Footnote to All Prayers
I love this poem. It pretty much captures my very post-modern faith.
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
C.S.Lewis ( 1898-1963)
One Response to “Footnote to All Prayers”
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Barry
Said this on February 24th, 2008 at 7:55pm:Good stuff. God is far greater than all our concepts of him could ever be.