The Habit of Perfection

I suggested in our current entry for the Word of the Week, feast, that to have a meal, especially a celebratory meal, rather than just to eat, is one of the things that separates man from the rest of creation. And in fact, the great descriptions of the Kingdom of God, in the New Testament, all center upon the feast, and of course Christians believe that we partake of that heavenly feast here on earth, in Holy Communion. Feasting is universal among human cultures, and, as I’ve said, the truly human feast always is held in the light of the divine, however dim that light may have become, or rather how dim our eyes may have become in seeing it.

That’s why, in one of our favorite Films of the Week, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, the basic preaching goes on at mealtime, when the Chinese guests at the inn — traveling merchants or herdsmen, mostly — sit down on the floor and have dinner, and expect to hear a story. We can all feel that the setting is just right. It’s why we’re not surprised that Odysseus, in the land of Phaeacia, finally reveals his identity to King Alcinous, and his queen Arete, and all the honored guests, at a feast, rather than pulling the king aside and whispering to him about all his troubles. It’s why we can feel how wicked and deranged Macbeth has become, when what was supposed to be a feast for his most powerful thanes is instead a scene of guilty terror, because the ghost of Banquo shows up and sits in the only seat left empty, at least as Macbeth sees it. “Thou canst not say I did it!” cries Macbeth, while the thanes look on in astonishment. “Never shake thy gory locks at me!”

Yet there is something else that beasts don’t do, but we human beings can. It is related to the feast, though the words are not related. It is the fast. Or we can put it in a more general sense. Man can decide to go without. Now, I don’t mean here, not yet anyhow, that he can do what Saint Simon Stylites did — that’s Saint Simon the Pillar-sitter, because he stationed himself on the top of a tall pillar for 36 years, till he died at age 69. I mean instead that man can see past the good things in front of him, to seize the better things that are not in front of him, or can deny himself an obviously good thing, to attain a greater good. And the most mysterious form this self-denial takes is when the absence itself reveals a presence. It’s not as if you work like a dog on Monday to clear up time for a day at the beach on Tuesday. It’s instead that you exchange, on Monday, the more apparent feast for the less apparent but far greater feast, a feast that you can’t enjoy without what most people would shy away from, because it involves sacrifice.

I think here again that the sages of such great civilizations as the Indian and the Chinese and the Japanese would all nod in agreement. The wise and benevolent and utterly childlike Teshoo Lama, in Kipling’s masterpiece, Kim, would certainly understand; after all, he’s undertaken a journey of a thousand miles, from the great mountains of Tibet to the Ganges, and from thence to what he’s hoping will be the source of the holy river he seeks, and he knows how to make do with very little — rather, making do with very little opens his heart up to great wisdom and peace and even, sometimes, joy.

But our Poem of the Week doesn’t take place in India or China! It’s Victorian England, and our author is the youthful Gerard Manley Hopkins. He’s going to become a minister, and not one of those who seeks out some comfortable benefice, so that he can preach a little and indulge pleasant hobbies on the side, like the amiable but worldly and lazy Reverend Dr. Stanhope in Trollope’s Barchester Towers. One by one, Hopkins glances at each of our five senses, and also at our speech, our desire to walk on soft ground, and the habits we don for our clothing, to express who we are, and, one after another, he prays that he will enjoy less of them so that he can enjoy more. We shouldn’t think of it only as pious aspiration. It is certainly that. But Hopkins really does imply that if we want to hear the more profound music, we must seek out silence. And how much eloquence is there in the man wise enough to say little! It’s a fine and brave poem. More than that — it is true.

Watercolor sketch from a letter, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Public Domain.

Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorled ear;
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: 
It is the shut, the curfew sent 
From there where all surrenders come 
Which only makes you eloquent.

Be shelled, eyes, with double dark 
And find the uncreated light: 
This ruck and reel which you remark 
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust, 
Desire not to be rinsed with wine: 
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend 
Upon the stir and keep of pride, 
What relish shall the censers send 
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet 
That want the yield of plushy sward, 
But you shall walk the golden street,
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride,
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-colored clothes provide
Your spouse not labored-at nor spun.