4 Comments
User's avatar
Reinventing Christianity's avatar

This sent me looking for an old favorite poem, which changed my answer about Holiness from ‘up there’ to ‘down deep in everything’:

God’s Grandeur

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Expand full comment
Bo McGuffee's avatar

That's beautiful. :-)

Thank you for sharing that.

Expand full comment
My Walk's avatar

I try to find holiness wherever I go & usually find it in the most unexpected places. Often I'm surprised daily & it is often found within the characteristics mentioned of which transcends all else

Expand full comment
Bo McGuffee's avatar

I love this, especially the emphasis on being surprised daily.

Expand full comment