Easter Sunday is a trumpet peal of light and glory at winter’s end. The Lord is risen indeed, and all sing Alleluia! Thus begins Eastertide, the most festal season of the Christian church.
Easter also marks the end of Lent, season of penitence and prayer and, among the King’s Chapel community, a time when poetry sharpens the edge of both. For those of us whose spiritual development centres on growing the capacity for love, the challenge is to keep the Lenten spirit in the midst of celebration and on into the Ordinary Time of summer.
A broken and contrite heart, Psalm 51:17 ~ jturner DigiSilk© graphic
In those long ago days when I left behind family, church, and all things familiar for life in a big city, my “bible” consisted of a book of poetry. In hindsight I know that receiving this book was a result of God’s providence, because he knows me better than I know myself. In that book were a thousand sharp wedges to widen the cracks in the carapace formed over my small heart. There were poems
- of life and death, of love and hate,
- of light and laughter, loneliness and loss,
- of longing and regret, and foolish pride, and more than that,
- of playwrights and prophets, monks and apostles.
Poetry makes you reflect. It makes you question, not only the meaning of the poem, but why it touches your heart or irritates your mind. It can bring you up short in the midst of complacency, and be an aid to contrition.
The spirit of Lent, sustained throughout the year, keeps us aware of just how often our thoughts, words and deeds fall short of the love of Jesus Christ. It is an aid to growth and forming good habits in all the ways we think, speak and act toward others and to the world that sustains us. In both festive and Ordinary Time, poetry is a resource we can turn to, timeless words with the power to breach the highest wall, the most unforgiving barrier.
Here are two of the poems that challenged me and others in the King’s Chapel community during this past Lent. The first is by Canadian poet Alden Nowlan.
The Practice of Mercy
Beginning the practice of mercy,
study first to forgive
those who have wronged you.
Having done that,
you will be ready for the sterner discipline:
learning to forgive those
you have betrayed and cheated.
The second poem is by English-American poet W. H. Auden.
Epitaph on a Tyrant
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
These poems, and others, will help me keep the Lenten spirit as the coming months unfold. That doesn’t mean I will grovel in repentance or refuse gifts of joy and happiness. It means only that, like water on stone, contrition will shape me and move me closer to my Lord in love.
In memoriam:
I give thanks for the lives of two poets who were part of my journey in life before I moved to the opposite coast. The work of Patrick Lane and Joe Rosenblatt enriches all who encounter it. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.