September 3: Steven Sotloff, Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Peace"

A good portion of the news reports today focused on the execution of journalist Steven Sotloff by Sunni militants.  It's a horrible story.  Sotloff's mother recently begged for her son's life in a videotaped message to his captors.  To no avail.  Steven was beheaded by a masked killer.

It's a depressing time internationally.  Innocent people are being brutally murdered.  Bombs are flying.  Armies are invading.  The very idea of peace seems unfathomable.  It's a fairy tale told by parents to help their kids sleep at night.  The first war was fought five or six thousand years ago, in regions like Sumer and Ur.  Hostility is a part of our DNA, it seems.

Tonight, I want to give you a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins that isn't about war.  It's a psalm about the death of war.

Saint Marty is praying for Steven Sotloff's family tonight.

Peace

by:  Gerard Manley Hopkins

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace?  I'll not play hypocrite
To own my heart:  I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace.  What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

Oh surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good!  And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to peace thereafter.  And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
                 He comes to brood and sit.

Give it a chance