Facing East

When I was a sophomore in college I took a class in 17th Century English Literature. It was one of my best college classes and it was taught by an English professor I knew and thought the world of.

My favorite poet was John Donne and my favorite Donne poem was this:


GOOD-FRIDAY, 1613, RIDING WESTWARD.
by John Donne

LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is ;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey ;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
What a death were it then to see God die ?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn ?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us ?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them ; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.

Donne was a priest in the Church of England. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family but this was also a tumultuous time in England (and in Europe) where there was great violence between Catholics and Protestants. King James I, whose mother had been the Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scotts, was Protestant and demonstrated his Protestantism by fierce persecution of Roman Catholic believers. It was, in many ways, a sad time.

In this midst of this, Donne writes a poem about riding westward in Good Friday. And he writes:

O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face

As Jesus was hanging from the tree/cross, Donne turned his back on Christ in the east, and was journeying west. He is begging for forgiveness as he flees so that he might turn his face back to Christ, and back to the crucifixion.

Lent is almost to an end. Palm Sunday is this coming Sunday and this will be followed by gathering around the Table of the Lord on Maundy Thursday night, and gathering to remember the Passion of Christ, on Good Friday----all leading to the celebration of Easter.

Don’t ride westward, but turn to God this Holy Season.