Wordsworth – Earthbound

This passage from Wordsworth’s The Excursion caught my attention:

That 'tis a thing impossible to frame

Conceptions equal to the soul's desires;

And the most difficult of tasks to keep

Heights which the soul is competent to gain.

—Man is of dust: ethereal hopes are his,

Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft,

Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke,

That with majestic energy from earth

Rises; but, having reached the thinner air,

Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen.

I have often wondered how many of the great naturalists, and early protectors of America’s National Parks, failed to come to know Christ as Creator and Redeemer. I am less surprised today with the militant materialism that has abounded for generations, but even then I can be puzzled when I see how close men and women approach the Divine – and yet fail to acknowledge Him (see Romans Chapter One and Psalm 19).

In a lower key Wordsworth seems to be saying, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” While Wordsworth isn’t thinking about sin in this passage, he is struggling with the “higher” versus the “lesser” and the “transcendent” versus the “temporal”. Wordsworth does not know, and perhaps does not care to know, that when a soul is outside of Christ that the temporal brings us back to earth every time – no matter the heights to which we soar. Only Jesus Christ frees us from earth’s gravity.

Sadly, most Christians could care less as long as they are well-fed, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Wordsworth’s aspirations put professing-Christians to shame. Perhaps Wordsworth will stand at the judgment and accuse us?