, made up of “petty thoughts.” Stop
worrying about the future, he says to himself, “tie up thy fears” and
“call in thy death’s head”—don’t contemplate your mortality any longer.
Enjoy. The last four lines of the poem bring a total reversal.
“as I raved and grew more fierce and wild / At every word, / Methought I
heard one calling, Child! / And I replied My Lord.” At that word,
“child,” the speaker’s “fierce and wild” ravings cease: his resolution
to reject “the collar” of Christ, his desire to escape and be “free as
the road,” simply vanish, and he recognizes and acknowledges the one who
speaks to him: “My Lord.” In “The Collar,” the speaker asks
seven questions. But when God speaks to him at the end, it is not to
answer any of them. God does not explain how following Christ or bearing
his yoke, his collar, will be worth it in the end. He does not offer any
substitute for the fruits, the flowers, and the garlands, the good
things of life, which so appeal to the speaker. In fact, God provides no
answers or explanations at all. All the speaker gets is that simple
word, “child.” In other words, God offers relationship, not
answers. I think this is the perfect poem for Lent. Lent begins
with ashes, which are such a potent image of our mortality. The ashes on
our heads remind us, in the words from the Roman Missal, that “we are
but ashes / and shall return to dust.” This acknowledgment of our
mortality is always linked with repentance and conversion of life.
Remembering that we are dust, we remember also that we are more than
dust: in the words of Pope Francis, “we are dust loved by God…. We are a
dust that is precious, destined for eternal life. We are the dust of the
earth, upon which God has poured out his heaven, the dust that contains
his dreams. We are God’s hope, his treasure and his glory.” Lent
is about repentance and conversion—it is a season for turning back
towards God, not because we are afraid of God, but because we hear God
calling, “child.” It’s about renewing our faith, not in a “what,” but in
a “who.” God is calling us, not to answer every one of our questions,
but to invite us into relationship.
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Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 Earth has
not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could
pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth,
like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields,
and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley,
rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river
glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still! William Wordsworth
(England, 1770-1850) This is one of Wordsworth’s most
famous poems, but in some ways, it’s a pretty surprising theme for a
Romantic poet. The Romantic movement in English poetry, of which
Wordsworth is of course one of the most significant figures, is
characterized by its appreciation of the natural world. The sonnet we
read last week is a good example of that – walking by the sea in the
evening, Wordsworth is overwhelmed with the beauty of it all—it is a
religious experience, a glimpse of God. For the Romantics, nature has
that power. If the beauty of the natural world is a pathway to
God, what happens in the city? For the Romantics and their successors,
the city is often suspect. As Wordsworth’s friend and fellow Romantic
Coleridge lamented, “I was reared / In the great city, pent 'mid
cloisters dim, / And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.” For the
Romantics, to be deprived of nature is to be deprived of a way of
connecting to God—because nature is seen as God’s very language.
That’s why this poem is surprising. “Earth has not anything to show more
fair,” the poem begins. “Dull would he be of soul who could pass by / A
sight so touching in its majesty.” But this poem is not about a mountain
or a river or an ocean view. It’s a poem about the city of London!
Standing on Westminster Bridge in the morning, the poet is stunned by
the beauty of the scene, “ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples.”
It’s not just the skyline that the poet finds so beautiful,
though he certainly glimpses beauty there. Rather, what Wordsworth
notices is the interplay between the natural world and the city. London
is wearing “the beauty of the morning” “like a garment.” From his
vantage point, he can see the great buildings and institutions in
relationship with the world, “open unto the fields, and to the sky.” The
morning sun shines on the city, and Wordsworth writes, “Never did sun
more beautifully steep / In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill.”
That’s quite a statement for a Romantic, isn’t it! There is as much
beauty here as when the sun rises on a natural landscape, and the sense
of calm is just as profound. And this experience, like the experience of
beauty in the natural world, has a religious dimension. “Dear God,” the
poet exclaims, “the very houses seem asleep; / And all that mighty heart
is lying still!” The poet is awake to the beauty of the city.
But there’s a certain tension in this poem at the same time. The poet
sees the city in the early morning, in a rare moment of stillness and
silence. There are no chimneys belching smoke, which is why everything
appears all “bright and glittering in the smokeless air.” There are no
people about—they are all asleep, and the “mighty heart” of the city is,
for the moment, still. In this poem, the poet of nature embraces the
city—but not quite. This is the city, but its beating heart– commerce,
the arts, worship, all the activity of the people who inhabit it—is
“lying still.” When the city wakes up, when things start moving, we get
the sense that its beauty might be harder to see. Much of the
Bible is centered on a city: Jerusalem dominates both the Old and New
Testaments. In the Scriptures, Jerusalem is a microcosm of the world: we
glimpse its cruelty and violence, its corruption and lack of faith, its
indifference to human need. But Jerusalem is also God’s city, a vision
and promise of the world as it should be: the place where God lives in
the midst of his people. In the Book of Revelation, “the new Jerusalem,”
the holy city (21:3), is the destiny of humankind. Does it
surprise you that heaven is described as a city? In The Joy of the
Gospel, Pope Francis writes, “it is curious that God’s revelation tells
us that the fullness of humanity and of history is realized in a city.
We need to look at our cities with a contemplative gaze, a gaze of faith
which sees God dwelling in their homes, in their streets and squares….
He dwells among them, fostering solidarity, fraternity, and the desire
for goodness, truth and justice” (71). May we look at our
cities with the “contemplative gaze” Pope Francis writes about, and
become more aware of God, who is already dwelling in the midst of the
people who live in them.
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It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free William Wordsworth
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a
Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in
its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion
make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear child! dear Girl!
that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn
thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in
Abraham's bosom all the year; And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner
shrine, God being with thee when we know it not. William
Wordsworth was a household name in his own lifetime, and I think it’s
safe to say that he is still a household name: he makes a cameo in
Taylor Swift’s song “The Lakes” on her album “Folklore”! This sonnet is
one of Wordsworth’s most anthologized poems. A sonnet is by definition a
short poem—just fourteen lines—but in the hands of Wordsworth, a few
lines inspired by a walk with his daughter Caroline on the seashore at
Calais become a profound reflection on nature, on childhood, and on God.
In the first eight lines, Wordsworth describes an evening scene,
and the sun setting over the sea. His description of the natural world
is imbued with religious language. The evening is described as “the holy
time,” and the quiet of the atmosphere is compared to “a Nun /
Breathless with adoration.” Wordsworth was not Catholic, but he uses a
Catholic image suggesting purity and the presence of God. The quiet and
peace around him are not the quiet and peace of nothing happening. They
are the quiet and peace of prayer, even of ecstatic prayer, the soul at
one with God. Wordsworth walks by the sea, and here, too, his
description is full of religious echoes. “The gentleness of heaven
broods o’er the Sea,” he says, evoking the creation account in Genesis,
which describes the spirit of God moving over the waters. When
Wordsworth says “Listen! The mighty Being is awake,” we are not entirely
sure whether he is directing us to listen to the sound of the sea, or to
the voice of God. I think that ambiguity is intentional: for Wordsworth,
the beauty of the natural world is a path to God. In the second
part of the sonnet, we recognize that Wordsworth is sharing this moment
with someone else—a child. While Wordsworth is so moved by what he sees,
she “appear[s] untouched by solemn thought.” For her, it’s just a walk
by the sea with someone who loves her. But just because the
child does not respond in the same way the poet does, does not mean that
her nature is “less divine.” Far from it. “Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom
all the year,” Wordsworth says, alluding to the story of Lazarus and
Dives from the Gospel of Luke. In that parable, Jesus says that when the
poor man Lazarus dies, he is carried away by angels to “the bosom of
Abraham.” It’s such a unique and wonderful image of heaven, suggesting
protection and safety. This child, Wordsworth’s daughter, is in heaven,
in a way that the poet, for all his “solemn thought,” is not. At
the end of the poem, Wordsworth evokes another Scripture story: the
account of the prophetic call of Samuel. The boy Samuel serves in the
Temple of God under Eli. It is a time when “the word of the Lord was
scarce and vision infrequent” (I Sam 3:1). The boy Samuel sleeps in the
temple itself, in the very shadow of the ark of the covenant. But when
God calls him, the boy does not know God’s voice. God is with him – but
he doesn’t realize it. The girl in Wordsworth’s poem worships
“at the Temple’s inner shrine, / God being with thee when we know it
not.” Like Samuel, she is in the very presence of God without realizing
it. The poet becomes aware of the presence of God through the beauty of
the natural world. He is in the outer temple, as it were, glimpsing God
through the veil of exterior things. The child is already in the “inner
shrine.” This is one of the dominant themes of Wordsworth’s
poetry—with age, his relationship with creation—and the Creator—has
become more complicated, and he longs for the unselfconsciousness of
childhood. But he knows that experience brings its own gifts—especially
the gift of reflection. As he says in another poem, “to me the meanest
flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for
tears.”
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The Aunt Daniel Berrigan, SJ With eyes a
dying candle with voice telling the years awry my aunt at her high
window counts the seasons by — bird wedges or air of snow or
red leaves of a leaning sky. Eighty-one years have whittled her hands
white coals have whitened her sweet mouth: Christ has fountained in
her eyes and crumpled her face to drought: flood and drought, He
entered once — in and never out. It was all gardens then: young
winds tugging her trees of cloud. At night His quiet lay on the
quiet all day no bird was loud: under His word, His word, her body
consented and bowed. And what is love, or what love does looks
from a knot of face where marching fires could but leave ruin and
gentleness in place: snatched her away, and left her Self: Christ
to regard us, Face to face.
Daniel Berrigan was born in 1921 in Minnesota, and grew up in
Syracuse, New York. One of six boys, he entered the Jesuits straight out
of high school, in 1939, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1952. He
taught theology and Scripture, and was highly regarded as a poet as
well. Berrigan was also a prominent activist. He gained fame, and
notoriety, from his outspoken protests against the Vietnam War,
alongside his brother, Phillip Berrigan. The brothers’ peace work was
rooted in their Christian faith and in the Gospel, but they got a lot of
pushback for their approach—especially when they led the “Catonsville
Nine,” a group of Catholics who seized draft files and burned them in
the parking lot with homemade napalm. Berrigan later said of the
incident, “Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order,
the burning of paper instead of children.” Throughout his long
life, Berrigan never stopped protesting, teaching, writing, and
preaching. He ministered to AIDS patients, protested nuclear armament,
and spoke out against abortion and the death penalty. He saw all these
issues as interconnected. He once said, “I see an 'interlocking
directorate' of death that binds the whole culture… an unspoken
agreement that we will solve our problems by killing people in various
ways; a declaration that certain people are expendable, outside the
pale. A decent society should no more have an abortion clinic than The
Pentagon." Berrigan was a polarizing and prophetic figure. He died in
2016 at the age of 94. In the poem Jackie just read, we get a
different side of Berrigan. In this poem, “The Aunt,” Berrigan gently
and reverently describes an old woman, his aunt. She is fading away.
Everything speaks of diminishment—her “eyes a dying candle,” her hands
“whittled” away, her mouth faded, her face crumpled. Her mind, too, is
going, as she tells “the years awry,” losing track of time. She seems to
be the shell of what she once was—as he says at the end of the poem, the
“marching fires” of life have gone through her, and now nothing is left
but “ruin and gentleness.” But there is more to this story. It
is not just time that has wasted this woman – it is Christ. “Christ has
fountained in her eyes / and crumpled her face to drought,” Berrigan
writes. He describes his aunt in the prime of life, when she gave
herself for Christ: “It was all gardens then: young winds… At night His
quiet lay on the quiet…. Under His word, His word, her body / consented
and bowed.” She invited Christ into her life, and Christ is still
there—he came “in,” Berrigan writes, but “never out.” Thus now, when
every part of her is wasted and diminished, one thing is not—that
presence of Christ in her. “What is love, or what love does / looks from
a knot of face,” Berrigan writes. When he looks at his aunt, love looks
back—Christ looks back. The aunt he knew is gone, in a way, and now all
that is left is the Christ whom she loved throughout her life: “Christ
to regard us, Face to face.” I thought this lovely poem was an
appropriate one for this week. February 2 is the Feast of the
Presentation of the Lord. When Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the
Temple, forty days after his birth, they encounter Simeon and Anna.
These two elderly people have been awaiting the Messiah all their lives,
and when Jesus comes, they are ready: they recognize him. Their lives
have immense value as they are among the first to give witness to
Christ. “The Aunt” is a tender poem, especially coming from one
of the “Catonsville Nine”! But there is no contradiction here.
Berrigan’s poetry and his activism were both rooted in the same place,
his faith in Christ, and in his deep reverence for human life—at every
stage.
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The Windows BY GEORGE HERBERT Lord, how
can man preach thy eternal word? He is a brittle
crazy glass; Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place, To be a
window, through thy grace. But when thou dost anneal in glass
thy story, Making thy life to shine within The
holy preachers, then the light and glory More
reverend grows, and more doth win; Which else
shows waterish, bleak, and thin. Doctrine and life, colors and
light, in one When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone Doth
vanish like a flaring thing, And in the ear, not
conscience, ring.
This has been a great week for poetry, hasn’t it? Amanda Gorman’s
electrifying reading of her poem “The Hill We Climb” was one of the
highlights of the inauguration events last week. It was the perfect
meeting of poet and poem with the moment—and surprised a lot of people
by bringing to a massive audience the power and impact of this great art
form! Digression over—on to the Poem of the Week. This week,
we’re reading George Herbert’s poem “The Windows.” George
Herbert wrote a book of poems called The Temple, in which he explored
spiritual themes through poems on different parts of the church
building. There are poems about the church porch, the lock and key, the
floor, and the altar – a poem which is actually shaped like an altar!
And there’s the poem we just heard about the church windows.
Herbert uses the image of stained glass to reflect on the preaching of
the word of God. “How can man preach thy eternal word?” he asks. He is
“a brittle, crazy glass.” “Crazy” here is used in the 17th-century sense
of the word, meaning “full of cracks.” Human beings are both breakable
and broken, and yet, here in the Temple, God gives this fragile thing a
“glorious place”: God takes this glass and makes it a window, with the
light of grace. Stained glass only comes to life when the light
shines through it. It is the same with preaching, Herbert says: when the
preacher’s own life is holy—that is, when it reflects the life of
God—the result is “light and glory,” and the listener is won over, not
to the preacher, but to God. But when there is a disconnect between the
preacher’s life and what he says, it is like stained glass that no light
comes through – “waterish, bleak, and thin.” The last stanza
makes Herbert’s point plainly. In preaching, “doctrine and life” must
“combine and mingle,” as inseparable as the color and light that bring a
stained-glass window to life. Words alone do nothing—they ring in the
ear but do not touch the conscience. Herbert insists that preachers must
“walk the talk”! In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis makes a
very similar point about those who preach the Gospel. He writes: “We are
not asked to be flawless, but to keep growing and wanting to grow as we
advance along the path of the Gospel… if [the preacher] does not take
time to hear God’s word with an open heart, if he does not allow it to
touch his life, to challenge him, to impel him, and if he does not
devote time to pray with that word, then he will indeed be a false
prophet, a fraud, a shallow impostor.” Most of us are not called
to preach the Gospel from the ambo during Mass. But that doesn’t mean we
are off the hook! By our baptism, we are a “royal priesthood,” and
thus every disciple of Christ is called to proclaim the Gospel, most
especially by letting it become incarnate in our lives. Every Christian
can give witness; and every Christian can give scandal, too, when there
is a disconnect between God’s teaching and the way we live our lives. As
Pope Francis writes, “The Lord wants to make use of us as living, free
and creative beings who let his word enter their own hearts before then
passing it on to others. Christ’s message must truly penetrate and
possess us, not just intellectually but in our entire being.”
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Pilgrim’s Problem C. S. Lewis By now I
should be entering on the supreme stage Of the whole walk, reserved
for the late afternoon. The heat was to be over now; the anxious
mountains, The airless valleys and the sun-baked rocks, behind me.
Now, or soon now, if all is well, come the majestic Rivers of
foamless charity that glide beneath Forests of contemplation. In the
grassy clearings Humility with liquid eyes and damp, cool nose
Should come, half-tame, to eat bread from my hermit hand. If storms
arose, then in my tower of fortitude-- It ought to have been in sight
by this—I would take refuge; But I expected rather a pale mackerel
sky, Feather-like, perhaps shaking from a lower cloud Light drops
of silver temperance, and clover earth Sending up mists of chastity,
a country smell, Till earnest stars blaze out in the established sky
Rigid with justice; the streams audible; my rest secure. I can
see nothing like all this. Was the map wrong? Maps can be wrong. But
the experienced walker knows That the other explanation is more often
true.
C. S. Lewis, Clive Staples Lewis, is best known
for his prose works but he wrote a fair amount of poetry as well. Born
in Belfast, Ireland, in 1898, Lewis was a reader and writer from an
early age. Raised in a Christian household, “Jack” (as he was always
called) began to consider himself an atheist in his teenage years.
Always a brilliant student, Lewis received a scholarship to University
College, Oxford, in 1916, on the eve of World War I. He entered the army
and experienced trench warfare on the front line at the Somme Valley. He
was injured in friendly fire and had a long physical and mental
recovery. After the war he resumed his studies at Oxford, where, after
gaining First Class honors in Latin and Greek, Philosophy and Ancient
History, and English, he remained as a tutor. Lewis’ rediscovery
of his Christian faith was nurtured by reading—especially the works of
George MacDonald and G. K. Chesterton—and by conversations with
believing friends, like J. R. R. Tolkien. He famously wrote of his
conversion, “You must picture me alone in [my] room… night after night,
feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the
steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to
meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me…. I gave in,
and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that
night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”
C. S. Lewis became one of the most famous and prolific of Christian
apologists. He died on November 22, 1963. Lewis loved the
natural world, and he loved to “ramble,” taking long walks – twenty
miles, sometimes—in the countryside. In this poem, he describes the
spiritual journey as a ramble, and at times playfully evokes the
language of a guidebook. This ramble doesn’t go according to plan. It is
late afternoon, and he has been walking a while already. Lewis writes:
“By now I should be entering on the supreme stage / Of the whole walk.”
The difficult part of the day—the heat, the mountains, the rocks—was
supposed to be over by now, and nothing before him but beautiful views
and easy walking. This far into his spiritual journey, Lewis
expected to have arrived at the Christian virtues: “majestic / Rivers of
foamless charity,” “Forests of contemplation,” “towers of fortitude,”
“Light drops of silver temperance,” and “mists of chastity.” But that
hasn’t happened. “I can see nothing like all this,” he writes. “Was the
map wrong? / Maps can be wrong.” The conclusion of the poem is tongue in
cheek. “The experienced walker knows / That the other explanation is
more often true.” The map wasn’t wrong – the rambler was.
“Pilgrim’s Problem” makes the point that the journey doesn’t get easier.
In the spiritual life, most of us do not make steady, continual
progress. We do advance, but we do not leave difficulties and temptation
behind. If we think we will get to a place where the virtues come
effortlessly, we are fooling ourselves—we are misreading “the map,”
which did not promise consolations—just the cross. Lewis’s poem
made me think of medieval labyrinths, like the one at Chartres Cathedral
in France. When we walk the labyrinth, we do not go straight to the
center. Rather, we follow a circuitous path, which takes us very close
to the center from time to time, but then moves away from it again. On
the spiritual journey, there are moments where we feel very close to
God, but there are also moments where the end seems far away, or where
we lose sight of the goal altogether. We can give in to discouragement,
and blame the map—or acknowledge, as the speaker in Lewis’s poem does,
that “the other explanation is more often true”—and adjust our
expectations.
