As Kingfishers Catch Fire....God in Us....We are God's Will

Here is a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, cartainly a Christian poet, whose work is all about the inwardness of our lives. When I read this poem in class the other night I was reminded of our familiar question, "What is God's will for me?" And how so many of us in recovery--even in later recovery --struggle to know what to be when we grow up. And too, I and maybe you, seem to always feel the need to be  better than I am today. This sonnet quiets those questions, and I feel peace each time I read it. Hopkins tells us--in such sensuous language--that how we glorify God is by being exactly who we are. If I could just hold this---such sweet relief.

Sonnet 34--As Kingfishers catch fire:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; 
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells 
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s 
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; 
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: 
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; 
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, 
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came. 
Í say móre: the just man justices; 
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; 
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—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.