We are on a quest for psycho-spiritual understanding. The realm of Soul is the New World. We are explorers on the vast Ocean in our tiny ships, landing on a new shore here and there. None of us knows that much. This blog is my rough map of the terrain. Many have gone before me and millions will follow. Each gains from the steps, or missteps, of prior adventurers. Open your imagination, for Imagination provides both the ship and the territory to be explored. https://www.michaelbogar.com/
Dr. Randy Pausch died a few weeks after he gave this 10 minute talk. He knew he was dying. I rarely watch or listen to anything on YouTube over 2 minutes in length. I couldn't stop listening to this one. It is soul-making at its best.
In some ways it reminds me of my son Jason who died defending human dignity and freedom in Afghanistan on July 13, 2008, but almost everything reminds me of Jason these days. He has become my master teacher. Jason never once showed me that he looked at life as something to preserve. He lived it as his heart called him to his next mission.
The Greek word Psyche, or Soul, means night moth. Love and Death are the twin flames that draw our Psyche forward into soul-making. One draws us into the heights, the other into the depths. Love draws us by pleasure, extroversion and attraction, Death by pain, introversion and intrigue (often terror). As you will see in this brief farewell lecture, Death makes souls expand in ways Life never could.
1Batter my heart, 2three-person'd God; for you
As yet but 3knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
4That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an 5usurp'd town, to another 6due,
7Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
8Reason, your 9viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved 10fain,
But am 11betroth'd unto your enemy;
12Divorce me, untie, or 13break that knot again,
Take me to you, 14imprison me, for I,
15Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever 16chaste, except you 17ravish me.
1. ‘Batter my heart’ declares the theme of this whole poem, namely, to be completely disassembled and made new. This is an admission of a once lovely little ego that had hardened into a fixed adult persona. This old self or heart no longer worked and it appeared that it was coming down only by force.
2. ‘three-person'd God’ is a reference to the Christian Trinity (God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), probably using the plurality to admit the necessity of more than one being needed to enter his stubborn heart.
3. Donne felt the gentle knocking of God at his heart to enter and make him a new man. The whisper of a breath, a gentle shining light, and mending of wounds are all wonderful, maybe even preferred experiences by most spiritual programs. But it is not enough.
4. The aim of this ‘breaking and burning’ is that the poet may ‘rise and stand’. The poet brilliantly states the aim of rising and standing again and anew at the beginning of this line as if to let God, and the reader, know he is not a spiritual sadomasochist. The imagery of the incinerated Phoenix comes to mind, or the crucified Christ, or the dismantled Osiris, or the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi, or the humiliated Watergate criminal Chuck Colson – each rising from the heap of debris to become a new Self.
5. “Usurp’d town” is a poetic version of ‘usurped’ which means to seize, commandeer, grab, or capture. This is an image of a large, fortified city being assailed by a powerful king who uses all weapons.
7. ‘I labour to admit you’ suggests that the town (man) works to do the right thing, to surrender, pay taxes, etc., but finds his natural inclination is to keep it all for himself. ‘To no end’ means he has seen over and over that human effort to surrender control has not worked.
8. ‘Reason’ should understand and defend God as the true Ruler. But Reason all too often becomes the ego’s rational mind which justifies rebellion, excuses selfishness, blames others for problems, justifies inappropriate behaviors and uses all sorts of mental chess to avoid surrender is the King of the city (ego). In a soul-making paradigm, this is exactly what Reason is supposed to do. This rational resistance against the Higher Self creates a Being, a Human Being, that cannot be created in any other way, producing a unique creature in the cosmos that wills to power, and then expands by surrendering that will. It is a sort of spiritual isometrics – the power of the joint and muscle are increased by working against an immovable force or opposed by resistance.
9. A viceroy is a royal official who governs a country or province in the name of and as representative of the Monarch. Donne recognizes that he is not the King of the city, but an appointed caretaker who rules under the authority and guidance of the Monarch. But even as the viceroy, Reason fails to defend and submit to God.
