Tag: creation bears witness

“Amo Ergo Sum” by Kathleen Raine (poem)

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments
Mediz-Pelikan, Emilie_Blooming Chestnut Trees
Emilie Mediz-Pelikan (Austrian, 1861–1908), Blooming Chestnut Trees, 1900. Oil on canvas, 132 × 124 cm. Belvedere, Vienna.
Because I love
        The sun pours out its rays of living gold,
        Pours out its gold and silver on the sea.

Because I love
        The earth upon her astral spindle winds
        Her ecstasy-producing dance.

Because I love
        Clouds travel on the winds through wide skies,
        Skies wide and beautiful, blue and deep.

Because I love
        Wind blows white sails,
        The wind blows over flowers, the sweet wind blows.

Because I love
        The ferns grow green, and green the grass, and green
        The transparent sunlit trees.

Because I love
        Larks rise up from the grass
        And all the leaves are full of singing birds.

Because I love
        The summer air quivers with a thousand wings,
        Myriads of jewelled eyes burn in the light.

Because I love
        The iridescent shells upon the sand
        Take forms as fine and intricate as thought.

Because I love
        There is an invisible way across the sky,
        Birds travel by that way, the sun and moon
        And all the stars travel that path by night.

Because I love
        There is a river flowing all night long.

Because I love
        All night the river flows into my sleep,
        Ten thousand living things are sleeping in my arms,
        And sleeping wake, and flowing are at rest.

“Amo Ergo Sum” (Latin for “I Love, Therefore I Am”) by Kathleen Raine is from The Year One (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952) and is compiled in The Collected Poems of Kathleen Raine (Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 2000).

Kathleen Raine (1908–2003) was a British poet and William Blake scholar who fervently promoted spiritual values in an age marked by secular materialism. She was born in Ilford, Essex, and raised in a Methodist household (her father was a lay minister), converting to Catholicism in the 1940s, but, following her interests in Jungian psychology, Neoplatonism, and sacred symbols, she came to embrace the perennial philosophy, which views religious traditions as sharing a single metaphysical truth. With Keith Critchlow, Brian Keeble, and Philip Sherrard and the patronage of then Prince Charles of Wales, Raine founded the Temenos Academy of Integral Studies in 1990, a London charity that offers education in philosophy and the arts in “the light of the sacred traditions of East and West.” Raine authored more than thirty books, both poetry and prose, and her honors and awards include the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

Preaching Skies (Artful Devotion)

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Untitled (No. 29) by Fumihiro Kato
Fumihiro Kato (Japanese, 1958–), Untitled (No. 29). Oil on canvas, 91 × 116.7 cm.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

—Psalm 19:1–6 (ESV)

God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.

Their words aren’t heard,
their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
unspoken truth is everywhere.

God makes a huge dome
for the sun—a superdome!
The morning sun’s a new husband
leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The daybreaking sun an athlete
racing to the tape.

That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies
from sunrise to sunset,
Melting ice, scorching deserts,
warming hearts to faith.

—Psalm 19:1–6 (The Message)

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SONG: “The Spacious Firmament” | Words by Joseph Addison, 18th century | Music by Herbert Sumsion, 20th century | Performed by the Ecclesium Choir, 2005

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.

The unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth:

Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings, as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though no real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?

In reason’s ear they shall rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”

Sumsion’s setting of Addison’s hymn text for SATB and organ is beautiful, but it’s too complex for congregational singing. For those of you who want to introduce this hymn to your church with a more singable melody, there are two precedents: you could use either LONDON by John Sheeles, composed around 1720 (listen here), or CREATION, taken from the chorus “The Heavens Are Telling” in Haydn’s 1798 oratorio The Creation (adapted, e.g., in The Hymnal 1982 #409).

This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.

To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 19, cycle B, click here.