The World Is Charged With The Grandeur of God: the great poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed….” Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ
savoring Hopkins’ delicious words
“deep down things”
like a dogged mouse
I mine soul’s crusty loam
for sigh
sass
a solitary word
not one
not one wheeze
whine
whisper
lights a match to Hopkins verse
today
silence is the only word
this poet dare say
Here is Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem in it’s entirely, my all time favorite.
God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.
Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
You may also like Something New Will Grow: at the edge of nothing
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GHerard Manley Hopkins, SJ’s poem is found in today’s selection in An Ignatian Book of Days by James Martin, SJ, a series of daily reflections from the Spiritual Wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Throughout the book we hear the voices of St. Ignatius as well as many great thinkers and writers, long gone and present day, each uniquely revealing the way of finding God in all things. And that is my intention; to find God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality in whatever presents itself to me each day in 2024.
Each day I read, reflect and write on the selection, hoping to articulate the ways in which I come to know God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality via personal experience, impelled by the leading of my inner life.
INVITATION
Would you like to join me? The book is accessible on Amazon. Let me know in the comments to this post and sign up to get an email whenever I post. I would love to read your reflections too, public or private messages welcome!
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All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being,
Debra Asis
