Читать книгу The Priestly Poems of G.M. Hopkins - Peter Milward - Страница 5

“Thou mastering me.” “I – Thee!” Can there be any relation, any contrast, deeper or more heart-rending than this? “O that you would rend the heavens and come down!” Such is the heart-felt prayer of the prophet. All too often the heavens seem to be made of bronze. The face of God himself seems to be made of bronze. The poet himself once felt his prayer “lost in desert ways”, his hymn “in the vast silence” dead.

“Thou mastering me.” Yet we know, we believe that this is not so. The face of God is what we seek, even through heaven, even in spite of heaven. The silence of these vast spaces may frighten us, even terrorize us. Yet we have faith and hope that in them and behind them is he whom we seek. “Fecisti nos ad Te, Domine!” says Augustine in the beginning of his Confessions. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you!”

“Noverim me, noverim te.” “I would know myself, I would know you!” “Know then thyself,” says the poet, “presume not God to scan.” That is what we are told. And we are further informed, “The proper knowledge of mankind is man.” But that isn’t true. Or it’s only partly true. Before we presume to scan divinity, we have to scan humanity – where “to scan” means a merely rational knowledge. In knowing ourselves we find so much to criticize. So how can we presume to criticize God? He is so high above all merely human knowledge, let alone human criticism. He is above, and we are below.

“Thou mastering me.” Let us therefore bestow our searching gaze on the things and the persons around us, on the same level as ourselves. Let us begin by knowing ourselves. Such self-knowledge is the beginning of human wisdom. It is the knowledge of ourselves as we are, not in pride but in humility. It is what Shakespeare was taught in the homily “Of the Misery of All Mankind”. We have so much reason to be humble, even before the things and persons around us. We have so much reason to be humble, as Peter reminds us, before the mighty hand of God who is revealed to us above them.

“Thou mastering me.” Then from ourselves and through ourselves, from the things and persons around us and through them, we may hope to come before the throne of the Most High. Then we may hope to rise, as in a mystical elevator, from below to above, from ourselves to God. Then we may address God, who is so high above us, not impersonally as him, but personally as you. No longer “Who am I?” but “Who are you?” Now we may forget about ourselves, our all too little selves. Now we may come before you.

“Thou mastering me.” Now let us begin by asking, “Who are you?” Let us begin by praying with the Psalmist, “Show us your face, O Lord!” Now it is no longer, “Noverim me,” but only “Noverim te!” Now once again let us ask, “Who are you?” Only, this isn’t a movement from below to above, from our little selves to the great God. Such may be a Hellenic way of proceeding, a yearning for the Infinite. But such is not the Hebraic way. Such is not the way we are taught in the Psalms. We may find in ourselves a yearning for the Infinite. But what is that yearning, and how is it originally within us?

“Thou mastering me.” It is a mysterious fire, the fire of the lesser gravity within us, seeking the greater gravity above us. It is not just the material fire that makes the Earth rotate around the Sun. Rather, we are aware of another, spiritual fire, which makes our poor earthly Earth rotate around the heavenly Sun. It is the greater Energy that bends down, stoops down, condescends to our weaker energy. It is even a yearning in God himself, the great Creator, to enter into and embrace his little creature. “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest!” he whispers in our ear, “I am he whom thou seekest.”

“Thou mastering me.” Who is he, we wonder, who whispers thus in our ear? Or rather, as I have been saying again and again, “Who are you?” He answers us, as once he answered Moses in the desert, at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the vision of a burning bush, “I am,” or more solemnly, “I am who I am”. That is the name of God, the Lord God, YHWH, the name he has chosen from and for many generations. Or rather, we should say, “Who are you, that you should say, I am?”

“Thou mastering me.” And who are we that we should respond, “Here I am!” That is what Abraham said, what Moses said, what the boy Samuel was told to say, “Here I am!” That is what the Word himself says in the Psalm on his coming into the world. It is what the Son says in response to the Father, “Here I am!” It is also what Mary says in her turn to the Angel who brings her the tidings of great joy that she is to be Mother of the Word, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it done to me according to your word!” And so she becomes Mother of God.

“Thou mastering me.” Again let me repeat, in the more personal form of address, “Who are you?” Who are you, coming down in this way to our poor, lowly selves? How can you tell us your name as simply “I am”, impelling us to respond in like manner, “Here I am!” Here are two forms of the present tense of the simplest verb “To be”, both in the first person singular. Yet we are obliged to draw a distinction between them as “I am” in the upper case and “I am” in the lower case. How can we compare ourselves to God? You are so high above us, and we are so low beneath you.

“Thou mastering me.” But it is you who come down to us, who condescend from on high to our lowly human level. It is you who stoop to us, swoop down on us, like a divine falcon diving on your helpless, hopeless, human prey. For that is what we are, mere human prey. It isn’t so much we who feebly search for you, as it is you who come in search of us. And when you find us, even in spite of ourselves, even when “frantic to avoid thee and flee,” then it is you who master us. Then we recognize you as Master and ourselves as servants, or rather you as Father and ourselves as sons.

“Over again I feel Thy finger and find Thee.” In search of us it is you who reach down to us, who find us. Then it is we who feel your finger and find you. It is your Holy Spirit, finger of your right hand, who fly down upon us, who come and overshadow us, who breathe upon us as in a new creation. We are like Adam in the painting, reaching out our limp finger as best we can, so as to touch your outstretched finger.

“Over again I feel Thy finger and find Thee.” Then we hear your Word uttered in blessing over us, “Let there be light!” And suddenly, unexpectedly, overwhelmingly, there is light! Before, all in us and around us was darkness, mere darkness over the face of the deep. Now, all is light. Now we see! “Before, behind, and on every hand” it is light that enwheels us round, enfolds us, encompasses us, surrounds us!