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From For the Time Being: A Christmas
Oratorio W. H. Auden Well, so that is that. Now
we must dismantle the tree, Putting the decorations back into their
cardboard boxes — Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the
attic. The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough Left-overs to
do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week — Not that we have much
appetite, having drunk such a lot, Stayed up so late, attempted —
quite unsuccessfully — To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again As in previous years we
have seen the actual Vision and failed To do more than entertain it
as an agreeable Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant, The promising child
who cannot keep His word for long. The Christmas Feast is already a
fading memory, And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware Of
an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought Of Lent and Good
Friday which cannot, after all, now Be very far off. But, for the
time being, here we all are, Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry And
Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience, And the kitchen
table exists because I scrub it. It seems to have shrunk during the
holidays. The streets Are much narrower than we remembered; we had
forgotten The office was as depressing as this. To those who have
seen The Child, however dimly, however incredulously, The Time
Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all. W.
H. Auden – Wystan Hugh Auden – was born in 1907 in York, England, and
died in Vienna, Austria in 1973. His family were part of England’s
established minor gentry—both grandfathers were high Church clergymen,
and he was brought up in a milieu of Anglicanism, private school, and
Oxford. Auden began writing poetry as a teenager, but his career was
never straightforward. He taught and lectured, and wrote essays,
screenplays, libretti for operas, and journalism. Auden moved to the
United States in 1939. Auden lived for a year in Brooklyn with a number
of other artists and writers, including the composer Benjamin Britten
and the novelist Carson McCullers. He also rediscovered his Christian
faith through an encounter with the English writer Charles Williams, and
through his study of thinkers like Kierkegaard and Niebuhr. The death of
Auden’s mother, and the unfaithfulness of his partner, to whom Auden
considered himself married, are in the background of For the Time Being,
his most explicitly Christian work, in which he explores the basic idea
of what difference the Incarnation makes in how we view the world.
Auden intended For the Time Being as the libretto of an oratorio to be
composed by his friend Benjamin Britten. Britten only ended up setting a
couple of short lyrics—it is said that when Britten saw how long For The
Time Being was, he was quite angry! The passage Jackie just
read is from close to the end of the oratorio. Auden wonderfully
captures the disconnect, which most of us have experienced by now, of
putting Christmas away. “That is that. Now we must dismantle the tree, /
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes - / Some have
got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.” The holly and the
mistletoe are tossed out, the children go back to school, and all our
Christmas feasts have left us with cold leftovers and not much appetite.
We have one more failed effort “to love all of our relatives” to put
behind us. We are putting away Christmas decorations and
Christmas activities; but Auden goes on to suggest that, too often, that
is what we do to Christmas itself—to Christ himself. “Once again / As in
previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed / To do more
than entertain it as an agreeable / Possibility, once again we have sent
him away.” We have seen an “actual Vision,” the reality of Christ, and
enjoyed the “agreeable / Possibility” of it, but we keep it at a
distance. And thus, “here we all are, / Back in the moderate
Aristotelian city / Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen.” The commonplace
and the tangible dominate our reality again: the city, the chores, the
schedules. But even so, something has happened to us. As we
return to this world of Aristotle, Euclid, and Newton—this world that
can be measured and explained—it is not the same, or we are not the
same. The kitchen table seems to have shrunk; the streets are narrower
and the office more “depressing.” The world seems smaller because we
have glimpsed something larger. The vision of Christmas has spoiled us:
“To those who have seen / The Child, however dimly, however
incredulously, / The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of
all.” For Auden, the Incarnation changes everything. It makes us
restless. What do we do with this sense of disillusionment with the
world as it is—with “the Time Being”? As Auden writes at the
end of his oratorio, this restlessness is also our mission: “There are
bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, / Irregular verbs to
learn, the Time Being to redeem / From insignificance.” As we continue
to do what needs to be done, our real task is much larger: to redeem the
present from insignificance—to bring the mystery of the Incarnation to
bear upon every aspect and every day of our lives.
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In the Bleak Midwinter Christina Rossetti
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as
iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on
snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. Our God, Heaven
cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away
when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stable place
sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. Enough for Him,
whom cherubim, worship night and day, Breastful of milk, and a
mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels fall before, The ox
and ass and camel which adore. Angels and archangels may have
gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; But His
mother only, in her maiden bliss, Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would
bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what I
can I give Him: give my heart.
Through the musical
settings of Gustav Holst and Harold Darke, Rossetti’s poem has become a
standard at Christmas, including Christmas here at St. James. In
this Poem of the Week series, we’ve read two other poems by Christina
Rossetti—“Good Friday” and “Up-Hill.” Rossetti was one of the finest
poets of the Victorian era, and when Tennyson died, her name was
suggested for Poet Laureate—but England wasn’t ready for a female poet
laureate at that time! Her poetry is richly varied, and her work
includes long narrative poems like “Goblin Market,” lyrics on both
secular and religious subjects, and even nursery rhymes. Rossetti could
write splendidly about joy and love. But she could also write about
darkness. As someone who struggled with depression all her life, she
knew dark days, and in poetry she gave voice to that darkness and
struggled to reconcile it with her faith. “In the bleak
midwinter” is full of vivid contrasts. In the first stanza, we get an
evocative description of winter (clearly, an English winter, not a
Palestinian one!). It is “the bleak midwinter,” and everything is frozen
and hard – “earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.” This winter
is deep and seems to have gone on forever—Rossetti masterfully creates
that sense of winter’s duration in the line “snow had fallen, snow on
snow, snow on snow,” which adds layer upon layer to this winter.
In the second stanza, God enters into this coldness and hardness.
Rossetti describes both the first and second comings of Christ in the
poem. Heaven and earth are too small to hold him, and both will “flee
away” when he comes again; but at this moment in time, “in the bleak
midwinter,” Christ enters in. Rossetti evokes the simplicity,
the poverty of the Christmas stable, again, through powerful contrasts.
“Cherubim worship [him] night and day,” but here, Christ has only a
“breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay.” Angels fall down in worship
before him, but he accepts the homage of animals. There may have been
archangels gathered around, but here in the stable, his mother’s kiss is
enough. Again and again, Rossetti contrasts the power and glory
of heaven with the simplicity and poverty of earth. For me, Rossetti’s
poem recalls the early Christian hymn in St. Paul’s letter to the
Philippians: “Christ Jesus… though he was in the form of God, did not
regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied
himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness”
(Philippians 2:6-7). This self-emptying love of Christ is seen in the
Incarnation, and reaches its fullest expression on the cross. I
think that passage from Philippians also sheds light on the last stanza
of the poem: “What can I give him, poor as I am?” The poem began with
such a barren image of the bleak midwinter – a frozen earth, “water like
a stone.” And at the end, the speaker is similarly barren. She has no
role to play here – she is neither a shepherd nor a wise man – and she
has no gift to give: nothing except her heart—her love, her self.
I am reminded of St. Therese’s words of self-offering: “At the close of
life's evening I shall appear before you with empty hands.”
Christmas is so associated with joy and hope and light and peace that it
can seem like there is no room for sadness or darkness. But in this
poem, Christina Rossetti makes room. Christ comes not just into the
sunshine and happiness, but into the “bleak midwinter” of our world. In
his self-emptying love, Christ gives meaning to our emptiness.
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The Burning Babe Robert Southwell, SJ As
I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow, Surpris’d I
was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a
fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning
bright did in the air appear; Who, scorchèd with excessive heat, such
floods of tears did shed As though his floods should quench his
flames which with his tears were fed. “Alas!” quoth he, “but newly
born, in fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts or
feel my fire but I! My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel
wounding thorns, Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes
shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the
coals, The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defilèd souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I callèd unto mind that it was Christmas day.
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week.
This week, I’ve chosen a poem by Robert Southwell, “The Burning Babe.”
Scott Webster will read the poem, and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. Thank you, Scott. Robert Southwell is a
fascinating figure. He was born in 1561 into an English Catholic family,
and lived his entire life under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when it
was illegal to practice the Catholic faith, and priests were not allowed
to enter England on pain of death. Nevertheless, at the age of 15,
Southwell headed to Europe to study for the priesthood in Douai, France
and later in Rome. He entered the Jesuits and was ordained at 23. After
a few years in Europe, he asked for the difficult and dangerous
assignment of serving as a clandestine missionary in his native land.
His return to England was watched by spies, and over the next few years
he wrote and ministered in secret, moving from safe house to safe house,
often using a pseudonym. Queen Elizabeth’s priest-hunters
caught up with Southwell at Uxendon Hall in Harrow in 1592. He was
arrested and spent the next three years in the Tower of London, where
the notorious Richard Topcliffe tortured him repeatedly. In 1595, he was
brought to trial and sentenced to death by hanging at Tyburn. As he
died, he repeated the words of Jesus on the cross: “Into your hands I
commend my spirit.” Southwell was beatified in 1929, and canonized in
1970. Southwell lived in a great age of poets – he was a
contemporary of Shakespeare (to whom he may have been related), Mary
Sidney, and John Donne—and poetry was an important part of his ministry.
His poems, which were very Catholic, were widely read and shared. “The
Burning Babe” is one of his best-known lyrics. This poem is
written in long lines of 14 syllables, and it has a simple quality,
almost a sing-song rhythm, like a folk song. But the imagery is anything
but simple. Southwell’s poem is built around a conceit, which is a
literary term for an elaborate, and often strange, comparison. The
beginning of the poem gives us a vivid contrast between dark and light,
cold and heat. “As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the
snow, / Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow.”
The warmth and light come from a “pretty Babe all burning bright.” This
infant weeps so copiously that the speaker is surprised the flames are
not extinguished. The child does not weep from the pain of the flames;
rather, he weeps because “none approach to warm their hearts.”
In a way that’s very typical of the poetry of his time, Southwell brings
great meaning to every aspect of the comparison. Every detail means
something. The child is the furnace. “Love is the fire.” Justice adds
the fuel. Mercy “blows the coals,” making the fire even hotter. The
smoke is “sighs,” the ashes “shames and scorns.” And the metal worked on
in this furnace is human souls. The comparison is not
Southwell’s invention. The prophet Malachi uses the image of the Messiah
as a blacksmith: “Who can endure the day of his coming?... He will sit
refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi,
refining them like gold or silver” (Malachi 3:3). In Southwell’s image,
Christ is not the blacksmith, but the crucible itself; and the bath in
which this metal will be tempered is his blood. At the end of
Southwell’s poem, the sudden vision vanishes, and the speaker realizes:
“straight I callèd unto mind that it was Christmas day.” It’s such a
strange image, isn’t it, and perhaps it may not seem very “Christmassy.”
We are accustomed to cozy images on Christmas, aren’t we—light and
warmth, for sure, but not fire. And yet, Christmas and Good Friday are
not very far apart. In the familiar words of the carol, “I wonder as I
wander / Out under the sky, / How Jesus the Savior / Did come for to
die.” Southwell, a martyr himself who saw many friends martyred,
understood that reality. Jesus is born so that he can redeem us on the
cross, and in some sense, the beginning of his life is the beginning of
his passion. Jesus shares our life, so that we can share in
his; he is born so that we can come to new life in him. In the liturgy
of Christmas Day, the Church prays: “Grant… that we may share in the
divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” It’s
a prayer for transformation—the transformation the “burning babe” came
to work in each of us.
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In Too Much Light Jessica Powers The Magi
had one only star to follow, a single sanctuary lamp hung low,
gold ornament in the astonished air. I am confounded in this latter
day; I find stars everywhere. Rumor locates the presence of a
night out past the loss of perishable sun where, round midnight, I
shall come to see that all the stars are one. I long for this
night of the onement of stars when days of scattered shining are my
lot and my confusion. Yet faith even here burns her throat dry,
cries: on this very spot of mornings, see, there is not any place
where the sought Word is not. Under and over, in and out, this morn
flawlessly, purely, wakes the newly born. Behold, all places which
have light in them truly are Bethlehem. (1964) This
past week, the Bethlehem star has been making headlines. Again! That’s
because we have the opportunity to witness conjunction of the planets
Jupiter and Saturn, which means that they appear, from our perspective
on planet earth, to come very together in the sky. It’s a phenomenon
that happens about every twenty years, but there hasn’t been a visible
alignment of the two planets this close since March 4, 1226! This
phenomenon is known as the “Christmas Star,” because it has been
speculated for centuries that the “star” that guided the Magi might have
been a similar conjunction of two planets. In this lovely
Christmas poem, Jessica Powers plays on the idea of the “great
conjunction”—in her words “the onement of stars.” She sets up her
problem at the beginning of the poem – the Magi who followed the star to
the infant Christ “had one only star to follow.” I love the comparison
of the Christmas star to “a single sanctuary lamp hung low”—this image
emphasizes how easy to spot the star was, and also what it marked—the
presence of Christ. It was like a “gold ornament in the astonished air.”
It was easier for the Magi, Powers suggests – they knew exactly what to
look for. But now it is more difficult. “I am confounded in this latter
day; / I find stars everywhere.” The speaker believes that she
will have equal clarity one day – it’s rumored, she says, that one day
we “shall come to see / that all the stars are one,” but this won’t
happy until “midnight” –in other words, not until eternity, “past the
loss of perishable sun.” We have to wait for this “great conjunction” of
stars. What is Powers talking about here when she talks about
stars? That image of the “sanctuary lamp” in the first stanza gives us
the clue. She is talking about the presence of Christ. The Magi,
following a single star, found Christ himself. She ‘finds stars
everywhere”—she finds Christ, but she doesn’t find him in one place. “I
long for this night of the onement of stars / when days of scattered
shining are my lot / and my confusion.” There are glimmers of Christ’s
presence everywhere—but the light is “scattered” and at times confusing.
The end of the poem provides some resolution to this dilemma of
hers, this being “In too much light.” Faith is saying – yelling,
even—“burning her throat dry” to proclaim what this “scattered shining”
means. It means that in even this place of “mornings,” where the night
sky with its Christmas star is no longer visible, “there is not any
place / where the sought Word is not.” The Christ she is looking for is
everywhere—in every place she looks. “All places which have light in
them / truly are Bethlehem.” No longer is Christ is born in just one
place. Everywhere there is light—everywhere there is love, hope, truth,
service, faith, reconciliation—Christ is born. So if you missed
the “onement of stars,” and didn’t see the “great conjunction” of
Jupiter and Saturn on the horizon this week, never fear. As Pope Francis
has written, “The Lord… comes not from above, but from within, he comes
that we might find him in this world of ours” (Laudato Si).
Have a blessed and merry Christmas.
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At the round earth’s imagined corners John Donne At the
round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and
arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and
to your scatter'd bodies go; All whom the flood did, and fire shall
o'erthrow, All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair,
law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes Shall behold God and never
taste death's woe. But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For if above all these my sins abound, 'Tis late to ask abundance of
thy grace When we are there; here on this lowly ground Teach me
how to repent; for that's as good As if thou hadst seal'd my pardon
with thy blood.
This week, we’re reading a poem about the end of the world –
John Donne’s “At the round earth’s imagined corners.” We’ve met
John Donne before in this series. Donne was a remarkable figure. He
started out as a Catholic and ended up an Anglican; he went from
ambitious man of the world to priest. This poem, one of Donne’s “Holy
Sonnets,” is a really spectacular example of Donne’s metaphysical
poetry. “Metaphysical” refers something beyond the natural world. In
terms of poetry, we use the word to describe poets like Donne, where the
physical and the spiritual are never far apart, and where there is a
penchant for intricate and sometimes downright strange imagery. In one
of his most famous poems, Donne uses the image of a flea to talk about
love! Whenever we encounter a poem by Donne, we know we’re going to get
some pretty amazing imagery. This sonnet begins with a bang. “At
the round earth’s imagined corners, blow / Your trumpets, angels.” Donne
draws on the Scriptures here: in the First Letter to the Thessalonians,
St. Paul writes about what the end of the world will be like: “the Lord
himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with
the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ
will rise first” (I Thess 4:16). The angels blow their
trumpets, and the dead are raised. Donne describes this raising of the
dead in a truly epic way. The souls of the dead fly back to their
earthly dwelling places: “arise, arise / From death, you numberless
infinities / Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go.” These are dead
of all times, all places, and all causes. They died in “the flood,” in
the time of Noah. They died from natural causes – “age” and “agues” and
“dearth,” or famine. And many died unnatural deaths: killed in wars, by
tyrants, lost to suicide, the death penalty, and accidents. And Donne
does not forget those who will still be alive at the time of the Last
Judgment—“you whose eyes / Shall behold God and never taste death’s
woe.” The vision is vast, wide-ranging, all-inclusive. In the
sestet, the last six lines of the poem, all this drama and action and
movement ceases suddenly and dramatically. “But let them wait, Lord.”
The speaker asks God to hold off on the end of time, for a moment. Why?
Because he has sins to repent of. “'Tis late to ask abundance of thy
grace / When we are there,” he says. This is the time of repentance, and
this is the place of repentance. In the passage from I
Thessalonians that inspired Donne’s poem, St. Paul describes how “we who
are alive, who are left, will be caught up together … in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air” (4:17). Earth will be left behind. Donne’s
speaker began the poem calling on the angels to blow their trumpets and
the dead to rise. But he knows he is not ready for the air yet, because
once that trumpet sounds, it will be too late for repentance.
The poem that began with epic imagery of the cosmos ends with a quiet
spotlight on one repentant sinner on earth. “Here on this lowly ground /
Teach me how to repent.” All he needs to do is repent his sins, and
Christ will do the rest. To repent is “as good,” Donne writes, “As if
thou hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood.” “Teach me how to
repent.” We often bristle when we hear that word, repent. Our culture
prefers to talk about “choices” rather than “sins.” But we Christians
know that sin is real, and that it can do damage to ourselves and those
around us. The sinful choices we make can tear the fabric of family and
of society. All of us are sinners, called to repentance. And when, like
the speaker of Donne’s poem, we dare to look honestly at our own lives
and to recognize our sinfulness—to repent—Jesus pours out mercy and
forgiveness. And then we can look to his coming not with dread and fear,
but with hope.
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Advent Jessica Powers I live my Advent in the womb of
Mary. And on one night when a great star swings free from its high
mooring and walks down the sky to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace. I wait in Mary-darkness,
faith’s walled place, with hope’s expectance of nativity. I
knew for long she carried me and fed me, guarded and loved me, though
I could not see. But only now, with inward jubilee, I come upon
earth’s most amazing knowledge: someone is hidden in this dark with
me. (1948) We started this Poem of the Week series
with Jessica Powers. Jessica Powers—Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit—was
a poet both before and after she became a Carmelite nun. Many of her
poems use imagery from the Church’s rich mystical tradition, and this
poem, “Advent,” is no exception. “I live my Advent in the womb
of Mary.” It’s such a surprising line. Advent is, when you think about
it, a pregnant season. In Advent, we wait for the second coming, which
is sometimes likened to a birth: “all creation is groaning in labor
pains, even until now,” said St. Paul (Romans 8:22). And we wait for
Christmas, our celebration of Christ’s first coming. If Christmas is
about Christ’s birth into the world, then Advent is about Mary’s
pregnancy. “I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.” The poet imagines
herself in Mary’s womb. Here, in darkness, yet with “hope’s expectance
of nativity,” she waits to be brought to birth. I love this poem’s
description of the Christmas star, swinging “free / from its high
mooring,” walking “down the sky / to be the dot above the Christus i.”
In the second part of this poem, the sense of mystery deepens.
“I knew for long she carried me and fed me, / guarded and loved me,
though I could not see. / But only now, with inward jubilee, / I come
upon earth’s most amazing knowledge: / someone is hidden in this dark
with me.” In this place—the speaker is “carried” and “fed,” “guarded and
loved,” but in the darkness. And yet, not alone in the dark. Who is
hidden in this dark with her? Christ, of course—her brother, even her
twin! “I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.” This poem is not
really about the liturgical season of Advent. Rather, Advent here is a
metaphor for the life of faith: a life of waiting, in darkness, yet
conscious, in moments of “inward jubilee,” that we are not alone: that
Christ is with us. The poem reflects the Church’s teaching about Mary.
The Church calls her Mother of God, because God became incarnate in her
womb. She is also Mother of the Church and Mother of believers.
