Poem #2 The Darkling Thrush - Thomas Hardy

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate

     When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter’s dregs made desolate

     The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

     Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

     Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be

     The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

     The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

     Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

     Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

     The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

     Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

     In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

     Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

     Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

     Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

     His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

     And I was unaware.

          The New Year approaches, and this year has not been an easy year. There have been countless deaths and suffering through wars, diseases and many other causes. Humanity has wrecked our world and destroyed the lives of our fellow creatures. If I consider the anguish the world is experiencing, there certainly is ‘little cause for carolings’.

          Yet the perfect rhymes in the final stanza of the poem creates a mood of hope and harmony; that not all is doom and gloom. If we placed our trust in humanity, then I think whatever hopes we carry into the New Year will slowly peter out and leave us disappointed by failure or deluded by pseudo-success.

          Yet we know that ‘the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’ (Titus 2:11). We are aware of our ‘blessed Hope’ (v13) and we are waiting for it. This is a hope that transcends the promise of politicians, economists, environmentalists and self-help specialists. It is ‘the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (v13). There is something for us to look forward to in a New Year certain to be filled with loss and hatred, symptoms of our rebellion against our Maker.

          Just as we celebrated his humble birth, we should also eagerly await his glorious return. But for now, let us ‘declare these things’ (v15). There is a Hope that is offered to everyone, let us not (like Hardy) be unaware. 

Poem #1 If- Rudyard Kipling

I have decided to start sharing poems on my blog. Poems that have I find interesting, or have provided comfort during rough patches or hope during dark moments. 

I also hope to share some thoughts about the poems and perhaps it might interest some people. Anyhow, to begin this new project, I shall share a poem that has often helped me deal with my sense of self.

If-

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

     But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

     Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

     If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

     And treat those two impostors just that same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

     And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

     And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

     To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

     Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

     Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

     If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

     With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

     And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

It’s nice to find a poem that turns the values that society holds upside down and challenges us to redefine the way we look at success and worth. Kipling asks us questions about our attitudes, behaviours, standards, but ultimately confronts us with our Selves.

It is a great poem I think when deciding on New Year resolutions. I think it is excellent to consider the choice Kipling presents: conformation to the ‘Will’ of this world or to our own?

But then again, I think our wills are too weak, and maybe they need submission to a greater Will; definitely not of the world, but of some Being transcending it.

Who Am I?

          I was washing dishes and was thinking to myself of an existential crisis I may have just been confronted with: I have no one to live out with in my second year of university. Now that sounds more like what a narcissistic Gen-Y’s first-world problem – NOT an existential crisis. I certainly agree with that, hence I am struggling with my sense of feeling that I don’t belong to a community of friends here. It is difficult to speak against one’s feelings and emotions; though they are often irrational, rationale cannot simply sweep those doubts and questions of identity that arises at various points of our lives. However, I am sure I am not the only one who will face similar issues: not being sure of who I am.

          Going back to the dishes, I suddenly remembered a poem I came across and thought I’d share it as an encouragement, both to myself and to whoever that reads this. So here it is. The poem is ‘Wer bin ich?’ (Who am I?) by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command. 

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune        

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,

Yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,

Trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

                 The poem speaks for itself. There is a deep sense of doubting agony, uncertainty and introspection – all lonely questions. Questions that lead us away from its answer. In one simple couplet, Bonhoeffer turns all fears and apprehension on its head: my identity lies not in what people think of me or what I think of myself; it lies not in my personality or actions. Its source is not internal, it is external; yet it extends beyond the constraints of this material world.

          It lies in the character and action of God, who in violently succumbing to a disgrace of His identity – death on the cross - redeemed a scum of this world. And He lovingly adopted me and calls me ‘My child’, and I cry – in sorrow and in joy, in distress and in comfort, in persecution and in peace, in despair and in hope – ‘Abba! Father!’

          Does knowing this solve my real world problem? No.

          There is no promise that tomorrow I will have people who will invite me in to live out with them. I still might not feel that I belong. But clinging to this promise will help me face each day, and when the weight of matters causes my trembling feet to stumble and I fall, I need only to look up and see the Cross, and look beyond to the Empty Tomb to know that one day I’ll have a palace to live in, and what’s the best thing about it? I’ll be housemates with God!

          But for now, I guess it’s back to the dishes, and to everyday life…

Good News - We're Failures!

         One week of introductory lectures have passed and beginning to dig deeper into the content and texts that I will be studying, I sense a kind of pressure in lecture theatres where everyone is furiously taking down notes and trying to capture each word that issues from the mouth of the lecturer – be it a quote from a scholar, a passage from the text or the lecturer’s own analysis of ideas and synthesis of arguments.

         There is a weight that burdens our shoulders and bogs down our minds – the mad desire to succeed. Just like Arthurian knights who refuse to cower in the face of adversity, regardless of the odds stacked against them, simply because they seek to win glory, honour and a beautiful maiden’s hand, I see about 200 little knights embarking on our own adventures to win acclaim and recognition. Failing is not an option, to lose a joust is to earn shame, and usually it is the bad guy that loses and the noble knight emerges victorious. Well, most of the time.

          Vicariously we are living in the Age of Chivalry. Failing a test or exam is akin to submitting to a better knight, not being able to contribute ideas in a tutorial could be similar to a knight not being able to defend the honour and chastity of the maiden he is escorting. There is immense pressure to prove oneself to be the best knight that unconsciously, one compares oneself to others and a silent ‘tournament’ ensues on the battlefield within our hearts.

