Saturday, May 20, 2017

The God Pause for Sunday, 21 May 2017 - The Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States - Poem: "God's Grandeur," Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877

The God Pause for Sunday, 21 May 2017 - The Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States - Poem: "God's Grandeur," Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877Poem: "God's Grandeur," Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877
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.
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In this Easter season we are reminded, often through song and poetry, of the world springing again to life. A distinctive feature of Hopkins' writing is sprung rhythm--an intentional disruption of the meter that wonderfully surprises the reader. For instance, the repetition of the phrase "have trod" and internal rhymes like "seared," "bleared" and "smeared" all interrupt our expectations of the meter. Also, beginning a line with an unexpected end of a thought surprises us, for example, when he introduces "the ooze of oil" only to have it "crushed"--the choice of the verb is evocative and startling. But is that not the nature of the God we worship? Is not the charge of such grandeur inevitably surprising? Is not the Easter miracle always meant to spring on us unexpected, when we feel mired in the funereal meter of Good Friday? Just like nature, the charge of God's grandeur "is never spent."
Easter God, help our rhythms to spring forth from the grandeur of your charge. May we internalize the poetry of your rising as the world does and never cease to be surprised by such grandeur. In Jesus' springing name. Amen.
Sam Bardwell, '15
Actor, Minneapolis, Minn.
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The Luther Seminary
2481 Como Ave.nue
Saint Paul, Minnesota, 55108, United States
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