The Church has always raised Mary high, not simply because she gave
birth to Jesus, but rather, because she is the model of Christian
discipleship. Mary was not a passive vessel. She did not merely consent,
but actively cooperated with God’s plan, and continues to play an active
role in the life of believers, just as she did at the wedding feast at
Cana—“do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). As Pope Francis has written,
“She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the
friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She
is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all
our pain. As mother of all, she is a sign of hope for peoples suffering
the birth pangs of justice…. As a true mother, she walks at our side,
she shares our struggles and she constantly surrounds us with God’s
love” (Joy of the Gospel, 286). Mary always points us towards
Christ. Incarnate once in her womb, he continues to make himself
present, in the sacramental life of the Church, and in the suffering
flesh of our brothers and sisters in need. In this way, Mary constantly
reminds us of “earth’s most amazing knowledge: someone is hidden in this
dark with” us.
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Kneeling R. S. Thomas Moments of great calm, Kneeling
before an altar Of wood in a stone church In summer, waiting for
the God To speak; the air a staircase For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng Of spirits waiting, as I, For the
message.
Prompt me, God; But not yet. When I speak, Though it be you who
speak Through me, something is lost. The meaning is in the
waiting.
We met Welsh poet Ronald Stuart Thomas earlier in this
series. A priest of the Church of England, Thomas wrote many poems on
spiritual themes, especially on the challenges of prayer. In
this short poem, Thomas evokes a peaceful moment, “kneeling before an
altar / Of wood in a stone church / in summer.” The speaker seems to be
alone in the empty church, and yet the moment has great import, great
drama. He is “waiting for the God / To speak.” As Thomas describes the
scene, we get the sense that everything is waiting for God to speak: the
air is “a staircase / For silence”: the image gives us a sense of
anticipation, as well as the potential for connection, like Jacob’s
ladder, reaching from earth to heaven. The sun surrounds the speaker
with light, spotlighting him like an performer on a stage, “as though I
acted / A great role.” And then there’s the audience: a “close throng /
of spirits waiting” with him, for whatever God will say: for the
“message.” After all this, the poem takes a surprising turn.
“Prompt me, God; / But not yet.” Words of prayer are on the tip of his
tongue, but he holds back. “When I speak, / Though it be you who speak /
Through me, something is lost.” Even if God inspires what he is going to
say, “something is lost.” That “something” is this pregnant silence, in
the company with the “spirits,” the sun, the air, the church itself, all
waiting together in a silence that is filled with God, even though God
is silent. In the last line of the poem, Thomas says: “The meaning is in
the waiting.” The revelation he awaits has already come, in the silent
waiting itself. Though the poem is set in the summer, I think
this is the right poem for this time of year. This past Sunday, we began
the season of Advent. The word “Advent” means “coming” and this season
is all about waiting for Christ’s coming. Our Advent waiting is
multi-layered. We wait and watch for the second coming, the day of
Christ’s return, and the Church dares to await that day with joy and
hope: we pray that Christ “may he find us watchful in prayer / and
exultant in his praise” (Roman Missal). And there is another kind of
waiting in Advent: we wait in anticipation of the celebration of
Christ’s first coming at Christmas. Advent traditions like the Advent
wreath, with its gradually increasing number of lit candles, and the
Advent calendar, with its doors and windows for each day leading up to
Christmas, are visual emblems of this joyful waiting. In our Advent
waiting, past and future merge: in the same moment, we look to our
beginning and to our end. In a lovely book on R. S. Thomas
entitled Frequencies of God, Carys Walsh writes of this poem: “There is
no anxiety in this waiting; nor is it something to be endured or
suffered. There is simply the understanding that waiting upon God is
fundamental to knowing God… Thomas opens up the paradoxical possibility
that God might be revealed while we are waiting for God to be revealed.”
Have a blessed Advent!
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Vespers BY LOUISE GLÜCK From Wild Iris (1992) In
your extended absence, you permit me use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report failure in my assignment,
principally regarding the tomato plants. I think I should not be
encouraged to grow tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold the
heavy rains, the cold nights that come so often here, while other
regions get twelve weeks of summer. All this belongs to you: on
the other hand, I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart broken by the
blight, the black spot so quickly multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of that term. You who do not
discriminate between the dead and the living, who are, in
consequence, immune to foreshadowing, you may not know how much
terror we bear, the spotted leaf, the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible for these vines.
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week.
This week, I’ve chosen a poem by Louise Glück. You may have heard her
name recently—she is the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in
Literature. Jackie O’Ryan will read Glück’s poem “Vespers,” and then
I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Louise Glück is an
American poet, born in 1943 in New York City to a Jewish parents of
Russian and Hungarian descent. She wanted to be a writer from a very
young age, and even in her early teens was sending poems and even books
of poems off to publishers. As a teenager, she struggled with anorexia,
and her illness and eventual cure was a significant turning point in her
life. She credits her years in psychoanalysis not only with treating her
disease, but with teaching her how to think. Glück published her
first book of poems in 1968, and many other books have followed. Glück
has also spoken of years of crippling writer’s block. One critic has
written: Glück’s “basic concerns” are “betrayal, mortality, love and the
sense of loss that accompanies it… She is at heart the poet of a fallen
world” (Don Bogen). Her language is “staunchly straightforward,
remarkably close to the diction of ordinary speech….. [but with] a
weight that is far from colloquial” (Dana Goodyear). I think
that assessment of Glück’s language is helpful in approaching this poem,
“Vespers.” The poet describes something so ordinary—her struggle to grow
tomato plants—and yet the stakes are high. The poem begins: In
your extended absence, you permit me use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report failure in my assignment,
principally regarding the tomato plants. Clearly, the poem
is addressed to God, and the speaker is giving an accounting. I am
reminded of the parable in Matthew: “a man who was going on a journey
called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he
gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to
his ability. Then he went away” (Mt. 25:14-15). Like the servants in the
parable, the speaker knows she has to do something with what God has
given her. Note the formal, distant language—“return on
investment,” “report,” “assignment,” “principally,” all words which we
would expect to see in business correspondence—not in an address to God.
This gives a lightness, even a humor, to the subject: “I must report /
failure in my assignment, principally / regarding the tomato plants.”
But after this light beginning, the poem goes deeper. The speaker
confesses her failure, but also points out to God all the circumstances
beyond her control which played their part. If God wants her to grow
tomato plants, why did he make it so hard? Why not provide her with dry
days and warm nights, the weeks of summer others enjoy?
The emotional distance of the beginning of the poem breaks down, and now
we hear how deeply the speaker feels this failure. She was so aware of
the beauty and promise of these plants, their “first shoots / like
wings, tearing the soil,” and the disease that struck them was painful,
even heart-breaking. And this heartbreak is a uniquely human experience:
“I doubt / you have a heart, in our understanding of / that term.”
For God lives in eternity, and thus, Glück says in an interesting
phrase, God is “immune to foreshadowing.” So what are these
tomato plants foreshadowing? By the end of the poem, we know that
this is not just about tomato plants: it’s about things dying before
their time, the fear of failing in our responsibility towards the gifts
and the living things entrusted to our care. “you may not know / how
much terror we bear,” the speaker observes, to see that first diseased
leaf, to see leaves falling from the trees before their time, “in
August, in early darkness.” The poem ends “I am responsible / for these
vines.” To be unable to protect, to bring to fruition, what we are
responsible for—this is what is heart-breaking, terrifying. The title of
the poem, “Vespers,” reinforces the prayer-dimension of this address to
God, and also reminds us of evening, the coming of darkness.
This poem is a great example of Glück’s work—deceptively simple
language, powerful impact. As one critic has observed, “No one writes
about emotionally charged subjects with such sparse, cold, and nuanced
language” (Jeffrey McDaniel). The poem is a prayer, and a difficult one.
Glück prays here like Job, and asks questions the way Job does: “I would
speak with the Almighty; I want to argue with God” (Job 13:3).
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Spring and Fall BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS to a young child
Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves
like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can
you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights
colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood
leafmeal lie; And yet you wíll weep and know why. Now no matter,
child, the name: Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no
nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the
blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week.
This week, we’re back in the company of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Scott
Webster will read Hopkins’ poem “Spring and Fall,” and then I’ll be back
with some brief commentary. Thank you, Scott. I thought
this poem was the perfect choice for this time of year, when the leaves
are falling from the trees, and we are feeling winter in the air.
Hopkins addresses “Spring and Fall” “to a young child,” a girl named
Margaret. We don’t know if Margaret was a real person – it doesn’t
really matter. We do know that she is a child, and that as the poem
begins she is weeping because the leaves are falling. In this
poem, Hopkins’ wonderfully distinctive voice and language are on
display. “Margaret, are you grieving / over Goldengrove unleaving?”
The natural world is never generic in Hopkins’ poetry. A few weeks ago,
we read Hopkins’ poem “Binsey Poplars,” and we talked about “inscape,”
Hopkins’ word for the unique and unrepeatable individuality of
everything—not just people, but animals, trees and even landscapes. In
this poem, the woods are given a name, “Goldengrove.” It’s a coinage of
Hopkins, one of several in this poem, and it could describe any
beautiful forest in the fall. But “Goldengrove” is capitalized, giving
it the individuality of a name. Clearly, these woods have an “inscape,”
to which the child is responding. Hopkins marvels that a child
like Margaret can be sad because of the “unleaving” of the trees. He
asks, “leaves like the things of man, you / with your fresh thoughts
care for, can you?” How is it she can care so much for the natural
world, he wonders, at her young age? And yet, he knows that “as
the heart grows older / It will come to such sights colder.” Most adults
never “spare a sigh” to grieve, “though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.”
Isn’t this a fantastic description of the world at this time of year –
“worlds of wanwood,” countless leaves, lying “leafmeal”—still another
coinage, but we know exactly what Hopkins is talking about. In
the second half of the poem, Hopkins does not answer Margaret’s
question, “why.” Instead, he answers his own question of why the child
cares, why she weeps at the falling of the leaves. “Now no matter,
child, the name: / Sorrow’s springs are the same. / Nor mouth had, no
nor mind, expressed / What heart heard of, ghost guessed.” Margaret’s
sorrow, Hopkins muses, comes from the source of all sorrow. It is not
something Margaret could express aloud or articulate to herself. But the
heart and the “ghost,” the spirit within her, know the answer: “It is
the blight man was born for, / It is Margaret you mourn for.” Margaret
weeps for Margaret: the falling of the leaves is the annual reminder
that she will also die one day. Margaret is the spring; but autumn
will come. Most of the poem is quite intricate in its diction,
especially with the playful coinages so typical of Hopkins. But that
last line is simple and direct: “It is Margaret you mourn for.” The
straightforward language intensifies the impact of the realization that
she, too, will die. Gerard Manley Hopkins was far from the first
to compare the falling of the leaves to the passing away of generations.
In fact, one critic has written: “The simile is quite likely the oldest
readily identifiable poetic artifice in European literature.” Homer,
Virgil, Dante, Milton—all of these poets used the image of leaves in the
fall to suggest the numberless dead. In the Iliad, we read: As
is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. The wind
scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber burgeons with
leaves again in the season of spring returning. So one generation of
men will grow while another dies. (II. 6.146-49) In
this short poem, Hopkins takes a classic, even a hackneyed image, and
breathes new life into it. Viewing the change in seasons through the
eyes of a child, Hopkins does not see a generic forest shedding its
leaves, but a unique and wonderful place—“Goldengrove unleaving.” And it
is not merely faceless generations that come and go; it is an
individual, Margaret, who, without fully understanding it, feels and
knows that what happens to the leaves will one day happen to her—to each
of us. This is the destiny we have in common with all who have ever
lived, and yet it still has power to shake us: “you are dust, and
to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).
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Dawn Revisited By Rita Dove Read the poem here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51663/dawn-revisited
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the poem of the week.
This week, I’ve chosen a poem by Rita Dove, entitled “Dawn Revisited.”
Jackie O’Ryan will read the poem, and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. Thank you, Jackie. Rita Dove is an American
poet born in 1952. As a child growing up in Akron, Ohio, Dove’s parents
encouraged her to read early and widely. She was a brilliant student—a
Presidential Scholar, a National Merit Scholar, and later a Fulbright
Scholar. She earned her MFA at the renowned Iowa Writer’s Workshop. In
1993, she became the United States Poet Laureate, not only the first
African American but the youngest person ever named to that post. She
transformed the office of Poet Laureate, traveling the country and using
her position to promote the arts. Dove is best known as a poet, but she
has written in other forms as well, including a novel, short stories,
plays, essays, and lyrics. Dove has said: “There’s no reason to
subscribe authors to particular genres. I’m a writer, and I write in the
form that most suits what I want to say.” She has received many
accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize, and teaches at the University
of Virginia, Charlottesville. “Dawn Revisited” was written in
1999 and appeared in Dove’s collection On the Bus with Rosa Parks. It’s
a wonderful meditation on past and present—on history and renewal.
“Imagine you wake up / with a second chance,” the poem begins. In this
second chance, some things stay the same—looking out the window, “the
blue jay / hawks his pretty wares / and the oak still stands.” But, the
poet says, “if you don’t look back / the future never happens.” This new
dawn is not an erasure of the past, of history, because without the
past, there is no future. Dove captures the freshness of a new
day. Familiar things take on wonderful depth and newness. “How good to
rise in sunlight, / in the prodigal smell of biscuits - / eggs and
sausage on the grill.” The smell of biscuits in the morning is not just
good—it’s “prodigal,” suggesting a reckless generosity. These homey
details are juxtaposed with more conventionally poetic images: “The
whole sky is yours / to write on, blown open / to a blank page.”
For a writer, what better image of fresh possibility than that? In this
“second chance,” the familiar and the unknown are both present.
I find the end of the poem surprising. “Come on, / shake a leg! You'll
never know / who's down there, frying those eggs, / if you don't get up
and see.” When we wake to the smell of breakfast cooking, we usually
have a pretty good idea of who’s cooking it! But the poet says
“you’ll never know / who’s down there… if you don’t get up and see.”
The poem invites us to be open to the surprise of the world around us,
including—perhaps especially—the most familiar things and people. The
renewal this dawn brings extends to our relationships, too.
Dove’s poem is called “Dawn Revisited.” In the Scriptures, dawn is a
very significant image. In Isaiah, dawn is associated with works of
justice: God says that when we care for the naked, the homeless, and the
hungry, our light shall “break forth like the dawn.” In the New
Testament, dawn is specifically associated with the coming of Christ:
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, prophecies that “in the
tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon
us.” Christ, who was “in the beginning with God,” is also as new as the
dawn. In the familiar words of St. Augustine, Christ is “ever ancient,
ever new.” To live in Christ, ever ancient, ever new, is to be
invited to renewal—not just once, but again and again. As Pope Francis
has written, “with a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always
capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our
heads and to start anew” (Joy of the Gospel, 3). This renewal is not
about forgetting our history. The believer, Pope Francis has said, is
“one who remembers” (Joy of the Gospel, 13). We need memory, because, as
Dove says, “if you don’t look back, / the future never happens.”
St. Paul invites us, “be transformed by the renewal of your mind”
(Romans 12:2). It’s not unlike the invitation we get in this poem by
Rita Dove: “The whole sky is yours / to write on, blown open / to a
blank page. Come on, / shake a leg!”
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From In Memoriam A. H. H.
(1850) Alfred, Lord Tennyson XXXII Her eyes
are homes of silent prayer, Nor other
thought her mind admits But, he was
dead, and there he sits, And he that brought him back is there.
Then one deep love doth supersede All
other, when her ardent gaze Roves from
the living brother's face, And rests upon the Life indeed.
All subtle thought, all curious fears,
Borne down by gladness so complete,
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet With costly spikenard and
with tears. Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,
Whose loves in higher love endure;
What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like
theirs? Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of
the Week. On November 2, the Church keeps the Commemoration of the
Faithful Departed—All Souls. To mark this day of remembrance of the
dead, I’ve chosen a poem from Tennyson’s In Memoriam, one of the most
celebrated elegies in English. In this poem from In Memoriam, Tennyson
imagines the thoughts of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, after Jesus raises
her brother from the dead. Scott Webster will read the poem, and then
I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Thank you, Scott.
Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, in Lincolnshire, England, in 1809.
A poet from a young age, he first won acclaim while a student at
Cambridge, where he was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for an early
poem. It was also at Cambridge that Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam,
another aspiring poet, who became his closest friend. Everything was
going well for Tennyson: in 1830, he published a well-reviewed
collection of poems; and in 1831, his friend Hallam became engaged to
Tennyson’s sister Emilia. But then it all fell apart: his 1833
collection, which included “The Lady of Shalott,” was panned by the
press; and on September 13, while on holiday in Austria with his family,
Hallam died very suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was just 22 years
old. As one of Hallam’s friends wrote, his death came as “a loud and
terrible stroke from the reality of things upon the faery building of
our youth.” Tennyson sank into grief and depression. He published
nothing for ten years, though he continued to write—especially the
lyrics which eventually became In Memoriam A. H. H. (the initials of
Arthur Henry Hallam). In Memoriam consists of 133 cantos or
shorter poems in which the poet reflects on his loss and seeks some sort
of resolution. There are moments of deep faith and also expressions of
doubt. All the poems are written in the same meter and rhyme scheme,
which has come to be known as the In Memoriam stanza. Tennyson did not
invent it, but it is an appropriate choice—the ABBA rhyme scheme forces
us to wait for resolution, reflecting the circuitous process of grief.
In this section of the poem, Tennyson meditates on the miracle of
Jesus in raising Lazarus from the dead. In the Gospel of John, the story
of the raising of Lazarus is followed by the anointing at Bethany, when
Jesus, with his disciples, is having supper with Lazarus and his sisters
in their home. During this gathering, Mary anoints the feet of Jesus
with costly perfume. Tennyson beautifully imagines the scene
from Mary’s perspective. “Her eyes are homes of silent prayer” as she
looks from her brother, who was dead and now lives, to Jesus, the one
who brought him back. Without saying anything, Mary anoints the feet of
Jesus with “spikenard and with tears.” “One deep love doth supersede /
All other,” Tennyson says: she loves her brother, but she loves Christ
more—or rather, her love for her brother leads her to Christ. The poem
ends by marveling at this faith. “Thrice blest whose lives are faithful
prayers,” he says—people like Mary, who pray without words, who go
straight to the heart of things, “whose loves in higher love
endure”—whose human loves find their origin and their fulfillment in
love of Christ. “What souls possess themselves so pure,” Tennyson asks
at the end of this short poem, “Or is there blessedness like theirs?”
It’s a wonderful meditation on the Scripture story. I think the way
Tennyson concludes this lyric is also significant: it ends with a
question mark. Tennyson wishes for faith like Mary’s, but he always has
more questions than answers. Through the poems of In Memoriam, we see
the process of Tennyson’s grief, as he moves from the first raw stages
of grief to peace and hope. We also see the way this grief shatters his
faith, and puts it back together again. Grief forces him to reckon with
death, to acknowledge his doubts, and ultimately to return to God, with
a faith that is less sure of itself, perhaps, but deeper and more
authentic than before. As he writes in another poem: I
falter where I firmly trod, And
falling with my weight of cares Upon
the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call To
what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.
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Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621) Psalm 70
Lord, hie thee me to save; Lord, now
to help me haste: Shame let them surely have
And of confusion taste,
That hold my soul in chase.
Let them be forcèd back,
And no disgraces lack,
That joy in my disgrace. Back forcèd let them be
And for a fair reward Their own foul ruin see
Who laugh and laugh out hard
When I most inly moan.
But mirth and joy renew
In them thy paths ensue
And love thy help alone. Make them with gladness sing:
To God be ever praise. And fail not me to bring,
My downcast state to raise.
Thy speedy aid and stay
In thee my succour grows:
From thee my freedom flows:
Lord, make no long delay.
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here
with the Poem of the Week. This week, I’ve chosen a Psalm –
which is, of course, the poetry anthology that is part of the Bible!
