Naming God - Poetically
Recently I wrote, “No word by itself will ever be able to capture God because words limit. However, the gracious call upon us, is to seek and wonder and delight in Life, both in the present and the eternal. Words assist us when they help orient our awareness and then become an invitation to falling into that which is behind and underneath every-thing.”
In the Spirit of exploring those words and the “behind-ness” of every-thing, I’d like to introduce (or re-introduce) you to a beautiful poem by Malcolm Guite who is a contemporary British poet and musician.
I recently took a hike alone into the glorious northwest mountains and I decided to take this poem along with me. I worked on memorizing it as I walked in Nature (although I would have only made about a 75% on the test at the end of the hike). It shaped my experience of relating with the Divine Spirit that permeates every-thing. I stopped to have a bit of conversation about the poem with a tree, a splay of moss, a flowing stream, and a raven. We enjoyed the poem together. I tried to recite the poem to them from memory. They seemed gracious and I wanted to imagine that they were just glad that I was trying to bring it to them in whatever way I was able.
Perhaps you would want to join me in memorizing this glorious poem. Or perhaps you just need to sit with it in several readings and moments of prayerful contemplation. Or maybe a single reading will suffice for you this day. No matter how you would like to encounter it, I trust that it will bless you.
Kirk Webb
Director of the Celtic Center
O Sapientia
I cannot think unless I have been thought,
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.
I cannot teach except as I am taught,
Or break the bread except as I am broken.
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek,
O Light within the light by which I see,
O Word beneath the words with which I speak,
O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,
O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,
O Memory of time, reminding me,
My Ground of Being, always grounding me,
My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me,
Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,
Come to me now, disguised as everything.
Malcolm Guite