10. ‘Fain’ is an old word that meant gladly willing, eagerly desirous, happy to comply. In this line he acknowledges the psychic paradox of wanting to rebel and have his own way while simultaneously being deeply desirous of receiving and basking in the love of God. Traditional Christian doctrine of Original Sin explains this by the Fall of Adam which made humans entirely responsible for this innate rebellion. Soul-making and Depth Psychology explain this innate human resistance and struggle as a normal, necessary developmental feature of the human psyche. As another Romantic poet, William Blake wrote, “There is no progression without opposites.”
11. Betrothed means engaged to be married, and in some cultures is practically a synonym as it seems here. Donne recognizes he is wedded to his ego, in love with his own self obsessed, self centered ego-persona. This enemy was also symbolized by the Christian images of the power hungry Devil, the World of prestige by appearances, and his own fleshly sensory drive for pleasure.
12. Using another metaphor for capitulation to becoming his whole Self, he begs God to divorce him from the enemy. He recognizes that he is not capable in his own strength to effect such a break. He must have God’s grace and power to escape the allure of the old persona. Psyche can confuse humans because we often simultaneously seek security and renovation. This is normal.
13. This cutting the thread has happened more than once. Donne recognizes that we keep going back to that old, abusive lover. There is a Jewish proverb that says, “God ties us to Himself by a very long string. We keep cutting the string, and he keeps retying it. Each time we cut the string and he reties it, we get closer to Him.”
14. He uses two metaphors here, ‘imprison’ and ‘enthrall’. They are similar in that each conjures up the image of being forced to remain in place. But enthralls, appearing as a sort of correction, amplification or modification of ‘imprison’ means to mesmerize, enchant, charm, seduce and fascinate. He asks God to make Himself more alluring than self obsession and self centeredness. This is what happens in spiritual evolution – we move from knowing what is right, to loving what is right.
15. ‘Except you shall enthrall (seduce) me’ recognizes the irony of wanting God and yet avoiding God. True freedom is in God, not in self. He has already recognized that Reason and will power will not work. The human psyche has been given the experiences of the God qualities of power, prestige and pleasure contained in a little ego-self. They are deliciously enjoyable, but apart from the Source, there is never complete freedom and satisfaction.
16. Chastity is purity or virtue. Here it is way more than sexual. It is what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
17. This idea of being ravished by God is very Rumi-esque, if you are familiar with the Persian poet. Donne knows that chastity or godly virtue is impossible without being ravished or seduced by God’s larger Reality. The word ‘ravish’ is etymologically related to the word ‘rape’, hearkening back to the original motif in this poem of God’s battering, breaking down the walls, burning the old city, overthrowing, laboring, divorcing from the old partner, and imprisoning the poet. This image brings up the Greek Rape of Persephone which is often viewed negatively. However, as with all morally neutral myths, the symbology may also remind us that sometimes the God/Gods (Psyche) take us from our field of flowers and sun by force, plummeting us into a dark Underworld where we make larger souls through what we call depression, sadness, loneliness, alienation and the loss of people, places and stuff.
18. The goal of this poem is a prayer to be made new by whatever means possible (lines 3-4). I could and probably should stop there, for that is the point. But I, like most writers, rarely stop where I should.
This poem captures me at a time in my life where I am genuinely tired of the old ego citadel which once gave so much pleasure and satisfaction, and was simply familiar and comfortable when it was giving me misery and despair. As Donne says in line 11, this citadel has been captured, or old lover divorced, many times over the years, but I keep going back. That is normal and part of the process in a soul-making universe. Donne recognizes that life on this planet is so arranged that these old selves rarely disappear without a struggle. He, unlike the Hebrew Job, is asking to be dismantled, willing to lose fortune, family, health or whatever it takes to know the Infinite. This is not easy stuff or to be taken lightly. Few of us are in this place. My twenty five year old son was killed in Afghanistan as a soldier on July 13, 2008. I was not ready or willing to be so devastated, assailed, raped and violated by life, let alone ‘God’. Oh well. These sorts of tragedies, and some far worse, happen every day somewhere on this planet, and have since the beginning of time. From the first Big Bang that destroyed the initial Cosmic Egg, sending forth the shrapnel of what we now call the Universe, to the bang that exploded in my son’s chest, disintegration has been the emoting force of Creation. There is nothing odd or abnormal, nothing sick or neurotic about this cosmic process of disintegration and integration followed by disintegration and reintegration, unless you are a Gnostic, and that is another story altogether.