Jackie O’Ryan will read Mary Sidney Herbert’s translation of Psalm 70,
which dates to the end of the 16th century, and then I’ll be back with
some brief commentary. Thank you, Jackie. This poem is
fascinating on a number of levels. First, there’s its author. Mary
Sidney was born in 1561. Upon her marriage at the age of 16, she became
the Countess of Pembroke and one of the wealthiest and most influential
women of her time. With her wealth and status, Mary Sidney had access to
education which was extremely rare for women of her time. She was
exceptionally well read, and fluent in French, Italian, and Latin. Her
poetry was circulated widely among her friends.
Mary’s older brother was the poet Sir Philip Sidney. When Philip died
at the young age of 31, Mary (just 25 years old at the time) became his
literary executor and completed his unfinished translation of the book
of Psalms. She not only edited her brother’s work on the first 43
psalms, but translated the remaining 107 psalms herself. It is an
extraordinary achievement. Every one of the psalms is in a unique meter
and rhyme scheme, some of which had never been attempted in English
before. The translation had a significant impact on English poetry. John
Donne called it “the highest matter in the noblest form,” and said of
the Sidneys: “they tell us why, and teach us how to sing.”
And then there’s the Psalm itself. The Book of Psalms is an
anthology, a hymnal, if you will—a collection of prayers and hymns which
were used in worship at various times during the year. The Psalms
include a huge range of moods, from festive joy to lament. There are
prayers of repentance, prayers of trust and confidence in God, and
prayers of praise.
Psalm 70 is a lament. It begins with an urgent prayer for help:
“Lord, hie thee me to save” – “now to help me haste.” (In parentheses,
these lines have a significant place in the liturgy—they are used at the
beginning of the Liturgy of the Hours – “O God, come to my assistance.
Lord, make haste to help me.”) What might surprise us is where the Psalm
goes from there. The Psalmist asks God to punish enemies – “Let them be
forced back / And no disgraces lack, / That joy in my disgrace”; “For a
fair reward / Their own foul ruin see / Who laugh and laugh out hard /
When I most inly moan.” The Psalmist asks that those who mock and pursue
him be punished with shame, disgrace, and ruin.
Typical of the laments in the Book of Psalms, the text doesn’t stay
in this place of imprecation, but moves in a new direction, as the
psalmist asks God’s blessing on those who trust in God: “mirth and joy
renew / In them thy paths ensue”; “make them with gladness sing.” The
Psalm ends with an expression of hope and a renewal of the speaker’s
plea for help. “Fail not… / My downcast state to raise… Lord, make no
long delay.” It’s easy for us to get distracted by the
imprecations in Psalm 70 and other psalms of lament—wait, we’re not
supposed to be asking God to punish our enemies, are we?! I think the
more important thing to recognize here is the honesty of this prayer.
The Psalmist doesn’t hold back, but brings everything to God—including
feelings of resentment, abandonment, and betrayal. When we pray, whether
on our own or as a community, I think we sometimes feel like we need to
be on our best behavior, burying our resentments, our anger, our
frustration, or our fear. The Psalms teach us a different way to pray:
they urge us simply to be ourselves with God, and to say what’s on our
mind and heart. They also remind us to keep coming back to the
foundation of our prayer, trust in God, and God’s time: “In thee my
succour grows: / From thee my freedom flows: / Lord, make no long
delay.” Read a contemporary Catholic translation of Psalm
70 from the Revised Grail Edition.
https://www.giamusic.com/sacred_music/RGP/psalmDisplay.cfm?psalm_id=282
Read the King James version of Psalm 70, and explore many other
translations:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+70&version=NIV
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Malachi Black, "Entering Saint Patrick’s Cathedral" (2020)
Read the poem here:
https://poets.org/poem/entering-saint-patricks-cathedral
Explore more poems by Malachi Black here:
http://www.malachiblack.com/
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the poem of the week.
This week, I’ve chosen “Entering Saint Patrick’s Cathedral” by
Malachi Black, a brand-new poem which appeared earlier this year. Scott
Webster will read the poem, and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. Thank you, Scott. Malachi Black is a young
poet. Born in Boston, he now teaches at the University of San Diego, a
Catholic university, and themes of faith are woven through a number of
his poems. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral is the Cathedral church of
the Archdiocese of New York. Of course, it’s much more than that. In
many ways, it’s an icon for the Catholic Church in the United States.
It’s welcomed Popes and countless visitors—not only Catholics but people
of all faiths. It’s also an icon of the Church in this country in its
setting—it’s not set among fields or in the middle of a park. It’s in
the heart of midtown Manhattan, surrounded by skyscrapers, cultural
landmarks like Rockefeller Center, and Fifth Avenue shops like Louis
Vuitton, Sak’s, Cartier, and even Victoria’s Secret. Amid the comings
and goings, the buying and selling, of one of New York’s busiest
streets, St. Patrick’s is a reminder of the presence and of the beauty
and importance of faith amid all the other aspects of life that demand
our attention. In his poem, Malachi Black vividly captures two
contrasting worlds: the world outside the Cathedral, and the world
inside. He steps out of the rain, and as the door slowly closes, the
sounds of the city fade and the quiet of the church takes over. The
rapid movement of the city—Black mentions cars, bicycles, trucks, and
taxis—gives way to stillness. The difference is stark—the door seals out
the world “like a coffin lid.” We know from the beginning that
the speaker isn’t here as a tourist. He comes in respectfully, carrying
his coat, dripping from the rain. He stands there and clears his throat,
about to speak. But first he takes a moment to get accustomed to the
atmosphere, so different from the haste of the exterior world. We get
the sense that the Cathedral is filled—not with people, but with
something else. The chill he feels is “dense” with “old Hail Marys,”
like whispered by the people in the pews. It’s as if every prayer
uttered here has left its mark, become part of the place. Above him, the
stained glass windows gather “the dead and martyred” in vivid color, and
before him is “the golden holy altar” and the pipes of the organ, both
of which are silent now, but which are filled with potential. The altar
holds “its silence like a bell,” and the organ, too, is “alive with a
vibration tolling / out from the incarnate / source of holy sound.” The
altar, on this quiet, rainy day, is like a bell, waiting to ring; and
the organ—like those “old Hail Marys”—has left its imprint on the place,
and is “alive” even when silent. At the end of the poem, as the
ceiling bends above him, “like an ear,” listening, he does not speak. In
this place, so filled with presence—of those who have come before, of
saints, of God—simply being present to all this is in itself prayer. The
poem ends with a simple statement: “My body is my prayer.” I am
reminded of some favorite lines from Emily Dickinson on prayer: “awed
beyond my errand — / I worshipped — did not ‘pray’ —“ (F525, 1863).
Although this poem is about Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, I
think it says something about all great cathedrals, and of course, I
include our own St. James Cathedral among them! A cathedral, by its
nature, stands in the heart of the city, immersed in the world, yet it
invites us to glimpse the world that is yet to be, the heavenly city.
When we pray here, we are never alone: we are surrounded not only by the
images of saints, but by the saints themselves, and those who have gone
before us—what the letter to the Hebrews calls “a great cloud of
witnesses.”
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"Mediterranean Blue" Naomi Shihab Nye Read this week’s
poem here:
https://poets.org/poem/mediterranean-blue Hello there.
Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week. This week, I’ve chosen
a poem by a contemporary poet, Naomi Shihab Nye. Jackie O’Ryan will read
the poem, then I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Naomi
Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a
Palestinian refugee father and an American mother. Now based in San
Antonio, Texas, she is one of America’s best-known poets, the recipient
of countless awards and fellowships. Her poetry highlights the
experience of women, of Arab-Americans, of her Mexican American
neighbors in San Antonio, of Muslims, and of refugees and immigrants.
She has written poetry and prose for children and young adults as well.
Nye has also devoted considerable energy to sharing the voices of other
poets, editing anthologies that bring poets from around the world to an
English-speaking audience. Nye has said: “to counteract negative
images conveyed by blazing headlines, writers must steadily transmit
simple stories closer to heart and more common to everyday life. Then we
will be doing our job.” This poem, “Mediterranean Blue,” written
in 2019, is a perfect example of that approach. Back in 2013,
the Italian island of Lampedusa made headlines when a ship carrying more
than 500 asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea in North Africa, sank just
off the coast. 366 people died. The death toll was higher partly because
the boat was so overcrowded, partly because those on board did not know
how to swim. One survivor said, "I'd never been in a body of water
before. I was trying to stay afloat by splashing my hands like a dog."
Many of us may not realize that this influx of migrants is ongoing.
On one day, September 20 of this year, 26 migrant boats landed at
Lampedusa in 24 hours, bringing 263 asylum seekers to Italy. At the
island’s intake center for refugees, over a thousand people are crowded
into a facility designed for 192. This is some of the context
for this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. The words “Mediterranean Blue” evoke
a beautiful color—we are used to seeing these words on a paint tube or a
crayon, perhaps. But here, our attention is immediately drawn to the sea
crossed by refugees like those wrecked off the coast of Lampedusa. The
poem is as much about Nye’s own experience as it is about theirs: “If
you are a child of a refugee, you do not / sleep easily when they are
crossing the sea / on small rafts and you know they can’t swim.” She
thinks of her own father, and the deep sorrow that is part of the
refugee experience: Though he cast aside everything he knew, “tried to
be happy, make a new life,” there was something in him “always paddling
home,” clinging to things that reminded him of where he began, as a
drowning person holds on to whatever is floating in the water. Leaving
home has internal consequences as well as external ones. Only in
the second part of the poem does Nye speak directly to the reader about
the experience of modern-day refugees. “They are the bravest people on
earth right now,” she says; “don’t dare look down on them.” Nye reminds
us who these people are—people like us, “each mind a universe,” filled
with detail and with memory, and with “love for a humble place” – love
for their home. They have let go of all that to risk the sea in which
they can’t swim. How could we not “reach out a hand,” if we can?
I think part of what makes this poem so compelling is that Nye
unapologetically involves herself and her own story in a poem about
refugees crossing the Mediterranean today. Looking at them, she sees her
own father, and she recognizes the humanity of each of these people, the
value of their individual experience, their memory. For me, this poem is
a reminder that compassion doesn’t come automatically: it’s something we
need to work at and to foster in ourselves, by intentionally recognizing
ourselves and our own immigrant histories in the headlines around us.
For Nye, this active compassion is an essential part of the
poet’s task. I want to let Nye conclude our reflection today – this is
part of an interview with the poet from 2015, in which she talks about
the poet’s civic responsibility.
https://poets.org/text/video-naomi-shihab-nye-poets-civic-responsibility
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Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Binsey Poplars, felled 1879" My
aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, Quelled or quenched in
leaves the leaping sun, All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank On meadow & river & wind-wandering
weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew — Hack and rack the
growing green!
Since country is so tender To touch, her
being só slender, That, like this sleek and
seeing ball But a prick will make no eye at
all, Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve: After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve Strokes of
havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene, Rural scene, a
rural scene, Sweet especial rural scene.
We have met Gerard Manley Hopkins—poet and Jesuit
priest—a couple of times in this series. In his poem “God’s Grandeur,”
which we read back in April, we saw the strong ecological bent of
Hopkins’ poetry, which comes through in this poem as well. “Binsey
Poplars” is a short lyric, an elegy for a grove of aspen trees.
In the first part of the poem, Hopkins evokes the distinctive beauty of
the aspen tree, a type of poplar tree with fluttering leaves (which
appear with some frequency in English poetry!). Hopkins describes them
as “airy cages” that “quelled” or “quenched” the “leaping sun,”
beautifully evoking the way the sun shines through the trees. The Latin
name of these trees, populus tremula, arises from the distinctive
movement of the aspen’s leaves, and Hopkins evokes that playful movement
in the poem, describing how the trees “dandled a sandalled shadow.”
Even as he evokes their beauty, we sense the poet’s shock and
sadness. His “aspens dear” are “felled, felled, are all felled”: the
repetition of the word suggests the blows of the axe which cut them
down. Hopkins laments, “if we but knew what we do / When we delve or
hew.” Nature, he says, is “tender,” and her “being” is “slender” –
nature has the delicacy of an eye, and is as easily harmed or destroyed.
Why does Hopkins mourn the loss of these trees so much? Aren’t
there still plenty of aspens in England? In a journal entry written
about six years before “Binsey Poplars,” Hopkins wrote: “The ashtree
growing in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped first: I
heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed there came at that
moment a great pang and I wished to die and not to see the inscapes of
the world destroyed any more.” That word “inscape” is one of
Hopkins’ coinages. It could be defined as the distinctive inner nature
or shape of a thing – its uniqueness. That’s why he laments the Binsey
poplars—because even though there are many trees left, there’s nothing
quite like those particular trees – “after-comers cannot guess the
beauty been.” Just ten or twelve strokes of the axe and the trees are
gone. Worse than gone, they are “unselved,” another Hopkins coinage
which points to the destruction of their distinctive identity.
The poem ends with a series of repetitive phrases—“the sweet especial
scene / Rural scene, a rural scene, / Sweet especial rural scene.” That
repetition has a musical quality, almost like a song fading away. The
words are simple, but they highlight, once again, the reality that
something unique, something “especial,” has vanished in the destruction
of this row of aspen trees. I chose this poem at this time
because Hopkins so beautifully captures the real sadness we experience
when we witness the destruction of the natural world. A few weeks ago,
the row of elm trees along Marion Street, planted about the time of the
Cathedral’s dedication, was cut down. The trees had to be removed
because of Dutch elm disease, but knowing that did not make it much
easier to see them taken away. On a much larger scale, we have all
experienced a sense of loss at the destruction caused by the wildfires
across the west coast—millions of acres destroyed; trees and animals
gone; countless “inscapes,” as Hopkins would call them, lost to us.
Hopkins looked at the world with an artist’s keen awareness of the
beauty around him. In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis says that
this faculty of seeing the beautiful in nature is not tangential to the
ecological movement – it is key to protecting the earth and its
creatures. Pope Francis writes: “By learning to see and appreciate
beauty, we learn to reject self-interested pragmatism. If someone has
not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be
surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and
abused without scruple. If we want to bring about deep change,” he says,
we all need to learn to see the world with a poet’s eyes.
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Emily Dickinson, “These are the days when birds come back”
(130) c. 1859 These are the days when Birds come back — A
very few — a Bird or two — To take a backward look. These are
the days when skies resume The old — old sophistries of June — A
blue and gold mistake. Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee —
Almost thy plausibility Induces my belief. Till ranks of
seeds their witness bear — And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf. Oh Sacrament of summer days, Oh Last
Communion in the Haze — Permit a child to join. Thy sacred
emblems to partake — Thy consecrated bread to take And thine
immortal wine! For these days of late summer and early
fall, I’ve chosen a favorite poem by Emily Dickinson, “These are the
days the when birds come back.” Jackie O’Ryan will read the poem, then
I’ll be back with some brief commentary. Thank you, Jackie.
Emily Dickinson never went far from home. Indeed, for most of her life,
she never left her house and garden. That being said, it wasn’t just any
garden. From a very young age, Dickinson learned to love gardening. As
an adult, she maintained an extensive garden, and even had a
conservatory for rarer plants indoors. She also kept an herbarium, a
common hobby at the time—an album in which she collected pressings of
more than 400 different plants, each labeled with its Latin name. When
she was a student at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Dickinson was pretty
miserable—except when she was studying botany! Dickinson’s
niece, Martha Bianchi, left a description of Dickinson’s garden. “There
were long beds filling the main garden, where one walked between a
succession of daffodils, crocuses and hyacinths in spring—through the
mid-summer richness—up to the hardy chrysanthemums that smelled of
Thanksgiving, savory and chill, when only the marigolds... were left to
rival them in pungency.” All of this found its way into
Dickinson’s poetry, which is full of close observation of the natural
world. She saw more in her small corner of New England than most of us
see in a lifetime! She describes a hummingbird as “a resonance of
emerald.” Bees are “black, with Gilt Surcingles – Buccaneers of Buzz.” A
snake is “a narrow fellow.” A frog is the hoarse “Orator of April.”
Dickinson’s descriptions of nature are as accurate and carefully
observed as they are idiosyncratic. In this early poem, written
when she was about 29, Dickinson captures the feeling of the transition
between the seasons, when fall has arrived but summer is not quite gone.
The birds are there—but just “a Bird or two.” The skies are still “blue
and gold,” but this is not really summer—this is “sophistry,” a
“mistake,” a “cheat.” The bees are not fooled by this “fraud.” And yet,
the poet is willing to be deceived and to believe it is still summer,
until the falling of the leaves, and the flying of seeds through the
air, and the change in the atmosphere put the question beyond any
doubt--summer is over. In the last two stanzas, the diction
changes. Instead of language of deception and fraud, Dickinson describes
this in-between time in much more elevated terms: “Sacrament,” “sacred,”
“consecrated,” “immortal.” She begs to join in this “communion,” to be
herself a partaker of the “bread” and “wine” of these last of the summer
days. This poem shows us Dickinson’s careful attention to the
natural world. She speaks of nature in a way that is both playful and
reverent. Nature is like a sacrament—a means by which God’s grace comes
to us. Dickinson was a contemporary of the
Transcendentalists—people like Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, and
others. But Dickinson was never really a Transcendentalist—for her,
nature was never interchangeable with God; nature was rather a gift of
God, a sign of God’s reality and presence. And in that belief,
Dickinson, always a non-conformist, is actually quite Catholic! In his
encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis has
written: “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence,
there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail,
in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass
from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the
soul, but also to discover God in all things” (233).
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August Prayer Abbot Jeremy Driscoll, OSB
The monks chant their prayer in the hot church but their heart is
not in it. Only their vows bring them and keep them at the hot and
useless task. Gone are the sweet first good days when prayer
and singing came easy Gone as well many brothers who used to stand
here singing
the feasts with them. They know there are ways to beat this heat
and that Americans everywhere are finding them but they beat instead
the tones of psalms
and, by beating,
fall through the layers of heat
and the layers of prayer
And are standing there now
only with their sound
and their sweat everything taken from them except the way
that this day in August has been.
(1989; first published in The Night of St. John, reprinted in Some
Other Morning, Story Line Press, 1992)
Hello there! Corinna Laughlin here with the poem of the
week. For this week, I’ve chosen a poem by a living poet – Jeremy
Driscoll, who is the Abbot of Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon. Scott Webster
will read the poem “August Prayer” and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. Thank you, Scott. Jeremy Driscoll is a monk,
priest, theologian, liturgist, scholar, and now Abbot at Mount Angel
Seminary in Oregon. He’s also a poet. This poem, “August Prayer,” was
published in 1989. The motto of the Benedictines is “ora et
labora,” “prayer and work,” which is reflected in the “horarium” or
daily schedule of the monks, which follows a fixed rhythm of just that –
times for prayer and times for work. At Mount Angel, the monks
gather for prayer in the church six times each day, in addition to time
set aside for quiet reflection and lectio divina at other times during
the day. In addition to daily Mass, the monks chant the Liturgy of the
Hours. In his Rule, St. Benedict wrote that “nothing is to be
preferred to the Work of God”—his way of referring to the shared worship
of the community. Driscoll’s poem captures how difficult this work can
be at times—the weariness, the discouragement, the boredom that can set
in. The monks are in the church chanting, Driscoll says, “but their
heart is not in it. / Only their vows bring them and keep them / at the
hot and useless task.” They remember the “sweet first good days” when
this way of life felt easy and pleasant; and they remember those who
have gone away. The “heat” in this poem is not that of an
August day in Mount Angel—which can get very hot indeed! The
“heat” stands for all the circumstances, internal and external, that
make it hard to live the religious life in our times. Our culture
extends all kinds of promises for happiness, fulfillment, and
satisfaction. Driscoll evokes the language of advertising: “there are
ways to beat this heat / and… Americans everywhere are finding them.”
But the monks, weary though they are, decline these offers. “They beat
instead the tones of psalms.” And eventually, persevering in the “Work
of God,” they get somewhere. Not to a vision of the heavens, but to a
place where “everything [is] taken from them / except the way that this
August day has been.” They are left with nothing, nothing but the
present moment—and that in itself is transcendent. I think this
is an appropriate poem as our local Church observes a Year of the
Eucharist. Participating in the liturgy is not always “sweet” and easy.
