If Only...

[This prose is almost poetic.]

If only Adam hadn't sinned, humanity would have recognized God in all creatures and would have love and praised Him so that even in the smallest blossom they would have seen and pondered His power, grace, and wisdom. But who can fathom how from the barren earth God creates so many kinds of flowers of such lovely colors and sweet scent, as no painter or alchemist could make? Yet God can bring forth from the earth green, yellow, red, blue, brown, and every kind of color. All these things would have turned the mind of Adam and his kin to honor God and glorify and praise Him and to enjoy His creatures with gratitude. ---Martin Luther ("Table Talk" 4.198, Weimar)

But through sin and the fall we humans have become so weakened, so poisoned and corrupted in body, soul, eyes, ears and everywhere that our sense are not the 100th part as sharp as were Adam's before the fall. Our bodies are unclean, and all creatures have become subject to futility (Romans 8). The [16th century!] sun, moon, stars, clouds, air, earth and water are no longer so pure and beautiful and lovely as they were [before sin]. But on that [last] day, all things will be made new and will once more be beautiful, as St. Paul says, Romans 8: "Creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." ---Martin Luther (Weimar 44.231ff)

America the Beautiful

(These sentiments are more noble---and certainly more Christian*---than modern America deserves. And, yet, pockets of America still live this out beautifully.)


O beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace* on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood**,
from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw*;
Confirm thy soul in self control**,
 thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy* more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine**,
'Til all success be nobleness,
and ev'ry gain divine**!

O beautiful, for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
 God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood**,
from sea to shining sea! --- Katharine Lee Bates, English professor at Wellesley College around 4 July, 1893
(on a trip from the east coast to Colorado Springs)

*While "Jesus" & being "saved from sin" are not clearly spelled out in this poem/song, they underlie these thoughts quire clearly
**The work of the Holy Spirit, who works in Christians to do better things and creates a true brotherhood

Change & the Comfort of the Resurrection

(from the longer poem "That Nature is a Heraclitean (1) Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection.")

...Vastness blurs and time beats level. Enough! the Resurrection
A heart's clarion (2)! Away grief's grasping, joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck (3) shone
A beacon, and eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; world's wildfire, leave but ash (1):
In a flash, at a trumpet crash (4)
I am all at once what Christ is, since He was what I am, and
this Jack(5), joke poor potsherd, patch(6), matchwood, immortal diamond
Is immortal diamond.(7)
---Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1888
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins

(1) Heraclitus [(c) 535-(c) 475 B.C.); Greek philosopher who taught that the basis of all existence was change or "fire." "Strife" changes fire into water, water into earth, and then the process reversed. Hopkins didn't truly believe this philosophy but used it to symbolize the change of the corrupted nature and of the corrupting body in the grave into something immortal & beautiful (Diamonds also come out of the earth & are processed by fire.)
(2) Clarion--a clear, trumpet-like, beckoning call
(3) Foundering deck: shipwreck as a symbol of death. (Again, the "water.")
(4) Trumpet: borrowed directly from II Corinthians 15:25.
(5) "Jack": common fellow; this name was well-used in England.
(6) Patch (archaic): fool, ninny; also, a detached piece, a make-shift fragment, such as the potsherd Job used to scrape his sores (Job 2:8)
(7) "Immortal Diamond": Hopkins, as a Roman Catholic, believed that people carried the "scintilla", the spark of original good, within themselves, even after Sin entered the world. As a Lutheran, I take the immortal diamond, already there alongside the corrupt things, to be the new person that is created in Christ when the person is saved. (The term "immortal diamond" has also been used as a title for Hopkins himself.)

Holy God, We Praise Your Name

[a hymnodic paraphrase of the ancient chant, the Te Deum]

Holy God, we praise Your Name;
Lord of all, we bow before You!
All on earth Your scepter claim*,
All in Heaven above adore You;
Infinite Your vast domain,
Everlasting is Your reign.

Hark! the loud celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are raising,
Cherubim and seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising;
Fill the heavens with sweet accord:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord.

Lo! the apostolic train
Join the sacred Name to hallow;
Prophets swell the loud refrain,
And the white robed martyrs** follow;
And from morn to set of sun,
Through the Church the song goes on.

You are King of glory, Christ:
Son of God, yet born of Mary;
For us sinners sacrificed,
Bringing us a sanctuary:
First to break the bars of death,
You have opened Heaven to faith.

Therefore do we pray You, Lord:
Help Your servants whom, redeeming
By Your precious blood out-poured,
You have saved from Satan’s scheming.
Give to them eternal rest
In the glory of the blest.

Spare Your people, Lord, we pray,
By a thousand snares surrounded:
Keep us from falling away,
Never let us be confounded.
See, I put my trust in You:
Guide my footsteps in all that I do.

Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit,
Three we name You;
While in essence only One,
Undivided God we claim You;
And adoring bend the knee,
While we own the mystery.
---Ignaz Franz (German), 1774; adapted Marie Byars, 2008

*more specifically, all of nature & all the saved acknowledge Him willingly now; someday, everyone will be made to acknowledge Him
**"martyrs": those who died as a result of their faith, giving a powerful Christian witness. ("Martyros" in Greek originally meant "witness.")

Vivaldi's "Summer"

[This continues the series of sonnets Antonio Vivaldi wrote to accompany & explain each of his "Four Seasons" concertos.]

In a harsh season burned by the sun,
Man and flock languish,
And the pine tree is scorched;
The cuckoo unleashes its voice, and soon
We hear the songs of the turtle-dove and the goldfinch.

Sweet Zephyr* blows, but Boreas** suddenly
Opens a dispute with his neighbor;
And the shepherd laments his fate,
For he fears a fierce squall is coming.

His weary limbs are robbed of rest
By his fear of fierce thunder and lightning
And by the furious swarm of flies and blowflies.

Alas, his fears are only too real:
The sky fills with thunder and lightning,
And hailstorms hew off the heads of proud cornstalks.

*A sweet, gently warm west wind
**A cold, fierce north wind (in large, flat countries, the collision of these two can brew tornadoes)
[obviously, Vivaldi was not a big fan of summer]

Goin' Home

(adapted from a Black Spiritual)

Goin' home, goin' home;
I'm a-goin' home.
Quiet-like, some still day:
I'm just goin' home.

It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door;
Work's all done, care laid by:
Going to fear no more.

Nothing's lost, all gain;
No more fret nor pain.
No more stumbling on the way
No more longing for the day:
Going to roam no more.

Morning star* lights the way;
Restless dream all done.
Shadows gone, break of day:
Real life just begun.

Goin' home, goin' home;
I'm just goin' home:
It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.
I'm just going home.

* Jesus is called the "Morning Star" in Revelations 22:16 & elsewhere

(used by Anton Dvorak as the basis for the "Largo" in his New World Symphony)

The Starlight Night

Look at the stars! look. look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs*, the circle-citadels* there!
Down in the dim woods the diamond delves**! the elves' eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold*** lies!...
Ah, well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.****
---from Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877

*city images, as if the constellations were fortified cities
**the diamond-like stars dive down to the "land of elves"; (Hopkins nor I really believe in elves--it's just a fanciful & joyful flight of poetic symbolism)
***the light of the heavenly bodies is like "free gold" to anyone who takes the trouble to take it in, but it's gold in motion---it won't be there forever
****the prize comes from the purchase made by Jesus Christ; He died for your sins so all this, too, can be yours, along with the forgiveness and life you have in Him