Edging Toward Enchantment: Romantic Christianity

In my last post I suggested that we find material for enchantment when we ponder how and why we become disenchanted with disenchantment. 

So when, where and why do we become disenchanted with disenchantment?

In the next few posts I want to explore specific locations where a lot of us become disenchanted with disenchantment.

In this post I want to talk about creation.

To start, let's return to Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
       It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
       It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
       And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
       And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
       There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
       Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
       World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I've been using the phrase "the world is charged with the grandeur of God" throughout these posts to describe the experience of enchantment. But in this post I want to ponder the contrast being worked out in Hopkins' poem.

The contrast is a contrast between an enchanted view of creation and a disenchanted view of creation.

On the one hand is an enchanted view of creation, creation "charged with the grandeur of God," creation over which the Holy Ghost "broods with warm breast" and "bright wings."

Opposed to that enchanted view of creation is a disenchanted view of the material universe. And I use the word "material" very deliberately. When creation is stripped of its holy, sacred and enchanted character that's what it becomes--material. Raw, disenchanted material. Inert stuff. Piles of particles.

And raw, disenchanted material is perfect for commercial exploitation. And that's the image Hopkins gives us in his poem. Instead of a sacred and holy world--where the earth, air and water are all enchanted--we have a material world that can be used and exploited. A raw material world becomes a means to our ends rather than something to be cherished and cared for as an end in itself. No longer sacred the world becomes depleted, exhausted, used and spent:

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
       And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
       And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

How might we cultivate disenchantment with disenchantment?

Thanks to Hopkins, here's a suggestion: Take off your shoes and walk barefoot in the grass.

This, then, is a good location, good source material, for enchantment: We're disenchanted with a disenchanted view of creation. We experience an ugliness here. An ugliness that creates more ugliness. "All is seared with trade."

We revolt at the notion that creation is just raw material, raw disenchanted "stuff." Our hearts long for a more romantic, enchanted view of the world, a world where the air, earth and water are holy and sacred. Even the most skeptical and doubting of Christians experiences this disaffection with disenchantment. It's this disaffection that makes these Christians so attracted to spiritual traditions, like Native American or Celtic spiritualities, that experience the world as holy and sacred.

This is why I'm so attracted to Henry David Thoreau and other romantics. And also with St. Francis. From Francis' Canticle of Brother Sun:

Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day and through whom you give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
and bears a likeness of you, Most High One.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear, and precious and wonderful.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather,
through whom you give sustenance to all your creatures.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Water,
who is very useful, and humble, and precious, and chaste.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night.
And he is beautiful, and playful, and robust and strong.

Praised be you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth,
who sustains and governs us,
and who produces fruit with colored flowers and herbs.

Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks
and serve him with great humility.

I have some more to say about all this, but for today this is enough: If you want to edge back toward enchantment cultivate a romantic Christianity.

Become disgusted with the ugliness of a disenchanted view of the world.