The rhythms of the Mass are so different from anything else we do during
the week; the culture in which we live has many ways of hinting to us
that liturgy, and worship itself, is useless or irrelevant. We are
surrounded by voices telling us that there are better ways to “beat the
heat,” to use Driscoll’s phrase. And there are challenges from within us
as well: weariness, impatience, or just busy-ness can make it hard to
continue to put in the effort to participate in the liturgy. In those
times, we need to do like Driscoll’s monks: pray anyway, letting our
vows—our baptismal promises—“bring” us and “keep” us, not because of
what we can get out of it, but because it is who we are. “August
Prayer” was published in a collection called The Night of St. John. St.
John of the Cross described the spiritual life as a journey in the dark,
an ascent of Mount Carmel. He described this journey in these words:
“nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. And on the mountain, nothing.”
“August Prayer” reflects this deep reality of the spiritual life: that
even in prayer, we need to let go of our desire for results, for
completion, our desire to feel something. There will be moments of
exhilaration, moments where we feel close to God, and such moments are
gift, but they are not the goal. All we can do is continue at the “hot
and useless task,” knowing that it is not our work, but the “Work of
God.”
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The Servant-Girl at Emmaus (A Painting by
Vélasquez) Denise Levertov She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice is his—the one who had looked at
her, once, across the crowd, as no one ever had looked? Had seen
her? Had spoken as if to her? Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now? Hands he’d laid on
the dying and made them well? Surely that face—? The man
they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy. The man whose body
disappeared from its tomb. The man it was rumored now some women had
seen this morning, alive? Those who had brought this stranger
home to their table don’t recognize yet with whom they sit. But
she in the kitchen, absently touching the wine jug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening, swings round and sees
the light around him and is sure.
The
Emmaus story in the Gospel of Luke is one of the most familiar, and one
of the most mysterious, of the Resurrection narratives. Two of Jesus’
disciples—we don’t know their names—are on their way out of Jerusalem,
headed for the village of Emmaus. Along the way, they meet a stranger,
and fall into conversation. Of course, all the talk is about the news -
about Jesus, who has just been crucified. The two disciples talk about
the destruction of their hopes that he was the Messiah, but the stranger
responds to the news differently. He points them to the Scriptures and
explains how all of this was foretold to them—this is the only way the
Messiah’s destiny could unfold. Only when the three pause at an inn for
the night, and the stranger breaks bread with them, do they recognize
Jesus – and he immediately vanishes. And they hurry back to Jerusalem to
tell the others what has happened. It’s a colorful story, and
has been a favorite for artists. There’s the journey and the
conversation with the stranger… and that moment of recognition, when the
stranger breaks bread and gives thanks, and the two disciples realize
who he is. “The Servant-Girl at Emmaus” by 17th century Spanish
painter Diego Velazquez, also depicts the moment of recognition—but from
quite a different perspective. At first glance, the painting is of a
servant girl working in a kitchen, perhaps about to fill that pitcher
she is touching. In the foreground we see a wonderful still-life, where
the artist showcases his ability to capture many different textures –
silver, earthenware, enamel, linen, wood, weaving. We may need to take a
second look before we notice the Emmaus story unfolding in the upper
left, where Jesus is about to break the bread. Only then do we start to
notice other details rich in meaning: a dove that looks like it is about
to break free, and a white napkin or rag, suggesting the burial cloth
left behind in the empty tomb. The center of the painting, of
course, is the girl. From her attentive expression, we know she is
listening to what is happening in the room beyond—and we know that she
knows something! Denise Levertov’s poem imagines the girl’s
thoughts during this moment of suspense. In her telling of the story,
Jesus is no stranger to this young woman. She has encountered him
before. “Surely that voice is his—the one who had looked at her, once,
across the crowd, as no one ever had looked? Had seen her? Had spoken as
if to her?” She recognizes his voice because she has spent time
listening to his teaching. She recognizes his hands—“hands he’d laid on
the dying and made them well”—because she has witnessed Jesus at work.
The disciples will come to recognize Jesus when he breaks the bread, but
this young woman—who has brought the bread to the table—already knows
who he is. Velazquez’s painting beautifully captures a moment of
stillness and recognition. Levertov’s poem lets us see what happens
next, when the girl “swings round and sees / the light around him / and
is sure.” There is a theme that runs through the Resurrection
narratives, and indeed, through the Gospels: Jesus chooses women, often
women who are outsiders, to be his witnesses. They are the first to
recognize him as the Risen Lord, the first to tell the apostles the good
news. And that sends a clear message to every Christian: we need
to listen to each other, especially the voices of those we might
consider to be “outsiders.” Because when we really listen to the witness
of others, we aren’t just learning about them; we are glimpsing God in
them. Both the painting of Velasquez, and the poem of Levertov, invite
us to recognition: to see Christ in the breaking of the bread, and in
each other.
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Caedmon Denise Levertov All others talked as if
talk were a dance. Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet would break the
gliding ring. Early I learned to hunch myself close by the
door: then when the talk began I'd wipe my mouth and wend
unnoticed back to the barn to be with the warm beasts, dumb among
body sounds of the simple ones. I'd see by a twist of lit rush
the motes of gold moving from shadow to shadow slow in the wake
of deep untroubled sighs. The cows munched or stirred or were
still. I was at home and lonely, both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me––light effacing my feeble beam, a
forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying: but the cows
as before were calm, and nothing was burning, nothing but I, as
that hand of fire touched my lips and scorched my tongue and
pulled my voice into the ring of the dance. Hello there.
Corinna Laughlin here with the poem of the week. This week,
we’re reading Denise Levertov’s “Caedmon,” in which she takes on the
voice of Caedmon, who is honored as the first known poet to write in the
English language. Scott Webster will read the poem, then I’ll be back
with some brief commentary. Thank you, Scott. It is
thanks to St. Bede the Venerable, the 7th and 8th-century English monk
and historian, that we know Caedmon’s story. Caedmon was a herdsman,
entrusted with the care of animals at the abbey presided over by St
Hilda in Whitby. Under her leadership, the arts flourished, and Bede
describes evenings when the harp would go round the room, with each
person singing and playing to the best of their ability. I think
many of us can identify with Caedmon, who, when he saw his turn coming,
would slip quietly away and go back to his place among the animals. But
one night, he had a dream in which an angel appeared to him and asked
him to sing about God’s creation. And Caedmon did. When he woke from
this dream, he remembered what he had sung. Not only that, he found the
gift persisted, and he was able to compose verse on all kinds of sacred
subjects. At Hilda’s invitation, he became a monk of the abbey, and the
author of many poems. Levertov tells Caedmon’s story in the
first person. Talk, he says, is a dance, something the others do
gracefully, but he is just a clodhopper, getting in the way. He seems to
be more at home among the animals—“dumb,” that is, silent, “among body
sounds,” not voices. But he is not quite comfortable there, either. He
is “at home and lonely,” “both in good measure.” He is drawn both to the
lighted hall and to the dark stable. Caedmon sleeps among the animals,
but I think we can sense that Caedmon is already a poet - he can see by
the light of a rush bits of chaff from the hay, floating in the breath
of the animals like motes of gold. Into this peaceful scene
comes an angel—a fiery vision, with feathers of flame, a forest of
torches and sparks. But nothing is on fire—except Caedmon himself. The
fire touches his mouth, scorches his tongue, and Caedmon joins the
dance. Levertov uses here an image right out of scripture. In
the sixth chapter of Isaiah, we hear of the prophet’s call. In a vision,
an angel takes a burning coal from the altar of God, and touches the
prophet’s mouth with it. It is a purifying fire, but also suggests the
urgency of his mission. He will speak God’s words, in his own voice. The
poet’s call is like the prophet’s call, a collaboration between God and
the individual. And like other prophets—Jonah, for example—Caedmon runs
from his call, a reluctant prophet, until at last, with some prompting
from God!, he lets himself be “pulled… into the ring of the dance.”
Caedmon’s story is a story of vocation—where our gifts and abilities
meet God’s mission. To conclude our reflection, let us listen
to the poem traditionally called “Caedmon’s hymn”—considered the oldest
poetry in the English language, and the only poetry of Caedmon that
survives. This translation from Old English is the work of Elaine
Treharne of Stanford University. Now we ought to praise the
Guardian of the heavenly kingdom, The might of the Creator and his
conception, The work of the glorious Father, as he of each of the
wonders, Eternal Lord, established the beginning. He first created
for the sons of men Heaven as a roof, holy Creator; Then the
middle-earth, the Guardian of mankind, The eternal Lord, afterwards
made The earth for men, the Lord almighty.
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Variation on a Theme by Rilke (The Book of Hours,
Book I, Poem 4) Denise Levertov All these images (said
the old monk, closing the book) these inspired depictions, are
true. Yes—not one—Giotto’s, Van Eyck’s, Rembrandt’s, Rouault’s,
how many others’— not one is a fancy, a willed fiction, each of
them shows us exactly the manifold countenance of the Holy One,
Blessed be He. The seraph buttress flying to support a cathedral’s
external walls, the shadowy ribs of the vaulted sanctuary: aren’t
both—and equally— the form of a holy place?—whose windows’ ruby
and celestial sapphire can be seen only from inside, but then only
when light enters from without? From the divine twilight, neither
dark nor day, blossoms the morning. Each, at work in his art,
perceived his neighbor. Thus the Infinite plays, and in grace
gives us clues to His mystery. Corinna Laughlin's
commentary We met Denise Levertov earlier in this
series, when we read her wonderful poem “Annunciation.” Levertov was a
20th-century master, born in England in 1923, who died in Seattle in
1997. Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to read three poems by
Levertov for this series. These are all poems in which she responds to
other works of art—both poems and the visual arts—in interesting ways.
In this poem, Levertov reacts to a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke—in
fact, she is responding to Rilke’s poem “You, Neighbor God” we read last
week. As you’ll recall, Rilke’s poem, spoken in the voice of an
old monk, questioned the images we make of the divine, which can stand
like a wall between us and God—getting in our way when we try to connect
with God. In this poem, Levertov responds to that concept. As
Levertov’s poem begins, the “old monk” closes a book, perhaps a book of
images of Christ, and roundly declares—contradicting Rilke’s old
monk!—that “all these images… these inspired depictions, are true.” Even
more, “each of them shows us exactly / the manifold countenance / of the
Holy One.” Far from distracting us or deflecting our attention from God,
Levertov’s speaker says, these “true” images reveal to us “the manifold
countenance” of God. God has one face, but it is “manifold”—so these
contrasting images can all be said to be true. Giotto – Van Eyck –
Rembrandt – Rouault – artists with such different visions, such
different ways of seeing the world – all had something in common: they
all depicted the true, though “manifold” image of God. In the
second part of the poem, Levertov distances herself still further from
Rilke. She uses an extended metaphor here—the image of a cathedral. She
speaks of the flying buttresses, the exterior supports which are such a
prominent feature in some of the great Gothic cathedrals, and the ribs
of the sanctuary—in other words, the exterior and the interior of the
building—and she asks, aren’t both of these, equally, intrinsic to “the
form of a holy place”? Without one or the other, the building cannot
stand. Where Rilke described a wall of framed images, Levertov
describes stained glass windows. The flying buttresses of a Gothic
cathedral developed to allow for ever-larger stained glass windows. You
could even say they are at the service of the windows! Stained glass
doesn’t look like much from the outside—it has to be viewed from within.
And yet, the windows require light from the outside, in order to be
seen. The light does not “glance off the frames like glare,” as Rilke
described. Instead, it shines through, and brings the windows to life.
The stained glass windows of a great cathedral demand an
interchange between outside and inside which, for Levertov, suggests the
interchange between earth and heaven, human and God. Art is a way to
glimpse God, and in fact a way to play a holy game with God: “Thus the
Infinite plays, and in grace gives us clues to his Mystery.” In
1999, Pope St. John Paul II wrote a letter to artists which resonates
with Levertov’s response to Rilke and her faith in the power of art.
“Every genuine art form in its own way is a path to the inmost
reality of humanity and of the world. It is therefore a wholly valid
approach to the realm of faith, which gives human experience its
ultimate meaning…. In order to communicate the message entrusted to her
by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far
as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of
God…. Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the
message and translate it into colours, shapes and sounds which nourish
the intuition of those who look or listen. It does so without emptying
the message itself of its transcendent value and its aura of mystery.”
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You, neighbor God Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
From The Book of Hours, written 1899-1903, published 1905
Translated by Babette Deutsch (1941) You, neighbor God, if
sometimes in the night I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so
only because I seldom hear you breathe; and I know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there to reach it to you,
groping in the dark. Always I hearken. Give but a small sign. I am
quite near. Between us there is but a narrow wall, and by
sheer chance; for it would take merely a call from your lips or from
mine to break it down, and that without a sound. The wall
is builded of your images. They stand before you hiding you like
names. And when the light within me blazes high that in my inmost
soul I know you by, the radiance is squandered on their frames.
And then my senses, which too soon grow lame, exiled from you, must
go their homeless ways. Corinna Laughlin commentary
Rainer Maria Rilke was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria
Rilke in 1875 in Prague, in what was then known as Bohemia. He was a
citizen of Europe, who traveled widely and lived in Germany, France, and
Switzerland, and who wrote in both German and French. A significant
figure in European literature of the 20th century, Rilke associated with
some of the major artists of his time, including Rodin—as a young man
Rilke served as a secretary to the great sculptor. Rilke was drafted
into service in World War I, a traumatic experience for him. He died of
leukemia at the young age of 51. Rilke was raised by a devoutly
Catholic mother, and though he did not practice his faith as an adult,
faith in God was at the heart of his life and art. “You, neighbor God”
is an early poem from Rilke’s first book, called The Book of Hours.
These poems were inspired by Rilke’s extensive travels in Russia, and
the poet takes on the persona of an old monk in several of the poems,
including the one we just heard. The first part of the poem is
quite playful. It’s easy to picture the scene – as he knocks on the wall
to check if an elderly neighbor needs anything—" I know: you are alone.
And should you need a drink, no one is there to reach it to you.” Notice
how the roles are reversed: here is the speaker offering to help God if
God should need help in the night! But the tone shifts, as the speaker
pleads for some indication of God’s presence. “Always I hearken. Give
but a small sign. I am quite near.” God and the speaker are so close
together, but there is a separation – one which, surprisingly, either of
them could break through. “it would take merely a call from your lips or
mine to break it down.” The turning point of the poem is the
line: “The wall is builded of your images.” The thin separation between
the speaker and God is made of his images of God. Rilke is perhaps
thinking here of the iconostasis which is often the most prominent
feature in Orthodox churches. The images get in the way, Rilke says,
hiding God – and when the internal light by which he knows God shines
within him, that light is “squandered on the frames” of these images
instead of illuminating God himself. The human senses are “exiled” from
God, “homeless.” As Catholics, we are firm believers in images.
We surround ourselves with statues and images of saints, and even of
God. Our use of images is firmly grounded in the theology of the
Incarnation – as St. Paul said, Jesus “is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation.” But the images we make can
be limiting, and, yes, get in the way, like Rilke’s wall. I think of
recent debates about images of Jesus, who, though he was, obviously, a
person of color, is most often depicted with European features and skin
color. If these are the only images of Christ we can imagine, they can
distort our understanding of who Jesus is. Images of the divine
are an essential part of how we pray and worship as Catholics. But
perhaps Rilke’s poem can invite us to think about the images of God we
depend on. Are they helping us pray—or do they sometimes get in the way?
The Bible invites us to think of God not in one way, but in many ways.
Creator, Light, Rock, Stronghold, Husband, Mother, Rescuer, Father.
All these images reveal something of God to us—but of course, none of
them says it all.
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“My own heart let me more have pity on” Gerard
Manley Hopkins, SJ (1844-1889) My own heart let me more have
pity on; let Me live to my sad self hereafter kind, Charitable;
not live this tormented mind With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get By groping round my comfortless,
than blind Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find Thirst's
all-in-all in all a world of wet. Soul, self; come, poor
Jackself, I do advise You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size At God knows when to
God knows what; whose smile 's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times
rather — as skies Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.
We met Gerard Manley Hopkins earlier in this series, when we read his
wonderful poem “God’s Grandeur.” Today we read another Hopkins sonnet.
Scott Webster will read the poem, and then I’ll be back with some brief
commentary. Gerard Manley Hopkins was a tremendously gifted man.
An extraordinary and innovative poet, a brilliant classical scholar, a
gifted musician, a talented artist, a faithful and conscientious
priest—Hopkins was all of these things. And yet, through much of his
life, he was tormented by a sense of failure and inadequacy. His poems
were seldom understood, much less published; several of his assignments
as a Jesuit were in inner-city parishes where he felt exiled from the
natural world he so loved, or in schools where his humbling inadequacies
as a teacher were always on display. “If I could but get on, if
I could but produce work, I should not mind its being buried, silenced,
and going no further,” he wrote to his friend, the poet Robert Bridges,
“but it kills me to be time’s eunuch and never to beget. After all, I do
not despair, things might change, anything may be; only there is no
great appearance of it…” In 1884, Hopkins was assigned as
professor at University College, Dublin, which was not the great
academic institution it is now. It was a poor, struggling college, and
Hopkins was overwhelmed with a sense of isolation and failure and
entered what we would recognize now as a deep depression. “My spirits
were so crushed,” he wrote, “that madness seemed to be making
approaches—and nobody was to blame, except myself partly for not
managing myself better and contriving a change” (to Robert Bridges, 1
September 1885). Out of this experience of darkness came a
series of remarkable poems, which Robert Bridges called “the terrible
sonnets” because of their content. Of these poems, Hopkins himself wrote
that they came after long silence “like inspirations unbidden and
against my will.” In these sonnets, Hopkins addresses himself directly
to God with great honesty, with language that resembles some of the
psalms and the prophets. He writes of his sense of uselessness, of
impotence, and of difficulty in praying—in one poem, he describes prayer
as being like undelivered letters to a loved one far away. We
don’t know the exact order of the terrible sonnets, or sonnets of
desolation, as they are sometimes called, but the poem we just heard is
usually placed towards the end of the sequence, because it expresses a
glimmer of hope. In this poem, Hopkins addresses himself,
entreating himself to be kinder to himself. The first lines give a vivid
picture of his helplessness and mental anguish. He begs that he might
“not live this tormented mind / With this tormented mind tormenting
yet.” The repetition in those lines—“tormented mind, tormented mind,
tormenting yet”—vividly suggests the endless cycle of negative thoughts.
This state of mind is like a prison – Hopkins gives an unforgettable
image of “groping round my comfortless.” In the second part of
the sonnet, Hopkins addresses himself as “Soul, self,” and then shifts
the tone—“poor Jackself.” “Soul, self,” are grand, impersonal terms;
“poor Jackself” is humbler, more human, more conscious of weakness.
Hopkins is doing here just what he begged for at the beginning of the
poem: having pity on himself in his humanity. “Call off thoughts
awhile,” he says, and leave room for comfort, for joy, and for whatever
God has in mind: “God knows when to God knows what.” The poem ends with
a remarkable image of God smiling. God’s smile is “not wrung”—we can’t
force it. It comes unexpectedly, like sky appearing “betweenpie”
mountains, shedding light on “a lovely mile.” At the end of the poem,
nothing has changed—but hope has entered in. In this poem, and
in the other terrible sonnets, Hopkins acknowledges the darkness he is
experiencing, but he does so with the tools and the language that his
faith gives him. He never stops wrestling with God. As one commentator
has said, “Like Jesus’ cry on the cross, Hopkins’s sonnets of desolation
are addressed to God and are themselves consolations.”
