Post by rosa on Sept 25, 2009 5:11:18 GMT -7
I spent some time, probably too much time, with the Romantic poets earlier in life; certain works stick with me. Here's an exerpt from one of my favorites--Wordsworth
"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
I am currently struggling with how to bring this in line with the loss of wonder my children have for the world around them. Icons have played a more recent role in helping them to open "windows" in their heads, since they need those concrete representations of "who is who" as my youngest puts it
But sometimes I question the wisdom in doing this for them...when I was a kid, I was really stymied by the old "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?". I would play with this as though it was a riddle, as though there was some concrete path to existential thought...perhaps I would be the one who would "discover" the "short cut" ;D
Nowadays, I'm thrilled to hear any of my kids ask questions about faith, let alone religion, God, their guardian angels...and there are times when it seems tainted, when Wordsworth hangs back in the recesses of memory, warning of things that have already come to pass
it's like trying to do "damage control" in a world where my youngest can't hang on to fairies for "too long" without someone coming up to tell her there are no such creatures. I find myself encouraging her in private, "Well, what do they know? If you see 'em, then you go right on seeing 'em, honey"
"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
I am currently struggling with how to bring this in line with the loss of wonder my children have for the world around them. Icons have played a more recent role in helping them to open "windows" in their heads, since they need those concrete representations of "who is who" as my youngest puts it
But sometimes I question the wisdom in doing this for them...when I was a kid, I was really stymied by the old "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?". I would play with this as though it was a riddle, as though there was some concrete path to existential thought...perhaps I would be the one who would "discover" the "short cut" ;D
Nowadays, I'm thrilled to hear any of my kids ask questions about faith, let alone religion, God, their guardian angels...and there are times when it seems tainted, when Wordsworth hangs back in the recesses of memory, warning of things that have already come to pass
it's like trying to do "damage control" in a world where my youngest can't hang on to fairies for "too long" without someone coming up to tell her there are no such creatures. I find myself encouraging her in private, "Well, what do they know? If you see 'em, then you go right on seeing 'em, honey"