God's Grandeur

God’s Grandeur by 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. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

            And all is scared with trade; bleared, smeared

            with toil;

            And wears man’s smudge and share’s 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!

 

I usually think of this poem in the fall, with the brilliance of color that comes when the leaves change their colors, but it’s been on my mind this week, as we’ve walked to school in daylight, as the ice has mostly melted of the sidewalks (for now) and as the birds are beginning to brighten in color and to sing.

 

On Tuesday, Jay announced that it was the first day of meteorological spring. I hadn’t heard that term before and looked it up. Meteorologists divide the year into four seasons, based on date rather than temperature for purposes of record keeping. So meteorological spring is always March 1-May 31. It’s different from astronomical spring, which begins with the vernal equinox, which falls somewhere between March 19 and 21 each year. I sort of knew about that, and I looked up what the vernal equinox is (it’s when the sun is directly over the equator on its journey higher in the northern hemisphere sky, according to nbcnewyork.com). So there’s meteorological spring, astronomical spring and there’s also liturgical spring, which begins today, with Ash Wednesday.

 

The word Lent comes from the Old English word laencte, meaning the lengthening of daylight hours, or spring. Jennifer Holberg had a beautiful article about this on the Reformed Journal blog today, with an invitation to us to pay attention to the growing light. On Sunday I preached about my parents’ four-year-old friend who invited us to ‘prepare to be amazed,’ and since then I’ve been trying to pay attention to ordinary wonders. I’ve noticed the maple tree across from our house has buds on it, and the sun reflecting almost blindingly on the melting ice at the park across the street. And although the melting snow reveals some trash, and the world goes not well, ‘nature is never spent.’ The daylight is lengthening, and signs of life are returning, and it seems particularly amazing.

 

As we begin this Lent, this liturgical spring, may you sense the Spirit’s loving presence bent and brooding with warm breast and bright wings over our world and over you too.