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; 5
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; 10
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.


This poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, written in 1877, captured my heart today. Victorian England marked rapid industrialization and the start of capitalism, the western world discovering the wonders of making a quick buck. The poem is marked with allusions of this world of bog and pollution with references to oil, trade, man's smudge and smell upon the earth, and bare soil, corrupted by our footprints. But even so, the author says, nature is NEVER SPENT! Although we can't feel it as before, wearing shoes upon our feet and creating our own shiny inventions, God is there! His light shines even from our man made foil, our own human products! No matter how much we defile creation, God broods over the bent world in the shape of a dove, still in control, and still revealing himself to the world.

This reminded me of something else I've read about a girl who was a victim of the holocaust, watching friends and family members dying the worst of deaths every day...and yet, she still saw God at work for his glory.

Not many of us are fortunate enough to see things this in this light--but what would it look like for us to be able to trust that there is a plan that is chock-full of love and mercy, even though we are surrounded by brokenness and death?