Living Wittily

Awake, awake, and with a thankful heart his comforts take. Lent Day 35

 

                The Dawning

Awake, sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns;
     Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead, gathered into frowns;
     Thy Saviour comes, and with him mirth:
                                    Awake, awake,
And with a thankful heart his comforts take.
     But thou dost still lament, and pine, and cry,
     And feel his death, but not his victory.

Arise, sad heart; if thou dost not withstand,
     Christ’s resurrection thine may be;
Do not by hanging down break from the hand
     Which, as it riseth, raiseth thee:
                                    Arise, arise,
And with his burial linen dry thine eyes.
     Christ left his grave clothes, that we might, when grief
     Draws tears or blood, not want a handkerchief.

 

Sadness is a complex thing. Herbert doesn't patronise with a trite, "Cheer up!" The two words he uses to push the sad heart towards restoration are "Awake!" and "Arise!" The poet knows that sadness can be oppressive, leaden, dis-empowering, and can become chronic negativity, the sleep of the sad, a drowning in our own tears.

Raise your eyes from the ground, lift up your head, and look at a different horizon, a landscape transformed by the radiant coming of the Saviour like the rising sun. 'Awake' is repeated and this time it's a call to thanksgiving, because Herbert knows that gratitude is one of the more effective antidotes to life-negating sadness.

But even the wake up call fails. We "feel his death, but not his victorie."There is a sadness that becomes so familiar it is preferable to any imagined revival of hope, energy and vitality. Sadness can become a comfort zone, even a selfish indulgence in self-pity.

And Herbert will have none of it! No longer crying 'Awake!', Herbert is now shaking the shoulder and refusing to allow the indulgence of a long lie, dozing in bed clothes in danger of becoming the very grave clothes of hope itself. Lifelong sadness is not the only choice; the resurrection of Christ the bringer of mirth is life-giving. Christian faith is resurrection faith, life giving and life affirming.

Those who have lived in the same house as those who are not morning people, know the need for regular shouting of phrases like, "Get up!", or "Are you not up yet?" with increasing volume and relentless repetition. That's what Herbert's poem does. "Arise! The hand [of Christ] which as it riseth, raiseth thee: Arise, arise."

Resurrection is a recurring theme in Herbert's poems. Absolutely he 'feels Christ's death', but throughout it is balanced by joyful conviction of 'his victorie.' It's at this point most of Herbert's critics become embarrassed by the last three lines.

  And with his burial linen dry thine eyes.
     Christ left his grave clothes, that we might, when grief
     Draws tears or blood, not want a handkerchief.

True enough, Kleenex as an image of resurrection hopefulness does seem to be pushing it a bit. Christ the wonderful counsellor offering the box of tissues to the tearful client isn't much better. Except. "He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will away tears from every face." (Isaiah 25.8) echoed in Revelation 7.17, And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Grave clothes as a handkerchief is a metaphor, and all the more powerful for its unexpectedness, even incongruity. John's Gospel makes emphasises the folded grave clothes as proof of resurrection, and it is that assurance of resurrection which, Herbert confirms, is the permanent cure of the sadness that can become creeping despair. 

Christian existence takes place in the dialectic of feeling Christ death and also his victory. The cross is the place where love gives all it ever can give; the empty tomb, with its folded grave clothes, is the place where love and life conquer violence, hate, injustice and death itself. This poem exudes pastoral firmness, anchors theological hopefulness, and is a wake-up call at times when legitimate sadness overstays its welcome:  

Thy Saviour comes, and with him mirth:
                                    Awake, awake,
And with a thankful heart his comforts take.

Arise, sad heart; if thou dost not withstand,
     Christ’s resurrection thine may be...

  

"Storms are the triumphs of his art", Lent Day 34

                       The Bag

Away despair! my gracious Lord doth hear.
Though winds and waves assault my keel,
He doth preserve it: he doth steer,
Ev'n when the boat seems most to reel.
Storms are the triumphs of his art:
Well may he close his eyes, but not his heart.

