In his poem “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” 19th century Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, famously penned the following lines: “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, / Hath had elsewhere its setting / And cometh from afar; / Not in entire forgetfulness, / And not in utter nakedness, / But trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God, who is our home: / Heaven lies about us in our infancy!” The poem, in many ways, is a lament on getting older and losing the ability to see the world as a child sees it – with boundless wonder and imagination. Wordsworth, of course, was responding to many forces at play in his day. The Industrial Revolution, for example, was ramping up, and as thousands flocked to the cities to labor in air polluting, noise making factories, the family dynamics of the villages changed. Once upon a time, extended families lived together for generations. Now, for a small chance of gaining upward mobility, that social fabric was torn, and distance came between loved ones. One brother was in this city; another brother was in that city. Mom and dad stayed home. A sister was somewhere up north. As the engine of industrial advancement chugged away, the angst and despair of those who would be cogs in this great machine only grew. It was this disillusionment with the world that prompted Wordworth to consider his life now compared to his life as a boy. Surely, he was closer to God then. Where were the clouds of glory now? If the bosom of God is truly our home, what have we done that has removed us? Made us lost? Caused this deep and dark fugue?
Wordsworth’s answer comes at the conclusion of the poem. He writes, “Thanks to the human heart by which we live, / Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, / To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” Nature, in a phrase, is the expression of the Divine. The answer is to simply go outdoors and ponder God’s creation and, importantly, remember that you are a part of it. It is an attempt to reawaken the senses and find majesty in even the smallest of things. For Wordsworth, strolling around in England’s Lake District, that might be a plain flower. A few decades later, across the pond, so to speak, American Transcendentalist Walt Whitman found God in a blade of grass. It can be done, apparently. A person merely needs to realign how he or she experiences the world.
In our current age, we are in the midst of another revolution. It is not one involving unsightly manufacturing centers and smog that engendered the term “London fog” but a revolution that has the young and old alike visually locked to their cellphones. It is, to be sure, a neurosis, and it has created the same effects Wordsworth and his literary peers were railing against two-hundred years ago. Angst and depression are on the rise. Loneliness is a real issue. And while family members may not be miles apart, there are still great distances between them. Family members eating separately, sitting in separate rooms, fixated on separate screens. Would Wordsworth’s suggestion all those years ago still apply? Put simply, do we all need to put down our devices and go outside?
The allure of the Industrial Revolution was that individuals could make more money. Is the allure of cellphones centered around getting more likes, making more so-called friends, getting more snaps, imbibing more mindless content? The commonality seems to be presenting itself. At the end of the day, we are consumers, but overconsumption – and, dear listeners, it would be difficult to argue that we are not there – is a reflection of an unhealthy relationship with the self. Because we do not know how to say no to our impulses, our impulses now control us and even determine our mood, our disposition, our worldview. We evict ourselves from the bosom of God because, like Lot’s wife, we cannot turn away. We are pillars of salt. We are slaves to a plethora of illusions.
If there is to be a spiritual revolution, and, by the way, the rumblings are undoubtedly there, then we must take the advice of a long-gone poet and with determination and real intention, seek the Divine where it has always been. Outward. Among the flora. Among the fauna. Never inward. So take a walk. Your dog will appreciate it. And if you don’t have a dog, that’s alright, too.
