Dear Faith Family,
I am writing to you today, my friends, to ask you to do something that does not come easily for most: slow down and savor words.
In 'normal' times, we are commonly overrun with words and information, but these last few weeks have intensified the onslaught of opinions, instructions, and even encouragements. I expect then, with empathy rather than judgment, that you are more than likely going to skim through my addition to the verbiage. But, I ask you to resist your inclination to scan and continue reading only at a leisurely pace. I ask it for your good, so when you are ready and able to slow down and savor, please continue.
There is an underlying anxiousness in most of us right now, for obvious reasons. An anxiousness that creeps up and overwhelms, perhaps only in passing moments or manifesting in unsettled stomachs and uneasy sleep. For some, the anxiousness is not so hidden. Regardless, we know we can and ought not to fret as we do, at least that is what our faith tells us. We try not to worry, yet we are unable it seems but to wander in the wilderness of the present, brooding on what lies beyond our vision, the unknown surrounding us like darkness. We are unsure where the sounds behind the veil of night originate and to whom or what they belong. Anything and everything imaginable could be on the other side of the night so thick yet pale.
We wonder if our faith is lacking and what confession needs to be made. We think our faith is weak, our faith mistakenly abased by our overconsumption of the news, constant distracting, and 'selfish solicitude.' And now, when we need it most, and it’s night and hard to see, it seems fleeting as a match's flame.
What are we to do at these times? It would be easy enough to offer a quick reminder of the truth--and those are certainly helpful--or a list of useful tips for mental health in stressful times, or a treatise on "being anxious for nothing." Instead, I offer you an opportunity to slow down and savor, to "taste and see that the Lord is good," not through information, but a meditation on words about the Word.
The instructions are simple: read the poem below slowly, then read the section after meant to help you connect some of the dots in the poem, then re-read the poem slowly two to three more times, allowing yourself be drawn into the images, emotions, and the echos, stopping to hang on the words that jut out to you until the reason for their protruding is satisfied.
STATION ISLAND XI | Seamus Heaney and St. John of the Cross
As if the prisms of the kaleidoscope
I plunged once in a butt of muddied water
Surfaced like a marvellous lightship
And out of its silted crystals a monk's face
That had spoken years ago from behind a grille
Spoke again about the need and chance
To salvage everything, to re-envisage
The zenith and glimpsed jewels of any gift
Mistakenly abased...
What came to nothing could always be replenished.
'Read poems as prayers,' he said, 'and for your penance
Translate me something by Juan de la Cruz.'
Returned from Spain to our chapped wilderness,
His consonants aspirate, his forehead shining,
He had made me feel there was nothing to confess.
Now his sandalled passage stirred me to do this:
How well I know that fountain, filling, running,
Although it is the night.
That eternal fountain, hidden away
I know its haven and its secrecy
Although it is the night
But not its source because it does not have one,
Which is all sources' source and origin?
Although it is the night.
No other thing can be so beautiful.
Here the earth and heaven drink their fill
Although it is the night.
So pellucid it never can be muddied,
And I know that all light radiates from it
Although it is the night.
I know no sounding-line can find its bottom,
Nobody ford or plumb its deepest fathom
Although it is the night.
And its current so in flood it overspills
To water hell and heaven and all peoples
Although it is the night.
And the current that is generated there,
As far as it wills to, it can flow that far
Although it is the night.
And from these two a third current proceeds
Which neither of these two, I know, proceeds
Although it is the night.
This eternal fountain hides and splashes
Within this living bread that is life to us
Although it is the night.
Hear it calling out to every creature.
And they drink these waters, although it is dark here
Because it is the night.
I am repining for this living fountain.
Within this bread of life I see it plain
Although it is the night.
The poem begins with the author recounting a kaleidoscope he ruined in his desire to see into the dark of 'muddied water." This gift meant to allow him to see the refracted and beautiful glories of God's light seems to him lost and wonders if it can be salvaged. Feeling the seeming loss of such a gift, he remembers a conversation with a monk in a confessional ('behind a grille'), through which he came to realize that "What came to nothing could always be replenished."
Like you and I, the author has struggled to see through the dark, feeling that he has lost his apprentice for viewing God's glory and beauty through the unknown of the "chapped wilderness." And like the author, we are invited to "Read poems as prayer," specifically a poem by St. John of the Cross ("Juan de la Cruz."), which are the final twelve stanzas.
God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, addresses himself as "the fountain of living waters" (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13). And St. John of the cross ruminates on the magnificent features of this fountain and its water in the first several stanzas.
Jesus would say that if we asked him for a drink, he would give us ever quenching access to the same "living water" (John 4:10). Jesus' access granting comes because he is the "bread of life" and "living bread" (John 6:35, 51). Jesus makes this declaration in the context of him explaining that consuming his body and blood is the only way to life now and forever. His words and actions, making an easy connection for you and me to the bread and wine of communion. In both instances, Jesus offers access to the fountain of living waters through his body and his blood to people at the moment of their need, "Because it is the night."
Now that you have a little bit of connection to the parts of the poem, re-read the poem slowly two to three more times, allowing yourself be drawn into the images, emotions, and the echos, stopping to hang on the words that jut out to you until the reason for their protruding is satisfied.