This is only the first verse of the poem. But it's worth a closer look, and could stand alone as one of Herbert's miniature paintings of a Bible story. Of course, a verse out of context might end up being a pretext. But what makes this verse worth our time in its own right is the light it throws on Herbert's approach to Scripture.  

Matthew 8.23-27 tells of Jesus bringing calm to a tempestuous sea. Matthew relates the story with narrative power and an effective economy of words. The storm comes without warning, and it's a furious storm; the waves were higher than the boat. So, imminent unexpected danger, "But Jesus was sleeping." Let that sink in. How could he not be soaked, but he's asleep. The disciples grab and pull and shout and waken Jesus, pleading with him to save them.

In Mark's account, the disciples are nothing like as polite, "Master do you not care that we're all going to die?" The last line of Herbert's verse answer that question, with almost casual certainty.

           Well may he close his eyes, but not his heart.

My guess is that Herbert has both Matthew's and Mark's versions in mind as he describes the way unexpected storms break on human life. And when they are furious, dangerous, overwhelming in force and beyond our power to tame, fear quickly hardens into despair, and the rapid shrinking of hope.

"Away despair!", shouts Herbert above the noise of the storm. This is prayer addressed to Christ while shouting at despair. There's no serenity, none of that T shirt nonsense, 'Keep Calm and Admire the Waves'. The Gospels contrast the terror of the disciples and the relaxed somnolence of Jesus. It's out of the depths of fear and despair of life that they shout their complaint in Jesus ear.

Of course we know how the story ends; "Where is your faith", Jesus asks. He rebuked the wind and waves, told them to settle down, and they did. Just like that. "And it was completely calm." Please note all the meme makers, Jesus didn't ever say, "Keep Calm, and Love the Waves". 

Looking more closely at Herbert's take on the story, he describes (i) the unseen and unknown power of the sleeping Christ to preserve the keel, which is the stabilising part of the boat, and (ii) that same alert competence to steer it safely through even the most tumultuous waves in the face of the strongest gales. This what the disciples were too scared to even think about. Trust is impossible for the mind in panic. It's too busy finding and shouting the word "Help!"

"Storms are the triumphs of his art". Now that one I might just get printed on a T shirt. Faith is seldom challenged on calm seas with blue skies. The real test and triumph of faith, and of the power of Christ to keep us safe, is the storm that comes without warning and turns our lives into a tumult. Even when the eyes of Christ seem closed in the relaxed absence that is sleep, his heart never sleeps. 

I find the story of the calming of the storm a helpful framework for the way life is just now. Without warning we are in lock-down. Who would have thought at Christmas we would be engulfed in a pandemic by Easter? But even when we are destabilised, the keel is threatened, "he doth preserve it".; and even when we seem most to reel and risk capsizing, "he doth steer".

How do we navigate through the storm that is engulfing us, personally, in our neighbourhoods, with those who are our community of faith, as part of a world in crisis? Perhaps by shouting the first two words, as Herbert does, "Away despair". And then by taking to heart the rest of that first line, "My gracious Lord doth hear... and doth preserve the keel....and he doth steer", and because "Storms are the triumphs of his art," which is redeeming love.      

Come my way, my truth, my life.... Lent Day 33

          The Call

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: 
Such a way as gives us breath;
Such a truth as ends all strife;
Such a life as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength: 
Such a light as shows a feast;
Such a feast as mends in length;
Such a strength as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: 
Such a joy as none can move;
Such a love as none can part;
Such a heart as joys in love.

"Christian faith is a religion in the vocative. It invokes God to come and touch us back into life." (Oakley) 

Two Bible references guide the reader. Almost the last words of the New Testament, "Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22.20) The first line inevitably recalls John 14.6. "I am the way, and the truth and the life..." But other references are interwoven throughout: Christ the light of the world, the Eucharist as feast, the fullness of joy that is mutual between God who is love and the heart of the beloved lover. The poem demonstrates the intricacy of the ties between lover and beloved, and the tone is that of one who has learned to trust a love that is mutual, reciprocated and the source of the heart's joy.  

