Where God Is Leading
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
In the movie Dogma, the heroine, Bethany, a direct descendent of Jesus, is visited by an angel. She has just said her prayers and gone to sleep, and suddenly, there’s a sound in her room, a kind of thump and a “Unh.” She fades back into sleep.
Then, out of nowhere, a fire starts in her room, but nothing is consumed. But from the fire comes a voice, “Behold the Metatron, the Herald of the Almighty and Voice of the One True God.” The main character pulls out her fire extinguisher and puts the fire out.
What are you? Bethany asks. The angel answers, “I am pissed off!” More »
Tags: Dogma, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Kevin Smith, poetry