{"id":3630,"date":"2013-10-25T21:42:47","date_gmt":"2013-10-26T01:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2013-10-25T21:42:47","modified_gmt":"2013-10-26T01:42:47","slug":"grandeur-dignity-power-rebirth-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/grandeur-dignity-power-rebirth-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Grandeur, Dignity, Power, Rebirth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Second Response: Beauty and Power — Cheryl<\/h6>\n

In every age the Church has called upon the arts to give expression to the beauty of her faith and to proclaim the Gospel message of the grandeur of God\u2019s creation, the dignity of human beings made in his image and likeness, and the power of Christ\u2019s death and resurrection to bring redemption and rebirth to a world touched by the tragedy of sin and death. \u2014 Pope Francis<\/p>\n\n

The word “grandeur” always reminds me of the poem “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins.<\/p>\n

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
\nIt will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
\nIt gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
\nCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
\nGenerations have trod, have trod, have trod;
\nAnd all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
\nAnd wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
\nIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<\/p>\n

And for all this, nature is never spent;
\nThere lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
\nAnd though the last lights off the black West went
\nOh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs\u2014
\nBecause the Holy Ghost over the bent
\nWorld broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the things I love about poetry is that it speaks on more than one level, and it lends itself to revisiting, potentially rewarding a diligent reader with new insights every time a poem is reread. \u201cGod’s Grandeur” is one of the poems I included in my \u201cYear of Poetic Images\u201d photography project. At the time, I focused on the second stanza, which deals with the perpetual rebirth of nature, and I chose an image of a Great Blue Heron.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I revisited the poem and found myself focusing on these four lines: <\/p>\n

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
\nAnd wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
\nIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.<\/p>\n

And for all this, nature is never spent;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I imagine I’ll turn to “God’s Grandeur” again and again, and I look forward to what it will say to me through future readings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Second Response: Beauty and Power — Cheryl In every age the Church has called upon the arts to give expression to the beauty of her faith and to proclaim the Gospel message of the grandeur of God\u2019s creation, the dignity of human beings made in his image and likeness, and the power of Christ\u2019s death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[195,684,1070,366,54,1068,1069],"class_list":["post-3630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-autumn","tag-gerard-manley-hopkins","tag-gods-grandeur","tag-nature","tag-poetry","tag-pope-francis","tag-power-station"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2D42d-Wy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3630"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3637,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions\/3637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sienafallsmedia.com\/callandresponse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}