A Short Reflection on a Beloved Poet:
Beauty (and much more) is immortal to certain poets and mystics -- who see the sparkling diamond of the divine in us ALL underneath all that separates us from one another and the rest of creation.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, poet and mystic, wrote/writes for us still this day that the world is shaped by “the ONE whose beauty is past change.”
His poems use language in a pre-cognitive way -- sensing before looking for patterns we can count on -- noticing the gems all around him in fresh ways and reflecting them back as if to an Artist-Friend. He helps us see as well as Practice the Presence -- the REAL Presence without whom little would be as beautiful and lasting.
Even a bird’s beauty stirs his heart. Even in newly-tilled fields "gold-vermillion" shines. “my life is determined by ... the details of the day.” he says and as we leave out some of his more theological language and that of his interpreters we can find so much of the universal to give us new, fresh experiences with our own lives.
Even beyond this honed vision is a better perhaps truer way to see each our own deepest being?
"...This Jack, joke, poor potsherd,‘ patch, matchwood, immortal diamond" is a line from one of GMH's poems.
Thus:
Whoever we are -- however unrecognized or unformed -- wherever we find ourselves in this created world) perhaps our truest self IS (each of us--ALL of us) IMMORTAL DIAMOND?
IF so, how might we also see one another?
