Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983) and her family helped Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and, by all accounts, saved nearly 800 lives in the Netherlands. They were devout Christians.
On February 28, 1944, a Dutch informant told the Nazis of the ten Booms’ activities and the Gestapo raided the home. They kept the house under surveillance, and by the end of the day 35 people, including the entire ten Boom family, were arrested, Although German soldiers thoroughly searched the house, they didn’t find the half-dozen Jews safely concealed in the hiding place. The six stayed in the cramped space for nearly three days before being rescued by the Dutch underground.
All ten Boom family members were incarcerated, including Corrie’s 84-year-old father, who soon died in the Scheveningen prison, located near The Hague. Corrie and her sister Betsie were remanded to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp, near Berlin. Betsie died there on December 16, 1944. Twelve days later, Corrie was released. None of the other members of her family had survived.
In 1971, she wrote a best-selling book of her experiences during World War II, entitled The Hiding Place in which she recounts her extraordinary experiences through World War II and illustrates how Christ’s strength sustained her.
“I have experienced His presence in the deepest hell that man can create. I have really tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.”
Corrie ten Boom
“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
Corrie ten Boom
“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you’ll be at rest.”
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
John Owen (1616-1683) was a theologian and Independent minister, and one of the more prolific writers of his time. He had one of the greatest minds of the seventeenth century, and engaged in the scholarly debates then current. He was a defender of high Calvinism, a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and an administrator for the University of Oxford. His works were widely read in his lifetime and continue to be published today.
“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”
John Owen, Communion with God (1657)
The excerpt below is from the same work by Owens, quoted in Randall J. Pederson, The Puritans Daily Readings (pp. 258-259):
“By nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with God. God is light and we are darkness; and what communion has light with darkness? He is life, we are dead; He is love, and we are enmity; and what agreement can there be between us? Men in such a condition have neither Christ, nor hope, nor God in the world, “being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them” (Eph. 4:18).
Now, two cannot walk together unless they be agreed, (Amos 3:3). While there is this distance between God and man, there is no walking together for them in any fellowship or communion. Our first interest in God was so lost by sin, as that there was left unto us (in ourselves) no possibility of a recovery. As we had deprived ourselves of all power for a returnal, so God had not revealed any way of access unto Himself; or that He could, under any consideration, be approached unto by sinners in peace. Not any work that God had made, not any attribute that He had revealed, could give the least light into such a dispensation.
The manifestation of grace and pardoning mercy, which is the only door of entrance into any such communion, is not committed unto any but unto Him alone in whom it is, by whom that grace and mercy was purchased, through whom it is dispensed, who reveals it from the bosom of the Father. Hence this communion and fellowship with God is not in express terms mentioned in the Old Testament. The thing itself is found there; but the clear light of it, and the boldness of faith in it, is discovered in the gospel, and by the Spirit administered therein. ‘And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.’Ephesians 5:11
Communion is the mutual communication of such good things as wherein the persons holding that communion are delighted, bottomed upon some union between them. So it was with Jonathan and David; their souls clave to one another in love, (1 Sam. 20:17). There was the union of love between them; and then they really communicated all issues of love mutually. In spiritual things this is more eminent: those who enjoy this communion have the most excellent union for the foundation of it; and the issues of that union, which they mutually communicate, are the most precious and eminent…
Our communion, then, with God consists in His communication of Himself unto us, with our returnal unto Him of that which He requires and accepts, flowing from that union which in Jesus Christ we have with Him. This communion is twofold: it is perfect and complete, in the full fruition of His glory and total giving up of ourselves to Him, resting in Him as our utmost end; which we shall enjoy when we see Him as He is; and second, it is initial and incomplete, in the first-fruits and dawnings of that perfection which we have here in grace.
It is, then, I say, of that mutual communication in giving and receiving, after a most holy and spiritual manner, which is between God and the saints while they walk together in a covenant of peace, ratified in the blood of Jesus. We thus pray that the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who has, of the riches of His grace, recovered us from a state of enmity into a condition of communion and fellowship with Himself, that we may have such a taste of His sweetness and excellencies as to be stirred up to a farther longing after the fullness of His salvation, and the eternal fruition of Him in glory.”
“So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.”
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Richard Baxter was a 17th-century English theologian and Reformed pastor whose fruitfulness in ministry continues to inspire the church today. Most quoted is this advice to those in ministry which, given recent high-profile scandals, can use another dusting off:
Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach . . . and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare food for them.
Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor
Also a poet, Baxter summarized the manner of his preaching this way:
I preach’d, as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men! O how should preachers men’s repenting crave, Who see how near the church is to the grave?
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden wrote “September 1, 1939” at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. It’s a poem that’s often quoted during times of crises such as ours, and only seems to highlight the recurring cycles of political dissimulation and media exacerbated fury that escalates into tragedy. While battling a virus, we’ve “cancelled” each other and branded each other racists and bigots. We’ve listened to politicians and oligopolies wildlydenounce opponents of their agendas as terrorists. We’ve been witness to unchecked brutality this past year as our cities burned with mob violence during which thirty people were murdered, and neighborhoods and livelihoods went up in smokewhile governors and mayors watched.
Auden began the poem with these words:
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
In the penultimate stanza he cautions: “We must love one another or die.” The same holds true today.
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
excerpt from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
Read the complete poem at poets.org. And hear the poet Dylan Thomas read it below.
