Dormi, o fulmine di guerra,
Scorda l'ire.
Sleep, O thunderbolt of war,
Forget the wrath
– The Cambridge Giuditta
When I consider the forces arrayed against even a single day spent in the pursuit of integrity, I am overwhelmed. The potency of external powers and the labyrinthine depths of internal delusion are enough to hamstring any action in the embryo of thought. In the face of dread, sorrow, and drudgery, the desire to curse and defy is only outdone by the craving for oblivion.
Yet the world and all being things exist.
You and I are here, and a vast beauty remains. If much of it is in ruins, those ruins still encompass the earth. To paraphrase a central thought in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas: All Being tends toward the good. Sin, death, and hell are rampant, and all feel their warp; yet all Being retains its trajectory, groaning, as St. Paul writes, “in eager expectation” for redemption. We know that the infernal powers cannot create. The mystery of being is beyond them, and they cannot grasp it, as St. John wrote. So we are here, tending toward good, and besieged by evil.
As the siege persists, it comes naturally to us to pursue resistance in ever more martial forms. Likewise, our prayers are taught to linger in lament. We are frequently afraid and in pain, and, while weeping and fighting have their proper places, they are not the only options left to us.
Here, our counterspell is praise. Before Persephone herself, the queen of Hell, Milosz’s Orpheus exults in Being:
He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers,
He sang of smoking water in the rose-colored daybreaks,
Of colors: cinnabar, carmine, burnt sienna, blue,
Of the delight of swimming in the sea under marble cliffs,
Of feasting on a terrace above the tumult of a fishing port,
Of tastes of wine, olive oil, almonds, mustard, salt.
Of the flight of the swallow, the falcon,
Of a dignified flock of pelicans above the bay,
Of the scent of an armful of lilacs in summer rain,
Of his having composed his words always against death
And of having made no rhyme in praise of nothingness.
And the Psalmist declares:
I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the Lord.
And Atwood’s Orpheus knows that praise is potent resistance:
They have cut off both his hands
and soon they will tear
his head from his body in one burst
of furious refusal.
He foresees this. Yet he will go on
Singing, and in praise.
To sing is either praise
Or defiance. Praise is defiance.
Praise knows Being and its Author. Consider that no human would lament to a god unworthy of praise. Praise must come first because praise knows with unparalleled clarity that the God who exists underlies the purpose of all that is because he loves what he made. Praise is not frivolous or afraid or proud. Nothing is too small for it, for all things direct us to a majesty that is the fount of all awe and all joy. Praise laughs easily, but it does not wound. It knows Love and attends her closely.
Most days, I have nothing but loathing for the state of myself, my country, and the world. I do not praise as I ought, but if praise is defiance and if praise recognizes the beauty of God in all things, then I must change. The Fourth Gospel teaches that the glory of God is most visible in the crucifixion and resurrection of the incarnate Word. It teaches that when Jesus Christ is raised from death it is his wounded body that he shows his benighted, witless friends, frightened and alone as they are. They rejoice when they see his wounds, just as he promised that their joy would be complete. The marks of destruction have become portals into glory, and joy is the result. The Author of Hebrews tells us it was “for the joy set before him” that he endured the cross and scorned its shame. And you, writes James, “count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds.” All of that joy defied death, sin, and hell, and, over the centuries, it has lost none of its power. I want it.
Perhaps Lent is to give up cursing. Cursing is capitulation and dread; praise is defiance. I intend to praise better and more generously in the face of my own failures and in the face of the world’s corruption. In anticipation of Easter, let none of us “make rhymes in praise of nothingness.”
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We must risk delight.
Gotta love that Milosz poem