Donne lived during the first half of the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648), a conflict between the Catholic and Protestant states in the Holy Roman Empire that killed about 8 million people, including an estimated 20 percent of the population in what is now Germany. Donne had been part of a diplomatic mission to the German states before being ordained. In addition, France was experiencing another stage in its ongoing conflict between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots, this time a series of Huguenot rebellions. The seige of the Huguenot stronghold La Rochelle alone killed over 20,000 people. England was directly involved with what happened, as the Duke of Buckingham*, favourite of James I and Charles I, had failed in an attempt to support the Huguenots in La Rochelle. I think the questions of Donne's poem reflect the anguish of a decent man witnessing a conflict that threatened to trap the civilization in which he lived in a cycle of death.
*The Duke of Buckingham was later assassinated by a disgruntled officer who took part in the failed expedition. The 19th century French novelist, Alexandre Dumas, pere, makes this assassination a key point in 'The Three Musketeers', imagining the officer was motivated as the result of a deeply laid plot by France's Cardinal Richelieu. It is historically true that the English government thought the officer had not acted alone but were unable to extract a confession under torture.
"I think the questions of Donne's poem reflect the anguish of a decent man witnessing a conflict that threatened to trap the civilization in which he lived in a cycle of death."
Wow, Holly. That is so beautifully and insightfully put. Indeed, I think this poem does exactly that. I pray our age produces such poets to reflect on our own travesties.
It's such a paradox that in the NT the bride pre-consummation is both fully complete in Christ, right now, and yet so very evidently unfinished - the now and the not-yet writ large across every congregation. Which makes navigating the dissonance such a tightrope walk. Eugene Peterson in his Under The Unpredicatable Plant tries to help pastors by making sure they know the conditions they will be working in are slum-like. Not because he denies the glory - far from it - but in order to sustain prayer and hope in the face of failure(s). It seems to me that a vision of the bride "so bright and clear", seen through the lens of the beauty of Christ, is indispensible for the inevitable hard work (not only for pastors) in what Peterson refers to as "conditions of squalor."
Donne’s questions are my questions and as you say, many people’s questions. My mind went to when Jesus prayed,
“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. (John 17:20-21 NLT).”
I hear Donne earnestly wrestling with these questions in this poem. It’s beautiful and sad. Perhaps that perspective is because of where I’m at. His longing is familiar to me.
Although the metaphor is about searching for the true bride since the bridegroom is inviolable, the sonnet made me think of a divorce as well. Thank you Karen for this excellent series.
I have recently been reading Isaiah and the early chapters of Jeremiah. God often likens Himself to a husband whose wife has been unfaithful and become a prostitute. Let us hear His cries the weeping of the betrayed bridegroom!
So timely and profound, Donne’s poem and your reading, all your reading, but this one particularly strikes me…
His question finds its answer in our time, because we are finally asking it again, together, and you’re helping us do that.
I spent 20 years looking for the “church,” and realized after despair and agony and failure that it was not where people said it was. It was not in modern 501c3 nonprofits run by boards of fat white men who overlook every evil that concerns them, who side with themselves against women and children and therefore have, by their own professed standards, assured their destruction. Putting themselves first, we know, they are last.
So who is first, where to look if we truly trust our realization that THAT—the organizations we call church—isn’t it? Well, who has been last?
Today, if we rewrote Donne’s Sonnet, would not we have to ask about the expulsion of Jews from England? Of the eventual murder of Queen Elizabeth’s trusted Jewish doctor, who literally gave her health, merely because he was Jewish? Of the incineration of God’s literal people in the Shoah, so that the “Judengasse” in so many German cities has now no synagogues, no Jews, only churches and not even proper memorials?
Would we not have to ask about Canada’s “Not Even One” response to helping Jewish refugees, proudly asserting what others did: turning away the Jews in principle…
Everyone knew, and the Christians, as a whole, did nothing…why? Only in the answer to this question, do we find the true church…
Because what we do to the least of these, we do to the Messiah, we know right now the Messiah is being abused, murdered, mocked…wherever innocents suffer, we know the Messiah is there…so when we do what you have courageously, at tremendous personal cost, done and are doing: speak up for the least of these, fight for them, bless them, give them a glass of water, we are finding the secret of the Messiah and his Bride.
And that means the Messiah has died millions and millions of times over, in every gas chamber, every unmarked grave, from Gaza to Auschwitz, his grief passes all human comprehension, because unlike the other ancient gods, he refuses to suffer a fate different from his people, and his people are each one of us in our innocence, our pure vulnerability, our need, our least-of-these aspects of ourselves.
