The Limits of Book-Learning (GH Day 17)

I love books, which is no doubt rather obvious: just look at my blog title. I read the great books, of course (usually to teach them), but I also read books of information--you know, the self-help-ish type. If only books were all we need to have all of the answers about life. Wouldn't that be simple and time-efficient? Sadly, despite all the advice out there, no book can actually tell me how to write my current academic article or how to be organized all the time or how in the world to find a spouse.

Probably my favorite stanza from George Herbert's poem "Affliction (1)" (one of 5 poems named "Affliction" in The Temple) expresses this kind of frustration and more:

Now I am here, what Thou wilt do with me
          None of my books will show:
I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,—
          For sure then I should grow
To fruit or shade; at least some bird would trust
Her household to me, and I should be just. (stanza10)

Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds (

Huntington Library, CA)

Herbert's speaker here feels thwarted and therefore useless in his life. Surely we've all felt that way: the things we've sought after, desired, worked toward have not come to fruition, and now we're "lost," aimless. So now what, we wonder? That's the point where the speaker is in this poem. (I'll have to go into other parts of the long-ish poem at a later time.)

Feeling  thwarted and useless, the speaker somewhat humorously wishes he were not a human, but a tree. Why? Trees have an obvious function and literal + figurative direction of growth. They can't have a different trajectory in their lives (can't decide to try out life as a dandelion or an armadillo, for instance), and it must be nice to have an exact destiny and use: bearing fruit to nourish or a place to nest. In some way contributing to life and the lives of other creatures.

Interestingly, "I am here" is similar to what Isaiah's response to his calling is: "here am I, Lord" (Is 6:8). So, is Herbert's speaker offering himself up for service to "what Thou wilt do with me," or is Herbert's reversal of Isaiah's wording significant? In other words, a factual statement, but not an attitude of readiness. The final stanza in the poem suggests this speaker, suffering through affliction of both body and soul, is not yet ready to submit himself to the Lord--that is, until perhaps the last 2, admittedly ambiguous lines:

Yet, though Thou troublest me, I must be meek;  
          In weakness must be stout.
Well, I will change the service, and go seek
          Some other master out.
Ah, my dear God, though I am clean forgot,
Let me not love Thee, if I love Thee not. (stanza 11)

Still in a position of struggling to find answers, the speaker seems finally to yield: his ultimate desire is to love and serve God, despite affliction and even despite feeling strongly that God has abandoned him (a sentiment not uncommon in the Psalms--see Ps 22, for example). It's frustrating not to have all--or sometimes any--of the answers for why our often good ambitions are thwarted, but "I am here," and, to re-organize Herbert's words into an imperative, "do what Thou wilt with me."