When All Is Unentangled
A friend sent me this powerful Wendell Berry poem. Enjoy. And anticipate.
TO MY MOTHER
I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.
So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,
prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,
and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it
already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,
where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.
And all is unentangled, and all is undismayed.
Very nice.
Thanks, Mike
How paltry was my worst, compared to your forgiveness of it already given. I like the “already given” part – what love. Thanks, Mike.
The great understanding.
This is my eschatological hope today: for a time when all is unentangled. For right now all seems very entangled, jumbled, twisted.
I love Wendell Berry–he is one of my favorite contemporary poets along with Mary Oliver.
Speaking of eschatology, the thought occurred to me yesterday as I reached the halfway piont in Wright’s _RSG_ that for God to put us in our new, incorruptible bodies does not make much sense until our corruptible characters have shed their corruption…the (as it were) “foreign” entanglements that we are to “put off” in Heb. 12. What is the piont of an eternal tent housing a dying, rotting character? qb
QB,
You make an excellent point for if we had new incorruptible bodies but still had our old corruptible characters we would naturally behave poorly. Could you be expressing the concept that our wills are not free to be good so long as they are in bondage to our old corrupt nature? QB clearly has a very bright mind and Geezer has suspected that QB might be harboring some Augustinian/Calvinistic concepts . Perhaps QB is inching toward coming out of the closet?
Peace,
Geezer