On Nothing, and more Existential Longing

Some lighthearted content this week. Okay, perhaps not.

Let me start with a premise: Winter seems a ripe, ideal time for existentialism. In this season, we Christians meditate on the mystery of the Incarnation, a leap from reason that God would climactically enter into human history and begin the grand erasure between infinite divinity and the sorry state of humankind. Yet some of us have a more difficult time grappling with God in the face of the difficulties that can arise during the winter. Although the holidays have subsided into the renewed rhythms of January, the trauma many of us experience amidst family conflict, hellish travel scenarios, and (this one hits me in particular) our culture's obscene consumerism can leave their mark into the New Year. If anything, we long for more, eagerly awaiting the warmth of the sun as the earth surely does.



On a recent plane ride I burned through the Stranger, by Albert Camus, in which the main character finds his own violent, senseless actions forcing him to stand against their consequences (Spoiler alert). He finds no answers, only the "benign indifference of the universe." Whereas violence begets more violence from the standpoint of revenge, it is altogether baffling to grapple with completely senseless violence. Sometimes this longing for answers, reason, and meaning can lead to a crisis of faith. Many minds and hearts searching for meaning in the midst of circumstance, apathy, or clearly tragic events that that which shook Newtown, Connecticut in December. Surely some of us have grappled with goodness, justice, and the ideas of grace and forgiveness in the face of such tragedy. The searing polemic that accompanies policy talk surely doesn't help.

As Paul would write: What, then, are we to say? Can words aid our struggle? Is God listening?

Some early poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins may help give meaning, as only good poetry does. It's called Nondum, and was written during a particularly difficult time during the poet's life. Perhaps these words can show us how God moves us to speak, and as the Incarnation shows us, the handiwork of God's creation is shown in unexpected, vulnerable humanity. Just as the child Jesus in Mary's arms gives us a fuller image of God in the midst of the craziness, so does the final stanza in this poem point to a fundamental truth about the validity of spiritual searching.

Nondum

‘Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.’ -Isaiah xlv. 15

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise
No answering voice comes from the skies;
To Thee the trembling sinner prays
But no forgiving voice replies;
Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,
Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

We see the glories of the earth
But not the hand that wrought them all:
Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,
Yet like a lighted empty hall
Where stands no host at door or hearth
Vacant creation’s lamps appal.

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,
With attributes we deem are meet;
Each in in his own imagining
Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;
Yet know not how our gifts to bring,
Where seek Thee with unsandalled feet.

And still th’unbroken silence broods
While ages and while aeons run,
As erst upon chaotic floods
The Spirit hovered ere the sun
Had called the seasons’ changeful moods
And life’s first germs from death had won.

And still th’abysses infinite
Surround the peak from which we gaze.
Deep calls to deep, and blackest night
Giddies the soul with blinding daze
That dares to cast its searching sight
On being’s dread and vacant maze.

And Thou art silent, whilst Thy world
Contends about its many creeds
And hosts confront with flags unfurled
And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds
And truth is heard, with tears impearled,
A moaning voice among the reeds.

My hand upon my lips I lay;
The breast’s desponding sob I quell;
I move along life’s tomb-decked way
And listen to the passing bell
Summoning men from speechless day
To death’s more silent, darker spell.

Oh! till Thou givest that sense beyond,
To shew Thee that Thou art, and near,
Let patience with her chastening wand
And lead me child-like by the hand
If still in darkness not in fear.

Speak! whisper to my watching heart
One word-as when a mother speaks
Soft, when she sees her infant start,
Till dimpled joy steals o’er its cheeks.
Then, to behold Thee as Thou art,
I’ll wait till morn eternal breaks.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1866.