The problem is that I have no new stuff; nothing new to write; only the old faith in Christ and the resurrection, which in a way is both old and forever new. The truth of Christianity and the faith that I have comes from understanding that the resurrection really happened. Thus I included the two essays in the preceding blog entry. Either he came out of the tomb or he didn’t. If he didn’t my faith is null and void; an illusion; if he did then my faith is substantial. Once I didn’t believe it to be true; then I met God at my kitchen table in grad school who gave me the knowledge that JESUS IS LORD and the resurrection is true. For Yeats, “the center cannot hold”; for me this faith is the center that holds: JESUS IS LORD. I may doubt t from time to time, but the truth was put in me and it always remains, regardless.
Another thing: all the Christians I read are a lot more intelligent than I am—C.S.Lewis Anthony Esolen, Reno, Weigel, Tolkien, Fa, Spitzer, Fa. Barron, Augustine, Aquinas, etc.—if people smarter than I am hold the faith to be true, why shouldn’t I too?
Well, there it is: faith reaffirmed on Easter Sunday. Time to get back to trying to think about Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” as well as to finishing my latest Alex Delaware mystery. In the meantime I shall find a good poem to finish with:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.
13. Pied Beauty
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; 5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: 10
Praise him.
An interesting day, a moment of coherence. Hour or so after I had written the above [4 to 5 p.m.probably], my friend arrived unexpectedly with the Eucharist from the morning’s Mass, with permission. The Eucharist was the perfect, much needed climax to the Easter Day. Where I see pattern, others might see simply random coincidence. I received the Eucharist at a time when it was much needed and appreciated. Interpret how you will. For me, however, it was an unexpected, surprising moment of coherence and completion: Evidence of love in several important ways—human and divine. And for me there is only one appropriate response: my deepest, sincerest gratitude all around—human and divine.
Praise him!
