Blake and Wordsworth: Of Church and Creation
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The poem I want to focus on from Blake is "The Little Vagabond." The vagabond's idea of church sounded eerily familiar to some views I've heard of the role of modern churches. Many believers place too much focus on present circumstances, happiness, and comfort. I think they often confuse happiness with joy, which are opposite in meaning. Happiness depends on circumstance, joy is despite circumstance. In other words, happiness is a feeling, joy is a practice. You can grieve while still holding on to joy. The point is that church is not supposed to be a place that provides individual happiness and comfort, it should be pushing and shoving the congregation as a whole towards God. Sometimes that means it is going to hurt, which is a good thing. Church should not be a place of drinking and happiness like the vagabond wants. Jesus was not a happy man - in fact, His life kind of sucked - but He was joyful despite His circumstances. God does not want us to be happy and comfortable, God wants to pick up our crosses and follow Him, He wants us to run the race with endurance, He wants us to don armor and engage the enemy in warfare! The church is not our place of rest, it is our community training field. We train by giving God praise and glory and learning more about Him and the enemy. It doesn't hurt to enjoy a cup of coffee while engaging in battle strategy, but when the church focuses on drawing people in instead of rooting them firmly in God, it fails in its mission. Long story short, the vagabond's church model is very shallow and I fear it would not stand under enemy fire. A church should focus on spiritual depth, not large membership.
The only poem that nearly brought tears to my eyes was "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by Wordsworth. From what I understood, the author was lamenting the fact that nature used to have a wonderful glory about it that was ruined by sin. Yes, nature is beautiful, but it is also suffering as much as we are. Nature cries for the day when Jesus will return just as much as we do. Homeless puppies, sick wildebeests, hungry polar bears, and even diseased trees cannot wait until the world is restored to its original glory. I don't believe that animals have souls, but I do believe that they know the world is not perfect. Sometimes I think they have a better grasp of truth than some people I know.
P.S. I commented on Darby and Carmen's posts.
The poem I want to focus on from Blake is "The Little Vagabond." The vagabond's idea of church sounded eerily familiar to some views I've heard of the role of modern churches. Many believers place too much focus on present circumstances, happiness, and comfort. I think they often confuse happiness with joy, which are opposite in meaning. Happiness depends on circumstance, joy is despite circumstance. In other words, happiness is a feeling, joy is a practice. You can grieve while still holding on to joy. The point is that church is not supposed to be a place that provides individual happiness and comfort, it should be pushing and shoving the congregation as a whole towards God. Sometimes that means it is going to hurt, which is a good thing. Church should not be a place of drinking and happiness like the vagabond wants. Jesus was not a happy man - in fact, His life kind of sucked - but He was joyful despite His circumstances. God does not want us to be happy and comfortable, God wants to pick up our crosses and follow Him, He wants us to run the race with endurance, He wants us to don armor and engage the enemy in warfare! The church is not our place of rest, it is our community training field. We train by giving God praise and glory and learning more about Him and the enemy. It doesn't hurt to enjoy a cup of coffee while engaging in battle strategy, but when the church focuses on drawing people in instead of rooting them firmly in God, it fails in its mission. Long story short, the vagabond's church model is very shallow and I fear it would not stand under enemy fire. A church should focus on spiritual depth, not large membership.
The only poem that nearly brought tears to my eyes was "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by Wordsworth. From what I understood, the author was lamenting the fact that nature used to have a wonderful glory about it that was ruined by sin. Yes, nature is beautiful, but it is also suffering as much as we are. Nature cries for the day when Jesus will return just as much as we do. Homeless puppies, sick wildebeests, hungry polar bears, and even diseased trees cannot wait until the world is restored to its original glory. I don't believe that animals have souls, but I do believe that they know the world is not perfect. Sometimes I think they have a better grasp of truth than some people I know.
P.S. I commented on Darby and Carmen's posts.
Sophia back at it again with the wonderful thoughts! The only thing that I have an input on here is about the church. It really irritates me how content people are in the church. Our sermon last night was about the passing generations being examples and the succeeding generations truly accepting and learning from these passing generations. BUT how can we learn if they are not doing anything? My nerves get so worked on this topic because my church is a prime example. However, one thing many people fail to mention about the church is that it is truly a refuge for so many! Yes, it should be seen by many more as training for the battle field, but the wounded soldiers with no hope of life need to be shown refuge, and I think church congregations sometimes neglect this as well in their contentment.
ReplyDeleteI laughed a little as I read this poem ("The Little Vagabond"). I think it's funny because this would've been outright heresy at the time and could've gotten Blake in a lot of trouble, when really he's making a point about people that think church is boring or love the Alehouse more than church. I have to speculate, though, if perhaps he was saying that the church was boring or unfulfilling because the truth was not being taught? I don't know enough about Blake or his views to verify that, it's just an interesting thought.
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