A gorgeous quote for your Thursday morning:

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind…. I know Him because He first knew me and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.

This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort—the sort of comfort that energises… not enervates—in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love, and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me. There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see (and am I glad!), and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose…. (J.I. Packer, Knowing God)

Recently I realized a gap in my poetical education (one of many): Rainer Maria Rilke. My grandparents gave me his Letters to a Young Poet, but I've never actually read any of his poetry. So a couple of weeks ago, I checked out the Duino Elegies and his Book of Hours from the library, and since then I've been making my way through the Elegies.

Now, Rilke's philosophy is deeply flawed: his poetry works in a world without God, that celebrates its godlessness. He both mourns and delights in human transience; the fact that we die is both a source of deep pain and an ultimate glory to him. For these reasons Rilke sees humanity caught between "the Angel," a symbol for transcendence, and nature, to which we are much more akin, which is more sympathetic to us. Similarly, following from that, Rilke adopts many of the Romantic tropes that idealize nature and idealize childhood. Childhood is the closest humanity can get to nature, to a sense of oneness with the world, before we die.

Having said that, I've found parts of his Elegies very beautiful. This selection from the "Eighth Elegy" is a case in point:

Eighth Elegy

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Martyn Crucefix

With all its eyes, Cration looks on the Open.

Only ours seems to have been turned backwards

and they appear to lay traps all round it

as if to prevent its going free….

And look at the half-certainties

of the bird that knows both states almost

from hatching—as if it were the soul

of an Etruscan, released from the dead

onlky to be received into another space

that has for its lid a reclining figure.

And how bewildered is any creature

that is womb-born and yet has to fly.

As if frightened of itself, it must hurtle

through the air the way a crack goes

through a tea-cup—so a bat’s track

streaks through the porcelain of evening.

And we: spectators, always, everywhere,

we face all this, never see beyond it!

It spills from us. We arrange it.

It falls to pieces. We arrange again.

We ourselves fall to pieces.

Who has twisted us this way round,

so no matter what we do we are always

in the position of one leaving? Just as,

on the last possible hill from which he can

glimpse his whole valley one final time,

he turns, stops there, he lingers—

so we live on, forever bidding goodbye.

Here I think Rilke gets exactly right that sense we have as humans of never being at rest. No matter how we try to organize the world--whether that's consciously and philosophically, through thought and art, or practically, through everyday vocations, we're always trying to impose our control on a world that is always disintegrating around us. Because of that we can never feel quite at home here, must always exist in the face of the fact that we will someday have to say good-bye to the world and enter death.

Of course, at this point a Christian would make the redemptive move. We are not merely transient animals; we belong to God, and we have the promise of eternal life in a perfected world where spirit and matter are beautifully united by Christ. Sometimes, though, I think I appreciate that truth more by resting for awhile in the mindset of a person without that hope.

Now Playing: J.S. Bach, Concerto for Two Violins, Strings, and Continuo in D Minor, BWV 1043, "Largo ma non tanto."

Today Scott and I woke to the grace of sunlight pouring over the quilt and reverberating off the gold-toned walls. I usually wake up so early that I don't see the sunshine; besides, the last few weeks have seen mostly cloudy weather. Thanks to the unexpected warmth, he and I spent the morning outside, trimming back the ornamental grasses, echinacea, buddleia, Russian sage, and ivy. Under the wet leaves all the daffodils are starting to sprout, and some of the roses are even beginning to put out new shoots. In particular one of the Tamoras is putting out new branches and leaves, which is amazing because the two Tamoras are the least sturdy of the roses we planted last spring, and Scott had to transplant them in the middle of the growing season because they were getting toasted in the southwest corner of the yard. Now they're under the dogwood and more protected. We also measured space on the south side of the house for more roses: we estimated that we could fit three or four clumps, three bushes each, along the walk there. I'm trying to think of good filler plants to use in between the bushes. There's something so comforting about being able to take an hour or two in the dead of winter to poke around in the garden, remembering last year and planning for this year.

Now Playing: Bach, Flute Concerto in G Major.

A short quote from Elizabeth Goudge's Green Dolphin Street, which I've been reading this week:


… that certainty that one’s life is a complete, rounded, timeless thing rooted in eternity, that what we once had is ours forever, that what we will have is already present with us, that at no time in our lives are we ever anything but immeasurably and inconceivably rich and blessed.

Now Playing: Bach, Sonata for flute in E Major, "Adagio ma non tanto."

Clover has taken to carrying my boots and Scott's house slippers around the house. The process is somewhat disturbing: one at first hears the thunk-thunk-thunk as she hauls them up the basement stairs and then her baby-like whining as she proceeds through the kitchen, across the dining room, and up the next flight of stairs. I'm always startled until I remember that our cat is neurotic.

This evening I cooked grits for the first time, unbeknownst to me. I was trolling the cupboard for something to eat, and I found a packet of what looked like couscous. Into boiling water it went, and when it started to congeal in a most un-couscous-like fashion, I was somewhat chagrined. They weren't bad with salt and pepper, actually. Scott is out this evening, so he didn't have the opportunity to laugh at my lack of culinary discernment.

The semester so far progresses fairly well. I'm trying to learn to remember that every opportunity I have is a gift of God's grace. By opportunity I don't mean merely opportunities to "minister" but each class session I teach, each line of Beowulf I translate, each colleague's poem I comment on. Someday maybe this will take away some of the pressure of perfectionism. At least that's my hope.

Now Playing: Indiana vs. Wisconsin basketball game on Scott's computer.

Enough said.

This evening is one for quotation, it seems. Here's from Flannery O'Connor's essay "A Memoir of Mary Ann":

"The creative action of the Christian's life is to prepare his death in Christ. It is a continuous action in which this world's goods are utilized to the fullest, both positive gifts and... 'passive diminishments.'"

Now Playing: Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major, Allegro.

A poem on this Wednesday evening by Kimberly Johnson from her book A Metaphorical God.

Easter, Looking Westward

1.

The stars! the stars have fled the sky!—

Scratch that—the stars have skyed the flood, the sea

glimmering in pale beneath a starless black…

2.

No, scratch that too. I’m all exotic

metaphor, inkhorn snarls, never content

with the unelaborated thing;

always the forced apotheosis,

every least sparrow a visible sign,

strong-arming water to wine. So tenderly

I love this world’s profane loveliness,

its small, scarce loveliness, like a puritan

I batter magnitude out of homespun.

3.

Faithless my zeal, for the puritan’s faith

imputes us all with a roughhouse grace, most

lovely in our brokenness, bruised and bent

to glory. Scratch that—to sufficiency.

Start again: The stars are black with storms

blown shoreward; the dinoflagellates

smacked on the shoals leak light from shattered cells;

they phosphoresce the breakers in their roister.

Let me sing, then, the beauty of creatures

microscopic, who make the vastness gleam

in smithereens.

4.

                        See: starlike, after all.