Carrion Comfort - GM Hopkins

Sometimes, in the midst of deep joy and great beauty, there are moments of severity. I went to bed last night restless, wrestling with God, overwhelmed by life, desparate to hear God and feel God's reassuring touch. So I reached for a trusted friend, GM Hopkins, and haphazardly turned to the poem "Carrion Comfort". Helped some.

Carrion Comfort

NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me	5
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?
Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,	10
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

One line in particular struck me:

After a series of questions “but ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst though rude on me…” Hopkins observes “Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.”

All this is happening that God can make chaff fly, and reveal grain, sheer and clear, ready to be planted and cultivated, to bring forth fruit from its death. Reminds me of a talk I had with my friend Kelly on Thursday. We found so many cross references about the theme of a tree bearing fruit in drought. And she then told me about planting peas. When they come, they’re dried up and shriveled. You have to soak them overnight, and they become these glistening translucent pearls. And then you put them in the dirt, where they die, only to bear fruit. It somehow made sense of the biblical analogy of seeds dying to bear fruit (John 12:24).

I wonder where I am in the stage of planting? According to GMH, my chaff is flying!