Travelling uphill, you get breathless, but not in following the One who 'gives us breath' for the journey. Truth was dangerous and conflicted in Herbert's times, post Reformation and a few years before Civil War; but in Herbert's lexicon the purpose and meaning of truth is to end strife. The life of Jesus 'killeth death', the truth of the redemptive death and resurrection life of Christ is here compacted into a paradox. Or as Herbert's poetic mentor Donne wrote, "Death, thou shalt die!"  

The middle stanza is about the domestic happiness of friends at a feast. The food and wine are on show, high-lighted by the presence of the host; the wine is the best wine, long maturing and mellowing; and the guests are there because made confident and strong by the welcome and the invitation. Those familiar with Herbert's poems will already heard the echo from Love (III), when the Love asks the one invited if he 'lacked any thing", "A guest I answered, worthy to be here / Love said, you shall be he." 

The first line of the last stanza is a perfectly balanced love call. The joy of love is uniquely powerful, especially when love itself is such that nothing can separate lover and beloved. (Romans 8.39). The circular motion of the verse, the words of the first line recyled in the last line, gives the verse, and indeed the poem, a circulatory structure, like a heart in which love and joy are the systolic and then diastolic phases of the Christian heartbeat. That was relatively new science in Herbert's day, but just maybe, we should be careful about dismissing the scientific knowledge of this well connected and well read country parson still alive in late Renaissance England.

In any case, the simplicity of the poem is effective because of the deceptively complicated structure and interplay of one syllable words. So much of Herbert's poetry is about sin, guilt, unworthiness, personal failure, frustrated longing, anxiety, fear of rejection, and all those other clouds and over-shadowings that obscure the light of love and drain the joy of the heart. Not here. This is a love call, a cry of the heart that expects the full response of welcome, warmth and mutual joy.

So much is on our minds in the current crisis. But at least once a day, just as we are lifted by that one daily outing for exercise and daylight, it might help us to turn to a poem like this. Take some time to remember what sunlight is like, what it means to walk in the presence of the One who is the light of the world, and the way, the truth and the life. Then to pray for strengthened trust in the One who is the light of life, "And such a Life as killeth death." 

Lift up your hearts!  We lift them Lord to Thee.    

Even Herbert found that when he needs them most, words fail him. Lent Day 32

   

          A True Hymne          

MY joy, my life, my crown!
     My heart was meaning all the day,
          Somewhat it fain would say:
And still it runneth mutt’ring up and down
With onely this, My joy, my life, my crown.

          Yet slight not these few words:
     If truly said, they may take part
          Among the best in art.
The finenesse which a hymne or psalme affords,
Is, when the soul unto the lines accords.

          He who craves all the minde,
     And all the soul, and strength, and time,
          If the words onely ryme,
Justly complains, that somewhat is behinde
To make his verse, or write a hymne in kinde.

          Whereas if th’ heart be moved,
     Although the verse be somewhat scant,
          God doth supplie the want.
As when th’ heart sayes (sighing to be approved)
O, could I love! And stops: God writeth, Loved.

So what makes a good hymn? Is it the poetry, the coinciding rhyme of words with rhythm of music? What kind of hymn can ever do justice to the God being praised, adored, or glorified. How can any human words have adequate descriptive range and affirmative power?  

All Herbert has wanted to say all day is, "My joy, my life, my crown." But how to expand on that, enhance those words, find better words, shape and craft language into the art form of the true hymn? And at the end of a frustrating day of muttering, pacing up and down, and countless scrunched up drafts tossed in the direction of the rubbish bin, all he has left are the words he started with - "My joy, my life my crown." This is writer's block getting in the way of worship!