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George Herbert, “Love (III)” from St. James Cathedral, Seattle on Vimeo. |
Love (III) George Herbert Love bade me welcome. Yet my
soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let
my shame
Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the
blame? My
dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, says Love, and taste my
meat:
So I did sit and eat. Last week, we read Herbert’s poem on the
Holy Scriptures, which prompted reflection on the Liturgy of the Word at
Mass. With today’s poem by Herbert, “Love,” we’ll reflect on the Liturgy
of the Eucharist. Scott Webster will read the poem, and then I’ll be
back with some brief commentary. This poem, like all of
Herbert’s work, is rich in Scriptural allusion and full of evocative
imagery. Herbert sets up an almost romantic scene, as the speaker is
invited in for a meal by Love, but draws back, before being urged to
come in and eat. Think of the Song of Songs, the great love poem of the
Bible, which describes a similar encounter between love and the lover at
the gate, coming close and then moving away. Of course, meals have great
resonance in the New Testament. Think of the miraculous feedings and the
Last Supper accounts. Think of some of the parables of the Second
Coming: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on
his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline
at table, and proceed to wait on them” (Luke 12:37). Herbert
imagines what that moment would be like, when Love—which is, of course,
another name for God—becomes the servant, waiting at table. And he finds
it very uncomfortable. The speaker of the poem hangs back in the
doorway, “guilty of dust and sin.” It’s an odd phrase, “guilty of dust.”
Herbert is alluding to original sin—the propensity to sin that is part
of our human condition. This awareness of sin pulls him back as soon as
he is invited into the divine presence. It’s a pattern in the
Scriptures, whenever someone encounters God. Think of the prophet
Isaiah, or St. Peter after the miraculous catch—“depart from me, Lord,
for I am a sinful man.” The speaker inches forward, then draws
back. At the same time, there is a wonderful intimacy in the language
used – “ah, my dear,” he says to Love, “I cannot look on thee.” This is
not the meeting of strangers, but of intimate friends. Love does not
brush away the speaker’s concerns, or say that there has been no sin or
wrongdoing; instead, Love reminds the speaker simply that God is God:
“who made the eyes but I?” Sinful though we are, we were made for this –
our eyes were made to look at God. In the last stanza, the
speaker continues to hang back. “Let my shame / Go where it doth
deserve.” Even that is no argument, Love says, because Love has already
borne “the blame.” The cross has taken away everything that would
prevent us from approaching God. The speaker is running out of excuses!
“My dear, then I will serve,” he says: you sit down—let me serve you.
It’s Peter’s response to Jesus’ washing of the feet. But that is not
what Love has in mind. “You must sit down and taste my meat.” Love is
going to do the serving here. It is for love to give, for us to receive.
At last, in the final, and shortest line of the poem, the speaker gives
in: “so I did sit and eat.” The sinner lets go and Love prevails.
I am reminded of the words of the great 13th century mystic St.
Catherine of Siena: “By this light I shall come to know that you,
eternal Trinity, are table and food and waiter for us.” As I
mentioned last week, we have begun a Year of the Eucharist in this local
Church, the Archdiocese of Seattle. For me, Herbert’s “Love” is the
perfect meditation on this central mystery of our faith. If you think of
the pattern of the Mass, it is not unlike this poem. We have come to the
table at God’s invitation, but again and again we pause and acknowledge
our sinfulness. “Lord, have mercy.” “Forgive us our trespasses.” “Lord,
I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” We do not do this
to beat ourselves up or prove anything. We do this because this
awareness of our own sinfulness is the natural human response to being
in the presence of God! Throughout the Mass, Love is leading us to
the table, where all we can do is receive the free gift of the God of
love. There is no earning this gift. As Archbishop Etienne said in his
homily at the beginning of this special year of the Eucharist, “we can
be deceived in thinking that the Eucharist is what we do. It’s what God
does. It’s the work of God upon us. It’s the work of God for our
redemption.” (Read or listen to that homily here:
http://www.nwcatholic.org/news/local/year-of-the-eucharist-begins-in-archdiocese-of-seattle.html)
All we need to do—all we really can do—is what the speaker of Herbert’s
poem does: respond to the invitation, and let God work in us.
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George Herbert The Holy Scriptures II OH
that I knew how all thy lights combine,
And the configurations of their glorie!
Seeing not onely how each verse doth shine, But all the
constellations of the storie. This verse marks that, and both do
make a motion
Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:
Then as dispersed herbs do watch a potion, These three make up some
Christians destinie: Such are thy secrets, which my life makes
good,
And comments on thee: for in ev’ry thing
Thy words do finde me out, & parallels bring, And in another make me
understood.
Starres are poore books, & oftentimes do misse:
This book of starres lights to eternall blisse. We met
George Herbert earlier in this series, when we read his poem “Easter
Wings.” Herbert was many things—a well-born and well-connected man of
the world, and a country parson. His contemporaries marveled at his
faith. One biographer wrote that Herbert “never mentioned the name of
Jesus Christ, but with this addition, ‘My Master,’” and that when it
came to the Bible, he would say “That he would not part with one leaf
thereof for the whole world.” He called the Bible “the book of books,”
“the storehouse and magazine of life and comfort.” In this
sonnet about the Holy Scriptures, Herbert gives us an insight into how
he himself read the Bible. Anyone who has been scanning the skies
looking for Comet Neowise will appreciate Herbert’s metaphor at the
beginning of the poem. “Oh, that I knew how all thy lights combine, /
And the configurations of their glory!” The verses of the Scriptures are
likened to stars, which are beautiful in themselves, but which also
relate to each other in wonderful ways—forming “constellations.” The
Scriptures mean more in relation to each other: just as different herbs,
mixed together, become a healing medicine, a powerful “potion,” so
different verses, combined, “make up some Christian’s destiny”—in other
words, reading the Scriptures makes sense of our lives. And our lives
make sense of the Scriptures: “such are thy secrets, which my life makes
good, / And comments on thee…. Thy words do find me out, and parallels
bring.” The right way to read the Scriptures, Herbert suggests,
is with open eyes and imagination, letting the Scriptures speak to one
another—since one passage can shed light on another. But we also need to
let the Scriptures read us, since we can only understand our own lives,
our “destiny,” in light of the Scriptures. “Stars are poor books,”
Herbert concludes, but the Bible, “this book of stars,” shows the way to
“eternal bliss.” I thought this poem was especially appropriate
as we have begun a Year of the Eucharist in this local Church, the
Archdiocese of Seattle. Every time we gather around the altar to
celebrate the Eucharist, we first gather around the ambo—the table of
the word of God. And when the Scriptures are proclaimed, something
happens. As it says in the introduction to the Roman Missal, “God speaks
to his people, opening up to them the mystery of redemption and
salvation, and offering spiritual nourishment; and Christ himself is
present through his word in the midst of the faithful.” The
Liturgy of the Word at Mass is not a review of salvation history. It is
a conversation. We are invited to a way of reading, praying, and
reflecting on Scripture that is not unlike what Herbert describes in his
poem. The readings from the Old and New Testaments speak to each other
and shed light on each other—and they speak to us and shed light on our
lives, too. As Archbishop Etienne wrote in “The Work of Redemption,” his
Pastoral Letter for this Year of the Eucharist, “When we allow ourselves
to listen, really listen, to what the Scriptures are saying to us in our
own lives and to the reality we are living in, extraordinary things can
happen. When we honestly reflect on our lives and the challenges we face
as a society in light of the Scriptures, we open ourselves up to God’s
transforming power.” One of Herbert’s first biographers wrote,
“Next God the Word, he loved the Word of God.” May the same be said of
each of us!
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St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) The Pillar of Cloud
(“Lead, Kindly Light”) Lead, Kindly Light, amid
th'encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am
far from home, Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to
see The distant scene; one step enough for me. I was not ever
thus, nor prayed that Thou Shouldst lead me on; I loved to choose
and see my path; but now Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day,
and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, Which I have loved long
since, and lost awhile! (Written at sea, 1833)
John Henry Newman was born in London in 1801 into an upper middle class
family with strong Protestant roots: his mother was from a family of
French Huguenot refugees. He dated his spiritual awakening to the age of
fifteen, when he felt an “inward conversion of which I was conscious
(and of which I still am more certain than that I have hands and feet).”
For Newman, the way to God was always through books. His
autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua – the “apology for his life”—is as
much about what Newman read as what he did. He writes in intricate
detail of the thinkers and ideas that fascinated and shaped him.
Newman was ordained an Anglican priest in 1825 and became a curate in
Oxford, where he was also a fellow at Oriel College. His specialty was
Patristics—the study of the Fathers of the early Church—and what he read
slowly led him towards the Roman Catholic Church. For Newman,
becoming Catholic was not a quick or easy decision. He knew that if he
became a Catholic it would cost him friends as well as his livelihood,
since he would not be able to function as a member of the Anglican
clergy nor retain his Oxford fellowship. But for Newman, simply setting
aside difficult questions was never an option. Newman wrote, “The one
question was, what was I to do? I had to make up my mind for myself, and
others could not help me. I determined to be guided, not by my
imagination, but by my reason.” Newman wrote in a diary in 1829, “I am
now in my rooms in Oriel College, slowly advancing and led on by God's
hand blindly, not knowing whither He is taking me.” It was
during this time of uncertainty and exploration—two steps forward, one
step back—which lasted more than ten years—that Newman wrote the poem we
just heard, which he entitled “The Pillar of Cloud,” but which is known
more familiarly as “Lead, Kindly Light.” In the book of Exodus,
the pillar of cloud leads the Israelite people in their wanderings
through the desert. It is the very presence of God in their midst, both
showing the way and protecting them in their wanderings. In this poem,
Newman invokes God as the “kindly light,” the one thing shining in the
midst of the darkness. There is no view of the “distant scene,” nor is
the path clear—there is just enough light to take one step at a time.
Newman acknowledges how difficult this is, this taking one step
at a time. “I loved to choose and see my path,” he says. But that sense
that he could direct his own course was an illusion, rooted in “pride.”
Now, he says, “Lead thou me on.” He has to yield his own will and
trust in God’s guidance, trust that the God who has blessed him in the
past will be with him in the future. The poem ends with a glimpse of the
end of this journey – “with the morn, those angel faces smile, / Which I
have loved long since and lost awhile.” The sense of loneliness,
darkness, and uncertainty we feel in the first two stanzas ends with a
wonderful sense of recognition and light. In 1845, Newman
entered the Catholic Church. He became an Oratorian priest, and was
named a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879. He made many contributions to
theology, which have had an enormous impact, especially at the time of
the Second Vatican Council—hence Newman is sometimes called “the absent
Council Father.” Newman’s concept of the “development of doctrine” is
one of those contributions—he argued that Church doctrine, while
unchanging, does get developed and refined through the ages as human
reason engages with divine revelation. It’s no surprise that
the same man who wrote “Lead, kindly Light” would argue that the
Church’s understanding, too, can advance step by step, in pursuit of the
“Kindly Light” that is the living presence of God in our midst. As
Newman said in a homily, “Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal
Himself to our souls more fully, to quicken our senses, to give us sight
and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come; so to work within us,
that we may sincerely say, 'Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and
after that receive me with glory."
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The Kingdom of God By Francis Thompson
(1859-1907) “In no strange land” O WORLD invisible, we
view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable,
we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! Does the fish
soar to find the ocean, The eagle plunge to find the air— That we
ask of the stars in motion If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken, And our benumbed conceiving
soars!— The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own
clay-shuttered doors. The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing! ‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estrangèd
faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing. But (when so sad
thou canst not sadder) Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss Shall shine
the traffic of Jacob’s ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing
Cross. Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, Cry,—clinging
Heaven by the hems; And lo, Christ walking on the water Not of
Gennesareth, but Thames!
Commentary by
Corinna Laughlin Francis Thompson was a remarkable figure
by any measure. Born in 1859, he was compared to Keats and Shakespeare
in his lifetime, and although his reputation declined after his death,
many of his poems, in particular his masterpiece, “The Hound of Heaven,”
have never gone out of print. Thompson was raised in a devoutly
Catholic family. His family hoped he would be a priest, and he was sent
to a minor seminary, but he was awkward and shy and was deemed
unsuitable. He was sent to study medicine, a subject for which he had no
vocation and little interest. He was too timid to tell his family that
he wanted to be a writer—all they wanted to talk about was “cricket” and
“wars,” he later said—and things began to go downhill for Thompson.
After an illness, Thompson became addicted to opium. Things got so bad
that Thompson ended up on the streets. He was homeless in London for
three years and could only be reached by general delivery to the “Post
Office, Charing Cross, London.” It was poetry that eventually
pulled him back from the brink. All this time, Thompson had continued to
write. He submitted some poems to a Catholic editor, Wilfrid Meynell,
which were published. When Meynell met the author, and realized that he
was totally destitute, he and his wife Alice helped Thompson get off the
streets and (at least for a time) overcome his addiction.
Thanks to the Meynell’s intervention and support, Thompson became a
writer—though never a prolific one. He wrote essays and reviews for
various journals, and he continued to write poetry as well, eventually
publishing three books. At the same time, he was never what you
might call “normal.” He would suddenly get up from the table and
disappear at mealtimes, and a friend wrote that “No money... could keep
him in a decent suit of clothes for long. ...He passed at once into a
picturesque nondescript garb that was all his own and made him resemble
some weird pedlar or packman.” In spite of all the darkness
Thompson had experienced in his life, and his repeated bouts with
depression, his faith was ultimately full of hope. “I do firmly
believe that none are lost who have not wilfully closed their eyes to
the known light: that such as fall with constant striving, battling with
their temperament, or through ill-training circumstance which shuts them
from true light, &c.; that all these shall taste of God's justice, which
for them is better than man's mercy.” Thompson died of
tuberculosis on November 13, 1907 at the age of 48. The poem
we’re reading today, “The Kingdom of God,” was one of Thompson’s last
poems, not published until after his death. The poem begins with a
series of paradoxical assertions – we see the invisible, we touch the
intangible, we know the unknowable, we take hold of the
“inapprehensible.” We have access to the world of the spirit. It is not
far away--we do not need to look to the stars to find God. In fact, we
need not go elsewhere to seek God any more than the fish needs to search
for the water or the eagle the air. In other words, God comes to us in
our own element—God is our element. The divine is
close—if we were listening, we could hear the wings of angels beating at
our “clay-shuttered doors.” But with our “estranged faces”—not looking
for God—we don’t see “the many-splendored thing.” Nevertheless,
God is everywhere, accessible to all who call upon him. At the end of
the poem, Thompson alludes to his own experiences on the streets of
London. In the depths of sadness, he says, “cry,” and there will be
Jacob’s ladder, linking heaven and Charing Cross. Ask for help, and
Christ will walk on the water, not far away on the Sea of Galilee, but
nearby: on the Thames. In this poem, Thompson’s very Catholic
imagination is at work. As Catholics, we firmly believe that we can
touch the invisible through the tangible—anointed with oil, we are
sealed with the Holy Spirit; bread and wine become the Body and Blood of
Christ. Thompson reminds us that the divine presence is everywhere. The
poem reflects the words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel: “The coming of the
kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here
it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.”
The kingdom of God unfolds in our own circumstances, in our own place
and time. We just need the eyes to recognize it.
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Song Silence By Madeleva Wolff, CSC Yes, I shall take
this quiet house and keep it With kindled hearth and candle-lighted
board, In singing silence garnish it and sweep it
For Christ, my Lord. My heart is filled with little songs to
sing Him— I dream them into words with careful art— But this I
think a better gift to bring Him,
Nearer his heart. The foxes have their holes, the wise, the
clever; The birds have each a safe and secret nest; But He, my
lover, walks the world with never A place to rest. I found
Him once upon a straw bed lying; (Once on His mother’s heart He laid
His head) He had a bramble pillow for His dying, A stone when
dead. I think to leave off singing for this reason, Taking
instead my Lord God’s house to keep, Where He may find a home in
every season
To wake, to sleep. Do you not think that in this holy sweetness
Of silence shared with God a whole life long Both he and I shall find
divine completeness Of perfect song? Sister Madeleva
Wolff was a renowned educator and administrator, a poet, and a scholar
who in her lifetime rubbed elbows with Edith Wharton, G. K. Chesterton,
Helen Hayes, Thomas Merton, and many other luminaries. She was also a
religious, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross for more than
fifty years. She is a figure who deserves to be better known!
Eva Wolff was born in Cumberland, Wisconsin in 1887. She had a fairly
conventional childhood—except for her exceptional intellect. Her gifts
were so obvious that her older brother dropped out of college so the
family could afford to send Eva to St. Mary’s College in South Bend,
Indiana. Eva had been planning to study mathematics, but she
soon switched to medieval literature, and discovered a love for
poetry—both studying it and writing it. It took everyone by surprise,
including Eva herself, when she decided to join the Sisters of the Holy
Cross. She entered the novitiate in 1908, when she was nineteen years
old. In religious life, she was given the name Madeleva, and soon
embarked on a distinguished career of study and teaching. Sister
Madeleva was among the first women religious to receive a Masters degree
from Notre Dame; she went on to complete a doctoral degree at Berkeley.
Later, she did post-doctoral study at Oxford with the likes of J. R. R.
Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. All this time, she was a full-time teacher and
administrator, eventually being appointed President of her own alma
mater, St. Mary’s College, where her innovative leadership gained the
college nationwide acclaim. She developed the first graduate study
program in theology for women religious and laypeople in the country,
and was instrumental in the Sister Formation movement, which advocated
thorough and high-level education for women religious. She was a force
to be reckoned with: “Moderation is a colorless, insipid thing,” she
wrote. “I know its practice to be well-nigh impossible. To live less
would not be living.” Throughout her busy life, Madeleva wrote
poetry, publishing a number of books, some of which were considered
controversial for the passionate language she used in writing about God.
Given the busy life of a sister, time was hard to come by; Madeleva came
to be grateful for her chronic insomnia which gave her time to compose.
“I love words because I love the Word,” she would say. “I know of no
discipline more merciless, more demanding, than the writing of good
verse—even if it doesn’t reach the levels of great poetry.” Madeleva
died in 1962 at the age of 77. Knowing a little of Madeleva’s
story, I think we get a better sense of both the sweetness and the
underlying tension of this poem, “Song Silence.” It’s a poem about
poetry—and about renunciation. “My heart is filled with little songs to
Him-- / I dream them into words with careful art,” she says in the
second stanza. But, she wonders, would it not be a better gift to
prepare “a quiet house” for the one who was laid in a manger as an
infant, who had no place to lay his head as an adult. “I think to leave
off singing,” she says, and dedicate herself instead to this quiet work
of contemplation, which she compares to the traditional domestic (and
typically feminine) task of housekeeping. In the last stanza, she asks a
question: “Do you not think that in this holy sweetness / Of silence
shared with God,” she and God both will find “perfect song”?
There is a sweetness in the poem, and an intimacy with God, whom she
calls “my lover.” But there is also a certain tension here, one that
many women felt at the time Madeleva was writing, in the 1940s and
1950s. She loves to “sing,” to write poetry, but wouldn’t silence be
better, after all? Wouldn’t her life be better spent in contemplation,
rather than in words—in keeping house, rather than singing? Madeleva
tells herself that she will dedicate herself to this sweet domestic
housekeeping for God. And yet, though the poem begins with a decisive
“yes” it ends with a question mark. Renouncing poetry is something she
is contemplating—but not doing, at least, not yet. I think this
poem illuminates what Madeleva’s biographer Gail Porter Mandell sees as
a keynote in Madeleva’s approach to life—what Madeleva herself referred
to as the “relaxed grasp.” Madeleva held on to what mattered—but, in
keeping with her vow of poverty, she held even precious things like
poetry with a certain lightness, a “relaxed grasp,” a “holy
indifference,” always preparing herself to let them go if God willed it.
For Madeleva, this “relaxed grasp” was true freedom. In speaking of her
own vocation, she wrote: “Only when one has given not only all his
actual self, but all his potential self, is he free.”
Read more about Madeleva here.
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Light Shining out of Darkness BY WILLIAM
COWPER 1 God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to
perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the
storm. 2 Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing
skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sov'reign
will. 3 Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds
ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings
on your head. 4 Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But
trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a
smiling face. 5 His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding
ev'ry hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the
flow'r. 6 Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work
in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.
