Sunday Thoughts: Dark Side, Light Side

Sorry it's been a while since my last post: I came down with some viral throat infection that had me out of commission for about a week. Man, I was too sleepy and in pain most of the day to do anything but sleep, self-medicate and watch "The Wire." Rest assured I'll make up for lost time.


Here's something I found via the Poetry Foundation's iPhone app. Most Christians know Cowper because of hymns like "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform." His bouts of mental illness are mostly swept under the rug or viewed as a spiritual affliction like the apostle Paul's thorn in the side: a weakness given so God's greatness may be magnified. 


I see it as both sides of a coin. All the sweetness and light, praise and honor, yes Lord, yes Lord, yes yes Lord, is all just a Hallmark greeting card until you've been through the fire. There's no point in offering praise unless you've had to sweat and bleed to get there. And I firmly believe that the only optimism worth a tinker's damn is hard-won optimism.


Sure, I'm mildly cynical in the classical definition of the word: I believe most if not all human activity to be motivated - directly or indirectly - by self-interest. But you can't have sweetness without bitterness, and you can't have light without darkness. To wit, this bit of excellent emo.

Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion

William Cowper 

Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution,
Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my 
Soul in a moment.


Damned below Judas: more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master.
Twice betrayed Jesus me, this last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.


Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore hell keeps her ever hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.


Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors;
I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiram's.


Him the vindictive rod of angry justice
Sent quick and howling to the center headlong;
I, fed with judgment, in a fleshly tomb, am
Buried above ground. 

This stuff is way, way dark: boy doesn't play around. It almost excuses some of the doggerel in his hymns, lets you see both sides of that tumbling coin.

O Lord, I Will Praise Thee

William Cowper

Isaiah 12:1

I will praise Thee every day
Now Thine anger's turn'd away;
Comfortable thoughts arise
From the bleeding sacrifice.


Here, in the fair gospel-field,
Wells of free salvation yield
Stream of life, a plenteous store,
And my soul shall thirst no more.


Jesus is become at length
My salvation and my strength;
And His praises shall prolong,
While I live, my pleasant song.


Praise ye, then, His glorious name,
Publish His exalted fame!
Still His worth your praise exceeds;
Excellent are all His deeds.


Raise again the joyful sound.
Let the nations roll it round!
Zion, shout! for this is He;
God the Saviour dwells in thee.