The second stanza Herbert gives himself a talking to. What's wrong with those three words, joy, life, crown? They say what's needed. God is his joy: Psalm 3.4 "Then will I go to God my exceeding joy..." God is his life: Deuteronomy 30.20 "For he is thy life..."; God is to be crowned, Isaiah 28.5: "In that day shall the Lord of Hosts be a crown of glory."

Herbert's problem is that joy, life and glory are commonplace attributions to God in Scripture. They have no edge of originality, no poetic imagination. Then he thinks, "that's not the point." If they are said from the heart, truly meant, then they constitute a true hymn, "when the soul unto the lines accords." Problem solved. Well, not quite.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind, soul strength and...." And what? Herbert's first readers knew their Scripture, much of it by heart. They would be expecting that word, "heart". What they get is time, to rhyme with 'rhyme'! The stanza is playfully incoherent, as the poet tries to find a way of putting heart into his words, thus making a true hymn that reflects and expresses his genuine devotion. For that, who needs poetic art? Well, Herbert does. His art, his 'utmost art' is his way of loving God.

Then the word heart appears:

Whereas if th’ heart be moved,
     Although the verse be somewhat scant,
          God doth supplie the want.

All this time and trouble trying to draft the perfect hymn, a true hymn, in order to prove his love; only to find it is God who makes up the difference between Herbert's inadequate words and the worship and devotion Herbert wants to say and sing. When it comes to our worship being acceptable in God's sight, the last word is God's. As in this poem. Herbert has been trying to prove his love through his art; but what enables true worship, and what makes a hymn true, is that "we love Him because He first loved us." I John 4.19. 

Finally, as Herbert rabbits on about not being able to articulate his love for God, he is interrupted by God taking the pen, scoring out the latest failed draft, and writing the word "Loved". It isn't Herbert's love that drives this relationship, it is God's love. This God who is his joy, and life and crown. Herbert has distilled the entire Gospel and the human experience of it into the last word of his poem, "Loved." We love because He first loved us. End of!

When something is broken, and not quite beyond repair. Lent Day 31

           
         

                                          JESU

Jesu is in my heart, his sacred name
Is deeply carved there; but th' other week
A great affliction broke the little frame,
Ev'n all to pieces; which I went to seek:
And first I found the corner, where was J,
After, where ES, and next, where U was graved.
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart he was I ease you,
                    And to my whole is JESU.

"Clearly Herbert liked his miniatures and liked them to come out in the form of puzzles, miniature toys for the mind." (Drury, page 345)

Think of a china jug knocked off the shelf and breaking on the kitchen work surface; or a favourite ornament nudged by the cat onto the hearth. A minor domestic drama becomes for Herbert the framed narrative of salvation. The body of Jesus broken and restored again; the Christian heart engraved with the name of Jesus shattered by affliction, and needing pieced together again.

Herbert understood broken hearts, starting with his own. Fumbling around for all the broken pieces, he tries to repair and restore the fragments to something like the original. And in doing so he sees something that would never have occurred to him.

As he works on restoring his broken heart it dawns on him that the sacred name JESU annealed on its surface like a signature of ownership, is also a promise of comfort; "I ease you." There is here a strong echo of Jesus' great invitation, too obvious for it not to cross Herbert's mind: "Come unto me you who are burdened and heavy laden; take my yoke upon you and learn of me, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11.28. 

In Greek there is no consonant "J"; so Jesu is really Iesu. So "I ease you" becomes an even more obvious pun, I  ES  U. That's almost textspeak! Jesus is the one who eases the burdened and heavy laden heart.

Herbert is an early example in English poetry of finding novel ways of extolling the name of Jesus, an approach picked up by later hymn writers, especially Charles Wesley, who knew Herbert's poetry well. His hymn 'O for a heart to praise my God' is one of Wesley's key texts on Christian holiness being perfected through divine love. The hymn ends with the same image of the inscribed heart: 'Write thy new name upon my heart,/ Thy new best name of love.

