Justice and Selving

December 9, 2020

Photo Credit:  http://voice.gardenbird.co.uk/all-about-the-kingfisher/

 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

A few weeks after my sinus surgery, my olfactory sense was restored.  It had been years really since I could smell.  Every now and then I'd get a whiff of something, but it was rare. Now, I am inundated.  My hot tea, my food, my cleaning products, my beauty products, my sweet puppy (whom I thought had no odor--alas!), even stores have particular smells. I can now distinguish my mask from Stan's because of the residual aroma of his mouthwash and aftershave.  Cooking is more fun. Eating is more fun. And the wonderful smells of Christmas: pine, cinnamon, and apple cider are glorious!  

Hopkins' poems have the same effect on me--aurally.  The rhythm of the consonance and thickness of the assonance are too much for some.  Some critics find fault with the difficulty of reading and occasional awkwardness of the poem's diction.  I had an English/Religion professor at Boston University, Geoffrey Hill, a noteworthy poet in his own right, who would begin each class with the reading of Hopkins' poetry.  It was magical.  Maybe it was the British accent, but certainly it was the care, the passion, and the reverence of his reading that tuned Hopkins' music so sweetly. Professor Hill made Hopkins' sprung rhythm unwind with force and fervor.  

This is one of my favorite poems, and it is especially fitting to be included in this blog since it deals with finding our true purpose--being authentic or the authenticity of being.  Hopkins turns the noun into a verb (as we so often like to do in English; "stress" becomes I am "stressing" about this, for example.):  Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,/ Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. The flashing beauty of the kingfisher and the dragonfly, the noisy clanging of the bell and the rock thrown into the well with its rich echoing lends itself so wonderfully to the cry of "Me! This is me! This is who I am and why I'm here!"

And that purpose is given even greater impact as the transition is made to Christ--the just man.  I was always frustrated as a child when I would look up a word in the dictionary and find the word as part of its definition: patience--the state of being patient. But here the "just man justices" doesn't have the same effect. He is justice. He is love, He is grace.  He is Christ and He does what He came to do--keep grace.  Usually one thinks of grace as something freely given--isn't that how we sing about it in our hymns?  Why "keep grace"?  What is the poet saying here? I think "keep" here means sustain.  The love of Christ, his sacrifice, is what continues grace.  And how does that continuing grace work? Through the body of Christ.  Believers are the lovely limbs of Christ.  I don't understand why people talk about social justice as something apart from the gospel. To be like Christ is to love like Christ--to act, to help, to meet needs.  We are to live "[t]o the Father" through the lovely limbs and eyes of Christ--serving selflessly and sacrificially. God help us to be that for which we came!