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."

The Philosopher's Stone (GH Day 16)

I'm quite fond of the Harry Potter series. Currently, I'm listening to the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (the misnamed American title), on audiobook in my car. In that book, Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that the philosopher's stone (the book's original, more appropriate name) has two desirable properties: (1) it turns base metals to gold and (2) it is used to create the elixir of life, which can grant immortality to the one who drinks it.

In this first Harry Potter book, J. K. Rowling drew from a long history in literature and the early natural sciences regarding the search for this mythical, miraculous philosopher's stone. George Herbert, nearly 400 years earlier, draws upon this same imagery for the central metaphor of his poem, "The Elixir." Here's the text from Luminarium.org:

THE ELIXIR.                       
TEACH me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast,
To run into action ;
But still to make Thee prepossest,
And give it his* perfection.

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav'n espy.

All may of Thee partake ;
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his* tincture (for Thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine :
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold ;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.  

*Note that "his" both times should probably be translated "its."

Playing with the two benefits of the philosopher's stone and melding them into one, Herbert as poet-alchemist also transmutes a physical object providing tangible benefits into an attitude of the mind and heart yielding spiritual benefits.

The spiritual attitude that becomes the key to kingdom living is introduced for us in the first and second stanzas: seeing God in everything and keeping that perspective foremost in our minds. This overview is followed in stanza 3 by an analogy illustrating the concept: looking at the window versus looking through or beyond the window is like looking at our task versus seeing beyond it to the attitude we have while performing the task. We can have just the glass in front of our noses, or we can have "heaven" (line 12).

The words "mean" and "tincture" in stanza 4 take some clarification, and I find this to be the least lucid stanza. "Mean" is not an attitude, but refers to something low or base and is a hierarchical classification (e.g., a mean and humble cottage versus a grand palace). "Tincture" is an alchemical term. Helen Wilcox's note in her English Poems of George Herbert references the OED definition: "a spiritual principle infused into material things," probably, Wilcox comments, alluding to the sacraments, through which we may "partake" of Christ (line 13). I also think that "partake" applies to partaking of the divine perspective that forms the central idea of the poem and is the "famous stone" (line 21).    

Herbert follows his earlier analogy with the example in stanza 5 of sweeping a room, a mundane task that is like a base metal. An attitude of doing the task for God (1 Corinthians 10:31) is like the philosopher's stone: our mundane task can be turned into a "golden" one with the perspective that we're working heartily unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23).

It's a perspective that keeps the eternal in focus, reminding us that Jesus said he came into the world that we might have life and have it more abundantly. If we let him "own" us (line 23), he will turn us, through the process of sanctification and the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), into gold. 

"Words, words, words"* (GH Day 15)

I am just too impatient to be an adequate crafter of words, to wrack my brain and rummage through my wordhoard to find the absolute best term to fit the meaning I want. Yet yesterday, working on a paper abstract, I tried to do just that. I scanned over the same sentences again and again until I had started second-guessing myself and looked up the dictionary definitions and possible synonyms for nearly every major word in my abstract. It drove me crazy, and I finally threw in the towel. "Oh, well--it's good enough!" And off the conference abstract went via email.

I've previously written about George Herbert's professed struggles with his poetic language. His problem was a bit different from mine (trying to write something good enough for God), but not too far off. I also struggle with writing something "good enough" (for others whose opinion I either value or fear and for God as well): "For whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Cor  10:31).

There's a stanza I'd like to focus on from the middle of Herbert's poem "Jordan (2)" (courtesy of www.ccel.org), which I think describes well the situation of the writer struggling to glorify God with her or his output:

Jordan (II)

WHen first my lines of heav’nly joyes made mention, Such was their lustre, they did so excell, That I sought out quaint words and trim invention; My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell, Curling with metaphors a plain intention, Decking the sense, as if it were to sell. Thousands of notions in my brain did runne, Off’ring their service, if I were not sped: I often blotted what I had begunne; This was not quick enough, and that was dead. Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sunne, Much lesse those joyes which trample on his head. As flames do work and winde, when they ascend, So did I weave my self into the sense. But while I bustled, I might heare a friend Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence! There is in love a sweetnesse readie penn’d; Copie out onely that, and save expense.