It's late in Lent; and we are living through deeply disturbing times. For all its playful and perhaps overplayed wit, there is still real art in Herbert's miniature of a domestic drama of brokenness repaired, and the heart comforted in the process. I ease you, I ES U, the name of Jesus, annealed on hearts that know affliction, and will know repair. IESU - There's a text to send, perhaps first to ourselves. 

What does JC stand for? As if you didn't know! Lent Day 30

 

Love-Joy

As on a window late I cast mine eye,
I saw a vine drop grapes with J and C
Annealed on every bunch. One standing by
Asked what it meant. I (who am never loath
To spend my judgement) said, It seemed to me
To be the body and the letters both
Of Joy and Charity. Sir, you have not missed,
The man replied; it figures JESUS CHRIST.

Herbert is back in seriously cheerful mood. The poet is playing with the reader, who will have guessed by line two what JC stands for. The narrator seems inexplicably obtuse to suggest they referred to Joy and Charity. Of course he is wrong, it figures Jesus Christ. Everybody knows that.

Except. Except he is not wrong. The narrator is not mistaken, has not missed. The reader is left to work out how Joy and Charity figures Jesus Christ. But it isn't a hard puzzle to solve; Jesus Christ is the bringer of joy and love, the embodiment of God's good news. Jesus Christ, JC, is the one whose birth brought good tidings of great joy, and whose death was an act of divine love which was an eternity in the planning.

Sin is to miss the mark, and to live "as it seems to me". At the centre of the poem the poet admits he's never slow to speak his mind and tell the world what's what. His mistake is made right by the "One standing by." That's what Jesus has done, redeemed all those mistakes we make because we are never slow to decide what we think is right and wrong, as if we had full knowledge of good and evil. Remember where that points to,the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? 

This is one of many biblical allusions. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy...", and of course Jesus' central claim, "I am the true vine....abide in me..." The fruit of the vine and the juice of the grape become wine, a symbol of love poured out in eucharistic gladness. and noisily proclaimed in joyful celebration. JC is prominently stamped on every bunch, an immediately recognisable logo, which stands for joy and charity, festivity (joy) and hospitality (charity), which find their source, inspiration and energy in Jesus Christ. "Jesus Christ is behind every exercise of joy and charity...making those virtues possible." (Helen Vendler). 

the living Christ who vivifies the Christian believer and vitalises the Christian church. Lent Day 29

                    Aaron               

Holiness on the head,

         Light and perfections on the breast,

Harmonious bells below, raising the dead

         To lead them unto life and rest:

                Thus are true Aarons drest.

 

                Profaneness in my head,

         Defects and darkness in my breast,

A noise of passions ringing me for dead

         Unto a place where is no rest:

                Poor priest, thus am I drest.

 

                Only another head

         I have, another heart and breast,

Another music, making live, not dead,

         Without whom I could have no rest:

                In him I am well drest.

 

                Christ is my only head,

         My alone-only heart and breast,

My only music, striking me ev'n dead,

         That to the old man I may rest,

                And be in him new-drest.

 

                So, holy in my head,

         Perfect and light in my dear breast,

My doctrine tun'd by Christ (who is not dead,

         But lives in me while I do rest),

                Come people; Aaron's drest.

 

This poem presupposes familiarity with Scripture, and with typology as a way of interpreting Scripture and applying it to the inner life. Exodus 28 is a detailed description of the High Priests garments and the details are woven throughout the poem. This poem is a meditation for priest's as they robe before conducting worship.

 

The priest is called as one whose headline vocational quality is holiness. The entrepreneurial priest, the techie savvy priest, the theologically radical priest, the socially engaged priest are all very well, but this 17th Century priest resets the list of essential qualities and skills for serving God; holiness comes first, seen in a life of light and harmony, truth and love. As they move the bells hanging on the chest are gospel bells calling the people to live the resurrection life of those who have died to sin and risen in Christ to newness of life. All that in one stanza stuffed with imagery quarried from the King James Version of Exodus.

