READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

Newman House, University College Dublin, facing St. Stephen's Green On Thursday the 27 th of April Will Johnston, Robert Gribben and I gave a presentation on Gerard Manley Hopkins to the Institute for Spiritual Studies at St. Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne. Here is the second part of my contribution to the evening.   Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things –    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;    Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;       And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange;    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)       With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathe...

St Peter and St Paul Church Yattendon, with the Bridges family cross in the foreground On Thursday the 27 th of April Will Johnston, Robert Gribben and I gave a presentation on Gerard Manley Hopkins to the Institute for Spiritual Studies at St. Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne. Here is the first part of my contribution to the evening. Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robert Bridges were born three months apart in the year 1844. Their families were devoutly religious, also inspired by the movement of reform within the English Church which we today call Anglo-Catholicism. The Hopkins family attended High Anglican churches, including All Saints’ Margaret Street in London, a church designed and built by William Butterfield, the same architect who designed the cathedral down the hill from here near the Yarra River. The books tell us Hopkins and Bridges met at university, but they were moving in the same social and cultural circles for years, taking in the same air. In a p...

The only thing better than reading a good poem is re-reading a good poem. Listening to the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins is to encounter in a small space a mind eager to make us aware of marvels. Aware, more aware, totally aware. It should be the hallmark of any writer of ecology that they reveal marvels. For although skyscrapers of scientific data should be enough to activate humans to protect the natural world, a more certain cause is to instil wonder. In his diary for April 8 th 1873, Hopkins wrote, “The ashtree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped first: I heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed there came at that moment a great pang and I wished to die and not see the inscapes of the world destroyed anymore.” Inscape was one of his coinages, typical of a man who developed private theories to assist his thinking and writing. It means the thisness or whatness of anything, Duns Scotus called it quiddity, those characteristics of...

Disclosure, by Ann Lewin   Philip Harvey   Written by request for the students at St Peter’s Eastern Hill Melbourne studying for their Trinity College Certificate in Theology & Ministry, February-April 2011, under the direction of Bishop Graeme Rutherford.   Disclosure Ann Lewin Prayer is like watching for the Kingfisher. All you can do is Be where he is likely to appear, and Wait. Often, nothing much happens; There is space, silence and Expectancy. No visible sign, only the Knowledge that he’s been there And may come again. Seeing or not seeing cease to matter, You have been prepared. But sometimes when you’ve almost stopped Expecting it, a flash of brightness Gives encouragement. Ann Lewin is drawing on an established tradition in modern poetry of using the kingfisher as a sign of anticipation, breakthrough, recognition, wonder, and revelation. Her understanding of prayer comes from the contemplative and mystical tra...