In the poem, the speaker perceives his poetic verse to have begun well, with lustrous lines that seemed appropriate to describe his "heavenly joys" (ll. 1-2). But the poet tries to go further and make his poetry more complicated than it perhaps needs to be, adding all kinds of bells and whistles, as if, he admits, he were trying to "sell" something (6) insincerely, like a mountebank.

What writer does not battle all the ideas swirling around in her/his head? Who doesn't scratch out and rewrite and scratch out again? The goal for Herbert here is language with enough vibrancy and vitality to be an adequate complement (and compliment) to a living Lord, yet "[n]othing could seem to rich to clothe the sun" (11).

I witnessed a lovely sunset last night. The sun was the one giving rich colors to the surroundings (the clouds, sea, sky, etc.), not the other way around. How could any "clothing" be a match for the brilliance of the sun? It will always outshine whatever attempts to cover it. And the Son (Herbert's wordplay is intentional) will always outshine our offered efforts at the best wordsmithing we can do. Herbert always seems to reach this conclusion: it's the motive, the love for God, that counts, not the "pretense" (16).

Perhaps it's best to reduce time spent "bustling" lest we miss the "whisper" (15-16).


* Title quote is from Hamlet   
  

We’re having a heat wave . . . (GH Day 13)

Grrr! My air conditioning has been out for 3 days, and, needless to say, that means I’ve been battling the incessant heat.

On that note, I think it’s time to bring forth one of George Herbert’s earliest poems, a sonnet that at age 16 he apparently sent to his mother, basically announcing his intention to become a devotional poet. Luminarium.org supplies the text:

[Sonnet (I)]             

My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,     Wherewith whole showls of Martyrs once did burn,     Besides their other flames? Doth Poetry Wear Venus livery? only serve her turn? Why are not Sonnets made of thee? and layes     Upon thine Altar burnt? Cannot thy love     Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove Out-strip their Cupid easily in flight?     Or, since thy wayes are deep, and still the same,     Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name! Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might     Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose     Than that, which one day, Worms, may chance refuse?

The young Herbert here plays with the images of martyrs burned at the stake, worshippers offering sacrifices to the gods, and love poems written by a man burning with passion for the woman of his dreams.

In lines 1-3 the poet wonders where the zeal for God has gone. After all, once upon a time whole schools of martyrs (“showls” = schools) were willing to be burned at the stake rather than renounce their faith or doctrine.

He shifts quickly in line 3 to poetry and its purpose. By “Wear Venus’ livery” Herbert means verse solely being used for secular love poems. Line 5 brings the sonnet to its point: Many poems are written about love, so why aren’t poems written about God?

The following lines compare and contrast the subject of secular love poems (“any she”) with the ultimate love interest: God Himself. “Thy Dove” is the Holy Spirit, while “their Cupid” represents the inspiration for secular love poems.

In lines 10-11, the poet argues that a poem written about God can certainly make for good poetry. There’s plenty of depth to plumb (“Thy ways are deep”), and His constancy (“still the same”) should make for a smoother verse.

Finally, in the last 3 lines, Herbert brings his sonnet back to the “burning up” theme with which he began: God is the one who has made us capable of passion, so why not direct that passion toward poems about Him, since flesh and blood will decay, but He lasts forever?

Thankfully, the talented George Herbert fulfilled this ambition, leaving for us the clever and pious poems of The Temple.    

Envying Others' Gifts (GH Day 12)

Does this scene look familiar:
Susie: "It's not fair! Jimmy got to have an ice cream cone after his baseball game today. I want one too!"
Or
Jimmy: "Why does Susie get to sit in the front seat again? She sat there yesterday! I want a turn!"
Or insert a similar fight stemming from sibling envy that you've heard lately. The gist is this: one sibling has been given something that the other hasn't (for whatever reason), and that doesn't sit well.
 