 

Then the reality check; profaneness, not holiness, is the priest's lived experience of contradiction. The stanza is an exact reversal of what should be. Instead of "harmonious bells" of the Gospel there's the cacophony of his own sins. This is pure Romans 7, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

 

But there is another head in whom the Christian lives. The great exchange of Christ's righteousness for human sin runs through stanzas 3 and 4. There is the music of resurrection, the new clothes of the one clothed in Christ; the old man is dead, the one who is in Christ is a new creation. Herbert is playing a theological concerto from the script of Exodus 28 interpreted through Paul's letters. The phrase "alone only" signals the singularity of the personal relationship between the Christian head, heart, breast, and Christ who renews the mind, the will and the affections. 

 

The last stanza describes the humble readiness of the priest, dressed to serve both Christ and Church. The doctrine is well tuned, the musical metaphor recalling harmonious bells summoning the people to celebrate the living Christ who vivifies the Christian believer and vitalises the Christian church.

 

This poem is hard work. You have to allow for a deeply pious priest, acutely self-aware of his own failings, but persevering in his faith that he is clothed in Christ, his righteousness is God's gift, what he believes, preaches and lives is tuned and energised by the living Christ within. You don't have to be a priest to know exactly what Herbert is talking about. Read those two central stanzas again, and continue through Lent assured of the living presence of Christ in your life. 

Hope is hard work. Lent Day 28

             

Hope

I gave to Hope a watch of mine: but he
An anchor gave to me.
Then an old prayer-book I did present:
And he an optic sent.
With that I gave a vial full of tears:
But he a few green ears.
Ah Loiterer! I'll no more, no more I'll bring:
I did expect a ring.

We only know the full force of hope when we live through delay, frustration and longing. Hope is hard work, especially when all the evidence seems to make what is hoped for impossible.

Hope is a Loiterer. By definition what is hoped for is beyond our immediate control or we could, and would, make it happen. Instead of giving what we hope for right now and for the asking, Hope defers.

Three couplets describe the negotiations between the poet and Hope (Christ). The watch is a timepiece, new technology in Herbert's time; so Herbert gives all his time to Christ (Hope). In exchange he gets an anchor. The obvious link is Hebrews 6.19:"the hope set before us, an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast..." So instead of giving what is hoped for, Hope gives the strength to hold on and wait. The cruciform shape of the anchor points the reader to the cross, and to the stability and security of being anchored in the eternal love displayed there. 

The Prayer Book in Herbert's time is an emblem of long term, regular and faithful devotion. So Herbert effectively casts up his years of devout loyalty to the liturgy and to the church, as a negotiating package. But instead of realised hopes he is given a telescope to be able to see what is hoped for, while at the same time being compelled to live with distance, and that frustrating not yet, that makes hope such hard work.

The vial of tears is the gift of his repentance, the proof of his love, the evidence of hope's intensity. Echoing Psalm 8.8 "put my tears into thy bottle", Herbert is asking God to take his tears as proof he has waited long enough. But not quite. Green ears of grain point to a later harvest, and it was only a few green ears. Once again hope is disappointed by wanting it all early, and the response is again a reminder of both assurance and deferment. Hope doesn't become reality on demand. But the tears haven't been bottled. They have irrigated the grains of hope and now the green ears promise eventual harvest.  

Trust Herbert to find a new word for Christ - Loiterer! In Herbert's day the word was used to describe the person who delayed paying their bills! One of the levers in a negotiation between parties is the decision to walk away from the table. Impatience, hurry and compulsion inevitably find hope a frustrating process. So "I'll no more; no more I'll bring" is an ultimatum to force Hope's hand. 

