Dear Faith Family,
The quote in the subject line of this email, "that unrest which men miscall delight," is taken from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley about the revelation of dying. It is a poem about the clarity by which those who go beyond their end can give the living.
While our culture would not have us think about the end of our lives, it is the end from which Jesus' Sermon on the Mount begins. The goal of living, at least historically, is to live well. To look back over our existence and say that it was a good life. In turn, a good life is not merely an ideal achieved but an action, an existence in which we can say of our daily striving that we did well. Our "activities and actions of the soul that involve reason" were good and for the good. In antiquity, such a life was referred to as "happy" or "blessed." It is a life with the end in mind that Jesus describes for the citizens of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 5:2-16.
In Shelley's poem, it is on the other side of death that we can see life for what it is, and what it will someday be. Having crossed the threshold of the end, the poet’s deceased companion (the “he” in the poem) sees that much of daily existing is under the unrest that comes from our mislabeling of the happy or blessed life. "delight," being another word for happiness. Death allows the poet to recognize the source of many of our woes, as well as something better. Listen to the phrase in the context of the poem:
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep,
He hath awaken'd from the dream of life;
'Tis we [the living], who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings, We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
He has outsoar'd the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From contagion of the world's slow stain
He is secure, and now never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;
Nor, when spirit's self has ceas'd to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
He lives, he wakes--'tis Death is dead, not he...
In the world, we will have trouble, Jesus says, but he who went to the end and beyond declares that we have peace in him (Jn. 16:33). Jesus sees as Shelley’s companion that through death he has overcome the stormy visions of our living clay and says we need not mourn a heart grown cold and a head grown gray in vain, for our life is not wasted for those who see through death. Instead, we can rest in true delight, in a life lived well in the end, and doing well on our way. For, like Shelley, we too see life through the death of another,
"We were buried...with [Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." (Rom. 6:4-5)
Through Jesus, we, too, have “outsoar'd the shadow of our night,” to a place of rest, of “Peace, peace!” Jesus has put Death to death, and now as King of the kingdom of heaven, "wields the world with never-wearied love/Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above," as Shelley would say. We may not elude envy, calamity, hate, and pain in our daily existence, but we need not toil because of “miscalled delight.”
Seeing through death to the "newness of life" will help us identify what we have "miscalled delight." Those images, goods, dreams, aspirations, necessities, codes of conduct, recognition, authority, power, etc. that we seek, which we think would make us happy. As we immerse ourselves in the Sermon on the Mount, we’ll discover, like Shelley, that many struggles in our existing stem from the pursuit of mislabeled happiness and, therefore, are overcome in a life lived well in Jesus.
And so, as we repeatedly read through the Sermon on the Mount, ask God to illumine your heart to these three questions:
What have I “miscalled delight?”
How has this mislabeling led to my and others (my family, neighbor, co-worker’s) unrest?
What does a life lived well and doing well along the way look like, according to Jesus?
Then feel free to discuss with others in the family.
Love you faith family. God bless!