Be honest now: have you ever envied a gift or talent given by God to someone else? Of course you have. We all have. We have no idea, most of the time, why God in His Providence has given wealth to one Christian and not other or a particular high-profile spiritual gift to one Christian and not another. And sometimes it's hard not to feel envious.*

George Herbert has what many, myself included, might consider an odd little poem whose scenario is sibling rivalry. It's one of his Latin poems, whose title might be translated "To John, Leaning on the Lord's Breast."** The title alludes to the poem's scene from the Apostle John's account of the Last Supper (John 13). I will quote the poem here from McCloskey & Murphy's translation, but the last 3 lines will be my own translation of the Latin:

Ah now, glutton, let me suck too!
You won't really hoard the whole
Breast for yourself! Do you thieve
Away from everyone that common well?
He also shed his blood for me,
And thus, having rightful
Access to the breast, I claim the milk
Mingled with the blood.
Where, if so much grace might be joined
To the forgiveness of my sin, perhaps
Falling with my shoulder I may provoke the Thrones themselves.

The speaker is envious that the Apostle John, leaning on the Lord's chest, is close enough to be able to "feed" from Christ Himself. While repulsive to modern sensibilities, the idea of Christ feeding believers with the blood that comes from the side of his chest (struck by the spear at the end of his crucifixion) was a familiar one from medieval art. Furthermore, this metaphor likening these siblings (both sons of God) to infants jostling to get close to the mother's nursing breast is not unlike the traditional image of the pelican, who supposedly would prick herself in dire circumstances, self-sacrificially feeding her young with her own blood.

So far, so good. And once we get the speaker's petulant attitude out of the way, the theological implications here are significant. Christ's "common well" is offered to all, and the speaker knows that he, along with the Apostles, has "rightful access" to that atonement. Moreover, Christ's blood (memorialized in the Protestant Eucharist) nourishes the believer, as a mother's milk does to her child.

But it's the last 3 lines, the ones I've been translating, that I'm really wrestling with. It's very tempting to fault my translation for the obscurity here, but the only 2 published translations I know of are no more clear. Having received forgiveness via God's grace, the narrator seems to take on the role of the Apostle John at the end. It is his shoulder focused on now, only instead of leaning, he's falling on Christ violently. The word (lacessam) used means to "strike," "provoke," or "challenge." The context suggests that he is falling dead (dying), and I'm going to suggest he is now dead to sin (Romans 6:2), the sins that have been forgiven via the shed blood of Christ.

Does his "striking" the Thrones (presumably a metonymy for Heaven, which is also a synonym for God) mean that he is like the spear that pierced Christ's side? In other words, who shed Christ's blood? I did. All sinners did. We are the spear that pierced his side.

Or, is there some defiant attitude on the speaker's part, suggested by the equally possible meanings for lacessam of "provoke" or "challenge"? Is he being over-confident? Something like "Move over, Apostle John; Christ's provision is mine, and I'll challenge all of the apostles to get it" (where "thrones" = the apostles' thrones in Heaven [Matt 19:28]). Yeah, strange. In fact, I'm rather reminded here of passages I've been reading in Homer's Iliad, where one mortal, Diomedes, takes on the gods in battle.

The lesson here is obviously not to challenge God to give you the same gift or talent that He has given a brother or sister in Christ, but perhaps to be grateful that Christ has shed his blood for all for the forgiveness of sins--and you don't have to beat any hoarding Apostles out of the way to get it. Christ has made that "well" open to everyone who comes.


*Envy is the correct word for this sin ("I wish I had what someone else has"), not jealousy, despite widespread incorrect usage.
**This is how McCloskey and Murphy translate the combination Latin/Greek title in their Latin Poetry of George Herbert.

