Easter Sunday Sue Schmidt, occasional contributor to this blog and one of the most spiritual people I know, alerted me to this Jeanne Murray Walker poem about wrestling with doubt. Although it’s not explicitly an Easter poem, it describes God blazing up when everything seems empty—as God did on that Resurrection Sunday two millennia ago. […]
Good Friday In her poem “Good Friday,” Christina Rossetti laments that she responds to Christ’s death like a stone, not a faithful sheep. Why can’t she be like the women who wept at the foot of the cross, or Peter who wept for his betrayal, or the sun and the moon that hid their faces? […]
John Gatta’s “Spirits of Place” is helping me understand why I have chosen to retire in my home town. Wordsworth, Stowe, Homer, and Frost help out as well.
Also posted in Homer, Robinson (Marilynne), Stowe (Harriet Beecher), Wordsworth (William) | Tagged "Death of the Hired Man", "Pulley", George Herbert, Harriet Beecher Stowe, home, Homer, John Gatta, Odyssey, retirement, Robert Frost, Sewanee, Tintern Abbey, Uncle Tom's Cabin, William Wordsworth | Psalm 23 has an image which may help power one of George Herbert’s most beloved poems.
George Herbert, never afraid to go toe-to-toe with God, grapples with his tormenting faith in “Affliction (1).”
George Herbert poetry is admirable in the way he wrestles with his spiritual doubts. He may owe a debt to “The Book of Job,” where we also see such wrestling.
Jesus learned to accept a Canaanite woman at his table and George Herbert learns that he belongs at that table. We can use them as models as we face refugees and immigrants.
St. Augustine, George Herbert, and Charlotte Bronte all write about spiritual restlessness.
George Herbert rewrites the 23rd psalm in subtle ways, turning the Lord in the “God of Love” and filling the cup with the eucharist.
