Lenten Literature
Henry Vaughan's The Book with Rev'd Alison Milbank.
Last year for Lent we had a number of writers recommend their favourite book for Lenten reading. This year we have followed the same theme but have asked just three writers to delve a little more deeply into the works of an author, they felt was particularly suited to reading over Lent. Todays writer Alison Milbank is exploring Henry Vaughan’s poem, The Book.
The Book
Eternal God! Maker of all
That have lived here since the man's fall:
The Rock of Ages! in whose shade
They live unseen, when here they fade;
Thou knew'st this paper when it was
Mere seed, and after that but grass;
Before 'twas dressed or spun, and when
Made linen, who did wear it then:
What were their lives, their thoughts, and deeds,
Whether good corn or fruitless weeds.
Thou knew'st this tree when a green shade
Covered it, since a cover made,
And where it flourished, grew, and spread,
As if it never should be dead.
Thou knew'st this harmless beast when he
Did live and feed by Thy decree
On each green thing; then slept - well fed -
Clothed with this skin which now lies spread
A covering o'er this aged book;
Which makes me wisely weep, and look
On my own dust; mere dust it is,
But not so dry and clean as this.
Thou knew'st and saw'st them all, and though
Now scattered thus, dost know them so.
O knowing, glorious Spirit! when
Thou shalt restore trees, beasts, and men,
When Thou shalt make all new again,
Destroying only death and pain,
Give him amongst Thy works a place
Who in them loved and sought Thy face!
Lent is a time when we strip back the layers of our self-protection and face our own mortality: ‘remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return’. Seventeenth-century poet Henry Vaughan faced death in battle fighting for the King in the Civil War and withdrew, his career in tatters, to his Welsh home valley of the Usk to devote himself to religious meditation. His poems written there describe the natural forms which, he believed, worshipped God through their being and actions and performed the liturgy now proscribed by the authorities.
In this poem, Vaughan then acknowledges that he is dust, but the kind of dust that collects on a bookshelf. Blowing off the dust enables him to meditate on the contribution of plants and creatures to the construction of the book, which, since it makes him ‘wisely weep’, is likely to be the Bible. So, he works backwards before the deaths or harvesting that killed the reeds that made the paper, the tree for the inside cover, and the cow those skin now clothes the outside of the book to imagine them alive. It is a kind of ‘anamnesis’: a making present.
In this way he reveals the hidden work that creatures perform and their sacrificial contribution to human artefacts. Like a priest at the Eucharist, he remembers the ‘fruit of the earth’ as well as ‘the work of human hands’ and gives nature full presence as he acknowledges its origin in God. Unlike many of his contemporaries, for whom creatures are just annihilated when they die, for Vaughan, in God ‘they live unseen when here they fade’.
This reminds me of Christ’s first temptation, which is a demonic parody of the Eucharist: to manipulate natural forms, to turn stones into bread. Christ’s response, that we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, re-establishes the connection between Creator and his creation, which exists, as Vaughan reminds us, because God knows it. We live by God’s gift of life and of the world.
That awareness could make us take the world for granted as if we owned it, but Vaughan’s poem corrects this vision. Not only do we depend on the creatures for food, clothes and shelter, but, if the book is the Holy Scriptures, these same creatures give us access to God’s word. We, by contrast, are the dirty dust that accumulates upon God’s word, as we do also upon the book of nature. In Vaughan’s time the whole world was a book of signs for us to read, as it is for us still, if we cleanse the ‘doors of our perception’, as a later poet, William Blake puts it. It is humankind which dirties God’s beautiful world and makes his book hard to interpret.
The main body of Vaughan’s poem is measured and deliberate, the couplets marching quietly along. With the last stanza, comes an impassioned plea to God by the speaker to be remembered – literally – in the resurrection. Vaughan is invoking Acts 3.20-21 which speaks of the restitution of all things, an expectation which is also implied by St Paul in Romans 8.20-21, where the creation is to be set free from corruption. Vaughan went much further than his contemporaries in hoping that all creatures would share in the new heaven and new earth promised in Revelation. Some thought a representative selection of creatures might be saved, like an apocalyptic Noah’s ark, for our use, others that they could not be raised, as they had no rational souls. In nearly all cases, they did not think the creatures would be renewed for themselves. The best hope was that they would provide something upon which we could meditate.
Yet for Vaughan the creatures are front and centre of the renovation: ‘trees’ and ‘beasts’ come first and only then, ‘men’. And the speaker hopes to have a share in this new life because in nature he learnt to love God and seek for him through natural forms. Nature, God’s book, will save him in the sense that it leads him to its author.
So, as we think about what it means to be dust this Lent, we can see more in this stuff than our vulnerable humanity, our transience on this earth Lent is the traditional time of the year for spring-cleaning our houses and in my own case, for dusting the many piles of books that accumulate everywhere, as if they were indeed, growing things! It gives us an opportunity to see how marginal dust is and to apply this to ourselves. There is a freedom in this.
As I child, I was always being reminded that I was ‘not the only pebble on the beach’. It was a lesson in humility, in patience to wait one’s turn and to see myself as part of a greater whole. It does not mean that we do not matter, because everything matters and is known to God, who marks the fall of every sparrow. In ‘The Book’ that is the lesson we must learn. And there is a little joke, in that as we are dust, God is also presented as mineral in the form of a rock – ‘Rock of Ages’. Like the great stone behind which Moses took refuge from God’s blasting glory, God hides our vulnerable selves, our dead bodies, in his loving knowledge. Moreover, he will make himself dust, ‘a worm and no man’ in the Incarnation and Passion. It will culminate with Christ dead and confined to a tomb, with a rock protecting his own dead body until it is raised, yet always held in the knowledge of God.
So, let us rejoice that we are dust, and in our solidarity with every part of creation from stones to angels, and remember how nature was present, wild beasts in the Mark account and angels in Matthew, ministering to Christ in the wilderness, and Vaughan shows us how, as our sisters and brothers of one parent, they can also minister to us this Lent.
To find out more about Henry Vaughan click here.
Written By
The Rev'd Canon Professor Alison Grant Milbank
Alison is Professor of Theology and Literature at the University of Nottingham; as well as being prolific writer and author - her most recent book The Once and Future Parish eloquently challenges the current view of the Parish in the Church of England and offers instead a Parish model that can and does help answer the questions of a secular world. The Catholic Church in Scotland may not be offering up the kind of ecclesial and parish novelties that the CoFE is, but it is not inconceivable that this could take place and therefore worth the time to consider. You can see her talk more about her book on her youtube channel here. She is also the Priest Vicar and Canon Theologian for the Parish church Cathedral of Southwell Minster.
Remember you can always get your fill of Scotland’s saints on our ministry website Mary’s Well. Many of them are little known to outright obscure so I am sure it will be a treat for you to rediscover our national heritage.
Feast days coming up include, St Finan on the 17th, followed by St Colman the next day. We also have the important St Boisil, and one of our patrons - St Cummine the Fair over the rest of the month.