A poem about grace - and God
If you've gotten to this blog via my friend Rebecca's blog, you were expecting a site called "Poetic Feet." I like that name even better than "Running to Infinity." If you didn't arriva via Rebecca's blog, well, now you know that little piece of trivia.
Anyhow, it's been a while since I've shared a poem with my readers. Here's one by one of my favorite writers, Stephen Dunn. It's from the book "Between Angels." I read a lot of poetry, but "Between Angels" is one of the rare books of poetry that I've read cover to cover.
This poem is called Competition.
Because he played games seriously
and therefore knew grace
comes hard, rises through the cheap
in us, the petty, the entire history
of our defeats,
he looked for grace in his opponents,
found a few friends that way
and so many others
he could never drink with, talk to.
He learned early never to let up,
never to give
a weaker opponent a gift
because so many times he'd been
that person
and knew the humiliation in it,
being pandered to, a bone for the sad
dog.
And because he remembered those times,
after a loss when he'd failed
at grace -
stole from the victor
the pleasures of pure victory
by speaking
about a small injury or the cold
he wasn't quite over - he loved
those opponents
who'd shake hands and give credit,
save their true and bitter stories
for their lovers, later,
when all such lamentations are comic,
the sincere "if onlys" of grown men
in short pants.
Oh there were people who thought
all of it so childish; what to say
to them, how to agree
ever, about dignity and fairness.
OK. Well, I think that's a great poem. But it raises a question. For Christians, our faith is about grace. Amazing Grace even.
God isn't mentioned in the poem, but clearly God is there. So what does this poem about grace say about the nature of God? Or is the poet off base? Does he miss what grace is really all about? Is he talking about a completely different type of grace than what Christians talk about?
Anyhow, it's been a while since I've shared a poem with my readers. Here's one by one of my favorite writers, Stephen Dunn. It's from the book "Between Angels." I read a lot of poetry, but "Between Angels" is one of the rare books of poetry that I've read cover to cover.
This poem is called Competition.
Because he played games seriously
and therefore knew grace
comes hard, rises through the cheap
in us, the petty, the entire history
of our defeats,
he looked for grace in his opponents,
found a few friends that way
and so many others
he could never drink with, talk to.
He learned early never to let up,
never to give
a weaker opponent a gift
because so many times he'd been
that person
and knew the humiliation in it,
being pandered to, a bone for the sad
dog.
And because he remembered those times,
after a loss when he'd failed
at grace -
stole from the victor
the pleasures of pure victory
by speaking
about a small injury or the cold
he wasn't quite over - he loved
those opponents
who'd shake hands and give credit,
save their true and bitter stories
for their lovers, later,
when all such lamentations are comic,
the sincere "if onlys" of grown men
in short pants.
Oh there were people who thought
all of it so childish; what to say
to them, how to agree
ever, about dignity and fairness.
OK. Well, I think that's a great poem. But it raises a question. For Christians, our faith is about grace. Amazing Grace even.
God isn't mentioned in the poem, but clearly God is there. So what does this poem about grace say about the nature of God? Or is the poet off base? Does he miss what grace is really all about? Is he talking about a completely different type of grace than what Christians talk about?
posted by bl at 9:17 pm
4 Comments:
(iwckbik is my word of the day)
It's interesting that grace is the connecting force in the poem... grace is the difference between someone good at games and good at life--you go have a drink with an opponent who handles either/both victory or defeat well... funny, though, that grace is playing the game, playing hard (not letting up), playing by the rules--Christians usually think of grace as something that happens to overcome the rules. And grace here seems to be something still above the rules, but a fulfillment of them.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dang. Let's try this again. Sorry, ocho, Blogger's messing with me today.
I don't know, Rebecca: as opposed to a sort of Hemingway grace, which is all about the cool qualities of the hero dude, I think grace in this poem is about extravagant empathy.
It took me a while. What with me no longer following the sport--or as they say in France, "Me, I don't follow myself the sport"--it's easy (and fun!) to forget about male egos and trash-talk and herd-mammal-style status and what-not--which maybe are the "rules" in our male culture that grace has to breach.
I myself can easily recall a time in my embarassingly recent experience when grace among men (as opposed to within one man, as a heroic attribute of his character) seemed a difficult thing.
Such a climate, of course, has great need of grace, which makes its bestowing, as usual, amazing.
And the people said, "izrsyzdx!"
One of the things that this poem makes me think about is how thoroughly God controls our lives.
How next to God, we're almost literally nothing.
I mean to go back to the sports metaphor, if God posts you up, you're posted up. If God decides to shake you with the killer cross-over dribble, you're shook. If God decides to dunk on you, you're dunked on. If God decides to kick your butt, your butt is kicked.
I could go on, but you get the point. And sometimes, just to remind you of your place, maybe God plays games with you. Not that God plays dice with the universe or anything. If Einstein says God doesn't do that, then he doesn't.
There's clearly got to be some amount of man bowing before God and saying, I'm not worthy. I cannot hang unless you allow me to.
And like someone playing defense on Michael Jordan, you sometimes have to stand back in awe.
So what does grace have to do with any of this.
Well, God wants us to experience his goodness, not his badness. God provides us a way to walk in the sunshine of his love, for lack of a better phrase.
I don't know. I'm rambling here. Tell me if I'm making sense at all.
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