Dearest freshness deep down things

Matthew 13: 24 - 30

...while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest

Everyday, when I read the newspaper headlines, I am reminded how the world that our Creator declared 'good' has become a picture of confusion in which both good and evil co-exist. I must admit that there are days when I would prefer to live in denial, rather than be confronted with news that underlines the flourishing of evil and wickedness, the 'weeds' sown by the enemy. Somehow, the bad news seem to hog the headlines. Is the world a total loss? Are Christians just going to form a 'holy huddle' and await the second coming? After all, we are reassured that at that time the weeds will finally be collected and burned.

How do we engage with our world as it is now? On my better days, I discover that if I pay attention, there is often some evidence of beauty or love, or act of human kindness that reminds me that, in spite of all the wickedness, the Lord's 'wheat' is flourishing. Sometimes, it is the beauty of the created order that reminds us of the goodness that persists despite man's indifference to his fellowmen and to the world around him. I am reminded of the poem "God's Grandeur" by Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. No matter how bleak things seem, there is always the 'dearest freshness deep down things'. Our Lord has indeed overcome the darkness and in his resurrection, the power of life has already overcome the power of death.

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 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 brood with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.