"It's very early, but I already hear Matsu moving around in the kitchen, and the faint smell of something cooking reminds me of how hungry I am. i haven't experienced the hollowness of hunger for the longest time. Below my bedding, Matsu has placed several quilts to east the hardness of the floor, but there's still a stiffness up and down my back as I stand up. The air tastes sweeter here, and my throat is dry, but the coughing has lessened and I feel almost healthy again."
Question to reflect upon: What role does austerity have in helping us find our way?
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In the following two poems are found expressions of silence and austerity respectively. Please choose one poem and analyze its meaning as best you can. What reflections can you make from it?
Poem 1
"In Silence"
By Thomas Merton
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”
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Poem 2
"The Pulley"
By George Herbert
When God at first made man, Having a glasse of blessings standing by; Let us (said he) poure on him all we can: Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span. So strength first made a way; Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure: When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that alone of all his treasure Rest in the bottome lay. For if I should (said he) Bestow this jewell also on my creature, He would adore my gifts in stead of me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: So both should losers be. Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlesnesse: Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse May tosse him to my breast. |
15 comments:
Within the immediate eight shortly written lines I am able to understand that Herbert is speaking to God with a take home message. His message is a notification directed towards God stating his eagerness to use a skill of discipline into the learning and following of God. In his opening statement, George Herbert speaks of a “gentle path” in which one must throw away thy rod and thy wrath in replacement of trust and a discipline following of the lord. Shortly after, Herbert mentions a book which is interpreted as the bible. Studying the bible consistently as if training for a sport is the way in which Herbert utilizes his discipline for growth in his relationship with God. This poem, “Discipline,” is directed towards two parties, one being God and another being all of its readers. I read this poem twice thinking George Herbert was only directing it towards God alone, however, the last stanza is his take home message for the readers. “Throw away they rod; Though man frailties hath, Thou art God: Throw away they wrath.” In short, this stanza states that you must trust God because although men make mistakes he will always be. With discipline and continuos belief in God the "gentle path" is nearly the limit.
Rita,
Nice post. The poem you referred to is no longer on the site. I found another one more useful, but I am adding the poem you reference here:
DISCIPLINE
by George Herbert
Throw away thy rod,
Throw away thy wrath :
O my God,
Take the gentle path.
For my hearts desire
Unto thine is bent :
I aspire
To a full consent.
Nor a word or look
I affect to own,
But by book,
And thy book alone.
Though I fail, I weep :
Though I halt in pace,
Yet I creep
To the throne of grace.
Then let wrath remove ;
Love will do the deed :
For with love
Stonie hearts will bleed.
Love is swift of foot ;
Love's a man of warre,
And can shoot,
And can hit from farre.
Who can scape his bow ?
That which wrought on thee,
Brought thee low,
Needs must work on me.
Throw away thy rod ;
Though man frailties hath,
Thou art God :
Throw away thy wrath.
In The Pulley by George Herbert, I believe that what he is trying to say is that we can't have everything we want because if we do, we won't appreciate it. This is why God leaves space for weariness, and silence, in his cup that he pours into the human soul. Without the silence, and our self-reflection of ourselves, we would be greedy and unappreciative. He is saying that if we are unappreciative, that we are losing as well as God. God is also losing because he didn't create us as grateful humans. We can possess all of the “worlds riches”, but if we aren't grateful for what we have, we are not the ideal humans that God wanted to produce. We must always leave room for the "silence" or self-reflection moments in order to avoid being disrespectful and unappreciative.
In the poem by Thomas Merton, their are alot of conflicting emotions. I believe that it is telling us to "be still" meaning will find it's way to us. We keep asking "but who", we keep throwing ourselves in different directions to find the answers we long to find. But if you are moving and being "noisy" you will never have a chance to find yourself, you will never stop changing enough to find what you mean. Quiet helps you pause your life and just reflect apon what has changed. The main point of this poem in my opinion is that you can not let life or the world around you tell you who you are. You must be still and find yourself.
In the poem named “The Pulley” George Herbert, the author, is trying to portray this idea that God gave the world so much, yet still made sure to leave space and quietness. The reason being, us human beings love to soak up that in which we have and we tend to forget about where it came from. We focus on what more we want instead of appreciating what we have already been given. A line in this Poem reads, “He would adore my gifts in stead of me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature”. This means that if God had given us everything and just piled gifts upon gifts on the human race, then we would not appreciate them. We would not praise the Lord but we would praise what he gave us. We must be grateful for what we have and be less greedy.
I think whether the purpose of Stephen in the Samurai’s Garden or the meaning of Discipline by George Herbert is trying to find one’s own way. In the Discipline, the poem by George Herbert, is trying to tell people to calm down and to think about themselves. The first part of the poem is “Throw away thy rod, Throw away thy wrath: O my God, Take the gentle path.” He wants his readers slow down first and then begin to read his poem. Nowadays, the tempo of life is getting faster and faster---eating fast food, getting fast information and using faster transports. Under the fast living, no one wants to spend their time on quiet and also no one really think about themselves. No matter the meaning of life, the meaning of love or the meaning of a book all has different answers in different people’s eyes. Before we learn to stand up, we should learn how to lie down. Do not use thy wrath to face questions. Everyone only has one chance to live, at least I don’t want to spend all my life in busy and noise.
