And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made [it] to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, [It is] better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, [even] unto death. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and [also] much cattle?And here is the poem.
Our Joy in a Created Good Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.---iv. 6.
Our joy in a created good
How soon it fades away,
Fades (at the morning hour bestow'd)
Before the noon of day:
Joy by its violent excess
To certain ruin tends,
And all our rapturous happiness
In hasty sorrow ends.
The poem well captures the passage. It also is true that we tend to feel sorry for ourselves and the loss of conveniences and pleasures even as we sit as spectators to real suffering by other people no worse than ourselves.
More generally, though, is the poem true or false? Does our joy in created goods fade away soon to certain ruin and sorrow?
No, I think, except in a very restricted sense that I will come to below. We can take joy in a created thing such as a tree or a painting for years and years. Even if the thing dies or is destroyed, the result is not necessarily sorrow. We may or may not grieve for it, because we may have gotten tired of it, or found something better, or simply realize that the thing's time has passed.
Where the Wesleys do perhaps have a general point is that it is very hard for us to concentrate on beauty or "rightness" for any length of time. In front of me is a beautiful coffee cup-- a cheap one, to be sure, but that does not diminish its beauty, and if it had been made 500 years ago in Japan it would be in a museum. I can look at it and appreciate its beauty, but only for about thirty seconds at a time. After that, I get distracted. The beauty comes to "certain ruin", not because the cup is ruined, but because my perception of it is ruined. I do not feel "hasty sorrow", but perhaps I would if I thought about it, because after those thirty seconds I have lost the beauty.
Something similar happens with special moments spent with people. This morning I wrapped netting around young trees to protect them from the cicadas. Two-year-old Benjamin was outside with me, holding the bag of twist-ties and handing them to me as I need them. The grass was fresh from the spring and all the rain we've had, and the weather was perfect. Benjamin a real help, and delighted to help. He would stand by patiently as I tied up a tree, occasionally asking in his toddler style if I needed another twist tie. That was a special time, but I don't think I could repeat it. It is gone now, and I am not skilled enough to make it permanent even in this description. Not only can I not convey it to you; my own memory of it is already fading. But other good moments will happen.
Heaven might be the ability to appreciate beauty without distraction and to have always the present appreciation, with no need of memory.
Timelessness.
[in full at 04.05.16a.htm]
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