Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Carrion Comfort

But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me 

Thy wring-earth right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan 

With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan, 

O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? 


Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins


This slice of “Carrion Comfort” blesses my soul. To all who have felt what Hopkins writes of, who have felt the pain of life crashing down like the heavy foot of God whose power holds the whole earth together, since it is in fact God who has battered you, trod upon you with his world-encompassing power, spread you out when all you wanted was to stay heaped and huddled--hidden, when all you sought was to run from him. Why would God deal so with one who loves him? Why would, in the words of St. Teresa of Avila, he treat his friends so? Why? That our chaff might fly; our grain lie, sheer and clear. That we might be winnowed, separated, and refined--sanctified. That the wheat in us might be separated from the chaff. That, having been made new, we might be made holy too.