Carol Frost
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
is immortal diamond.
The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins is speaking here about the Resurrection of the Dead, the moment in time when Christians believe that the Earth will cease to exist and humankind will finally join its loving Creator.
Hopkins’ vision of the “immortal diamond” that he becomes through Christ’s life on Earth is one that all of us experience now and then. Sometimes it can be exceptional people who awaken our sense of a spiritual dimension in everyone. A person like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who saw the immortal diamond in every poor potsherd that crossed her path and then followed her vision through in her life’s work.
Or Margaret Oates, The Angel of Collingwood, who walked the streets with a jeep full of food and other necessities for whoever needed them. When she dropped things in, she dropped in too for a cuppa and a chat. The St Vincent de Paul Society has a soup van named after her.
More often it can be beauty that overwhelms us. Music that lifts our hearts out of ourselves, or natural beauty that stops our breath. Sated and speechless, we’re reminded that we do not live on bread alone. We all need to assuage a spiritual hunger within us too.
Most of the time it’s hard to see beyond the chaos and muck of everyday life. But Easter makes Hopkins’ vision real. Just as Christians believe that Christ rose from the dead after his crucifixion, so they are shown the other life after death that awaits us all.
“This day you shall be with me in Paradise” Christ promises the Good Thief. And we listen, because we know that he also means us. This is the Kingdom that Jesus repeatedly invited his followers into.
And maybe it’s not such an impossible task. Christ’s life on earth – and those saintly lives among us – remind us that at every turn of our lives there is the possibility for good, for generosity, for justice, for love.
And when we fail over and over, there is a God who reassures us that even our struggles and stumbling are worthy of his love, since “he was what I am”.
Easter reminds us that there is another world waiting for us – and that, while we work away in our little patch of time on Earth, our souls are straining at the leash for Home.
Carol Frost is a Melbourne writer.