           Defeated knights are often chucked into a corner and later unheard – as though cast away by society. Isn’t this the same with the modern world? Someone isn’t worth our time if he or she doesn’t ‘succeed’ in his or her ‘quest’.

          But news of our failure isn’t bad – it is good! In fact, we have failed to live up to an even higher standard – a standard beyond the modern reinvention of the chivalric code of honour. This bar is set and dictated by God Himself who is the reality of perfection. Chretien de Troyes writes that ‘largesse alone makes one a worthy man, not high birth, courtesy, wisdom, gentility, riches, strength, chivalry, boldness, power, beauty, or any other gift.’ God who in His generosity, his largesse ‘blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Eph 1:3b). Us, who were men and women living as enemies of God – we who wished God dead and lived as though He were dead!

          We have failed to conduct ourselves to the code of conduct God instructed us to abide as his subjects, but the good news is that it is in our inability to earn the prize, our helplessness in dealing with our quest to earn God’s approval that God, through Jesus’ blood gave us redemption and the forgiveness of our trespasses.

          This means we don’t have to undergo the impossible journey of finding favour with God through our own strengths and merits, neither do we need to prove ourselves to this world that we are worthy men or women. Jesus has completed that quest when he hung in utter shame on the cross, derided and mocked by those he came to rescue; so that now in him, we are adopted into God’s family and will one day be assured of sharing his glory if we are continually trusting him. What manner of honour and glory can this world offer that could surpass or merely equal that weight of glory? I dare say none.

          There is so much more worth in being called God’s child then to graduate with a first.

          So what happens the next time I have angst about success and failures? I have to remember that it is good news! Because Jesus succeeded for me. 

On The Road To The Airport

On the road to the airport

Heading towards my moment of glory

Leaving third world deficiencies

For greener pastures on yonder hills.

We who leave, are like Argives and Trojans

Battling for glory and armour

Blind towards the carnage and death

Wrecked around them.

What I see when the stamps before my eyes are removed

Are men sweating to make ends meet,

Migrant slaves struggling to eke out a living in a foreign land

Young men resigned to lives of hard labour for want of education

Women young and old working to put bread on their kitchen tables.

Yet here I am, insolent fool

The world seemingly at my beck and call,

Nothing to stop my march, or so I think. 

May this thrilled heart be sobered up, 

Not cut off in academia

From the brutal reality 

Of the road to the airport.

On Scholarships and Expectations

I had a chat with my father on the eve of departing to the UK with a fine scholarship tucked under my belt – not having a lot of financial cares to burden my family. And as we were reflecting on God’s goodness, thoughts about others less fortunate came crowding into my mind and the sobering reality that for one who has received so much, there are many others who are not given such an opportunity.

What with personal expectations of people nowadays driven sky-high by the too idealistic and illusory dream that success – material success awaits anyone who simply need to desire it enough, disappointment at not getting what we wished or aimed for can be devastating.

Perhaps it is easy for me to write about this. Indeed, perhaps I have not gone through those heart or spirit-breaking disappointments that render one incapable of caring about anything or anyone anymore.

Yet I have realised that we as human beings have no right to expect that things will turn out good for us. Us – rebels against the rightful Ruler of the universe, puny mortals establishing autonomy from the Eternal One. It is our doom to be overthrown by Him – to suffer, die and be eternally separated from all that is good.

But the greatest good was given to the worst of creation – forgiveness and acceptance for the wretch through the suffering and death of Jesus - God's own Son. 

So now our expectations are transformed – the focal point of our lives is shifted back to God. We should not expect what the world tells us to expect. Not material success, not popularity, not the best grades, not the best university.

The humbling lesson of remembering my inadequacies and disqualifications despite all the good I have received is the pin that pricks that selfish bubble and allows me to see things from an eternal perspective.

This life is not about my expectations and dreams and whether I fulfil them, it is about surrendering all the rights of my life to Him whom they rightfully belong.

Leaving

I think leaving is a significant part of people’s lives, especially when they leave for someplace far and for something new. Different places often represent different stages of life.

For example, in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, we start at Gateshead – the beginning of Jane Eyre’s story and travel to Lowood where she grows up and then to Thornfield where she matures and then end up at Ferndean where she settles and the bildungsroman ends. She encounters challenges at each location peculiar to the circumstances she finds herself in. That is what makes her life story interesting.


I now embark on my own journey of discovering that elusive phantom called ‘the self’ and I am hoping the adventure to be an exciting one – fraught with thrills and dangers, sadness and gladness. After seeing so many pictures of friends leaving the country, I am almost numb to that sensation of departing – that mixed emotions of anxiety and anticipation.


Yet in my last few days in Johor Bahru, Malaysia; in my last few farewells, I find that leaving will be difficult. Saying goodbye – though we have facebook, skype and whatsapp to ensure that we stay connected, will not be an easy task. Perhaps all these emotions will fade as my plane brings me inexorably away from home and to a fascinating new environment.


I don’t know what awaits me at Durham University. I don’t know what awaits my family who are still in Malaysia and I don’t know what awaits my friends who are either going overseas or remaining here in Malaysia. Yet there is comfort. I know that we are united in Christ and that ultimately we will see each other and be with each other in Christ. That is the great gathering – the great banquet feast that will, I hope, help me remember that I’m not alone, I’m not separated from the people I love – not because there is social media, but because of what Christ has done for us ‘but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.’ (Ephesians 2: 13).

The true separation is no more, and leaving will be merely a temporary parting of ways, till we return to the one who gave His life to save us.