Written by Johann Lindemann in 1598, “In Dir Ist Freude” (“In Thee is Gladness”) was translated from the German by Catherine Winkworth almost three hundred years later. Winkworth was a pioneer in promoting women’s rights as well as promoting women’s higher education. Johann Lindemann was one of the signers of the Lutheran Formula of Concord, and served often as a cantor in various churches in his native Germany. The hymn is often performed using J.S. Bach’s arrangement.
In Thee is Gladness
In thee is gladness amid all sadness, Jesus, sunshine of my heart! By thee are given the gifts of heaven, thou the true redeemer art! Our souls thou wakest, our bonds thou breakest, who trusts thee surely hath built securely, and stands forever: Hallelujah! Our hearts are pining to see thy shining, dying or living to thee are cleaving, naught can us sever: Hallelujah!
If he is ours, we fear no powers, nor of earth, nor sin, nor death. He sees and blesses in worst distresses; he can change them with a breath. Wherefore the story, tell of his glory, with heart and voices all heav’n rejoices in him forever: Hallelujah! We shout for gladness, triumph o’er sadness, love thee and praise thee, and still shall raise thee glad hymns forever: Hallelujah!
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Emily Dickinson commemorative stamp, 1971
Many great poets wrote their most magnificent poetry in their youth rather than at the peak of their maturity. Take, for example, Dante, Lord Byron, John Keats, and T. S. Eliot. Others wrote throughout their life with equal prowess: Milton wrote Lycidas when a student, and Paradise Lost as an old man.
But many come to poetry as late bloomers. Emily Dickinson considered herself such, watching others pass her by. Only ten of her nearly 1,800 poems were published in her lifetime. She kept “singing” anyway, saying with confidence, “I shall bring a fuller tune.” What do you think she means?
I Shall Keep Singing! by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
I shall keep singing! Birds will pass me On their way to Yellower Climes – Each – with a Robin’s expectation – I – with my Redbreast – And my Rhymes –
Late – when I take my place in summer – But – I shall bring a fuller tune – Vespers – are sweeter than Matins – Signor – Morning – only the seed of Noon –
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Sonnet 73: That Time of Year (Shakespeare)
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by. This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:3 )
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
I don’t know about you, but I’m hanging on to summer as long as I can! For fellow simpaticos, here’s a late summer bloom and a Christina Rossetti poem to help.
A late summer garden rose
The Rose
The lily has a smooth stalk,
Will never hurt your hand;
But the rose upon her brier
Is lady of the land.
There's sweetness in an apple tree,
And profit in the corn;
But lady of all beauty
Is a rose upon a thorn.
When with moss and honey
She tips her bending brier,
And half unfolds her glowing heart,
She sets the world on fire.
-- Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Portrait of Christina Rosetti by Dante Gabriel Rosetti
For more on Rosetti, see my Common-Place Jottings post on “Rossetti Rhymes”
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
John Updike (1932-2009) still casts a long shadow on the literary landscape. His writings were varied and many, but his craftsmanship set the standard among his contemporaries. He was only one of four writers who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction more than once.
Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, he once described his subject as “the American small town, Protestant middle-class” everyman. His clarity of style and expression is the hallmark of his writing, causing a critic for The Guardian to warn, “The clarity of Updike’s poetry should not obscure its class.”
The following poem quickly became one of my favorites for its simple directness and descriptive force in conveying the grace available in the simple act of “Planting Trees.” The poem is from his fifth collection of poetry, Facing Nature.
Planting Trees John Updike
Our last connection with the mythic. My mother remembers the day as a girl she jumped across a little spruce that now overtops the sandstone house where still she lives; her face delights at the thought of her years translated into wood so tall, into so mighty a peer of the birds and the wind.
Too, the old farmer still stout of step treads through the orchard he has outlasted but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood planted to mark my birth flowers each April, a soundless explosion. We tell its story time after time: the drizzling day, the fragile sapling that had to be staked.
At the back of our acre here, my wife and I, freshly moved in, freshly together, transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door gloomily, green gnomes a meter high. One died, gray as sagebrush next spring. The other lives on and some day will dominate this view no longer mine, its great lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping, its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep. Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser, and remember and marvel to see our small deed, that hurried day, so amplified, like a story through layers of air told over and over, spreading.
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
G. A. Studdert Kennedy, 1918
G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) was an English Anglican priest and poet. During World War I, he served as an army chaplain on the Western Front and was awarded the Miltary Cross in 1917 for risking his life as he went to the aid of the many wounded and dying during an attack on the German front line. He was nicknamed “Woodbine Willie” for being at a dying soldier’s side to offer comfort and a final smoke.
I’d never read Kennedy’s poems until introduced to them by fellow blogger and friend Mere Inkling, who mentions a passage from Kennedy’s book Lies! excoriating those “who are making their fortunes out of the appeal to the animal in man.“
Kennedy died at the age of 45 while on tour as a missioner laboring on behalf of the working class men and women he served.
His 1917 citation for the Military Cross read: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He showed the greatest courage and disregard for his own safety in attending to the wounded under heavy fire. He searched shell holes for our own and enemy wounded, assisting them to the dressing station, and his cheerfulness and endurance had a splendid effect upon all ranks in the front line trenches, which he constantly visited.”
This Jolly Beggar 