The shrapnel. The thorns we squeeze
Out of the hand. Even poison forth we suck,
And after pain we have ease.
But images that grow
Within the soul have life
Like cancer and, often cut, live on below
The deepest of the knife,
Waiting their time to shoot
At some defenceless hour
Their poison, unimpaired, at the hearts root,
And, like a golden shower,
Unanswerably sweet,
Bright with returning guilt,
Fatally in a moments time defeat
Our brazen towers long built;
And all our former pain
And all our surgeon's care
Is lost, and all the unbearable (in vain
Borne once) is still to bear.
A year ago next month I lost my grandpa to the beast of death, and because my family lives in America and I'm in Tasmania, I was unable to return for the funeral. This progressively became a difficult, dare I say, unbearable time for me. I joined the world in an arena that I had never fully felt the sting of before. Death.
Emotional
C.S. Lewis knew this sting. Pick up 'A Grief Observed' if you don't believe me. His familiarity with this pain shines through much of his work, but its ironic intensity blazes through "Relapse". Lewis, being the great communicator that he was, carefully examines the work of emotional pain in "Relapse". He begins by comparing the physical with the emotional.
Given a physical wound, we respond quickly and decisively. Remove the object of pain, and ease is soon to follow. Emotional anguish does not follow the rules of the physical world. We all are confronted with this at some point in our lives, and often repeatedly. I believe this is what Lewis is attempting to convey here.
But images that grow
Within the soul have life
Like cancer and, often cut, live on below
The deepest of the knife,
Waiting their time to shoot
At some defenseless hour
His portrayal of these images births a malicious being; strategically targeting at precise times. So we begin to ask, "What would possess a person to keep such images?" But isn't that just the case, we cannot let go of these images. Just like they have their own growth and being, we have a need for them; for they are not only poison, but golden showers. Shining brightly with guilt, these images both indulge and destroy, satisfy and tear down all that we have worked so hard to defend.
Looking unto the past we often see a vain pilgrimage of pain, one that leaves our souls wanting. After all the cutting and slicing, the cancer remains. Relapses. Enticing us to feel its unanswerable sweetness, taste its heart-crippling poison.
While physically, pain eases, brought from life to death, emotional pain (particularly trauma) remains in a cyclical system of rebirth, continually delivering a chance for indulgence and torment. Such pain of loss holds an ironic foothold in our lives. Personally, I enjoy remembering my Grandpa; the visual memories remind me of what a blessing it was to have such a great man in my life, yet simultaneously, this sweet moment is laced with poison, welling up in misery. The sting is felt, but also strangely needed.
Love as Warm as Tears
Lewis wrote a poem entitled, "Love as Warm as Tears". It appears that Lewis loves the paradoxical, conjuring up feelings of both tremendous pain and joyous necessity and gratefulness throughout this poem.
Love as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His.
Envision the power of this Love: a tension in the throat and deluge on the lands, an infernal heat from an empyreal flame, a fresh spring, and fearless nails. Love takes on death, within its own parameters, and through fearless death, love defeats death. Taking upon himself our cross. Carrying our burden.
I believe through the combination of these two poems, the beauty of God the Redeemer is seen. We find ourselves often in an incurable state of cyclical pain, craving its sweetness, absorbing its poison. God incarnate absorbed our poison, cut deep and took our scars, redeeming every area in our lives. And here, the sting is slain in its own arena of death, bursting forth into life.
Dan Peterson (21) is from Chicago, Illinois USA, currently living in St. Leonards, Tasmania, studying cross-cultural ministry (his second of three years). Dan is a musician, a personal fitness trainer, and a keen athlete.
Dan Peterson previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/dan-peterson.html