Truth is, he didn't need to bring anything. Hope is a promise guaranteed by Christ; his promise is as sure as an anchor, is visible through the telescope of faith looking upward, is evidenced by green ears of grain. The fact that Herbert wanted a ring. This has a double meaning. The ring of marriage points to the spiritual union of the Christian with Christ; the ring as symbol of completeness and perfection points to the full blessing of eternity. The full consummation is future; for now we live in hope.

This short poem teaches us something we now need to know about hope. We look on a world forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic. We hope so many things; for the safety of those we love, for a vaccine, for our local communities to be responsible, caring and constructive, for a return to a way of life without this fear and loss of control, for the safety and health of all those who are keeping essential services going, the NHS staff, food suppliers, emergency services, for ourselves an eventual return to human community and flourishing, but perhaps with a clearer idea of why it is important to care about our planet, our human communities, and the economy as servant not slave-master.

We hope these things, and so we pray for them. With Herbert's impatience; with what Jesus called importunity, that noisy persistence that won't shut up. And in our hoping and praying, we will hold on to the anchor, look through the optic towards a future in God's purposes, and imagine those green ears that confirm there will again be harvest.      

Keeping Relationships Strong by Clearing the Air. Lent Day 27

                   

The Storm

If as the winds and waters here below
Do fly and flow,
My sighs and tears as busy were above;
Sure they would move
And much affect thee, as tempestuous times
Amaze poor mortals, and object their crimes.

Stars have their storms, ev'n in a high degree,
As well as we.
A throbbing conscience spurred by remorse
Hath a strange force:
It quits the earth, and mounting more and more,
Dares to assault, and besiege thy door.

There it stands knocking, to thy musick's wrong,
And drowns the song.
Glory and honour are set by till it
An answer get.
Poets have wrong'd poor storms: such days are best;
They purge the air without, within the breast.

 

Somewhere in his memory, perhaps as a child, the poet remembers Storm Herbert! Thunder and lightning, gales and rain, instilled the fear of elemental powers beyond human control. The borderline between awe and terror is quite easily crossed when human beings are caught up in  nature turned tempestuous.

The natural world is often the starting point for Herbert's poetry of the inner life and spiritual reflection. For Herbert the world of nature is "the creator's eloquent countenance", a thought similar to Calvin's view of creation as the "theatre of God's glory."

Storms are for Herbert a powerful metaphor for a conscience that is troubled and in turmoil, his feelings and affections an inner storm of remorse, guilt and emotional distress. So he storms heaven's doors,and uses the metaphor of the storm to depict the laying of a siege and hammering on God's door till he gets an answer.

The throbbing conscience, the driving of remorse and the frantic cry for an answering word that makes the wrong right. This is Herbert at his most confrontational with God. In his Prayer sonnet he had said prayer is like "an engine against th'Almightie". 

Importunate prayer, that is a refusal to be put off by not getting an answer, has a long tradition in Christian spirituality. Going back to Jesus parable of the annoyingly persistent widow and the noisy friend who disturbs the peace at night till he gets what he wants, there has always been a place for the kind of praying that just won't shut up, that storms heaven's gates, and lays siege to God's ears.

It's not easy for the 21st Century mind to appreciate the religious intensity of post-reformation England and the age of the Puritans. Not many would compare guilt for sin to a meteor shower, a storm of light shooting through the darkness; but "starres have their storms" and so does heaven as its doors are stormed by those seeking an answer to their prayers for forgiveness. 

The final two lines rehabilitate storms as descriptions of inner tempest and spiritual turmoil: spiritual imagination:

Poets have wrong'd poor storms: such days are best;
They purge the air without, within the breast.

Storms clear the air. Strong exchanges can lead to new understanding. Better to have a row and reconcile than spend a lifetime in resentment. Like Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, human relationships have their own outer and inner weather; Warm mellow feelings of the countryside,  peasants celebrating summer, the noises of the countryside from rippling streams to singing birds, and then the thunderstorm explodes across the orchestra, before giving way to the calm melodies of everything returning to normal, washed by rain, illumined by sunshine and the clouds dispersing. Herbert's poem, and its last line, sit exactly in those moments of transition from thunderstorm to calm and renewed summertime.

