Fly

The Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings

Malachi 4:2

Mankind has always loved the idea of flying. Just yesterday my pre-schoolers joined me in flight around the yard. What a joy to open our arms and feel the wind lift our wings. What is the fascination of defying gravity?

When I see an eagle or hawk rise up outside my living room window I catch my breath. I am in awe at his size and grace. Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote a poem I admire called The Windhover. I include the whole poem below. My favorite lines are these;

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here 
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! 

   Hopkins is comparing the majesty of The Windhover bird to Christ. I love the word 'buckle' using the definition "to unite strongly'. His grace and strength are a billion times more powerful than this bird but the bird testifies of his nature and characteristics. The closest thing to flying that I have experienced is the lift of his powerful spirit. I cannot generate that in myself. For that reason I come to him.

To Christ our Lord 

By Gerald Manley Hopkins

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-

dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!




Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!




No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.