Tuesday, March 20, 2012

"As Kingfishers Catch Fire"

I'm borrowing a book from my mother, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, by James Martin, SJ.  The author quotes a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889, Jesuit priest) in the context of discussing what it means to be who you are - who God has made you to be.  Although I may have read it before, I don't remember and it is like discovering a small gem.  (I might even have to memorize it!)

I think the part that speaks to me most is the second stanza.  I love the image of grace in which God sees in us - we who by that very grace are freed to be who we are meant to be - the beauty of Christ.

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.

3 comments:

  1. random comment, but just wanted to say that poem was one of the readings at our wedding - it resonates with us as well.

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  2. That's beautiful, Emy; I'm glad it was read at your wedding!

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  3. Beautiful. I should like to memorize it too!

    And on a definitely related note, this theme is expanded in Wilson's book, "Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl." A different kind of writing, certainly, but definitely resonating with the same theme and beauty.

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