God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bear now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89).

My favourite Hopkins poem, discovered during my Christian years but somehow now - with a little license - expressing how I feel about the world now that God is back 'in' it (or 'as' it), as I am exploring Advaita Vedanta.

I know I've used this image in the blog before, but I'm unashamedly using it again for the same reason - the world is starting to 'glow' and come alive again...

Accordingly, I'm now changing the name of this blog, from one that is about darkness to one that is about dawn and new light.

[For future reference, this blog used to be called 'Through a Glass Darkly'].

[Image by Michael Leunig].