Cowper’s poem is so well-known as a hymn text that it can be
easy to dismiss. It’s a poem about God’s Providence, which guides
everything that happens to us, and about God’s designs, which are far
beyond our ability to understand, but always for our good. “Behind a
frowning Providence / he hides a smiling face” has entered the language
and become a cliché. To be honest, it can all sound a bit pat. But this
poem is the fruit of Cowper’s painful experience in a lifetime of
intense suffering and religious struggle. William Cowper was
born in 1731 into a quite distinguished family—his mother was a Donne,
related to John Donne, and his father was connected to the Earl Cowper,
the lord chancellor of England. His life was marked by early tragedy—his
mother died when he was just six years old, and he then went to boarding
school, where he was systematically bullied. These two experiences are
thought to have contributed to Cowper’s many, serious, and extended
bouts with mental illness. The first of these came in 1763, when Cowper
was 32 years old. He had been nominated for a significant post in the
House of Lords, which would require a public examination. The thought of
this examination before the entire House of Lords brought on a psychotic
episode. Cowper became convinced that he was damned and attempted
suicide. Cowper spent many months in an asylum and during his
recovery, he had a profound conversion experience in which he felt in a
profound way God’s mercy for him and for all sinners. He was one of the
“fearful saints” he talks about in the poem. Cowper became a parishioner
of John Newton—the famous slave trader turned minister--who invited him
to contribute hymns to a new hymnal he was preparing. Newton wrote
“Amazing Grace”; Cowper wrote “O for a closer walk with God” and the
poem we just heard, among others. Cowper continued to struggle
with mental illness after his conversion. All his life, he considered
himself an outsider, both socially and spiritually: a “stricken deer,
that left the herd / Long since,” as he wrote in one of his poems.
Knowing a little of Cowper’s story, “Light Shining Out of Darkness”
takes on new meaning. The darkness of which Cowper speaks was something
he knew from experience; the fear he mentions, he felt; the hope he
expresses, was what he longed for. The first stanza of the poem
draws on Biblical language. “He plants his footsteps in the sea, and
rides upon the storm.” The language recalls the psalms, especially Psalm
104: “You make the clouds your chariot, traveling on the wings of the
wind.” The imagery also evokes the story of Christ, walking on the water
and stilling the storm. This language speaks of the power of God, but
also reminds us of the desperation of the Apostles in the boat, crying
out for the Lord’s help. In the stanzas that follow,
Cowper uses a series of images and comparisons to highlight the hidden
quality of God’s Providence. It is like treasure hidden in a mine; like
storms of rain pent in a dark cloud; like a smile concealed by a frown;
like a sweet flower hidden within a bitter bud. God is present, but
hidden. I think the key word of this poem is found in this
first stanza: “mysterious.” God’s ways are not clear or even
intelligible to us most of the time. Providence—that sense of God’s
guiding hand in history and in our own lives—is also mystery.
Cowper offers no key to understanding God’s provident care. Rather, he
insists that only God can do that: “God is his own interpreter, and he
will make it plain.” Only God can reveal to us how his Providence is
governing our lives, and our world. God’s ways are a profound
mystery--but our faith tells us there is always mercy and there is
always hope.
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Christina Rossetti, “Up-Hill” Does the road wind up-hill all
the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey
take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof
for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from
my face? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet
other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will
not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort,
travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds
for all who come.
Every Christian lives their faith in their own
way. For some, faith is tranquil; for others, stormy. Rossetti was
definitely one of the latter. Her faith story brings to mind St. Paul’s
words to the Philippians, “work out your salvation with fear and
trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) Faith did not come easy to
Rossetti. She was hyper-conscious of her own flaws and exerted a rigid
control over herself even with close friends. A biographer has written
that her self-control was so extreme that she “retreated behind a mask
of excessive and sometimes offensive politeness,” in an effort to offset
what she saw as her besetting flaws of pride and anger. This
poem, written in 1858 when Rossetti was 28 years old, takes the form of
a dialogue, questions and answers, between two voices. We don’t really
know who either the questioner or the respondent is. But we soon
recognize that much lies beneath the surface. The first
questions are simple, almost childlike. Is it all uphill? And how long
will it take? We are reminded of the proverbial child’s question, “are
we there yet?” The answers to these questions are affirmative. Yes –
this journey is uphill all the way, and it’s not short: it will last
from morning until night – a lifetime. The questioner goes on to
other questions about the end of the journey. How is one to know the
place? What if you get lost? And the answers come, reassuringly. There
will be a place to stay – “a roof for when the slow dark hours begin.”
And there is no getting lost – “you cannot miss that inn.” Others have
done this before, and there will be no waiting: there is room for all,
“beds for all who come.” This poem is full of hope. To every
question, there is a reassuring “yes.” And yet, I find the poem quite
challenging as well. The responses are certainly hopeful, but they are
also vague and sometimes even a bit ominous. When the questioner asks,
“shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak,” the response comes: “Of
labour you shall find the sum.” Whose labor is being referred to here?
It sounds like the “sum” of comfort will depend on the labor of the
individual. In this poem, the uphill journey is, of course, a
metaphor for life itself, with all its challenges; and the inn where we
rest at the end of the day can be read in a variety of ways. On one
level, it speaks of heaven—“in my Father’s house there are many
dwelling-places.” The inn can also be read as the grave that awaits us
all, the “roof” under which we shelter during the “slow dark hours.”
At another level, we can read “Up Hill” as a poem about anything
that is really worth doing. Think of all the uphill journeys in our
lives – and in our society. As Rossetti’s poem makes clear, these
journeys will take everything we have. The answers to our questions will
not come clear and absolute. Little signs of hope are all we are going
to get. In 1865, Rossetti wrote another poem, which is a
companion to “Up Hill.” Entitled “Amor Mundi,” or “Love of the World,”
it also features two speakers in a dialogue. One invites the other on a
journey, this time, a downhill journey: “The downhill path is easy, come
with me an it please ye, / We shall escape the uphill by never turning
back.” At the end of that poem, we realize where that this downhill path
is “hell’s own track.” And the consequences are bleak: “too late for
cost-counting: This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.”
If it’s easy, Rossetti says, be suspicious of it: everything worth doing
is difficult.
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Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud by JOHN DONNE
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou
think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou
kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much
pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best
men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost
with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us
sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more;
Death, thou shalt die.
John Donne was born in 1572 into a staunchly
Catholic family. His uncle was a Jesuit priest, Jasper Heywood, who
spent his life in exile. While a student at Cambridge, Donne refused to
take the oath of supremacy acknowledging the authority of England’s
monarch over matters of religion, and was denied his degree as a result.
He studied law, traveled widely, and even joined the fight against the
Spanish Armada. He had a chequered life story, and is as well known for
his remarkable love poems as he is for his sacred poetry and his
sermons! He eventually joined the Church of England, and in 1615 became
a priest, serving as the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. He was
a renowned preacher. He preached his most famous sermon, “Death’s Duel”
before the court of King Charles I in February, 1631, just a few weeks
before his own death. Death was a constant in Donne’s life. He
and his wife, Anne, had twelve children—two of them were stillborn, and
another three died before the age of ten. Anne died just five days after
giving birth to their last child. In 1623, Donne had a near-fatal
illness about which he wrote in his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions,
which include the famous passage, “never send to know for whom the bell
tolls; it tolls for thee.” All of these experiences
shaped Donne’s attitudes, and his later works are deeply religious—and
sometimes quite dark. In “Death’s Duel,” his famous “last” sermon, Donne
writes that we are doomed from our very birth: “This deliverance, from
the death of the womb, is an entrance, a delivering over to another
death, the manifold deaths of this world; we have a winding-sheet in our
mother’s womb which grows with us from our conception, and we come into
the world wound up in that winding sheet, for we come to seek a grave.”
In the Renaissance convention, death is a fearsome opponent, who
pursues us and inevitably triumphs. But in this famous sonnet, “Death be
not proud,” Donne approaches death in a very different way. Addressing
death directly, Donne mocks death’s power. “Death, be not proud,” he
says. “Some have called thee mighty and dreadful, but thou art not so.”
No, death in this poem is not strong, but weak. Donne builds his case as
the sonnet unfolds. Rest and sleep are common images for death and these
are pleasant things; then death must be, too. The best among us die
young, and what do they find but “rest of their bones, and soules
delivery.” Both good things. In the second half of the sonnet,
Donne hammers home his point. Death is a slave to so many powers--fate,
chance, kings, and desperate men, poison, war, and sickness, all of
which control death’s power. So what reason does death have to be
proud? Death is not in charge. Donne’s final stroke is at
the end of the poem. The real reason death can’t win—is that we can’t
die. After the sleep of death, “we wake eternally.” Donne is evoking St.
Paul in I Corinthians, and the fundamental Christian belief in the
resurrection of the dead. “If the dead are not raised, neither has
Christ been raised… If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we
are the most pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from
the dead.” As Christians, the Resurrection isn’t something that happened
once to Jesus – the Resurrection is our destiny too. “Just as in Adam
all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in
proper order: Christ the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who
belong to Christ… For he must reign until he has put all his enemies
under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
This sonnet wonderfully and dramatically reaffirms this basic Christian
belief. Because Christ is risen, death has no dominion over him—or over
us. Because Christ is risen, we will rise. The liturgy says this so well
in the Easter Sequence: “Death and life have contended in that combat
stupendous. The prince of life who died, reigns immortal.”
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And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon Englands mountains
green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures
seen! And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our
clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark
Satanic Mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my
arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my
Chariot of fire! I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor
shall my sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In
Englands green & pleasant Land.
William Blake
Corinna Laughlin's commentary
William Blake has been called the greatest artist
England ever produced. He was an extraordinary figure—a genius in the
visual arts as well as one of England’s greatest poets. Born in 1757, he
had a vision of God at the age of four, and saw a tree full of angels.
These early spiritual experiences shaped him for life. He was profoundly
Christian, but also deeply eccentric, to the point that he was
considered mad by many of his contemporaries. Blake was a
craftsman, an engraver by trade. At night, he worked on his own
projects, in which image and text are married as they never had been
before. Blake never achieved much commercial success. His works are not
only utterly unconventional; they can also be quite cryptic. And he was
extremely opinionated, which probably did not help: “To generalize is to
be an idiot,” is one of his famous statements. Only long after his
death, well into the twentieth century, did Blake come into his own as
one of the great Romantic voices. “And did those feet,” which we just
heard, has become an unofficial anthem of England, and was even heard at
the royal wedding of Kate and William. Blake’s poem is at one
level very simple. Blake imagines a time when Christ himself, the Lamb
of God, walked the “mountains green” and the “clouded hills” of England,
now marred by “dark Satanic Mills.” It is a poem of resolve, as the
speaker decides to fight with every weapon at his command until England
is the new Jerusalem, “green & pleasant” again. In this poem, as
with all things Blake, there is more than meets the eye. Blake’s poem is
rich in literary allusions. Blake is drawing on a Grail legend,
the stories of King Arthur. As the story goes, when a young boy, Jesus
traveled with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea (the figure mentioned in
the Gospel as giving his new tomb for Christ to be buried). They came
all the way to England, to Glastonbury, to be specific.. After the death
and Resurrection of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is said to have returned
to England to become the first to preach the Gospel to the English.
Blake is playing on that legend. Notice how it’s all in the form of a
question—“did those feet,” “was the Lamb,” “did the Countenance.” He
knows it’s legend, but that doesn’t take away the amazement of Christ’s
presence right in his own world, in his own surroundings. “Was Jerusalem
builded here / Among these dark Satanic Mills” Blake asks. When
Blake wrote this poem (about 1804) the kind of mills we associate with
England’s industrial revolution did not yet exist, but they were on
their way. For Blake, the mill stands in for any rigid, dehumanizing,
and evil influence. In contrast, Christ is associated with the natural
world – light and green, and with all that is “pleasant.” The word
sounds banal to us, but it is a word that speaks of relationship to
humanity. (Notice the word is used twice in this short poem).
Blake is also deeply versed in the Bible, and that comes through here.
The poem recalls the language of the prophets. Blake refers to Christ as
“the holy Lamb of God,” a title for Jesus especially associated with St.
John the Baptist, who pointed out Jesus as “Lamb of God” and who also
ended up dead for speaking truth to power. The third and
fourth stanzas of the poem recall Old Testament prophets, particularly
Elijah. In the second Book of Kings, Elijah asks Elisha what he wants
from him. And Elisha answers that he wants “a double portion of your
spirit.” In other words, he wants to be twice the prophet Elijah was!
And the prayer is granted. Elijah is taken to heaven in “a fiery chariot
and fiery horses,” and young Elisha takes up the prophet’s mantle. Here
Blake is playing Elisha—taking up the prophetic task. The last stanza
recalls the book of the prophet Nehemiah, and the rebuilding of the
walls of Jerusalem. It seems appropriate to read this poem
right after Pentecost. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to rest on all
the disciples in wind and flame. In our Christian tradition, the Spirit
dwells within every member of the baptized. We are all called to be
prophets. Where are the prophetic voices of our own time? And what are
the “dark Satanic mills” in our day that need to be broken so that our
own land can be “green and pleasant” once again, revealed as the very
dwelling place of the Lamb of God?
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Some keep the Sabbath going to Church (236) Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886) Some keep the Sabbath going to Church – I keep
it, staying at Home – With a Bobolink for a Chorister – And an
Orchard, for a Dome – Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings – And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings. God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long, So instead of getting to Heaven, at
last – I’m going, all along.
Hello there! Corinna Laughlin here with the poem of the week.
For this week, I have chosen a classic by American poet Emily Dickinson.
Jackie O’Ryan will read the poem, then I will be back to offer a brief
commentary. Thank you, Jackie! You can see why we need
this Emily Dickinson poem right now! Emily Dickinson is one of the
greatest American poets; indeed, she is one of the greatest poets in the
English language. Born in 1830 in western Massachusetts, her childhood
was quite a normal one. Her father was a prominent attorney who even
served in the US House of Representatives. He was an imposing figure.
Dickinson admitted to a friend that she did not learn to tell time until
she was fifteen because she was too intimidated to tell her father she
didn’t understand his explanation. As a young woman, Dickinson
went off to school—Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, now Mount Holyoke
College, in nearby South Hadley. Established in 1837 by Mary Lyon, an
extraordinary figure, it was one of the first and best colleges for
women in the United States. It was an intensely religious environment,
and the school proudly displayed the names of graduates who had gone on
to Christian missionary work around the world. During Emily
Dickinson’s year at Mt Holyoke, the students would be regularly
questioned about whether they were “saved” or not, and categorized as
“professors,” “hopers,” and “no hopers.” Emily Dickinson landed among
the “no hopers.” The preaching and the emphasis on an emotional
conversion experience was constant. This is a sample of one of Mary
Lyon’s addresses to the students: “Do you not know that you are now
exposed to God’s wrath, that a miserable eternity awaits you?” This
religious language was not unusual; in fact, it was typical of New
England religious experience at the time. The emphasis on
conversion may have been part of the reason she left Mt Holyoke after
just one year, still classed among the no-hopers. Back home in Amherst,
a religious revival was underway. Over the years, many members of the
Dickinson family had conversion experiences and became active members of
local congregations, but Dickinson did not. She gradually became a
recluse, living in self-imposed isolation from her community and even
from much of her family. There were many reasons for this, but her sense
of religious isolation surely played its part. So was Dickinson
a “no hoper”? I think her poetry gives us the clear answer to that—no!
She was nourished by the Bible, and her writing is profoundly imbued
with Christian themes. In one poem, she wrote simply, “I know that he
exists.” God is ever-present and a number of her poems are addressed
directed to Christ. But when it came to church, Dickinson
remained profoundly skeptical. That is clearly evident in this short,
playful poem. While others go to church, Dickinson stays home and keeps
the sabbath in her own way. She has everything she needs—a chorister, a
dome, and even a noted clergyman - God. I have always loved
this poem, but I have always mentally argued with Dickinson at the same
time. What about community? We need each other! We need our shared
worship. During this lockdown, however, I have found this poem to take
on a whole new meaning. Now, when we cannot gather as community,
“keeping the sabbath” in our accustomed way, we can learn from Dickinson
other ways to keep the sabbath. In particular, we learn that God speaks
to us through the beauty of the natural world, with birds as our
choristers, trees for a dome, even a little sexton or sacristan—and of
course, God, the most noted clergyman of all, doing the preaching. Most
of us hopefully have had a chance to do a little more walking, a little
more looking around, and have been able to sense in new ways God’s
presence in creation. In the final lines of the poem, Dickinson
says, “instead of getting to heaven at last, I’m going, all along.” This
attitude is so different from the theology she heard from the religious
leaders of her day. Heaven is not a reward for the few, bestowed by a
judging and reluctant God. Heaven is quite simply being in God’s
presence. I am reminded of the words of the French Carmelite
mystic, St Elizabeth of the Trinity: “It seems to me that I have found
my heaven on earth, because my heaven is you, my God, and you are in my
soul.” I think Elizabeth and Emily might have a lot to say to
each other!
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The Virgin at Noon | Paul Claudel It is
noon. I see the church, open. I must go in. Mother of Jesus Christ, I
do not come to pray. I have nothing to offer and nothing to ask.
I come, Mother, only to look at you. To look at you, to weep for
happiness, knowing that I am your son, and that you are there.
Just one moment while everything stops. Noon! To be with you,
Mary, in this place where you are. Not to say anything, but only
to sing Because the heart is too full; Like the blackbird that
pursues its idea In impromptu couplets like these. Because
you are beautiful, because you are immaculate, The woman at last
restored in Grace, The creature in her first dignity And in
her final glory, Just as she came forth from God in the morning Of
her original splendor. Ineffably intact because you are the
Mother of Jesus Christ, Who is the Truth carried in your arms, and
the only hope And the only fruit. Because you are the woman,
The Eden of the old forgotten tenderness, Whose glance finds the
heart suddenly And makes the pent-up tears overflow. Because
it is noon, Because we are in this moment, today, Because you are
there, always, Simply because you are Mary, Simply because you
exist, Mother of Jesus Christ, thanks be to you!
Translation by Corinna Laughlin
Corinna Laughlin's reflection:
Paul Claudel was born in 1868 into a typical bourgeois French
household. Though baptized a Catholic, religion was not really part of
his life and by his teens he was a non-believer. At the age of 18, he
went on a whim to Notre Dame in Paris for Mass on Christmas Day.
As he later wrote, he thought the ceremonies might give him some good
material for a few decadent poems. Later that afternoon, he returned for
Christmas Vespers. And something happened. “I was towards the
front of the crowd, close to the second pillar at the entrance to the
choir, to the right on the sacristy side. It was then that the event
happened which has dominated my entire life. In an instant, my heart was
touched and I believed. I believed, with such strength… that ever since,
no books, no reasonings, none of the vicissitudes of a restless life,
have been able to shake my faith, nor, truth to tell, even to touch it.”
Claudel tried to join the Benedictines, but was turned down. He entered
the diplomatic service instead, and served all over the world, including
the US, where he made the cover of Time magazine! His prolific
writing—poetry, prose, and drama—was deeply imbued with his Catholic
faith. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize six times. For
Claudel, that transforming moment of conversion was closely associated
with Mary. Though he did not know it at the time, he later realized that
his conversion had taken place as the choir began to sing Mary’s song,
the Magnificat. Claudel wrote, tongue in cheek, “After all,
woman, it was you who made the first move…. Everything that has happened
since, I can’t help it, you are responsible!” Something of that
same loving and playful tone comes through in today’s poem Claudel
describes entering a church at Noon, which is of course the hour of the
Angelus, a traditional Catholic prayer to Mary. But Claudel says,
surprisingly, “I do not come to pray. I have nothing to offer and
nothing to ask.” So why is he there? “not to say anything, but only to
sing.” He simply wants to be in Mary’s presence, as in the presence of a
mother. In the second half of the poem, Claudel meditates on the
uniqueness of Mary. Mary is the New Eve, giving us a glimpse of God’s
creation in its “first dignity,” before the fall; and she is also God’s
creature “in her final glory,” for in Mary’s Assumption, we glimpse the
dignity of each human person, destined to share in the Resurrection of
the Body. At the end of the poem, Claudel steps back from the
grandeur of this theologically rich imagery about Mary, and returns to
the simplicity with which he began. He gives thanks, simply because Mary
is there—simply because Mary is.
