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God in Unexpected Places
Rosy, golden sunshine, twinkling, blinking stars and soft baby skin all work as physical
agents to show Gods presence in our world. Gerald Manley Hopkins composes works of poetry
where he presents God to us through his use of words and rhythms. As we read Hopkins’ poetry,
God can also touch us through the understanding and interpretation we learn from it. “God’s
Grandeur” reminds us that God’s presence remains alive even when we make mistakes and the
novel Exiles, enlightens us with the workings of God through the nuns’ and Hopkins’ lives. God
uses Hopkins, nature, and the nuns’ as agents for his work.
The poem “God’s Grandeur” uses Hopkins’ as his agent. This poem shows that no
matter how significantly humans destroy nature, God’s life force will never be smothered out.
Through Hopkins, Gods shows us that “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things” (Line
12-13) where humans cannot touch so they cannot destroy. God’s presence still contacts us so
that a person can feel him stroking the world “with warm breast and with ah! bring wings” (Line
18-19). “The world is charged with the grandeur of God” even when humans have for
generations “trod, have trod, have trod” upon the very earth he created (Lines 1, 5). In this
poem, Hopkins comforts himself with God’s presence because writing poetry to him was the
same as praying (Hansen, 101). Humans have lost touch with the part the makes us human, such
as the feeling of the ground without shoes covering our feet. Hopkins writes that people have
forgotten the earth because they have “seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil” and
destroyed what we were given freely (6-7). Hopkins’ life during Exiles was hard because he was
forced from school to school, did not have any support about his career from his parents, and his
health troubled him but he never gave up his faith in God. When in trying times, he turned
towards his poetry to help feel God’s presence in the cruel world because he defends it to his
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friend Robert Bridges and to the Month. Even in his most trying times he turned towards his
poetry like while in Liverpool he writes “Felix Randal” and “Spring and Fall: To a Young Girl”
to bring him comfort (Hansen, 163). Through Hopkins’ poetry, God seems to comfort him
which in turns soothes the people who read it.
From the poem the reader gets a feel that God works through nature to reach us. In this
poem Hopkins describes how “the brown brink eastward, springs” towards our eyes as the
sunrise (Line 15-16). Nature touches a person through the images it provides, as the morning
sun touches and warms our soul when we need it the most or as the bright colors of the wings as
a bird soars overhead. Hopkins has a real appreciation for nature, and God works through him to
show us what we destroy with our carelessness like cutting down forests, polluting rivers, and
leaving out trash. Nature physically touches us with its presence but shows us the gift of life that
we crave to understand and reach towards: the blooming of new flowers, the soil we walk upon,
and the sun that cannot be put out. The gift of life is the most precious, miraculous thing God
gives us because nobody can create life except for him: babies taking their first breath, an apple
tree sprouting, and blossom on an orange tree. In “God’s Grandeur” Hopkins feels love and
understanding toward the mistakes that humans make because God’s presence will ooze like oil
and never be crushed out. Hopkins “thanked God for the beauties and the contrarieties of nature,
[and] the tonic of outdoor exercise” because God works through the uniqueness of nature to
touch us (Hansen, 10).
He loves us through the poetry and nature, yes, but also through the Sisters in the story
Exiles. Each sister bestows upon the convent a sense of God’s presence by the way they love the
orphan children, their others Sisters, and the soldiers they helped nurse back to health during the
war. The Government exiled the Sisters because they disobeyed the Falk Laws, but the sisters
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never gave up. God’s agents forge ahead in what they believe is right and will not be snuffed out
like a candle. Sister Henrica mothers the children as a “model of wisdom, prudence, and piety”
(Hansen, 34). Sister Brigitta “taught art and music to the orphans” (Hansen, 44), and nursed
them when they lie sick. Sister Barbara acted like a stern, no nonsense nun, but late at night she
“spied in the orphanage well past midnight, softly creaking a rocking chair and humming a folk
lullaby as two thumb sucking babies slept in her arms” (Hansen, 57). Sister Aurea’s laughter
lightened the room with happiness. Sister Norbetta worked tirelessly to help the children. All
these sisters illustrate that God works through agents to reach us, but they also demonstrate that
God’s presence will not be extinguished even when the “flame [goes] out, like a shining from
shook foil” (Line 2), when children are orphaned, and when fire races through trees. Even when
the Sisters die on the shipwreck, God’s light still flourishes because it touches Hopkins through
the newspaper when he read the story which compelled him to write about the Sisters, to tell the
world their story about how even in their darkest moments God’s presence could “be a dayspring
to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east” (Hansen, 8, 204 Line 5-6). Hopkins showed
us that even in the darkest times God’s light shines through the reach us through stories, people,
and nature.
The big question of all this is why does it matter? It matters because people need to be
able to touch God. It is hard having faith in something a person cannot see, and Hopkin’s poetry
allows a person to understand God in physical aspects of the world. The other thing to
understand about his poetry and the book Exiles is that God caresses people the most when they
face trying times. A reader can see this when the Sisters confront death because they turn to pray
the Act of Contrition, “The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ ”, and they turn towards the
scripture of Matthew and The Book of Revelation (Hansen 166, 191). Hansen turns us towards
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Hopkins’ inspiring last stanza of the “The Wreck of the Deutschland” to help bring peace into
the last moments of Hopkins’ life. God works through poetry, scripture writing, nature, and
humans. He surrounds us, and as like Sister Henrica realizes, she “need not fear--God knows
best my every need” (Hansen 35, line 1).