William Blake’s writing and artwork inspired my first tattoo, 21 years ago. This morning he reminded me to see God in all things. And it turns out today (Nov. 28) is also Blake’s birthday.
Reading him in a British romanticism class at Washington College changed the way I thought about writing. This morning, drinking coffee and reading, a letter Blake wrote to a patron-turned-critic popped up:
“I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eye of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
I didn’t set out to read Blake this morning, the letter was in a chapter of Eknath Easwaran’s commentary on the Beatitudes. I came across the same letter again, referenced by Maria Popova’s Brainpickings, pointing out his birthday. I like it when God makes it obvious that you are supposed to read and think about something today.
Walking around Tuckahoe State Park on Sunday, I kept taking pictures because the sun was setting and bouncing light beautifully off the trees and the water. We live in a place where we can be frequently reminded to stop and look at amazing things. If we make time. It’s all around us: yellow ginkgo leaves covering the ground, Great Blue Herons in flight, seldom seen birds at the feeder outside the window.
Blake’s point is that we don’t all look at things the same way. For someone looking to clear land and build a house, or someone who is late to work, a tree might be just something in the way or background scenery. For others, it can be the tree which moves us to tears; overwhelms us with gratitude and wonder at being out in nature.
After quoting Blake, Easwaran goes on to quote Thomas a Kempis, saying:
“If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.” The pure in spirit, who see God, see him here and now: in his handiwork, his hidden purpose, the wry humor of his creation.
Every creature a book of holy doctrine. Wow. It comes back to being able to look, being able to see things that way, see each other that way. We determine how and what we see in the world. Seeing the tree which moves us, seeing God’s handiwork in nature and people in our lives, is the reminder I take today.
It’s cool to have Blake surface while studying Luke’s Gospel and the Beatitudes. Jesus was calling for people to see and be in new and different ways than what was going on around them. In his art and writing, Blake saw in new ways, broke from tradition, and conveyed the prophetic and the wondrous. He opened my eyes to writing being able to break free from form and constraint.
Since it’s his birthday, let’s walk toward Blake a bit more. He illustrated religious texts; it’s moving quickly into Advent and Christmas; and we have groups who have studied Luke’s take on Jesus’ birth narrative where angels appear to the shepherds. So this struck me today: Blake drew and painted scenes for a John Milton poem, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.” Blake illustrates Milton’s words, which describe a scene we know better using Luke’s words:
And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2:14)
Today, on Blake’s birthday, and every day, whether we need angels to point it out to us, or whether we can use our own eyes, maybe we can see the divine in the everyday, the tree which moves us.
