The Good Stuff

An Easter poem and a Good Friday song.

George Herbert

George Herbert may be the greatest poet you’ve never heard of. He was a contemporary of John Donne, in the generation after Shakespeare, and like Donne he was an Anglican minister. However, while Donne was the Dean at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the most prominent pulpit in 17^th century England, Herbert was the parson for a small country church. He lived a quiet life, died before he reached the age of 40, and left behind him just one unpublished piece of work – a collection of poems, usually titled “The Temple” but sometimes titled “The Church” (both titles appear among his papers) that uses the elements of a church building as metaphorical scaffolding for a series of profound devotional poems.

I rate Herbert as the most innovative creator of poetic form who has ever written in English. It’s hard to write a good sonnet; extremely hard to write a good villanelle; but Herbert’s book is filled with metrical forms that he invented. He has no imitators in that regard. But as with any great poet, Herbert uses form in the service of sound and meaning, not as an end in itself.

“Easter” is a good example of Herbert’s work. The first three stanzas present complex thoughts in a complex poetic form, as the poet ponders how he can offer his intellect and his gifts to God. He appeals to the Spirit for guidance, and then the poem shifts to three simple, musical stanzas, as if he concludes that all God wants from him is the humble worship of a small child. The stanza that begins, “I got thee flowers to straw thy way” is one of my favorites from any poem.

There are a number of English poets of spiritual depth – Donne, Milton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T. S. Eliot. Herbert’s distinctive voice stands apart.

May your Easter celebration be full of joy –

- Jack Jr.

Andrew Peterson’s “Tenebrae”

At the beginning of Lent, I wrote "the tomb cannot be empty if the cross is empty too.” Today is Good Friday, when we observe (“celebrate” is the wrong word, I think) the day of Jesus’s death, and follow him in his final hours. At my church, Seacoast, we have done a traditional Tenebrae service for the last few years. “Tenebrae” is Latin for “darkness” and the service reflects that.

Andrew Peterson is my favorite songwriter and his “Resurrection Letters” albums are excellent. One of the songs, called “Tenebrae,” is appropriate to share today. The song is simply the final seven “words” Jesus spoke from the cross. They are introduced one by one and layered on top of one another in a way that creates an exquisite effect. Give it a listen today.

- Jack III