I like this poem.

God’s Grandeur

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.

– Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844—89)

I think it’s that last line especially that does it for me.

In some ways it reminds me of that early verse in Genesis:

“And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” – Genesis 1:2b

Oh the creativity, the attention to detail, the mighty, thoughtful, brooding, exquisite genius of our Lord! It is overwhelming to think of it, this vast creation: from the subatomic particle to the mighty wheeling galaxies. This poem, somehow, made me think of that, and of the created order, now bent and broken but one day made complete. And it made me think of my place in it, broken and incomplete as I am, ridiculous of body and of shaky mental constitution, but destined for complete redemption. The morning will spring forth in the east.

These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage; not that we may someday be free of horses altogether but that someday we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King’s stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else – since He has retained His own charger – should we accompany Him?

– C.S. Lewis

[hat tip: Theology of the Body]