| As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; | |
| As tumbled over rim in roundy wells | |
| Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s | |
| Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; | |
| Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: | 5 |
| Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; | |
| Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, | |
| Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came. | |
| Í say móre: the just man justices; | |
| Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; | 10 |
| Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is— | |
| Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, | |
| Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his | |
| To the Father through the features of men’s faces. | |
Thursday, June 08, 2006
you give them something to eat, part ii
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I've never read a poem that has affected me like this one has. The last stanza almost brings me to tears.
"Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces."
Likewise. And the sobering thought to me is that we are just discovering this treasure, but it was found and unveiled long ago, by another, maybe hundreds of others, which means that it has been buried under a hundred and fifty years of religious cow patties. I wonder if a hundred and fifty years from now it will be discovered again, or if we will be buried as well.
I see in this poetry the marriage of fate and freedom, of pleasure and purpose, and I recognize that there is no distinction between the me and the Christ except the rebel acts I choose for myself, which is to say except for where I try.
I find myself hoping backwards as much as forwards. I hope that the Life has been here all along, visible on the faces of the unlovely, the poor, the unwise, the forgotten lovely ones.
Nothing is as it seems _now_. People look for Jesus where He can't be found. Religious intellectualism is to some extent a "cause", but I believe a better word is, it was a "continuation" of what has happened throughout history.
Knowledge blinds us to the face of Jesus. Our own efforts hinder His life from living out in ours. When we turn our faces from that which is ugly, we turn our faces from Christ.
This has been the case since the dawn of creation, that much is easy to see.
But it isn't our blindness that keeps Jesus from appearing.
Every day in the history of the planet, this poem has been true. There just has never been more than a remnant who could see it.
"...He who has ears, let him hear."
The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"
He replied,
"The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever _has_ will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does _not have_, even what he has will be taken from him.
This is why I speak to them in parables:
Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."
I posted that passage because Isaiah's assessment, and Jesus' assessment, and our assessment of the situation of the day are the same.
People know so much, but are ignorant. They see so small and so large, but are blind. There is so much being said, but it falls on deaf ears.
Is it any worse today than ever before? It seems worse for me, but only because I happen to be living today. But I feel Isaiah's pain, and I feel Jesus' pain.
Blessed are we, for the healing is available still.
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