The 1st poem “In Silence” by Thomas Merton can be analyzed as a direct parallel to The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. In the poem Merton writes about silence and finding himself. In the last paragraph he states “I will try, like them to be my own silence: and this is difficult. The whole world is secretly on fire. The stones burn, even the stones they burn me. How can a man still or listen to all the things burning?” From this paragraph I believe Merton is expressing what he feels like in silence. He makes his silence sound dark and almost scary when he uses fire to compare to silence. Stephen in The Samurai’s Garden also experiences great silence. He also describes his feeling of silence in great detail on page 20 “I looked hard at my father, his graying hair, and kind eyes, only to realize it had been a long time since I had so closely felt his presence. After pie was born, she seemed to dominate my parents attention.”
I have read the poem named "In Silence" written by Thomas Merton. I deem that the basic idea of his poem is to be silence calm and patient before we have actually achieved success. Always be curious about who we are and what the goals we have in our lives and then try to go deeper to find what we can do best. Do not be irritable because we all have something we are good at. As soon as we find out that, succeeding in some area, then we no longer need to be like a stone.
In “The Pulley” by George Herbert, he is trying to show us that God has blessed humans with many riches. He also wants us to see that we still need to thank God and be appreciative of the blessings that He has bestowed upon us. However, Herbert writes that God has withheld “his treasure Rest” because God believes that humans would love Gods gifts more than God himself. This would cause both humans and God to lose because we would be without God and God would have made a faulty creation. “Let him be rich and wearie,” this quote shows how God wants us to have our possessions, but to be weary without Him. He wants us to want Him.
In the poem In Silence by Thomas Merton he tries to imply in the first lines that silence can actually be heard. He explains this not literal but with some interpretation I was able to imply that the “walls” that you are listening to are your thoughts and whatever is going on inside your mind. This introduces what the next ideas on his poems are about therefore we are able to infer the meaning of his lines.
In the next lines, the author asks the question “who are you?” by this what I interpret is that when we are alone and in a peaceful environment with nothing going on but our thoughts and self reflection, we get to ask ourselves these questions that we might not notice during another noisy environment. We might or might not be able to answer these questions because there might not be only one answer. In the same line when he asks “whose silence are you?” what I interpret is that sometimes we are being influenced by someone else and we might not be able to notice this until we give ourselves the time to reflect on this thoughts and we might be able to answer the questions and find our own selves and who we really are and what we really want in life.
In the first margin Thomas Merton writes "Listen to the stones of the wall. Be silent, they try to speak your name." I feel that what he is saying is. listen and look at whats around you, even if it does not actually speak, its still saying something. For example the nature around us, in a way it's beauty is saying be glad you can live to see this. He then goes on to write "Listen to the living walls." I think here he is saying listen to the people around you, they are everywhere, surrounding you, like 'living walls'. He asks "Who are you? Whose silence are you?" which I think this is a vital part to this poem. It could mean we all belong to someone and silence is apart of everyone, so he's asking us who do we belong to. But as I read further, he goes on to write about what we may be one day and who we are, what we will become. In class today we spoke about silence, we said that while silence is occuring our mind starts to relfect in the past and begin to think about the future. Silence is needed in order to get your own thoughts correct, without anyone choosing and possibly influencing your actions. "I will try, like them to be my own silence" In other words I will try, to be myself and make my own path in life.
The poem In Silence, by Thomas Merton is trying to tell us that we need to go find who we are. Everything around us won't help us and we need to look down deep and find our true selves. We shouldn't try to be somebody else but try to be someone that people wouldn't expect you to be and they would be surprised from the outcome. I can relate this to my own life. When I was little, people used to tell me that I suck at soccer and I should just give it up. As a result of their negative comments; it motivated me to practice harder and improve my skills so that one day they would look at me and apologize for what they had said in the past. Right now I am trying to find my inner self and maybe one day I will love the way I have become in the future. Like what Nerton had said, "be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one you do not know".
Today when we were talking about what makes us an athlete, Rudy or Abbe made a point about getting other people to criticize your performance when you are doing your sport. Many athletes love hearing things they needed to work on before becoming the outstanding athlete. Whenever I am trying out for a team or any big soccer programs, I always ask the coaches to tell me things that I needed to work on so that I could improve my game and become a great player. Because of their criticism; I work really hard to improve on the things I needed to work on and I enjoy working on my weaknesses.
In the poem “Silence” by Thomas Merton, solitude and silence are presented as a question which is, who are you? This question is one that every individual is searching for throughout the course of their life. As stated in class today you need experiences to back your personal reflection. Although this poem says, “do not think of what you are still less of what you may one day be. Rather be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one you do not know”. I believe that “Silence” is trying to get individuals to have self reflection but is also saying, don’t get lost in your reflection by trying to be someone you’re not.
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