And so God himself did die in the Shoah, the “Holocaust” of his own body, his people Israel, perpetuated and tolerated in a world created by Christianity, the people of the Christus…our mission, the church, lies on the other side of seeing that something is horribly wrong with Christianity as we know it, and the despicable lack of concern for what this is, the defensiveness among many Christians, especially male leaders, while understandable, damns them…the truth is given to us when we are on our back, defeated, dying…the light of Life shines when we can and will no longer deny the darkness of our world and our selves…
From this agony prayer, total pure longing for release, for salvation grows like a moon flower in the night of our despair, but who sees the blossom, who sees the stars? Many precious beautiful splendors give themselves only to those who stay up waiting for the Lover…
I know you have often stayed up, Karen, in intense pain or care, and our physical suffering I know means we understand vigils are often involuntary…yet as I’ve healed, sweetness remains, and when the pain is gone, or even when it’s here, the night god of hidden grace has grown quietly in the deep death of my religion and my daylight world, all of which has passed away…
It’s time to see: of course Christianity has truth, because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is true…otherwise how could the God of Israel save the world, and why would he care, as the Bible claims?
But Christianity, as a religion, as a “party” we can defend or side with or identify with…this is over. The End.
Unless a seed die…Christianity is a seed, and its future life lives in its present death, which must be accepted, acknowledged, and understood.
Samuel, Samuel, Samuel ... such beautiful and intense words. You always challenge and inspire me in the best ways. Thank you for saying all this. It has been such an honor and privilege to have been on this search with you for these many years now. Who knew when the Lord made our paths cross where we would go, where it would all go, where the church would be and where we'd look for her and NOT find her. Oh, how I trusted those men and their 501c3s too, too much.
Dear Karen, I listened to your post today while I was trimming Camellia bushes, and the auditory experience was a pleasing one. It actually gave me more time to ponder while my hands are busy, and what spoke to me the most was yes, the hearts cry of Donnes sonnet for the bride of Christ to become who He has made her to be. Goodness, in 400 years we are still being challenged and changed. Thank you so much for this series!
Oh, I’m so glad you enjoyed and benefitted from listening! I do enjoy doing the reading and recording but am by no means a perfectionist so they can be rough! But I’d rather have fun with it. So glad you enjoyed it. Thank you, Jody.
Donne lived during the first half of the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648), a conflict between the Catholic and Protestant states in the Holy Roman Empire that killed about 8 million people, including an estimated 20 percent of the population in what is now Germany. Donne had been part of a diplomatic mission to the German states before being ordained. In addition, France was experiencing another stage in its ongoing conflict between Catholics and Protestant Huguenots, this time a series of Huguenot rebellions. The seige of the Huguenot stronghold La Rochelle alone killed over 20,000 people. England was directly involved with what happened, as the Duke of Buckingham*, favourite of James I and Charles I, had failed in an attempt to support the Huguenots in La Rochelle. I think the questions of Donne's poem reflect the anguish of a decent man witnessing a conflict that threatened to trap the civilization in which he lived in a cycle of death.
*The Duke of Buckingham was later assassinated by a disgruntled officer who took part in the failed expedition. The 19th century French novelist, Alexandre Dumas, pere, makes this assassination a key point in 'The Three Musketeers', imagining the officer was motivated as the result of a deeply laid plot by France's Cardinal Richelieu. It is historically true that the English government thought the officer had not acted alone but were unable to extract a confession under torture.
"I think the questions of Donne's poem reflect the anguish of a decent man witnessing a conflict that threatened to trap the civilization in which he lived in a cycle of death."
Wow, Holly. That is so beautifully and insightfully put. Indeed, I think this poem does exactly that. I pray our age produces such poets to reflect on our own travesties.
The call of Christ is full of paradoxes. Just this week I was reminded that the Christlike response to mockery is rejoicing, not outrage. Matt 5:12.
Donne's longing for Christ's true Bride in the midst of chaos and division made my heart ache today.
Kevie, what a wise word: rejoicing not outrage! Thank you for that. The best response I've seen to the latest outrage.
My heart has been aching, too.
It's such a paradox that in the NT the bride pre-consummation is both fully complete in Christ, right now, and yet so very evidently unfinished - the now and the not-yet writ large across every congregation. Which makes navigating the dissonance such a tightrope walk. Eugene Peterson in his Under The Unpredicatable Plant tries to help pastors by making sure they know the conditions they will be working in are slum-like. Not because he denies the glory - far from it - but in order to sustain prayer and hope in the face of failure(s). It seems to me that a vision of the bride "so bright and clear", seen through the lens of the beauty of Christ, is indispensible for the inevitable hard work (not only for pastors) in what Peterson refers to as "conditions of squalor."
I had not heard of that book by Peterson, Richard. What a wise and holy man. And what a good (I mean necessary) thing to prepare pastors for.
🥹🥲
Donne’s questions are my questions and as you say, many people’s questions. My mind went to when Jesus prayed,
“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. (John 17:20-21 NLT).”
I hear Donne earnestly wrestling with these questions in this poem. It’s beautiful and sad. Perhaps that perspective is because of where I’m at. His longing is familiar to me.
