“God’s Grandeur”

  “God’s Grandeur” is the title of a poem written in 1877, by the Jesuit Priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins. It was published posthumously in 1918, some thirty years after his death, in a collection of his poems.

 Grandeur is not something which is perhaps tangible, but does suggest something which is special and beautiful, something which should prompt us to stand in awe.

 While this poem provides a great link for us between the Easter victory, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the expression of the threefold nature of God all expressing God’s glory, God’s grandeur stretches beyond this taking us into the whole of creation - everything we see around us - the mountains, the seas, the flora and fauna, and humanity.

 So, Hopkins’ poem is very much a celebratory one, rejoicing in God’s presence on the earth and suggesting that God has enhanced nature with an eternal freshness. Such grandeur is only retained when we look after what we have, by tempering materialism and how we respect what we have and treat each other.

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;

    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;

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.

* The term reck his rod means to not take care of, or not pay heed to, (reckless) God's instrument of power, something like a lightning rod.

The poem begins with an interesting but, perhaps, surprising metaphor of God’s grandeur as an electric force.

 In a way this reflects the advances of the mid-late 19^th century – the second industrial revolution - as electricity emerged from being a subject of scientific understanding to an important engineering application as manifested in the development of the telephone, light bulb, the electric motor, and other electrical devices.  I am sure Hopkins would have been aware of these advances.

But, of course, electricity was generated from other forms of energy, which was mainly coal.  

 By the time it was published, some 40 years after it was written, there had been many further advances in technology, not least the arrival of the motor car.

 The poem achieved great popularity.

 But it also seems that Hopkins was excited by what was happening in what was the latest phase of the industrial revolution. This resonates with what has happened with the advances experienced in the century since.

 But at the same time, the poem carries a cautionary note about how we use the planet’s precious resources. It poses an important question about mankind’s awareness (or lack of it) of nature.

So, it asks a question of us.  Are we so busy that we do not see what damage we are continuing to do to the place where we live, along with billions of other humans?   

 Will God’s presence and love stir us sufficiently that we will always be an active part of the preservation of nature. 

 I think this should stimulate us to thank God for what we have, and raise our awareness of what we are doing to planet Earth to ensure sustainability.

The demand for energy sources, and particularly electrical energy, will not diminish against the backdrop of population increase, technical advancements in transportation and the use of electronics to order our lives.

 We need to make sure that “The world is charged with the grandeur of God”, as well as electricity.

Submitted by Roger Verrall - Sept 27^th, 2022

Source

Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)

Cambridge Dictionary