"Deep Down Every Riven Thing: The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Christian Wiman as a Resource for Coherence in Healthcare"
Travis Pickell, George Fox University, Newberg, OR
Coherence is “harmonious connection of the several parts, so that the whole ‘hangs together.’” Many of us experience a lack of coherence in our vocations and professions, especially in medicine and healthcare. One may feel that the realities of the profession do not cohere with one’s previous ideals, or that different actors and institutions hold radically diverging and inharmonious views of the purpose of medicine. Responses to incoherence can come in many forms, including lament, protest, and denial. Some of these responses are more hopeful, others despairing. In this paper, I seek a hopeful response to the experience of incoherence.
Any truly hopeful response, I argue, must fulfill three conditions. First, it must rightly acknowledge the brokenness of our world, for any response that does not begin here will not be hopeful, but rather merely “optimistic.” Second, it must provide an account of where and how coherence can be found. This may take different forms. For example, one may seek a future coherence that has been deferred, perhaps even eschatologically (what we might call “coherence after incoherence”). Or one might look backward to an original coherence, which has been lost, but still holds some validity and may perhaps be recovered again. This more nostalgic response may be termed “coherence before incoherence.” A third approach, “coherence within incoherence,” is explored in this paper and explicated below. The final condition for a hopeful response is that it must be moving. It must satisfy the needs not only of the intellect, but also of the spirit. For this final reason, there is wisdom in turning to poets and artists, and not simply to philosophers and theologians, for guidance.
With these conditions in mind, I develop an account of hope for coherence from the work of two artists, the classical “metaphysical” poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and contemporary poet Christian Wiman. Hopkins is well-known for his innovative style (sprung rhythm) and his vivid imagery. Perhaps the most important feature of his work, however, is the idiosyncratic notion of “inscape.” This unique concept, which Hopkins never defines, has been described by Sarah Keller as “the truth that God’s creative energy unites all things, just as a painting of a landscape unites varied elements into a coherent whole.” The inscape of a person, place or thing at once describes both its unique, particularizing qualities, and its participation in an underlying creative force, which, for Hopkins, had its source in the divine source and origin of all things. Unfortunately, because of the sin-stained nature of creation after the fall, the task of perceiving inscape–and thereby coherence–is not a simple one. One may only access inscape through careful and meticulous observation, which is why the poet’s art is so important. At their best, the poet captures the essential qualities of a thing and reflects this through words, both through their meaning and, importantly for Hopkins, through their sound. Through analysis of Hopkins poetry (“As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” “God’s Grandeur,” and “The Windhover”), I demonstrate the path to coherence as a hidden feature within a flawed and broken creation.
I then turn to Christian Wiman, who I argue is a contemporary inheritor of Hopkins’ legacy. Wiman, in both poetry and prose, explores the possibilities of a divine source of coherence, even in the midst of present suffering–which, for Wiman, is most clearly embodied in his ongoing struggle with a rare form of cancer. In his undoubtedly classic poem, “Every Riven Thing,” Wiman begins, “God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made // sing his being simply by being // the thing it is: // stone and tree and sky, // man who sees and sings and wonders why…” Even though each thing is “riven” (broken, cleaved, in-coherent), each thing sings its being, “simply by being the thing it is.” In other words, hope confesses a coherent reality within the riven world because God “belongs” to it. With Hopkins, Wiman affirms the role of attention in accessing this truth: “A god, if it’s a living one, is not outside of reality but in it, of it, though in ways it takes patients and imagination to perceive.”
This paper concludes with reflections on the role of poetry and theology for cultivating such attention. What would it look like to learn from Hopkins and Wiman how to bring such hopeful attention to the practice of medicine? Can we learn to recognize the inscape of things (or patients) in all their utter particularity, and in doing so, to trust the present coherence “deep down things”?
Any truly hopeful response, I argue, must fulfill three conditions. First, it must rightly acknowledge the brokenness of our world, for any response that does not begin here will not be hopeful, but rather merely “optimistic.” Second, it must provide an account of where and how coherence can be found. This may take different forms. For example, one may seek a future coherence that has been deferred, perhaps even eschatologically (what we might call “coherence after incoherence”). Or one might look backward to an original coherence, which has been lost, but still holds some validity and may perhaps be recovered again. This more nostalgic response may be termed “coherence before incoherence.” A third approach, “coherence within incoherence,” is explored in this paper and explicated below. The final condition for a hopeful response is that it must be moving. It must satisfy the needs not only of the intellect, but also of the spirit. For this final reason, there is wisdom in turning to poets and artists, and not simply to philosophers and theologians, for guidance.
With these conditions in mind, I develop an account of hope for coherence from the work of two artists, the classical “metaphysical” poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and contemporary poet Christian Wiman. Hopkins is well-known for his innovative style (sprung rhythm) and his vivid imagery. Perhaps the most important feature of his work, however, is the idiosyncratic notion of “inscape.” This unique concept, which Hopkins never defines, has been described by Sarah Keller as “the truth that God’s creative energy unites all things, just as a painting of a landscape unites varied elements into a coherent whole.” The inscape of a person, place or thing at once describes both its unique, particularizing qualities, and its participation in an underlying creative force, which, for Hopkins, had its source in the divine source and origin of all things. Unfortunately, because of the sin-stained nature of creation after the fall, the task of perceiving inscape–and thereby coherence–is not a simple one. One may only access inscape through careful and meticulous observation, which is why the poet’s art is so important. At their best, the poet captures the essential qualities of a thing and reflects this through words, both through their meaning and, importantly for Hopkins, through their sound. Through analysis of Hopkins poetry (“As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” “God’s Grandeur,” and “The Windhover”), I demonstrate the path to coherence as a hidden feature within a flawed and broken creation.
I then turn to Christian Wiman, who I argue is a contemporary inheritor of Hopkins’ legacy. Wiman, in both poetry and prose, explores the possibilities of a divine source of coherence, even in the midst of present suffering–which, for Wiman, is most clearly embodied in his ongoing struggle with a rare form of cancer. In his undoubtedly classic poem, “Every Riven Thing,” Wiman begins, “God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made // sing his being simply by being // the thing it is: // stone and tree and sky, // man who sees and sings and wonders why…” Even though each thing is “riven” (broken, cleaved, in-coherent), each thing sings its being, “simply by being the thing it is.” In other words, hope confesses a coherent reality within the riven world because God “belongs” to it. With Hopkins, Wiman affirms the role of attention in accessing this truth: “A god, if it’s a living one, is not outside of reality but in it, of it, though in ways it takes patients and imagination to perceive.”
This paper concludes with reflections on the role of poetry and theology for cultivating such attention. What would it look like to learn from Hopkins and Wiman how to bring such hopeful attention to the practice of medicine? Can we learn to recognize the inscape of things (or patients) in all their utter particularity, and in doing so, to trust the present coherence “deep down things”?