I am going to continue my reading of George Herbert’s ‘Affliction III’. Anyone here yesterday will have seen that I spent nearly an hour on the first line, a record of slowness, even for me. Today I’ll try to do line two!
MY heart did heave, and there came forth, “O God !”
By that I knew that Thou wast in the grief,
To guide and govern it to my relief,
Making a sceptre of the rod :
Hadst Thou not had Thy part,
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.
But since Thy breath gave me both life and shape,
Thou know’st my tallies ; and when there’s assigned
So much breath to a sigh, what’s then behind?
Or if some years with it escape,
The sigh then only is
A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss.
Thy life on earth was grief, and Thou art still
Constant unto it, making it to be
A point of honour, now to grieve in me,
And in Thy members suffer ill.
They who lament one cross,
Thou dying daily, praise Thee to Thy loss.
I’m struck by Herbert’s idea of God being ‘in’ the grief. As if grief were a complex mixture of compounded elements that only seems, at first glance, to be one solid thing. When you look more carefully, or in more dimensions, ‘grief’ contains lots of different elements, time-zones, experiences, meanings.
An example: yesterday and the day before I was complaining about my battle with couchgrass, an interminable struggle which I know I can’t win. It’s grief all right. But if I only see it as grief (which I’m afraid is oftentimes the case) then I can feel overcome. It’s a one-dimensional experience, which is all sadness. Yesterday when I was working at it, a young male blackbird started visiting the patch I’d cleared, picking out worms and grubs to take back to his demanding family in the big Hebe at the side of the garden. We spent a companionable hour or more together, working alongside each other. I’ve never seen a blackbird so close. He came with inches of my boot and then of my hand.
I love blackbirds, the sharpness of their outline and eye, the determination of their songs flung from the high gable, the top branch, the telegraph pole. They are usually rather distant birds. So I was moved by his presence and as he worked right beside me, I thought this wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for the battle against couchgrass.
But I don’t want to give the couchgrass too much credit, that’s to say it could have been any pernicious weed: it was my struggle, not the enemy, that contained the potential for the lovely experience. But there is no denying my struggle was provoked by the enemy. Thus evil has a place in creation? I always find I baulk against that – in the end I’d like no evil, only good. I want a garden without couchgrass!
But a yin and yang view of the universe and all that’s in it is certainly part of George Herbert’s experience. For me, the blackbird experience was ‘in’ the couchgrass experience. Other things, too. The comforting smell of the spring earth was ‘in’ it, the close-up contemplation of the ornamental strawberry plant root-system, the finding my favourite geranium in flower, hidden there amongst choking weed. (Read a good post about Geranium Pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’ here.)
If you translate Herbert’s word ‘God’ into ‘good’ (as I do) then you have a helpful thought. If ‘good’ is ‘in’ any bad experience, then bad does not have such great, such overpowering, dominion. I am resolved to weed out the couch, but in a more accepting frame of mind. I’ll be looking for (and finding) good while I am doing it.
When Herbert sighs ‘Oh God’ and realises God is ‘in’ the situation, it presages relief. Something beyond him and his pain is in control of (guiding) what is happening. From ‘guide’ Herbert’s mind leaps to the word ‘govern’. It’s almost as if he feels now someone else (‘Thou’) has the management of the situation, will handle it. For us it’s a hard leap to King (ultimate leader) but for George Herbert, with the word ‘govern’ comes the idea of King. Thus in line 4, the punishing ‘rod’ of a bullying schoolteacher, donkey-beater, becomes the symbol of power, not the violent use of it.
To guide and govern it to my relief,
Making a sceptre of the rod :
If you feel something awful is being done to you by someone with power over you, it will feel like ‘rod’, a big stick to beat you with. If you feel you are being led, guided, even (hard word/thought for a modern person?) ‘ruled’ by someone who has no need to beat you, someone who has natural authority, symbolised by ‘sceptre’… might you feel someone else is in control, and might that help?
I waver back and forth here. I want to be in control of my self and my life, and grown-up enough to take responsibility for situations in which I find myself, but I can think of situations in life where I was glad to know there was someone else who was in control – for example the midwife, when I was giving birth. When we are pushed to the limit, and are breaking, it is good to know someone else is going to care for us and help hold it together. For George Herbert, fearing the ‘unruly’ elements inside himself, the presence of ‘Thou’ is a lifesaver.
Hadst Thou not had Thy part, 5
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.
The next three lines seem difficult.
But since Thy breath gave me both life and shape,
Thou know’st my tallies ; and when there’s assigned
So much breath to a sigh, what’s then behind?
I’ll leave it there for today and get back to the garden.
readerjanedavis 