Reflecting On Celestial Light

 

I was talking with a friend the other night over a few drinks, and Wordsworth came up. Especially this:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
William Wordsworth

Those are some of my favourite lines from William Wordsworth’s great Immortality Ode, in which he is reflecting on a deep, emotional change in how he perceives the world around him. He describes how, in his youth, nature appeared magical and divine - the “meadow, grove, and stream” seemed “apparelled in celestial light.” - which is one of the great expressions of seeing spiritual or heavenly beauty in nature. Then he turns to adulthood and laments that he no longer sees nature with that same spiritual glow or intensity. The line “The things which I have seen I now can see no more” expresses a profound sense of loss, as he can no longer access the deep, instinctive joy and awe he felt as a child.

Wordsworth is expressing a tragic, more general reflection; that children are closer to the divine because of their sense of deep, untainted curiosity and wonder (wisdom that’s reflected in Christ’s guidance in Matthew 18:3) - but as we age, that connection weakens - "Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy", he puts it. Yet Wordsworth is hopeful that although the childlike sense of transcendence may fade, it is never entirely lost, and can be rekindled through the pursuance of the sacred beauty of existence, and a sense of wonder for our place in it.

I’ve been blessed to live in a constant state of awe and wonder, yearning for more and more of God in my life. But I’ve also undergone, and am still undergoing, some intense life suffering that has not yet abated. Yet despite this, I’m thankful to say that the awe and wonder are almost always powerful enough to keep my life perspective “apparelled in celestial light.” God, through His love and grace, endows me with enough memory and imagination to frequently reconnect to the "intimations" of immortality, even when suffering abounds. Sometimes my mind drifts back to innocent joys of childhood as I reflect on the enchantment of early memory with fondness. Yet equally, each year of life is at least better than the last, in terms of increased spiritual maturity, wisdom and a deeper relationship with God. So the adult awareness of this growth becomes a source of deeper insight, reflection, understanding and immense gratitude - which taps into St. James’s wisdom to ‘consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.’

For me, the ‘pure joy’ invitation is one of the hardest callings, but it’s so hard only because it’s so potentially transformative. It’s the pathway to a more enriching power of experience, finding a kind of compensation and ultimate contentment in the maturity of thought and a deeper appreciation for the whole journey, good and bad. It’s perhaps the quietest triumph, in that it reflects Christ’s desire to experience life as we experience it, so that we can experience reality as He experiences it, and have that intimacy sustained by the Holy Spirit, from Whom we draw continual strength through the eternal truths glimpsed in our earthly life.