Waking & Persistence
In the poem "Bloodroot," we see a man who has become disillusioned with the concept of God as he has come of age and seen the world as what it is and not what his childhood had made it out to be. The narrator of that poem says
"I was, too, before four years
away at Bible College,
schooling they helped pay for so
I could better learn the Word,
learned instead the world, returned"[1]
He has forsaken Christ for what seems to be true reality, the cold hard truth, and has found a sense of freedom now that he has been enlightened and has understanding of the way things really are. No God would allow a world as painful as the narrator's. No God would allow a man to need to risk his life every day collecting plants off of the ground just to barely survive. There must be no God. And yet, the narrator says this:
"take them to Reverend Holten,
who does not know I listen
beneath the window those nights
he and the congregation kneel"[2]
Surely the narrator here is apostate, never endowed with the Holy Spirit, not saved, bound for eternal damnation, but despite everything the pale faith he had when he was younger still persists. He feels the call, and even in his active denial, the narrator cannot turn his whole back towards it. He longs for it, knows he needs it. Persistence is one of those characteristics that define the human experience. Everyone has it, even if they don't exercise it. The poems in Waking show people who in many ways, despite everything, persist. They also show that persistence is never just about the individual. Christ calls all of those who believe in Him and follow Him to persist. [1 Chronicles 16:8-12; Job 17:3-9; Matthew 24:3-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22] As humans, we are endowed with the Holy Spirit to carry us through our tribulations, but humanity was designed from the beginning with persistence in mind, knowing that we would eventually fall.
Human persistence is most usually understood in the form of physical persistence. Life is tough. Life is tougher for some, but life is tough for all. Sin weighs down on a person, not merely in a personal sense of doing wrong but as an entity in and of itself, ruler of a fallen world, master of a broken plane. It destroys the body and decays the mind. It torments the headspace, chips away at will, drains the muscle of mass. Yet, despite the weight of sin, humans carry on. This basic sense of persistence is portrayed in "Watauga County, 1959." The subject is someone's death. A farmhand, a neighbor, a son, a friend, has died. His survivors sit around a campfire. The silence is vast,
"as we hunched on farmhouse steps,
wore Sunday clothes days early,
what conversation the rasp
of matches. Small blades of flame"[3]
The absence is great, and all that the dead man had done is already fading fast, certain to cause problems and gaps and difficulties for his survivors. The people the dead man left behind are carrying on, huddled around fire for company. It is tough, but they are continuing to live anyway, without any obvious strain of effort, all of the work being done by the human will. It is easy to persist, in a way. The men around the fire, and all the other subjects of these poems, do not ever say or motion "I am going to persist." They merely live and cope with their circumstances. The persistence happens naturally, though it certainly is difficult too.
Of course, we don't always have other people around us all of the time. We don't always have family or even friends. No man is an island, however. The poem "Time Flow" shows us this. In it, a clockmaker's son has died, and now he is alone. The clockmaker, Nolan, spends all of his time with his clocks now. The narrator of the poem, however, comes around sometimes for fishing. In the poem, the narrator steps inside the shop to see Nolan hard at work.
"as a surgeon he set
each gear in place. When it stirred
he brought me closer, let me hear
that one pulse among many."[4]
Even though Nolan is alone, he has people around him. He is "one pulse among many," like the narrator is, as everyone is. When Nolan persists, he contributes to his community. Even if just the instance in this poem is all Nolan ever had done, it would have still been a contribution his persistence allowed. When we persist, we decide (even if subconsciously) to contribute to our community, to the place we find ourselves in, even in small, seemingly meaningless ways.
Persistence is not just about right now but ultimately shows itself through heritage and generations also. Persistence is put upon and commanded for individuals, but persistence is inherited through generations. In "Reading the Leaves," the narrator describes a tobacco farmer checking tobacco crop by hand, hanging it in a barn,
"gold leaves of tobacco bound
to rafters, brittle pages
layered by time and weather,
strung together as Celts once
strung leaves on cords to compose
the first words of Albion."[5]
The work of this farmer goes back generations. His ancient forefathers too grew leaves in vicious conditions, too cured plants in barns, and the subject brings that with him in his current age. The practice persists, even as he persists through the brutal conditions of his tobacco farm. His ancestors in Northwestern Europe persisted so that their kids would emigrate to America and persist, and those people would have kids and would make farms and persist, and this so on until we make it to the tobacco farmer in the poem, who is also persisting, for his own sake, for his family's sake, for his community's sake, for his heritage's sake. Persisting is his life. It is all of our lives, in our different ways. Even though he is physically alone, even though he seems to not have any kin close to him, his persistence is not individual. We persist so that our children will persist, not just our physical children we bear but more especially our spiritual children, those who will carry on our faith after our generation has died out. We persist so that they can persist.
This physical persistence then also shows our soul's persistence. As ensouled bodies, persistence in spiritual matters is also present among all of us. Aside from the introductory poem, "White Wings" presents a similar direct subject, a man named Jason who has sworn from Christ after his wife died giving birth, killing the child also. He stays in his apostasy, but cannot stop himself from being drawn back to church service, lingering at the gravesite of his beloved:
"in that field come rain or cold
but came no closer, between
church and field two marble stones,
angel-winged, impassible."[6]
Despite everything, even consciously and willingly pushing himself away from Christ and his people, Jason longs for the Lord. His soul cannot turn away from him, and he must heed that call. He is being begged to persist, even if he is not complying. As redeemed souls, however, our own physical persistence is intrinsically tied to our physical persistence, as we are ensouled bodies. We carry on in life specifically because we wish to carry on for Christ [Philippians 1:18-26]; our physical and spiritual battle is one and the same, linked together by our salvation and sanctification. How much moreso will we be drawn to Christ and be in his presence eternally should we choose to follow him.
Persistence is an act that goes beyond the self. Christ shows this in His perfection. When Christ formed all of us, when the Holy Spirit empowered us, when the Lord called us to Himself, God was aware of what our lives would entail and how difficult it would be. Jesus Christ lived such a life Himself, and suffered in life and in death so that we could be called and empowered. Jesus knows all of this and yet demands that we suffer through with Him. Even so, we are not unprepared. The Lord will be with believers for all of their lives, and we have been created to persist. While most of the people in Waking seem to suffer for no reason, believers have hope in suffering with and for Christ, hope for the salvation of their souls. Do not be deceived that we have a more obvious end goal than they, though, for we are not moving towards something but in the direction of something, which is Christ, and Christ will complete the movement of this path for both the believer and the nonbeliever. It is only the believer who has been reserved a place in Heaven; it is only the believer who wants one. As the Church, we are called to support our brothers and sisters throughout life, so that we all may persist until sin is no more.