God's Poetry

Image by Stefan Chinof

The poet and novelist Robert Graves said, “There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.” I understand what he’s getting at—unfortunately very few people make enough money to support themselves by writing poetry, and in general we do not associate money with beauty of expression. However, it does not have to be that way. For example, when Jesus was challenged about whether people should pay taxes and he replied, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God,” I would argue that there was poetry in his words, even though he was talking about money. After all, his response was eloquent, imaginative, concise, employed the literary technique of parallelism, and evoked an emotional response.

I believe God is a poet. Is there not meaning, sound, and rhythm in the things God has created, such as ocean waves lapping the shore, a bird calling its mate, and the echo of thunder? And if God is a poet, then that must mean that everything contains the seed of poetry, because something of God is in all things that God has created. As is so often the case, we don’t see poetry unless we look for it, just as we don’t see God in others and in our experiences unless we look for God there.

The beauty of God’s expression through creation surrounds us. As St. Benedict counsels, all we need to do to hear it is to listen and incline the ear of our heart.