Amen and amen. May we all so wrestle.
Although the metaphor is about searching for the true bride since the bridegroom is inviolable, the sonnet made me think of a divorce as well. Thank you Karen for this excellent series.
Thank you, David, for kindly reading along and participating.
You are right that divorce is never far from these kinds of discussions. And it was a subject so very weighty in Donne's age (as in ours).
I have recently been reading Isaiah and the early chapters of Jeremiah. God often likens Himself to a husband whose wife has been unfaithful and become a prostitute. Let us hear His cries the weeping of the betrayed bridegroom!
The marriage metaphor works in so many ways! So powerful. No wonder God used it!
So timely and profound, Donne’s poem and your reading, all your reading, but this one particularly strikes me…
His question finds its answer in our time, because we are finally asking it again, together, and you’re helping us do that.
I spent 20 years looking for the “church,” and realized after despair and agony and failure that it was not where people said it was. It was not in modern 501c3 nonprofits run by boards of fat white men who overlook every evil that concerns them, who side with themselves against women and children and therefore have, by their own professed standards, assured their destruction. Putting themselves first, we know, they are last.
So who is first, where to look if we truly trust our realization that THAT—the organizations we call church—isn’t it? Well, who has been last?
Today, if we rewrote Donne’s Sonnet, would not we have to ask about the expulsion of Jews from England? Of the eventual murder of Queen Elizabeth’s trusted Jewish doctor, who literally gave her health, merely because he was Jewish? Of the incineration of God’s literal people in the Shoah, so that the “Judengasse” in so many German cities has now no synagogues, no Jews, only churches and not even proper memorials?
Would we not have to ask about Canada’s “Not Even One” response to helping Jewish refugees, proudly asserting what others did: turning away the Jews in principle…
Everyone knew, and the Christians, as a whole, did nothing…why? Only in the answer to this question, do we find the true church…
Because what we do to the least of these, we do to the Messiah, we know right now the Messiah is being abused, murdered, mocked…wherever innocents suffer, we know the Messiah is there…so when we do what you have courageously, at tremendous personal cost, done and are doing: speak up for the least of these, fight for them, bless them, give them a glass of water, we are finding the secret of the Messiah and his Bride.
And that means the Messiah has died millions and millions of times over, in every gas chamber, every unmarked grave, from Gaza to Auschwitz, his grief passes all human comprehension, because unlike the other ancient gods, he refuses to suffer a fate different from his people, and his people are each one of us in our innocence, our pure vulnerability, our need, our least-of-these aspects of ourselves.
And so God himself did die in the Shoah, the “Holocaust” of his own body, his people Israel, perpetuated and tolerated in a world created by Christianity, the people of the Christus…our mission, the church, lies on the other side of seeing that something is horribly wrong with Christianity as we know it, and the despicable lack of concern for what this is, the defensiveness among many Christians, especially male leaders, while understandable, damns them…the truth is given to us when we are on our back, defeated, dying…the light of Life shines when we can and will no longer deny the darkness of our world and our selves…
From this agony prayer, total pure longing for release, for salvation grows like a moon flower in the night of our despair, but who sees the blossom, who sees the stars? Many precious beautiful splendors give themselves only to those who stay up waiting for the Lover…
I know you have often stayed up, Karen, in intense pain or care, and our physical suffering I know means we understand vigils are often involuntary…yet as I’ve healed, sweetness remains, and when the pain is gone, or even when it’s here, the night god of hidden grace has grown quietly in the deep death of my religion and my daylight world, all of which has passed away…
It’s time to see: of course Christianity has truth, because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is true…otherwise how could the God of Israel save the world, and why would he care, as the Bible claims?
But Christianity, as a religion, as a “party” we can defend or side with or identify with…this is over. The End.
Unless a seed die…Christianity is a seed, and its future life lives in its present death, which must be accepted, acknowledged, and understood.
We return in the end to our beginning…the Way.
Samuel, Samuel, Samuel ... such beautiful and intense words. You always challenge and inspire me in the best ways. Thank you for saying all this. It has been such an honor and privilege to have been on this search with you for these many years now. Who knew when the Lord made our paths cross where we would go, where it would all go, where the church would be and where we'd look for her and NOT find her. Oh, how I trusted those men and their 501c3s too, too much.
Dear Karen, I listened to your post today while I was trimming Camellia bushes, and the auditory experience was a pleasing one. It actually gave me more time to ponder while my hands are busy, and what spoke to me the most was yes, the hearts cry of Donnes sonnet for the bride of Christ to become who He has made her to be. Goodness, in 400 years we are still being challenged and changed. Thank you so much for this series!
Oh, I’m so glad you enjoyed and benefitted from listening! I do enjoy doing the reading and recording but am by no means a perfectionist so they can be rough! But I’d rather have fun with it. So glad you enjoyed it. Thank you, Jody.