As Kingfisher's Catch Fire

Reflecting Christ in a broken world

One of the great puzzles of the Christian life is the question of how God, who is all present and all knowing, yet invisible, communicates with us in our time and place. We often lament “but God doesn’t speak audibly anymore.” Or “sure, I’d trust Him if only He spoke to me through a burning bush, like He did with Moses.” We, however, are living in a time of realism and science. We’ve stripped the natural world of its symbolic meaning and claim that we are “enlightened.” We are called to be “the body of Christ” and yet we’ve forgotten what it means to reflect Christ. Today, we will take a look at a poem that helps us take the scales off our eyes and begin to perceive our Maker in all that is and particularly in the faces of those we meet.

This poem is by one of the most challenging poets I’ve read. Gerard Manley Hopkins challenges us not only because of his use of meter and word choice, but because of his uncanny ability to strip us of our rational and concrete way of thinking and lead us into poetic knowledge. He helps us to see the unseen spiritual world beyond the ordinary common things. This, of course, is a daily occurrence for the ancient thinkers and the classical mind. But for us, who can't see the symbolism in everything that is and moves and has its being in Him, we miss much of how He speaks to us and works in our everyday lives.

Before you read the poem I will offer some definitions that will be helpful. Then I will offer my thoughts. I recommend reading it out loud. It is written in sonnet form with a rhyme scheme contained in each stanza.

Photo by McGill Library on Unsplash

Definitions:

"tucked" can mean to pull a string

"bow" is a "sound bow" or the part of a bell that curves out at the bottom on the sides and is struck by the "tongue" when it is made to swing back and forth. Here's a video for those not used to watching bells swinging. You will see the black tongue in the middle and the bell swinging to hit the "sound bow" on either side of the bell.

"mortal" - Subject to death; destined to die.

"deals" - To divide; to part; to separate; hence, to divide in portions; to distribute; often followed by out.

"spells" might mean to spell out or communicate 

(I used the https://webstersdictionary1828.com/ to help with the definitions here.)

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As Kingfishers Catch Fire
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (written in1877)

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;        
Acts in God's eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

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I wonder if there was an intentional use of fire, water, earth and air in the first stanza? Can you catch them? The classical symbolism would be appropriate here, if I'm not reading too much into Hopkins choices. To the ancients, the material world oozed with meaning and symbolism. Hopkins is using the material world to show each thing does what it was made to do - "What I do is me: for that I came..." He explains in verses 5-8 that the internal self - the inner life is - is thus expressed by the actions of each.

I saw my first kingfisher two summers ago. They are stately birds and go about their work with grace and precision. We sat watching one at his work of swooping into the water to catch his fish and then alighting on the nearby cattails to rest. It is a joy to see. They have a brilliant color that reflects the sun. (The sun IS a ball of fire and catching the sun with its iridescent wings would liken it to a flame.) They are also quick as lightning when attacking their fishes. I wonder if Hopkins is referring to their color or the movement or both "catching fire?" And the dragonflies live in the same habitat as the kingfishers, but is lesser.  They only "draw flames" but don't catch fire. I can only think of the sun and its light reflecting off the bodies of each as they dart and swoop and hunt. They are creatures of the air that catch fire and draw flame.

Then we are moved deep into the earth - a well - we can't get deeper in common life, really. Earth and water unite in this image. We hear the stone drop into the depths of the well. The sound it makes and the time it takes to ring tells how deep into the earth the well resides. How long does it take? How far off is the water? But the sound, to Hopkins, is music "like each tucked string tells." 

The second stanza he tells us to go deeper: "I say more." Man is not bound to reflect man into the world as mortal objects must do. If we accept His grace (keep grace) then we will reflect Christ and not ourselves with our actions and lives (keeps all his going graces). (He must increase, I must decrease.)

The poem moves us from one action to the next. It is active and gives us courage to also act or to recognize the actions of Christ in our world- in the commonplaces.

We see the embodied Christ in the faces of the men, women, boys and girls that we meet and care for each day because they are the Imago Dei. And it is through His people that God's love is able to spread, grow, and be manifest here and now. And it is Christ who "plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his." He is at work through His people to the Father - just as the kingfisher catches fire, the stone rings, the string tells, the bell rings, because it is in their nature to do so, so the Christian radiates the Father and His light can be seen on their faces, in their justice, grace and acts of love.

If you'd like to grasp a little bit more about the interplay between the spiritual and the material world, C.S. Lewis wrote "A Christmas Sermon for Pagans" that does a lovely job of expressing the interplay between the material and the spiritual and how it is that we have such a hard time grasping it. “A Christmas Sermon for Pagans” by C. S. Lewis (substack.com)