(warning immediate pun) – Bear with me because I’ve been reading poetry lately. I came across a line tonight that makes me think about the way I talk and, as a worship leader, the way I dictate the way people sing (singing is a lot like talking but in different pitches and rhythms.) The poem is T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and my reading of it has been guided by Thomas Howard’s Dove Descending: A Journey into TS Eliot’s Four Quartets.
In the first section plunges the reader into some deep stuff – the intersection of past, present, and future in the end of time, etc, you know, stuff you think about over breakfast. Anyway, Eliot brings the reader into “our first world,” which is Eden, and after being drawn deeper into this mysterious place, the thrush (which invited us to go into the garden in the first place) tells us, “Go, go, go . . . human kind cannot bear very much reality.”
The implications of this are, of course, huge. Being in the garden, the place that was guarded by the angel with a flaming sword after Adam’s disobedience, we are in a holy place. I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’ story The Great Divorce where residents of hell are allowed to take a bus ride to heaven to see if they’d like to stay. Rather than being overwhelmed with the beauty of the hills and grass and the heavenly beings there, the visitors from hell cannot stand being in heaven because all the matter is too substantial for them. The grass even pierces their feet. They cannot bear very much reality.
Further, in the Scriptures no one ever remains in the presence of God and lives. Even in Isaiah’s vision of God, smoke fills the temple and shrouds the Holy One from the man with unclean lips. When God passes by Moses in Exodus 34, He must hide Moses in a rock. John is tempted to fall down and worship the angel who is guiding him through his heavenly vision. Human kind cannot bear very much reality.
My thought is this: we sing often of seeing God. One song in particular says, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord . . . I want to see you.” Granted, the song rightly continues acknowledging that God is “high and lifted up, shining in the light of [his] glory,” and this inevitably causes us to sing “holy, holy, holy.” But do we really want to see God? What would happen if God fully revealed himself to us? I think it would be frightening. Yet, this is our destiny, our “end” as Eliot puts it in the poem. (By end Eliot is meaning not the “finishing point” but the purpose or telos for which something is created.)
So, we don’t stop asking to see God, but we do so with trepidation realizing that He reveals as much of Himself as He will. And realizing that human kind cannot bear very much Reality.
Worship Reflection 
June 23, 2009 at 8:32 am
Well thanks to you, Jay, “the intersection of past, present, and future in the end of time, etc” was what I thought about over breakfast!
Thanks for the insightful words. I’ve thought for a while now that many worship songs are too lovey-dovey and not enough respect-oriented, if that makes sense. We often paint a picture of God that is too accessible in the sense that we could shake hands with God and not immediately be struck dead. Thus, the beauty of Jesus, the God-man.
But you can’t lay too much blame on a worship lyricists shoulders: how do you make singable prose out of the incomprehensible? You screw up sometimes, that’s how!
Love ya, Jay!
June 23, 2009 at 9:17 am
Eric – you make a great point. Thankfully, worship song writers are always seeking ways to be more theologically accurate and painting a bigger picture of God. And, they are doing a great job of it. Moreover, the songs we sing should probably not be made to bear the entire weight of truths like this. So hopefully our pastor-teachers, our small group leaders, our moms, dads, teens, and friends – all Christ-followers – are helping us to embrace a fuller picture of God.
June 24, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Ah, the glory of Elliot interpreted by Howard. Food for pondering on every page–and, somehow, our souls receive a fresh infilling of divine hope right in the midst of facing humanity at its most vulnerable. Sanctified genius…and then, you are right, suddenlt confronted by those phrases that leap off the page and must, somehow, be enfleshed.
Fare forward fellow traveler!!