NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
Gerard Manley HopkinsRead
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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the beauty of God's presence in the world, seen through the eyes and features of humanity.
Gerard Manley Hopkins' quote expresses the idea that divine beauty and grace can be found in the human experience, as Christ is perceived in the myriad forms and expressions of people. It suggests that the spiritual can be deeply intertwined with the physical, allowing us to see the divine reflected in the world around us, especially in our interactions with others.
In practice
In a sermon about seeing the divine in everyday life, one could use this quote to emphasize the presence of God in humanity.
NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! Oh look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.
Birds buildbut not I build; no, but strain, Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine,O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Nothing is so beautiful as spring - when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.
Music is, for me, like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces.
One doesn't make art for other people, even though I am very concerned with the viewer
When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, 'no, I went to films.'
All paintings start out of a mood, out of a relationship with things or people, out of a complete visual impression. To call this expression abstract seems to me often to confuse the issue. Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract . . . a realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts.
I deliberately disregarded the right angle and rationalist architecture designed with ruler and square to boldly enter the world of curves and straight lines offered by reinforced concrete... This deliberate protest arose from the environment in which I lived, with its white beaches, its huge mountains, its old baroque churches, and the beautiful suntanned women.
Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.
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