A Year With George Herbert

I have never enjoyed poetry that much

But, this semester I am taking a 

Great Books class at Boyce and one

of the books we have to read is 

A Year With George Herbert

by my professor, Dr. Jim Orrick. 

I began it with much apprehension, but 

then found myself actually enjoying it!

Here is one of my favorites so far,  

The H Scriptures II: 

Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine,
 And the configurations of their glory!
Seeing not onely how each verse doth shine,
But all the constellations of the story.
 
This verse marks that, and both do make a motion
Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie:

Then as dispersed herbs do watch a potion,
These three make up some Christians destiny:

 
Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,
And comments on thee: for in ev’ry thing
Thy words do find me out, & parallels bring,
And in another make me understood.
 
Stars are poor books, & oftentimes do miss:

This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.

I love the comparison between stars 

and the Scripture. Just as every star is 

placed perfectly to make a constellation 

and to point to each other, so the 

Scriptures make a story and point to 

Christ. Just as people will use the 

stars (astrology) to tell their future, 

so the Scripture tells us our 

future in Christ. 

In the second stanza, Herbert uses 

potions to describe Scriptures as 

well. Each individual ingredient 

required for a potion can not do 

anything on its own. But, combined, 

it can heal. The Scriptures are the 

same: one verse on its own may not 

make much sense, but put it with 

several others, a whole concept appears. 

Richard Baxter, one of the 

great theologians, wrote of Herbert: 

"I must confess, after all, that 

next the Scripture poems, 

there are none so savoury to me, as 

Mr. George Herbert’s . . . Herbert 

speaks to God like one 

that really believeth a God, 

and whose business in 

the world is most with God. 

Heart-work and Heaven-work 

make up his books.”

For by grace you have been saved

I love Ephesians 2. I know I say this often about chapters in the Bible, but I really do love this one; it might actually be one of my favorite chapters. From the first verse Paul just overwhelms you: 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins  in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Ick.  That was/ is us? So dirty, vile, unworthy of anything! But, wait . . . there's more . . .

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Wow. My mind can hardly comprehend these verses. After reading the preceding verses, how can we understand that God could have so much love and mercy to make us clean, new, and alive in Christ so that we can live for eternity with Him? 

We can't. 

But, it's true and we can revel in that glorious and beautiful truth and seek opportunities to share it with others.