Middle School English Class. . .

8M, a 7th-grader about to turn 13, is having a lot of fun in his English class, just lately.  They're doing a unit on Poetry; his English teacher is a young woman who looks like she might not be much older than Middle School herself.  She's wonderfully creative, and puts across real joy and love for her subject, of which 8M, at least, seems to have caught a most virulent case.

She had them memorize two poems of their own choice.  8M asked Jenn and me what our favorite poems were; I told him Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' and Poe's 'The Bells' (inveterate lover of wordplay that I am; I thought about giving him 'I Am the Walrus', but wasn't sure if that would count as an actual poem).  Jenn gave him Rudyard Kipling's 'If'.  So the three of us spent a couple weeks memorizing all three poems, and had great fun doing so.

The class held a 'tournament' of everyone's favorite poems.  The teacher paired off the poems, and the class voted on which one of each pair they liked, one round every day.  Alas, 8M's poems were eliminated fairly early (evidently, our predilection for whimsical wordplay is not widely shared; pity).  The ultimate winner was a limerick by Ogden Nash (which seems about right for a middle school class):

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
     Said the fly, "Let us flee!"
     "Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

I love limericks. . .

Another recent assignment asked 8M to write a statement describing himself in three words.  He wrote, "I am a rebel," and showed if to 6F, who was standing nearby.  She looked at it and said, "But that's four words."  8M just looked at her, grinning. . .

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike
(yes, that John Updike) (really)


Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell's dissolution did not reverse,
          the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.


It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths
          and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.


The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That - pierced - died, withered,
          paused and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.


Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable,
          a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages;
Let us walk through the door.


The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality
          that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.


And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta,
          vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.


Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour,
          we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

As the Ruin Falls

This poem by CS Lewis has long been one of my favorites.  It is a very 'Lenten' poem, and I offer it to you all, apropos of the season. . .

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As the Ruin Falls by CS Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack,
I see the chasm.  And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man.  And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls.  The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

Then Thank the Lord

I came across this hymn recently.  I'm sure it's of more traditional provenance than the setting I (and folks of my, uh, antiquity) recall from the 70s-era musical Godspell, but that's the tune I have in mind when I read this.  Anyway, today being Thanksgiving, it seems suitably apropos. . .

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We Plough the Fields
     by Matthias Claudius (1740-1815)

We plough the fields and scatter
     The good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered
     By God's almighty hand;
He sends the snow in winter,
     The warmth to swell the grain,
The breezes and the sunshine,
     And soft refreshing rain.

All good gifts around us
     Are sent from Heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
     For all His love.


He only is the Maker
     Of all things near and far
He paints the wayside flower,
     He lights the evening star.
The winds and waves obey Him,
     By Him the birds are fed;
Much more to us, His children,
     He gives our daily bread.

All good gifts around us
     Are sent from Heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
     For all His love.


We thank Thee then, O Father,
     For all things bright and good,
The seed-time and the harvest,
     Our life, our health, our food.
No gifts have we to offer
     For all Thy love imparts,
But that which Thou desirest,
     Our humble, thankful hearts.

All good gifts around us
     Are sent from Heaven above,
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
     For all His love.

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"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
     His steadfast love endures forever."
          - Psalm 107:1  (also Psalm 118:1, Psalm 136:1)

I wish a happy and richly-blessed Thanksgiving to all my friends and their families.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

I love this ancient hymn.  I don't know that it was written specifically as a Christmas hymn, but it sure seems to fit. . .

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From the 4th-century Liturgy of St. James
(translated from Greek into English by Gerard Moultrie):

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Let all mortal flesh keep silence
And in fear and trembling stand.
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in His hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood.
Lord of lords in human vesture,
In the body and the blood.
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of Heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of Hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six-winged seraph;
Cherubim with sleepless eye
Veil their faces to the Presence
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

The King Shall Come

This is one of my favorite Advent hymns.  Our family has performed a version of it a few times, together.  If I were really ambitious, I might make an audio file and embed it here, but really, it works pretty well just as a poem. . .

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The King Shall Come
(translated from Greek by John Brownlie)

The King shall come when morning dawns,
And light triumphant breaks.
When beauty gilds the eastern hills,
And Life to Joy awakes.

Not, as of old, a little child,
To bear and fight and die,
But crowned with glory as the sun
That lights the morning sky!

O brighter than that glorious morn
Shall dawn upon our race,
The day when Christ in glory comes,
And we shall see His face.

The King Shall come when morning dawns,
And light and beauty brings.
Hail, Christ the Lord! Thy people pray,
Come quickly, King of Kings!

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"Even so; come, Lord Jesus!"

Good Is the Flesh

For Christmas, another re-post, from four years ago, of one of my favorite poems. I hope you like it as much as I do. . .

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Good Is the Flesh (by Brian Wren)

Good is the flesh that the Word has become
Good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
Good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
Good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body for knowing the world,
Sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
Feeling, perceiving, within and around,
Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Growing and aging; arousing, impaired
Happy in clothing, or lovingly bared,
Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh.
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
Longing in all, as in Jesus to dwell,
Glad of embracing and tasting and smell,
Good is the body, for good and for God,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

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I love this poem because it is so ‘incarnational’. It bespeaks God, in Christ, taking on human flesh – that life in the body is good, and the dignity of human bodily life is only enhanced by God taking it on Himself. Through the Incarnation, God takes our embodied-ness, and fills it with Himself. No longer is He remote from us; His knowledge of us is not merely that of ‘Creator on High’ – He has walked in our world as one of us, hungered and thirsted, stubbed His toe, and ultimately, died.

Good is the flesh, indeed. It is not merely that God created human flesh, although it has a dignity that inheres simply to that, and in His image, no less. But even more, the Word became flesh. Emmanuel – God with us. Awesome.