…will fall back to me stronger…

If I can claim to have a ‘favorite poem,’ it’s an excerpt from a longer poem by W.D. Snodgrass. What I love is the central image of this poem, a father (or mother, if you prefer) pushing his daughter on a swing, reflecting on how such a small activity can describe the anticipation and heartache, rhythm and hope of parenthood. Or at least that’s my take (says the young man who’s never been a father). Apparently, Snodgrass wrote this poem after a divorce from his daughter’s mother, and what had presumably become a paternity of weekend and/or summer visitations. This strikes deep chords in my memory, having watched my half-sister Blaine’s loving, long-distance relationship with her birth father during both of our childhoods. It’s a complicated and unique form of parenting, but still, I feel this poem evokes something constant in many relationships…

I lift you on your swing and must
shove you away,
see you return again,
drive you off again, then

stand quiet till you come.

For me, it’s a metaphor of our relationship with God. That’s why it hangs on the back of my office door.

I don’t suspect the poet envisioned a MN preacher using his work to grow in faith and discipleship, but in a sense every writer knows that her/his work takes on its own life once released into the world. Some even describe their words and phrases as ‘little children,’ and indeed such is a result of growing up: the child takes on her/his own life, in her/his own terms. Some, like me, live hundreds of miles away, doing things the folks never expected. Some are much closer, working on the family business or farm. Most elicit a sense of pride, I hope. Most cause moments of pain or remorse, less frequently we hope. But ideally, all parents could utter what this poet says of his girl on the swing…

You, though you climb
higher, farther from me, longer,
will fall back to me stronger.

Of course this, as with all metaphors, is no perfect analogy to our relationship with God, but it gets at something profound- God’s desire that we live mature, independent lives; that the passage of time marks a continued development in our spiritual, ethical, intellectual and emotional understanding of our place in this world. By this, I don’t mean that we leave God’s presence, only to return at the Holidays. Rather, I hope that our maturation in faith displays an ever-increasing capacity to discern the will of God in a broadening set of circumstances, to make moral decisions according to a learning sense of God’s justice and righteousness, to take more appropriate risks and weather the discomfort that comes with such faithful living with a deeper sense of peace. One could imagine a relationship with God that strips us of agency and responsibility for our actions; one that treats God like a big rock to hide behind, or an ever-present crutch. But I imagine otherwise. I imagine a God that breathes life into Life so all might live abundantly, fully, freely and with an impact on the future of God’s Creation. That requires an awful lot from us, surely, but as the other quote on my office door claims, “Today, perhaps more than ever, we need to live out God’s faith in humanity.”

As I mentioned, this poem speaks of parenthood and experiencing the passage of time in a child’s life. One way we, as a culture, mark time’s passing is by celebrating each New Year. So may we all, at 2009’s end, hear God say of us that we fell, “back to Me stronger.” And when that’s not the case, which it won’t always be of course, may we remember that this poem ends with what could be God’s promise for us all at every moment of our lives…

Once more now, this second,
I hold you in my hands.

Grace and Peace,

Shane



(From Heart's Needle by W. D. Snodgrass)

Here in the scuffled dust
is our ground of play.
I lift you on your swing and must
shove you away,
see you return again,
drive you off again, then

stand quiet till you come.
You, though you climb
higher, farther from me, longer,
will fall back to me stronger.
Bad penny, pendulum,
you keep my constant time

to bob in blue July
where fat goldfinches fly
over the glittering, fecund
reach of our growing lands.
Once more now, this second,
I hold you in my hands.