A Wordsworth worth of words

Years ago, probably 20 years ago, maybe more now, my wife and I were visiting my sister in Chicago, and she had a bookshelf that had some really old books on it. I was admiring all of them, but one in particular, and she said I could have it. It was an old original 1891 printing of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations"

Thank you Sissy!

I've had it for all these years, and I love to take it down off of my own shelf every once and a while, (ever so carefully that is.) and have always been blessed with deep thoughts and often very light heartwarming thoughts as well. Just the other night I was reading from the William Wordsworth section. I found once again the section where he talks about  his "Intimations on Immortality" . 

The words went into me like a tiny needle injecting thoughts into my veins, to invade my mind with the notion and realization of two things 1) This earth, as beautiful and glorious as it is, is yet missing something that it had from it's original days. And 2) that every day we have, and are experiencing on this earth is the only one like it. Never to be repeated again. And thus this moment in time, this very day is a sacred gift.

"The Rainbow comes, and goes, And lovely is the rose.

 The sunshine is a glorious birth;

   But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth."

This quote from his lengthy prose, tells us also about all kinds of loss, that we struggle with in our human experience. That this world in which we live, is not exactly perfect. And that pain and suffering is a real thing that we all experience. And we can think deeply upon it. 

This reminds me of the fact that in our time, we often are tempted to think that we are so smart, and have all of this new learning, and new knowledge. Not realizing that it's actually not that new. It's only the incomplete thoughts that have already been thought out thoroughly by much older and wiser thinkers than ourselves from ages past. I've said it before on this blog, but it remains true, the mental and emotional state of what C.S. Lewis described for his time and it remains true for our time. We suffer from a "Chronological Snobbery" The idea that 'if it's old, it's wrong, and if it's new, it's right.'.

Lord save us from our presumptuous, unthinking selves.