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Denise Levertov: “Annunciation” from St. James Cathedral, Seattle on Vimeo.
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Denise Levertov, “Annuciation”
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished, almost always a
lectern, a book; always the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings, the angelic ambassador,
standing or hovering, whom she acknowledges, a guest. But we
are told of meek obedience. No one mentions courage. The
engendering Spirit did not enter her without consent.
God waited. She was free to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.
____________________ Aren’t there annunciations of one sort or
another in most lives?
Some unwillingly undertake great destinies, enact them in sullen
pride, uncomprehending. More often those moments
when roads of light and storm open from
darkness in a man or woman, are turned away from in dread, in a
wave of weakness, in despair and with relief. Ordinary lives
continue.
God does not smite them. But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
____________________ She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child–but unlike others, wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph. Compassion and intelligence fused in her,
indivisible. Called to a destiny more momentous than any in
all of Time, she did not quail, only asked a simple,
‘How can this be?’ and gravely, courteously, took to heart the
angel’s reply, the astounding ministry she was offered: to
bear in her womb Infinite weight and lightness; to carry in
hidden, finite inwardness, nine months of Eternity; to contain in
slender vase of being, the sum of power– in narrow flesh, the
sum of light.
Then bring to birth, push out into air, a Man-child needing, like
any other, milk and love–
but who was God. This
was the moment no one speaks of, when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting.
____________________ She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’ She did not submit with gritted
teeth,
raging, coerced. Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her. The room filled with its light, the lily
glowed in it,
and the iridescent wings. Consent,
courage unparalleled, opened her utterly.
Corinna Laughlin's reflection During this
month of May, we are exploring poems about Mary. This week, we’ll
explore “Annunciation” by 20th century poet Denise Levertov. We have a
special guest reader this week, Cathedral parishioner Jackie O’Ryan.
Jackie will read the poem, then I’ll be back to offer a brief
commentary.
Denise Levertov was born in 1923 in Essex, England,
and died in 1997 in Seattle, Washington. Her mother was Welsh and her
father was a Russian Jew, who converted to Christianity and became a
minister of the Church of England. It was a very artistic household.
[ QUOTE FROM LEVERTOV ] As a young woman, Levertov moved to the
United States and considered herself an American poet. She was always
very engaged with justice issues, and served as the poetry editor for
the magazine The Nation for a number of years. She wrote about spiritual
themes all her life, though it was not until she was teaching at
Stanford in the 1980s that she began her own journey from agnostic to
Christian. In 1989, she moved to Seattle, where she lived near Seward
Park and fell in love with Mount Rainier. The mountain became a symbol
of God for her, always present, whether “out” or not. [QUOTE FROM
LEVERTOV] Levertov entered the Catholic Church at St. Edward’s
Parish in Seattle in 1990. She died in 1997 at the age of 74, and is
buried in Seattle’s Lakeview Cemetery. In this poem, Levertov
evokes familiar paintings of the Annunciation—“we know the scene,” she
says – the room, the book, the lily, the angel. But then she delves into
the part of the story we may not focus on. This is not a story about
“meek obedience,” she says, but “courage.” God did not require anything
of Mary—she was free to accept or to reject. That choice, Levertov says,
is “integral to humanness.” In the central part of the poem,
Levertov asks whether there are annunciations in everyone’s life—but not
everyone responds as Mary did. “Some unwillingly /undertake great
destinies, / enact them in sullen pride, / uncomprehending.” Others
simply turn away when a difficult path opens in front of them – “in
dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair / and with relief. Ordinary
lives continue.” When we refuse, Levertov says in a wonderful insight,
“God does not smite” us. But nevertheless, something is lost. “The gates
close, the pathway vanishes.” At the end of the poem, Levertov
comes back to that room where the angel is awaiting Mary’s answer.
Levertov gives us a unique and very relatable idea of what it meant for
Mary to be free from original sin: “she had been a child… like any other
child—but unlike others, wept only for pity, laughed in joy, not
triumph. Compassion and intelligence fused in her, indivisible.” It was
this freedom which allowed Mary to consent to God’s plan, not
reluctantly, but with total openness and trust. At the end of the poem,
Levertov imagines what happens next, after Mary’s consent, and the light
and transformation it brings: “The room filled with its light, / the
lily glowed in it, /
and the iridescent wings. / Consent, /
courage unparalleled, / opened her utterly.” Mary’s “Yes” to God
is not passive: consenting to God’s will is, rather “courage
unparalleled.”
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William Wordsworth “The Virgin” Mother!
whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin
allied. Woman! above all women glorified, Our tainted nature's
solitary boast; Purer than foam on central ocean tost; Brighter
than eastern skies at daybreak strewn With fancied roses, than the
unblemished moon Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween, Not unforgiven the
suppliant knee might bend, As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in thee Of mother's love with
maiden purity, Of high with low, celestial with terrene!
Corinna Laughlin's reflection
May is Mary’s Month, so this month we’ll be reading poems about
Mary, from classic and contemporary poets. For this first week of May,
I’ve chosen William Wordsworth’s sonnet, “The Virgin.” William
Wordsworth was born in 1770 and died in 1850. There was a lot of sadness
in Wordsworth’s life, starting with the death of his parents – he was
orphaned by the age of 13. Three of his five children predeceased him.
He found his joy in the glorious landscape of the Lake District, where
he spent most of his life. That landscape filled his poetry. Wordsworth,
with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, became one of the great English
Romantic poets. They were pioneers of a new approach to poetry,
characterized by close observation of the natural world, simpler
language, and an emphasis on subjectivity—the interior life of the poet.
“The Virgin” is a later poem, part of a sequence of 47 sonnets
written in 1821 and 1822, when Wordsworth was in his early fifties. The
sonnets tell the whole story of the Christian faith in England.
Wordsworth was a staunch Anglican—who would, he said, shed his blood for
the Church of England. In this sonnet, Wordsworth expresses
great sympathy for Catholic devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The
poem is addressed directly to Mary. Wordsworth uses ideas and images
that recall Catholic beliefs about Mary: she is the Immaculate
Conception – in the poem’s most famous line, Wordsworth says she is “our
tainted nature’s solitary boast”—the one person free from original sin.
The imagery he uses to highlight Mary’s purity—comparisons to the ocean,
daybreak, the moon –all resonate with Catholic prayers about Mary, whom
we invoke as “Morning Star” and “Star of the Sea.” All of this
makes the turn the poem takes halfway through more shocking: “Thy
Image falls to earth.” Wordsworth is talking here about the English
Reformation, what has been called “the stripping of the altars,” when
statues of Mary and the saints were destroyed in an effort to purify the
faith of English Christianity. While later, images of Mary and the
saints, and tabernacles, would return to Anglican worship, at the time
Wordsworth is writing, that had not yet become common. At the
end of the poem, Wordsworth expresses his gentle sympathy with those who
turn to Mary in prayer. His language is quite tentative—“some… not
unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,” he says—notice the double
negative. Wordsworth understands why we Catholics are drawn to Mary, and
perhaps wishes that he, too, could turn to her in prayer. For
Wordsworth, Mary is the best of both worlds—she combines a “mother’s
love” and “maiden’s purity,” high and low, earthly and heavenly—“our
tainted nature’s solitary boast.”
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Poem of the Week: R. S. Thomas’ “Folk Tale” from St. James Cathedral, Seattle on Vimeo.
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R. S. Thomas, “Folktale” (1986) Prayers like
gravel flung at the sky’s window, hoping to attract the loved
one’s attention. But without visible plaits to let down for the
believer to climb up, to what purpose open that far casement?
I would have refrained long since but that peering once through
my locked fingers I thought that I detected the movement of a
curtain. Corinna Laughlin's commentary:
Today, we’re going to explore a poem by 20th century Welsh poet R. S.
Thomas. Scott will read Thomas’s short poem “Folk Tale” and then I’ll be
back to offer a brief commentary. R. S. Thomas is probably the
most renowned 20th century poet no one has ever heard of. He was born in
Wales in 1913 and died there in 2000. Ordained a priest of the Anglican
Church in Wales in 1936, he spent much of his life as a priest in small
parishes in rural Wales. In 1940, he married Mildred “Elsi”
Eldridge, a gifted artist. Her renown as a painter inspired him to “wish
to be recognized as a poet.” His first collection of poems
appeared in 1946, and many more followed. In 1996, he was nominated for
the Nobel Prize in Literature. Thomas was a bit of a Luddite, and his
son Gwydion later recalled sermons in which he railed against
refrigerators and other modern appliances. The only modern convenience
the family ever owned was a vacuum which they never used because it was
too noisy. The primary themes of Thomas’s poetry are the
landscape and seascape of Wales, the country people with whom he
ministered, and the elusive nature of faith and prayer. In
“Folk Tale,” Thomas evokes the familiar story of Rapunzel, who lived in
a tower, and let down her hair to admit her mother—and, later, her
prince. In Thomas’s poem, God is Rapunzel, hidden from view. Unlike
Rapunzel, there are no “visible plaits to let down for the believer to
climb up”—so why open the window at all? “I would have refrained
long since,” the poet says, “but that peering once through my locked
fingers I thought that I detected the movement of a curtain.” Looking
through “locked fingers”—through hands folded in prayer—he sensed
movement in that far off window, and this glimpse was enough to keep him
tossing gravel at the window, to keep him praying. In this poem,
Thomas playfully evokes the hard work that prayer is sometimes, and how
elusive God can seem. Only by recalling that “movement of a curtain,”
that sense of God’s presence, do we keep going, keep tossing gravel at
the window, like Rapunzel’s prince, and longing for union.
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God’s Grandeur Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844-1889) The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men
then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have
trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared,
smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and
shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being
shod. And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the
last lights off the black West went Oh, morning,
at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over
the bent World broods with warm breast and with
ah! bright wings.
Corinna Laughlin's commentary:
On April 22, we observe the 50th annual Earth Day. So
this week, our poem is one with a strong ecological theme: Gerard
Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur.” Scott Webster will read the poem, then
I’ll be back to offer a brief commentary. Gerard Manley Hopkins
was born in 1844. In 1866, as an Oxford undergraduate, he was received
into the Catholic Church by now St. John Henry Newman. This was a
momentous decision, as Hopkins knew he would face significant opposition
from his devoutly Anglican family, and indeed his entry into the Church
cost Hopkins friendships and caused estrangements in his family which
never fully healed. Hopkins had always loved poetry, but he
gave it up when he resolved to become a Jesuit. "By God's grace,” he
wrote, “I resolved to give up all beauty until I had His leave for it."
For seven years, he wrote almost nothing, until one of his Jesuit
superiors asked him to write a poem. This opened the floodgates of his
creativity, and Hopkins developed his unique voice and style in
extraordinary poems for the rest of his short life—he died at age 44 in
1889. In this sonnet, Hopkins describes the world being as being
“charged” with the grandeur of God. The word “charged” can mean “full”
or “loaded”; it can also suggest an electric “charge”—Hopkins is playing
on both meanings here. It’s characteristic of Hopkins to use a wonderful
variety of images to capture his meaning. The world is so full of God
that divinity flashes out, like light on a shaken piece of foil; it
oozes God, as a crushed olive oozes oil. Why, then, Hopkins
asks, do men not “reck his rod”—why do people not recognize God’s power
in creation? Instead, they keep at their destructive work,
exploiting creation, making it less divine and more human—the earth has
taken on our “smudge,” our smell. At the same time, ironically, we are
becoming ever more alienated from nature—we no longer touch it directly,
like a foot in a shoe. In the second part of the sonnet, Hopkins
gives a glimpse of hope. “There lives the dearest freshness deep down
things.” This idea of the deep, unique life that all living things have,
is one of the hallmarks of Hopkins’ thought. No matter how dark things
get, there is the hope of dawn, because God has not abandoned the
world—the Holy Ghost broods over the earth like a dove on her nest.
Hopkins’ ecological vision resonates with that of another
Jesuit—Pope Francis. In “Laudato Si,” his encyclical letter on Care for
our common home, Pope Francis writes: “The ultimate destiny of the
universe is in the fullness of God…. The ultimate purpose of other
creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving
forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which
is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces
and illumines all things.”
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Easter Wings by George Herbert Lord, who createdst man in wealth and
store, Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more, Till he became
Most poore: With
thee O let me rise As larks,
harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall
the fall further the flight in me.
My tender age in sorrow did
beginne And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne, That I
became Most thinne.
With thee Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie: For, if I imp my
wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
Corinna Laughlin's commentary:
For this Easter week, I’ve chosen a
classic—“Easter Wings” by the 17th-century poet George Herbert.
Parishioner Scott Webster will read the poem, then I’ll be back to offer
a brief commentary. George Herbert was born in Wales in 1593. He
was a superb scholar, and poems by him survive not only in English but
in Latin and Greek! He had a brilliant academic career at Cambridge,
holding significant posts at a very young age, and then went into
Parliament. In 1629, at the age of 36, for a variety of reasons, he
changed course. He sought ordination in the Anglican Church, and became
rector at the tiny country church of Fugglestone St. Peter in Bemerton,
England. It was here that Herbert wrote “Easter Wings,” part of a
collection of poems called The Temple. His time as a country parson was
brief—he died of tuberculosis in 1633, at the age of 39. Herbert
was one of the “metaphysical poets,” along with poets like John Donne
and Andrew Marvell. Some of the characteristics of metaphysical poetry
are evident in “Easter Wings.” There’s an intricacy to the meter and
rhyme, and a strong central image or “conceit”: in this case, wings!
Herbert uses images of rising and falling, flying and sinking. When you
look at the printed text, you can see that wings isn’t just a dominant
image—it’s the shape of the poem itself! Why wings at Easter? In
the first stanza, Herbert talks about the creation story – how God gave
Adam (and Eve) everything, “though foolishly he lost the same,” becoming
“most poor.” But, Herbert says, if we rise with Christ, that first fall
will only “further the flight in me.” The second stanza echoes
that pattern, speaking this time not of Adam’s fall, but of his own.
But, he says, addressing Christ, “if I imp my wing on thine, Affliction
shall advance the flight in me.” “Imp” is a term from the art of
falconry, and refers to repairing a damaged wing with feathers from a
healthy one. In other words, sin is like a broken wing, preventing us
from soaring--but through our Easter union with Christ, we can fly with
his wings—we can rise. Herbert’s poem is a very clever
illustration of the Christian idea of the “felix culpa,” the “happy
fault.” This is a phrase from the Easter proclamation, the Exsultet,
which Father Ryan sang at the Easter Vigil. “O happy fault, O necessary
sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer.” Had Adam and Eve
not eaten the fruit, there would have been no need for Christ’s
redeeming action. God turns the fall into a blessing – giving us wings
to rise all the way to him. Happy Easter!
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Good Friday by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) Am I a stone,
and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross, To
number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon – I, only I. Yet
give not o’er, But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock.
Corinna Laughlin commentary: Christina Rossetti was born in
London in 1830 and died in 1894. She was from a remarkably
talented family. Her siblings all did remarkable things – her brother
Dante Gabriel was a renowned poet and painter; her sister wrote a book
on Dante; her brother William a noted critic and editor. Through her
brothers, she was closely linked with the PreRaphaelite movement, and
she appears as the Virgin Mary in Dante Rossetti’s famous Annunciation,
and as St. Elizabeth of Hungary in a painting by James Collinson, to
whom she was briefly engaged. Rossetti had a happy childhood,
but in her teenage years she experienced the first of several serious
bouts with depression, something she would struggle with all her life.
Her Christian faith was at the center of her life and of her writing.
In her poem “Good Friday,” Rossetti asks herself a question. “Am I
a stone,” she asks, that she can stand beneath the cross and yet not
weep? She draws on details from the Gospel accounts of Christ’s Passion
and notes that everyone reacted to Christ’s suffering—the women wept;
Peter wept; the good thief was moved; even the sun and moon “hid their
faces in a starless sky” in eclipse. She feels like she’s the only one
who can’t seem to feel anything. Why can’t she feel?
Rossetti isn’t just beating herself up here. She’s giving an accurate
description of “acedia,” a spiritual torpor or apathy which we all
experience sometimes. Rossetti responds in a healthy way to acedia: she
acknowledges it and she prays about it. At the end of the poem, she
addresses Christ, saying, “Greater than Moses, turn and look once more /
And smite a rock.” Just as Moses, at God’s command, struck the rock so
that water flowed out for the Israelites to drink, Rossetti prays that
Christ will break her open, so that she can feel with him and for him in
his Passion. This year, as we celebrate Holy Week under
unprecedented circumstances, let’s not beat ourselves up if we find it
hard to feel through our distraction, busyness, or anxiety. Instead,
let’s pray with Rossetti for the grace to be broken open, to see and to
feel with Christ during these Holy Days. Have a blessed Holy Week.
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Enclosure Jessica Powers (1905-1988)
Gypsy by nature, how can I endure it— This small strict space, this
meager patch of sky? What madness once possessed me to procure it?
And deed it to myself until I die? What could the wise Teresa
have been thinking to set these bounds on even my little love?
This walling, barring, minimizing, shrinking— how could her great
Castilian heart approve? And yet I meet the morrow with
composure. Before I made my plaint I found the clue and learned
the secret to outwit enclosure because of summits and a mountain
view. You question, then, the presence of a mountain? Yet it
is here past earth’s extravagant guess— Mount Carmel with its famed
Elian fountain, and God encountered in its wilderness. Its
trails outrun the most adept explorer, outweigh the gypsy’s most
inordinate need. Its heights cry out to mystic and adorer. Oh,
here are space and distances indeed. (1944)
Reflection Hello there! Corinna Laughlin here. I’m the
Pastoral Assistant for Liturgy at St. James. Over the years, parishioner
Scott Webster and I have offered many literary evenings at the
Cathedral, reading and discussing stories and poetry. Since we can’t do
that right now, we’ve decided to offer a poem a week, virtually. Scott
will read the poem, and then I’ll offer a short commentary. The first
poem I’ve chosen is “Enclosure,” by Jessica Powers, also known as Sister
Miriam of the Holy Spirit, a Carmelite nun who lived from 1905 to 1988.
I think her experience of “enclosure” will resonate at this time when so
many of us are confined to our homes. Here’s Scott reading Jessica
powers’ “Enclosure.” Thank you, Scott! The poem begins
with a question—“gypsy by nature, how can I endure it?” Jessica Powers
was a bit of a gypsy. She grew up in an Irish Catholic household in
rural Wisconsin but after studies at Marquette, she moved to Chicago and
later to New York City at the age of 32. She spent five years in the New
York literary scene – writing for the New York Times and publishing
poetry. Then, in 1941, she moved back to Wisconsin and entered the
Carmelite Monastery of the Mother of God in Milwaukee. Jessica Powers
became Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit. Carmelites are
cloistered, which means they do not leave the monastery grounds, or
“enclosure,” except for essentials, like doctors’ appointments. Visitors
are traditionally seen at a distance, through a grille or screen. In
these days of sheltering in place and social distancing, we are all
getting a taste of Carmelite enclosure! Jessica Powers
wrote “Enclosure” about seven years after her entrance into the
monastery. In the first part of the poem, she humorously expresses the
frustration that comes with being enclosed—“walling, barring,
minimizing, shrinking.” What, she asks, could she have been thinking?
What could St. Teresa have been thinking? But in the second
part of the poem, Powers answers her own question. How can she endure
enclosure? Because God is present. She draws on the rich imagery of
Carmelite spirituality—mountains, wilderness, flowing water—to point
towards the rich interior landscape which is always accessible, even—or
perhaps especially—when we are “enclosed.”
Corinna Laughlin
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804 Ninth Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98104
Phone 206.622.3559 Fax 206.622.5303
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