Darkness, Questions, Poetry, and Spiritual Hope
I must say, it is a very well written essay Professor Corrigan. The world is full of darkness; and when I say full I mean that in my world, especially now, it is very easy to feel like there is no way out. I adapted the quote: “Where is God when the world is falling to pieces?” and turned it into “Where is God when MY world is falling to pieces? So many people think about how bad the world has gotten. And, yes the world has gotten very dark and terrible, but we also need to think about the individual people in the world. Day in and day out there are so many people that feel down and depressed, and this type of essay, the essay that brings sadness and darkness to account is just what is needed. As of late the chapel at SEU has been, well, terrible in the sense that all the chapel is about, is the Southeastern Singers and some pastor that preaches some “feel good message” or a “message of hope.” They do not bring up the main problems; they sugarcoat Christianity and don’t mention what to do or how to combat depression and sadness. I like the ending of this essay, “I will never leave you.”
Reading for Transformation through the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Ok, I am going to just come out and say it. I DO NOT LIKE THIS ESSAY. Lectio Divina, which is translated as “sacred reading” is used to read the Bible and meditate on it. Last I checked, Gerard Manley Hopkins did not write the Bible and his work is not inspired. I am not saying it is wrong to meditate on a poem or essay that has some universal theme, but I am however saying that if it is not a Holy Bible then one should not treat it as such. To “Sacredly” read something that is not “Sacred” is sacrilegious, and I have a huge problem with that. The Bible is the Bible and Gerard Manly Hopkins is Gerard Manly Hopkins. Gerard is not God. Enough said.
"they sugarcoat Christianity"--Phew. Jesus certainly didn't do that. I'm very glad for what you've gotten out of this essay.
ReplyDeleteAbout the other essay, though, you say: "To 'Sacredly' read something that is not 'Sacred' is sacrilegious." But I don't follow your logic. Says who? What are your reasons for that?
I might even go as far as to say that to treat anything that God has called you to do as not sacred is sacrilegious (and I assume that God has called you to read, since you are a student at a Christian university).
The "Sacred" in sacred reading doesn't mean that the thing being read is sacred (though I think I have a different definition of sacred than you do). It's the act that is sacred--it's reading as an act of prayer. If we are to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), then we need to be able to make everything we do prayer--or to live our lives prayerfully. This includes whatever we read. No one said that Gerard was God. No one ever said his poems were scripture.
Lectio divina was invented by Christian monks--and they used it with texts that were from scripture and with other texts that were not scripture.
Of course, you are free to not be comfortable with the idea. But I think that you might want to think it over some more, and perhaps give it a chance.