So I'm taking an Early American Lit class this term and it's been irking me quite a bit since it began. But the other day it opened my eyes up to a really great prospective about God. I'm actually excited to go to class on Monday.
We started with poetry which I absolutely loathed! I actually told my teacher I just couldn't think deeply so he should expect much from my essays. I just didn't get it. Well we read the Scarlett Letter and the Pioneers and Walden and I was getting really sick of the class.
But then yesterday he gave us this poem and we had to find how it was transcendental. It was J. 324 by Emily Dickinson and my partner and I were entranced by it...once we figured it out...
Some keep the Sabbath goin to Church--
I keep it, staying at Home--
With a Bobolink for a Chorister--
And an Orchard, for a Dome--
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice--
I just wear my Wings--
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton--sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman--
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at least--
JI'm going, all along.
The jist of what we got out of it was that you don't need a church to worship God...you don't need the structue or the people to see you to have a connection to Him. If you never step foot in a church in your entire life...it doesn't mean your not religous or that you don't believe in God. As a matter of fact just going to church doesn't make you religous, nor does it make you more faithful or Christian or whatever. I can have devotions on my own and in fact I'm probably closer to Him that way. And I'm glad I can have a close relationship with him that not everyone hears about.
Nice poetry analysis. Its always exciting to find something that you can relate to yourself like that.
"What was never given utterance eventually becomes too nebulous to recall."
~ Jane Smiley
Early American Lit can indeed be a killer (did you get to My Antonia yet? Shocker, the entire book ends up being written in lesbian perspective.) Dickinson is pretty keen though, although a lot of people would take that poem (as with all Dickinson's poems) in the double entendre perspective. Cool post though
We discussed My Antonia but we actually had to read that in Soph. English...worst week ever...that was a hard book to get through!
I think that poem also juxtaposes two life-approaches. One paradigm is to hold your belief in and duty to God more important than all else. The second paradigm (the one Dickinson claims) is to hold most important the manifestation of an amazing everyday experience of life.
(Dickinson almost seems to be saying: don't work for God/ religion, make God/ religion work for you... in other words, for enhancing your life experience)