I hunger for a transcendent reality — the good, the true, the beautiful, those things which somehow lie beyond mere argument. Yet often, as a writer, a pastor and simply a person online, I find that my life is dominated by debate, controversy and near strangers in shouting matches about politics or church doctrine. This past year in particular was marked by vitriol and divisiveness. I am exhausted by the rancor.
In this weary and vulnerable place, poetry whispers of truths that cannot be confined to mere rationality or experience. In a seemingly wrecked world, I’m drawn to Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Autumn” and recall that “there is One who holds this falling/Infinitely softly in His hands.”… I think a particular gift of poetry for our moment is that good poems reclaim the power and grace of words.
Indeed, in our age of social media, words are often used as weapons. Poetry instead treats words with care. They are slowly fashioned into lanterns — things that can illuminate and guide. Debate certainly matters. Arguments matter. But when the urgent controversies of the day seem like all there is to say about life and death or love or God, poetry reminds me of those mysterious truths that can’t be reduced solely to linear thought…
In one of my very favorite poems, “Pied Beauty,” Gerard Manley Hopkins writes of a beauty that is “past change.” In this world where our political, technological and societal landscape shifts at breakneck speed, many of us still quietly yearn for a beauty beyond change. Poetry stands then as a kind of collective cry beckoning us beyond that which even our best words can say.
— Tish Harrison Warren, from “Why Poetry Is So Crucial Right Now” (NY, Times, Aug. 29, 2021). Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America and the author of “Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep.”
(And again I say) Amen!
Thank you for coming back and repeating! Amen to that1
“Indeed, in our age of social media, words are often used as weapons. Poetry instead treats words with care. They are slowly fashioned into lanterns — things that can illuminate and guide.”
When im stressed or scared of something, I run to a couple of lines of poetry like a lifeline, holding for dear life.
Yes!
It is easy to get caught up in the ever-changing madness of the day. To hope to find sense from the senseless is a fool’s errand. A note to the religious: ministers, priests, nuns and laity. Christ took to the cross not for political nor social issues. He preached against injustice. But His mission was to be crucified so that the sins of man could be forgiven thereby reconciling God the creator with His creatures again. And that the gates once closed, by “The Fall”, to heaven would be reopened for those who too will take up their cross and follow Christ. Church clergy’s and religious’ purpose is TO SAVE SOULS. And that is where their main focus should remain. That is why Christ so commissioned them. He reminded the Apostles at the time when their attention turned to the unfair human condition before them and away from Christ, that the poor would always be with them and deserving of their comfort and empathy, but He would not be with them for long and they had much to learn.
He commanded that under humility, for all to simply love God and love your neighbor. In doing so requires that one love his enemy as well. G.K. Chesterton tells us that “Our neighbor and enemy often are the same.”
So, to all, let the world be caught up in the rages and fads of the day and you stay clear of that snare. For all are fleeting. But the word of God is unwavering truth, ever reliable and everlasting. Too much time spent in the midst of chaos is right where Satan wants us.
-Alan
Thanks Alan. This line stuck: “So, to all, let the world be caught up in the rages and fads of the day and you stay clear of that snare”. I’m working on it. Dave
Persevere, my friend.
Working on it Alan. Working on it.