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God, Donne, & Love

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I scarce believe my love to be so pure As I had thought it was…

John Donne is one of my favorite poets. His writing is so deep and rich and real.

His poem Loves Growth is one of my all-time favorites.

It’s a poem about how his love, at the beginning, wasn’t as totally pure as he thought.  Perhaps that’s true of many of us in one way or another.  How much of my love includes selfish motives? How pure is my love of my wife and my friends and my God?

Methinks I lyed all winter, when I swore my love was infinite, if spring make’d it more

When we first fall in love, we think we couldn’t be any more in love.  We think it’s infinite. Perfect.  But that’s not quite true.  The truth is, it grows.

Donne compares Love to the seasons, saying it has it’s hard Winter times, and it’s happy Spring times.  Love isn’t all elation and joy.  Even love has it’s winter times.

Real authentic Love is a complex thing that should grow and turn into something even more beautiful and grand than it was at the start. Even in the winter times, the love is real, because really it’s about the other person more than yourself.

The Christian life is the same.  We come to God broken, full of hurt and covered with scars.  We love God the best we can.  And our relationship to God has winter times too. But the longer we stay in the faith, the more we grow and heal, the more our love becomes more selfless and beautiful and grand. And the longer we stay, the more we realize that God’s love is more beautiful than anything we can imagine. 

And we know that God’s love for us will always be there.  Always remain, no matter the Winter we face, for surely no Winter shall abate the Spring’s increase…001 Photo © Gabe Lawson

 

For the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6

Love’s Growth – John Donne

I scarce believe my love to be so pure
   As I had thought it was,
   Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more.

 

But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mixed of all stuffs paining soul or sense,
And of the sun his working vigor borrow,
Love’s not so pure, and abstract, as they use
To say, which have no mistress but their muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.

 

And yet no greater, but more eminent,
   Love by the spring is grown;
   As, in the firmament,
Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown,
Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough,
From love’s awakened root do bud out now.

 

If, as water stirred more circles be
Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those, like so many spheres, but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee;
And though each spring do add to love new heat,
As princes do in time of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the spring’s increase.

A Heart That Breaks

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“I have seen so much in my life, I didn’t think my heart could break.  I didn’t think I could be touched by anything.  But my heart is broken now, and I don’t know what to do.”

This was what an Airman told me during my recent Air Force Reserve duty as a chaplain.

After we finished talking I thought about what he said – about how his once impenetrable heart had been suddenly broken and he was left wondering what’s next. Despite his defenses his heart had been breached.

I thought about how all of us, from time to time, surround ourselves with walls and barriers and claim that no one can touch us, or break us.  I thought about how lonely this makes us in the end.

I’m reminded of that C.S. Lewis quote from The Four Loves, 

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give our heart to no one, not even to an animal…lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

The conversation with the Airman had me thinking – Have I made my heart like a sort of casket – impenetrable, or am I vulnerable?

I mean, sure, I love my family, and my friends.  Certainly I love God.

But do I really love others?  Does my heart break for people I don’t know? Does my heart break at all?

As Christians, have we surrounded our hearts with bubblewrap and packing peanuts, not to be exposed to that which we are unfamiliar with?

As Christians, what breaks our hearts?

This Fall, The Mix (our college & young adult group) will be studying the life of Nehemiah on Sunday Mornings at 9:15am (We start on Aug 25th – we’d love for you to join us). Nehemiah has a remarkable story, and it starts with the fact that had a heart that broke.

When Nehemiah, from the comforts of the King’s court in Persia, heard that the wall of Jerusalem had been destroyed and his people were in trouble the Bible says that he “sat down and wept, and mourned for days” (Neh 1.4).

He opened himself up to the struggles of others in a distant land – and their struggles broke his heart.

It’s hard to make ourselves vulnerable.  It’s not fun to be susceptible to pain.  However, we can’t underestimate the power that comes from a broken heart.  If we let Him, God can turn the pain that comes from what was meant for harm into action that helps, that heals, that does great things in the kingdom of God. Nehemiah is a prime example of this.

In our lives as Christians, the worldly view of strength is turned on its head.  Strength doesn’t mean strong walls and towers in our lives. Strength means having the courage to let our walls down, letting our hearts break for and with others, and then doing something about it. After all, isn’t this exactly what Jesus did?

This line from the poet John Donne has turned into a prayer for me. Maybe it could be for you too…

O might those sighs and tears return again,

Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,

That I might in this holy discontent

Mourn with some fruit… 

 Maybe your heart is already broken from something in your own life.  That’s okay.  Thankfully, God is a God who believes in building things that have been broken and creating beauty from ashes.

So may we mourn, but may we do it with fruit – with action – like Nehemiah did.  Like God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit did for us once and does with us for all time.

So for those of us who need to have the strength to let our guard down, here are some questions to consider:

What breaks your heart?

Where could you be more tender?

Where is the first place you turn when your heart breaks?

 

John Donne – The Definition of a Wordsmith

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John Donne, the  17th century English preacher and poet, is one of my favorite poets. You have to concentrate on what he is saying. You have to work a little bit to understand what he is saying. But once you do, you’re the better for it. 

The poem below is one of my all time favorites. See for yourself.

HOLY SONNETS.    

 I.

THOU hast made me, and shall Thy work decay ?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste ;
I run to death, and Death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way ;
Despair behind, and Death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee
By Thy leave I can look, I rise again ;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.