Renegotiating Our Spiritual Mortgage

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (18th century)

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (18th century)

Spiritual Sunday

Today’s poem, a fabulous sonnet by my favorite religious poet, is also very much in the spirit of the times given our mortgage foreclosure crisis. The latest news is that federal attempts to aid homeowners have been meeting with indifferent success and that people continue to lose their homes. George Herbert’s “Redemption” (1633) doesn’t tell us how to pay off our bank loans, but it does assure us that we are loved.

In the poem the speaker imagines himself as one of God’s tenants and describes himself as “not thriving.” In an attempt to get easier payments—he is mistaken in his judgment of his landlord, whom he thinks is harsher than he in fact is—he goes looking for him in heaven. He learns that he has journeyed to earth.

The speaker then figures that his landlord would reside in places that approximate his splendor and so searches for him in “cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts.” In the end, however, he finds him among thieves and murderers, sacrificing himself for his tenants.

The speaker sees himself in these thieve and murderers.  No matter how wretched we are, our landlord will grant us our petitions.  We have but to seek him out.

Redemption

HAVING been tenant long to a rich lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.

In heaven at his manor I him sought:
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts
;
In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth

Of thieves and murderers: there I him espied,
Who straight, “
Your suit is granted,” said, and died.

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