My rhetoric professor, Dr. Carolyn Weber, knows poetry. Oodles and oodles of poetry that she’s memorized and can recite at the drop of a hat. And she’s inspired me to start memorizing poems myself.
One of these poems is a short, profound work by George Herbert that I want to share with you today. It goes like this. The Pulley When God at first made man Having a glass of blessings standing by “Let us,” said he, “Pour on him all we can. Let all the world’s gifts, which dispersed lie Contract into a span.” So strength first made a way, Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay. “For if I should,” said he, “Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He’d adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in nature, not the God of nature, So both should losers be.” “Let him keep the rest, But keep with them repining restlessness, Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, then weariness May toss him on my breast.” One of the really fascinating things about this poem is its title. The Pulley— what does a simple machine have to do with rest and blessing and all that? I think the title is, in fact, a reference to God. A pulley is device that redirects force, which is precisely what God does in the poem. He takes the strivings of mankind and turns it toward Himself. All the energy that people pour into chasing after wealth or pleasure or honor, temporary things that can never satisfy the desires of their heart— this energy is not wasted. It would be, if we were left to our own devices. All our efforts would spill out and fade away. But God does not abandon us as we pursue our myopic goals. My moral philosophy class just finished discussing Augustine’s Confessions. In that book, Augustine laments all the time he spent looking for satisfaction away from God, but he also realizes that each lesser good he chased after turned out to be a tool used by God to draw him to Himself. The force of young Augustine’s passions and desires went one direction; God captured that force and turned it to a better direction. Seeing how God works as a pulley encourages me in my own Christian walk. I am not smart enough to figure out how best to use my time and energy. The world is vast. Who knows what the far-rippling consequences of my actions will be? I don’t, but I don’t need to know, because God does. If I strive to love my friends and neighbors, God will take that striving and use it to further His kingdom. When I serve others, do I do so because I love them with the pure of love of Christ, or because I am seeking to be praised? The answer is yes. But it is better to love imperfectly and trust God to redeem my impure motives than to not love at all. This is the lesson I learn from ‘The Pulley’— that has God has lavished abundant gifts upon his creatures, and that as we attempt to use those gifts well, we will fail. But our failure is the beginning, not the end. While we seek after God in our weak and faltering way, God is seeking for us in His strong and unyielding way. Living a fruitful Christian life does not rely on our foresight so much as it relies our Lord. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
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"In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing. A journey."
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