The poem is not quite resolved. Herbert will have it out with God, and clear the air. That's what storms do. But the making up, the forgiving and moving forward, are merely implied. This poem, in the context of the whole sequence that makes up The Temple, needn't spell it out. God sets aside glory and honour and condescends to answer Herbert's noisy knocking and clamorous pleadings for God's restored love and understanding.  

 

When we are possessed by the desire to possess. Lent Day 26

                  Avarice

Money, thou bane of bliss and source of woe,
Whence com'st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?
I know thy parentage is base and low:
Man found thee poor and dirty in a mine.

Surely thou didst so little contribute
To this great kingdom which thou now hast got,
That he was fain, when thou wert destitute,
To dig thee out of thy dark cave and grot:

Thus forcing thee, by fire he made thee bright:
Nay, thou hast got the face of man; for we
Have with our stamp and seal transferred our right:
Thou art the man, and man but dross to thee.

Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich,
And while he digs thee out, falls in the ditch.

This poem is about money; and the love of money; and the madness of greed.

It's natural to want what I need. Greed is to want more than I need. Avarice becomes a moral disease and against human nature, when the need to possess more and more becomes the primary drive of our lives. Covetousness is a deadly sin because it kills the conscience.

At that point we don't possess money, it possesses us. 

Herbert's poem is an address to money personified. The tone is one of puzzled wondering: how can what started its life hidden in dirt, become something human beings would kill and die for? 

More than that, by refining gold and silver, then stamping a human face on coins, and creating a currency of wealth and worth, humanity has reversed God-given values. Money is gold and man is dross; man and woman made in the image of God have sold that image in order to create wealth.

This poem has hardly ever been treated at length by literary critics. Helen Vendler, one of Herbert's most stringent and admiring critics was left wondering. Why did a poet of immense spiritual subtlety and sensitivity feel the need to satirise money? And why go to the trouble of writing a poem, a sonnet at that, a demanding poetic form usually reserved for less banal subjects? 

Vendler's scholarship is impeccable, authoritative, and one of the benchmarks of Herbert scholarship. So I'm puzzled by her puzzlement! Herbert was a theologian of sin and love, of judgement and mercy. Human corruption was one of Herbert's theological research interests. Looking around at the world beyond, the discovery of new lands, the huge inflow of imported goods and wealth from the new world, the growth of political and royal power across Europe, there was a wealth of raw material for Herbert to explore, and much of that raw material was gold.

In pursuit of wealth and its accompanying wealth Herbert saw, with remarkable prescience, a moral reversal, a theological sacrilege, indeed a structural rebellion against the Creator. Wealth now rules the world, not humanity. Human life is possessed by the need to possess, and when that happens inhumanity follows. The last three lines expose the human and moral outcome of making the pursuit and possession of wealth the primary driving force of human community, of political economy and of social organisation. 

Putting money in its place would be a demanding Lenten objective. I am writing this in the midst of one of the greatest crises in our lifetime. The ludicrous behaviour that strips supermarket shelves as a form of self-protection is another dark side of avarice, the proof that what we want to possess may come to possess us. Who would ever have thought a main news story would be police acting on a tip off and stopping a large van full of stolen toilet rolls! (hence the photo above)

So perhaps even the brilliance of a Harvard Professor Emerita, should be supplemented by some reflection on the real world of deals, profit, accumulation, self-interest, wealth creation and distribution. And then some study of Herbert's tireless research into the propensity of the human heart to corruption and sin. When people stockpile toilet rolls, empty the shelves of hand sanitiser, fill the garage with pasta, and all of this without thought of other people, then Herbert's poem is bang on the money! (See what I did there!)