Medievalish 2.11
Giving Thanks with Thomas Traherne
Dear friend,
This month we do the “-ish” part of Medievalish, because my new/old seventeenth-century friend Thomas Traherne (c. 1637-1674) is so bubbling forth with thankfulness that it would be a crime not to feature him in the month of November. He also graciously gives me one of my favorite things in writers of the past: highly idiosyncratic spelling even for his own day.
Paid subscribers will know I’ve been into Traherne lately. They’ve already gotten his bio, but here goes again for the rest of us: Thomas Traherne was likely the son of a shoemaker at Hereford, though that is speculation because we don’t possess his baptismal record. He went to Brasenose College at Oxford, and became rector of Credenhill. After about a decade serving there, he became private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for King Charles II, until that lord’s death. Traherne died shortly after, before the age of 40, and only one of his books was published in his lifetime. His poetry and meditations were discovered at the tail-end of the nineteenth century by sheer luck and the grace of God. They were discovered in a group of manuscripts about to be trashed in a bookseller’s stall, and initially mistaken for lost works of his fellow metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan (another favorite).
C.S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and Thomas Merton were all huge fans of Thomas Traherne. Lewis called Traherne’s work Centuries “almost the most beautiful book in the English language.” Even as an atheist, he noted the “mild, frightening, Paradisial flavor” of Traherne’s writing.1
Today I am sharing with you a portion of his second Century. The defining features of Traherne’s writing are an ever-increasing sense of wonder and gratitude. He overflows with love as a stylist in his writing. His apostrophes, fragmented sentences, lists of beauty all testify. He sees very clearly the beauty of creation, and concomitantly, feels sharply our misuse of creation and the loss of human innocence. For Traherne, the natural world preaches the love and reality of God in its unending variety, diversity, liveliness, and surprise. He writes with joy that reads clear as day on the written page:
Therfore hath GOD created Living ones: that by Lively Motions, and Sensible Desires, we might be Sensible of a Diety. They Breath, they see, they feel, they Grow, they flourish, they know, they lov. O what a World of Evidences. We are lost in Abysses, we now are absorpt in Wonders, and Swallowed up of Demonstrations. Beasts Fowls and Fishes teaching and evidencing the Glory of their Creator.2
Moreover, to be an Image of God in such bounty is to be blessed beyond comprehension. Soak in Traherne’s glorious prose; read it aloud if you can:
That you are a Man [human] should fill you with Joys, and make you to overflow with Praises. The Priviledge of your Nature being infinitly infinit.
…You are able to Discern, that in all these Things [creation] He is Lov to you; and that Lov is a fountain of infinit Benefits, and doth all that is Possible for its Beloved Object. It endlessly desireth to Delight it self, and its Delight is to Magnify its Beloved.
…You are able therin to see the infinit Glory of your High Estate. For if GOD is Lov, and Lov be so Restles a Principle in Exalting its Object: and so Secure that it always promoteth and Glorifieth and Exalteth it self therby, where will there be any Bounds in your Exaltation? How Dreadfull, how Amiable how Blessed, how Great, how unsearchable, how incomprehensible must you be in your true real inward Happiness? The Object of Lov is infinitely Exalted. Lov is infinitly Delightfull to its Object, GOD by all His Works manifesteth Himself to be Lov, and you being the End of them, are evidently its Object. Go where you will, here alone shall you find your Happiness. Contemplat therfore the Works of God, for they serv you not only in manifesting Him, but in making you to know yourself and your Blessedness.
Now, read it again. You’ll laugh, but I picked what to give you this week by simply opening Centuries at random. That’s how full-flowing of the love of God this strange little Anglican cleric is.
Honestly, every page has a gem; nearly every line has something that makes me gasp or slow down or reread. Traherne reminds me almost irresistibly of Julian of Norwich, especially of her last few pages in her Showings. The greatest mystical writers always begin to sound both uniquely themselves and strikingly like one another in their contemplation of the love of God.
But here’s the wonderful thing: Traherne is talking to you. The privilege of being you is infinitely infinite. Take it, and rejoice. You are the Blessed Object of Love. Where are the bounds in your ongoing Exaltation as Beloved? They do not exist. I echo Traherne for Thanksgiving, then. Go forth, and contemplate the works of God—beasts, birds, fishes, clouds, the people around you, art, music, trees, mountains, your body—for they will serve you not only in manifesting the character of the Lord God, but in allowing you to perceive yourself and your blessedness and belovedness.
This is all invitation.
To be as GODs, we are Prompted to Desire by the Instinct of Nature. And that we shall be by Loving all as He doth. But by loving Him? What, O What shall we be? By loving Him according to the greatness of His Lov unto us, according to His Amiableness, as we ought, and according to the Obligations that lie upon us; we shall be no Man can devise what. We shall lov Him infinitly more than our selvs, and therfore liv infinitly more in Him then in our selvs: and be infinitly more Delighted with His Eternal Blessedness then our own. We shall infinitly more delight him then our selvs. All Worlds All Angels All Men All Kingdoms all Creatures will be more ours in Him then in our selvs: so will His Essence and Eternall GODHEAD. Oh Lov what hast Thou don!
Amen.
Seriously, go read Traherne’s Centuries. I’m going through it very slowly and savoring it as a strange feast.
What I’ve been up to this month:
I was honored and pleased to be interviewed for Christianity Today for Jesus through Medieval Eyes. You can order the book anywhere you get books, including Amazon, B&N, and your local bookstore.
The Old Books with Grace podcast is going strong, as I welcomed LuElla D’Amico, scholar of American & children’s literature to talk all things Louisa May Alcott. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or any of your preferred podcasting platforms.
I’ve been getting the Advent series on Old Books with Grace all ready for you! I am quite excited about this year’s lineup, which includes bits from Richard Crashaw, Madeleine L’Engle, W.H. Auden, anonymous medieval lyricists, and more…
What I’ve been reading this month:
Fiction: Harry Potter. This introvert really needed a seasonal comfort read during book launch season!
Nonfiction: Alternating between adoration and annoyance as I read C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves. He is, as always, brilliant, but it’s not my favorite of his.
Medieval/medieval-adjacent: So much medieval poetry as I was combing through Marian lyrics for the Advent series.
Article: From Artnet: a Cimabue was discovered hanging above the stove in an elderly French woman’s home. It is now in the Louvre. Can you even imagine?
A Prayer from the Past
The marvelous Victorian poet, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), gives us today’s All Souls and All Saints inspired prayer-poem, from her book The Face of the Deep.
O Lord Jesus, who knowest them that are thine;
When thou rewardest thy servants the prophets,
remember we beseech thee, for good those who have
taught us, counseled us, guided us,
and in that day show them mercy:
When thou rewardest the saints, remember, we
beseech thee, for good those who have surrounded
us with holy influences, borne with us, forgiven
us, sacrificed themselves for us, loved us,
and in that day show them mercy;
Nor forget any, nor forget us,
but in that day show us mercy,
O Lord, thou lover of souls.Amen.
Peace for your November,
Grace
P.S. Medievalish is free, and I’d be delighted if you shared it with a friend!
I am begging you to read Lewis’s Preface to On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius, if you have not. Maybe my number one influence outside of medieval writers for what I do, and the mode I choose to work in.
The edition I use is Thomas Traherne, Poems, Centuries, and Three Thanksgivings ed. Anne Ridler (London: Oxford University Press, 1966).
Definitely going to have to give Centuries a read!