In his book “Immortal Diamond”, Richard Rohr says that “We are made for transcendence“. I can still vividly remember reading these lines for the first time as a teenager in my bedroom in Wandsworth, London. They took me out and away from suburban life and into this very sens of the transcendent :
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“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.”
(from ‘Tintern Abbey’ by William Wordsworth)
Later I would write my own tribute to Wordworth’s lines:
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Often when the dreadful weight of this
Unintelligible and weary world
Oppressed me like a care, I turned thankful
To your poetry – I felt it move
Along my veins, inside my heart, when I
Was young and saw into the life of things.
That was a blessed time, though transitory,
And soon I had to leave to find my own
Philosophy, though nature always kept
A place of refuge and a solace for
My soul. And now in lonely cities, in
My room and ‘mid the roar of nearby roads,
I think of you, and I recall my early
Wanderings in the world of poetry.
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Wordsworth writes about connection in his poem…
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…another theme I have taken up in my own work:
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The wild birds inhabit these hills
and I, a walker,
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Glancing down the valley
dazzled by gleaming lights
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Flung across the fields
Like necklaces
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I feel connected
With the wind
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The grass under my feet
God’s sky above my head.
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You can read Wordsworth’s poem “Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” here.
Flowering Poverello 