Corporate Worship (GH Day 11)

I am blessed to be part of a university that is sincere about the Christian faith. This was powerfully demonstrated this week during the Fall Faculty Workshop, where all full-time faculty at the university assemble for 1-2 days prior to the start of the new school year. At one point during our gathering, we sang hymns and choruses together, declaring our common faith and praising our common Lord. Unlike my experience at most church services, the voices in this room of 200 disparate faculty lifted together into a full sound, filling the room. We come from several different denominations, but we serve one God.

George Herbert was a lover of music (see his poem "Church Music") and played at least one instrument, the lute. He set some of his poems to music during his lifetime, and many others of his poems have been set to music in the 4 centuries since. In fact, if you find a hymnal lying around and open it to the back index, you're likely to find at least one hymn whose lyrics are attributed to Mr. Herbert. The most common that I've seen is Herbert's poem "Antiphon (1)," also known by its first line, "Let all the world in every corner sing" (not that there are many hymnals around these days to glance through anymore, to the great detriment of sacred music, but that's a blog post for another day). 

"Antiphon" is a poem of communal praise. As its title suggests, the verses are sung by two different choirs, who join together for the chorus. Here is the poem from luminarium.org:

Antiphon (I)

Cho.  Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,
                                    My God and King.
  Vers.
The heav'ns are not too high,
His praise may thither flie:
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.

Cho.  Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,
                                    My God and King.
  Vers.
The church with psalms must shout,
No doore can keep them out:
But above all, the heart
Must bear the longest part.

Cho.  Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing,
                                    My God and King.

It's a straightforward poem: praise God in heaven; praise God on earth. Then the poet narrows his focus to the church and finally to the human heart, while the chorus consistently reminds us that this praise should be coming from every part of the world. The last verse stresses that the heart is the most important part of worship. We can sing loudly, but it means little if the heart is not engaged.

Possibly my favorite version of this poem set to music is by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (from his Five Mystical Songs).

May we be praising the Lord with our hearts and our songs today. 

Restless Travelers (GH Day 10)

I am a restless traveler. I'm a go-er, doer, see-er. I always think I'll use 
vacation as a time to rest, but I end up trying to pack as much into my trip as 
possible, tiring myself out in the process. 
 
In George Herbert's poem "The Pulley," he plays on multiple meanings of "rest" 
in order to discuss how God withholds a key ingredient to a happy life-- 
contentment--from humankind in the hopes that, lacking this essential element, 
we will turn to Him. Here's the poem as borrowed from luminarium.org: 
 
THE PULLEY.                     
 
WHEN God at first made man, 
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ; 
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can : 
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie, 
            Contract into a span. 
 
            So strength first made a way ; 
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure : 
When almost all was out, God made a stay, 
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure, 
            Rest in the bottome lay. 
 
            For if I should (said he) 
Bestow this jewell also on my creature, 
He would adore my gifts in stead of me, 
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : 
            So both should losers be. 
 
            Yet let him keep the rest, 
But keep them with repining restlesnesse : 
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, 
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse 
            May tosse him to my breast. 
 
The poem is a simple little story, retelling mankind's creation, where the 
Triune God, like a chemist or a chef, keeps adding ingredients until the formula 
is just right. Herbert plays on 3 or 4 meanings of "rest" here: "rest" as what 
remains, "rest" as a cessation of activity, & "rest" as contentment. To "rest" 
in Nature also has the idea of putting trust in something (to lean against). 
 
Isn't it true that contentment is possibly the hardest thing for us to attain in 
this life? And how often do we weary ourselves out from busyness: busy pursuing 
good things, busy pursuing vain things, busy just trying to keep on top of the 
mundanities things in  life (doing laundry, paying bills, checking email)? 
 
In the metaphysical conceit (that is, a far-fetched analogy) of "The Pulley," 
Herbert imagines God as using this lack of rest as leverage to pull us up to 
Him, so that we restless travelers through life find our contentment not in 
Nature, not in our pursuits, not in our gifts/talents, but in the bosom of our 
Lord.