The goal of this poem is a prayer to be made new by whatever means possible (lines 3-4).
Donne's Poem is followed by an Essay on The Spirituality of God's Violence -
HOLY SONNETS – XIV by John Donne
Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
End
English poet John Donne’s fourteenth Holy Sonnet speaks to those of us who feel we have been, or need to be, ravished by God:
“Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
The word ‘ravish’ comes from the Latin word rapere and gave rise to our English words ‘rapid’ and ‘rape.’ It meant to abduct, seize, carry off by force and was most often used to describe the work of pirates and raiding armies. Only later did it develop the sexual connotation we most often associate with it today.
I call this poem the antidote to Job because Donne begs to be Divinely violated, ravished and abducted that he might escape the Hell of his own ego. Job was ravished and wanted to know 'why?' This poem conjures up the image of a forceful intervention, rescuing someone from a dark delusion that has ensnared him/her by a certain enchanting allure that simultaneously is killing him/her. Today we call this addiction, codependence or ‘making a living’. Donne prays to be delivered from whatever keeps an infinite soul trapped in a finite existence. This poem is not for the faint of heart, or those who see spirituality as light and goose-bumpy moments smelling of sandalwood. The images are not ‘spiritually correct' and may shock, as was intended by Donne. Jesus once alluded to something comparable when he said, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing…” (Matthew 11:12)
The goal of this poem is a prayer to be made new by whatever means possible as seen in lines 3-4:
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
The line might make more prosaic sense if you read, “In order that I may rise…overthrow me.” I could and probably should stop there, for that is THE point. But I, like most writers, rarely stop where I should.
This poem captures me at a time in my life where I am genuinely tired of the old ego citadel which once gave so much pleasure and satisfaction, and was simply familiar and comfortable when it was giving me misery and despair. As Donne says in line 5, this ‘usurped town’ or citadel has been captured, or the old lover divorced many times over the years, but I keep going back. That is normal and part of the process in a soul-making universe. Donne recognizes that life on this planet is so arranged that these old selves rarely disappear without a struggle. The resistance and struggle make the soul.
Donne, unlike the protagonist in the Hebrew Book of Job, is asking to be dismantled, violated and broken; he is willing to lose fortune, family, health or whatever it takes to know the Infinite. This is not easy stuff or to be taken lightly. Few of us are in this place.
The aim of this ‘breaking and burning’ in lines 3-4 is that the poet may ‘rise and stand’. Donne brilliantly states the aim of rising and standing anew at the beginning of line 3 as if to let God, and the reader, know he is not a spiritual sadomasochist. The imagery of the incinerated Phoenix comes to mind, or the crucified Christ, or the dismantled Osiris, or the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi, or the humiliated Watergate criminal Chuck Colson – each rising from the heap of debris to become a new Self.
My twenty five year old son was killed in Afghanistan as a soldier on July 13, 2008. I was not ready or willing to be so devastated, assailed, raped and violated by life, let alone ‘God’. Soul does not await my consent. These sorts of tragedies, and some far worse, happen every day somewhere on this planet, and have since the beginning of time. From the first Big Bang that destroyed the initial Cosmic Egg, sending forth the shrapnel of what we now call the Universe, to the bang that exploded in my son’s chest in the KorengalValley near the border of Pakistan, disintegration has been the emoting force of Creation. Soul-making images a universe where such a process is not odd or abnormal, there is nothing sick, sinful or neurotic about this cosmic process of disintegration and integration followed by disintegration and reintegration. But it is rare and odd for a man to openly ask God to do whatever is necessary to perfect his soul.
I conclude by repeating: The goal of this poem is a prayer to be made new by whatever means possible (lines 3-4). If you would like to read the poem with my line by line interpretive footnotes, please click here ----> Poem with Footnotes
Dr. Randy Pausch died a few weeks after he gave this 10 minute talk. He knew he was dying. I rarely watch or listen to anything on YouTube over 2 minutes in length. I couldn't stop listening to this one. It is soul-making at its best.
