Blake, William - “The Garden of Love”

“The Garden of Love”

I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gown, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joy and desires.

-William Blake
(18th century English Poet)

Traveling along the English countryside, I find a church, dilapidated and seemingly forgotten, like the weather worn tombstones in its surrounding cemetery. As the weed-choked graveyard is an image of death and neglect, the church too appears an old, unvisited grave. Only a forced act of imagination will envision that like the bones buried underground, the church too has once been alive. Thus when I read Blake’s “Garden of Love,” my landscape observed becomes a stark metaphor of the poet’s words. I view the ruins as Blake’s chapel centuries later, when only rubble remains of faith worn down by oppression and violence. Yet, the country church provides an image not only for an 18th century poem, but also for a certain brand of religion so prevalent in today’s politics and media. There is a Christianity being offered today that fits all too well with the religion Blake laments- and perhaps the ruin so aptly prophesied.

Consider the details unveiled by the poet. A visitor returns to the “the green” and is shocked to find a church. The man-made structure seems to wound the land as its accompanying graveyard overtakes a childhood playground. The metaphor is hardly subtle, for to the Romantic poets, nature is an expression of glory and children are conduits of divinity. The church harms both, disregarding how its presence violates the land and the original inhabitants.

Worse yet, the chapel is gated and locked with a threatening display of the written word “Thou shall not.” It is both imposing and opposing. It offers no receptivity; just to pass the threshold one must encounter all that it keeps out. We know not what it is about, only what it condemns, and thus the words become agents of wounding. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, words hold a creative, life imparting power. God spoke the earth into existence with his Word. Life, it is written, is not sustained on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Blake’s poetry portrays the irony: a tradition with an innate design to value words as a life-giving source, will instead fashion words to swords. The very phrase “Thou shall not” serves not to guard life but to destroy.

The poem continues with the stark image of tombstones replacing flowers. There is death where life should be. Man carved structure where nature should spring. And priests, in draped black, walk their rounds. The path is routine, lifeless, presumed- and violent. Those traversing it bind desire with thorny briars, committing violence both physical and soul-felt. In the bloody image is a reminder of the crown of thorns woven by the religious hand. (Lest we forget, that Jesus himself suffered under the very kind of institution Blake condemns.)

The poet has made his diagnosis: the chapel suffers from stifling legalism, shut gates, and a severing of the appreciation of nature as an expression of God. If the visitor’s remembered garden is an image of life seeded by play and desire, then the chapel represents life bound under carefully articulated control, where the only movement allowed is the traversing of well-worn paths. The church, like any institution, is most comfortable “walking its rounds,” claiming familiar authority, and preaching party lines. Yet, the Christ of Scripture is not predictable, but unabashed in smashing religious routine.

I look again at the country church before me, noticing the very route to the front door is hardly detectible, so overgrown with weeds. And I see Blake’s chapel like a tombstone. Where, I ask, might I see faith enlivened?

Past the church, I continue along the winding, country road and make it to town square. Still thinking of Blake’s words, I weave my way amongst the crowds. The market buzzes with the masses, and I notice a little boy at the flower stand making a bouquet from daisies. “Mum,” the boy asks, “When dad gets to heaven, will he get to eat bread and fish with Jesus?” The mother kneels down beside her son. “Yes, dear,” she answers, tenderly intent on the selection of flowers for the dying man.

The market is loud and bussling, and the moment is striking and still. In his grief, the small boy speaks of a relationship with Christ that pierces me as profound and intimate. For bread and fish is resurrection theology: the feast Jesus offers on Easter morning. The childlike faith presses into hope- that life can yet be rebirthed, that resurrection is a fundamental reality. The heartache in the marketplace becomes for me a startling parable.

If my reading of Blake- and my metaphor of country ruins- have propelled me down a path of judgment on an institution, my encounter with a small child outside church walls invites me again to resurrection. If new life is the crux of the Gospel, can we dare hope for the resurrection of the church itself? I speak primarily of the church of the first world, whose ears have grown deaf with power and perhaps can no longer hear the cries of those who have been labeled, judged, and outcast. Furthermore, would we learn to see how we are prone to petrify the dominant discourse, and in the process, silence the richness of voices that will not wrap themselves around our dogma? I fear Jesus reached out to outcasts while the church is primarily in the business of making them. Like the doors of Blake’s chapel, it is literally shutting out life. Here is where I grieve, and here is where I want to wager hope that there is yet another way.

If there is rebirth- a new vitality of faith and love- might it begin with confession of our injustice. May we recognize the violence in which we have been complicit. Blake’s image of the church is sanguinary; briars are left dripping with blood. Colonialism, nationalistic pride, wanton use of resources- violence has been endemic in this legacy. It is a violence reaching into both physical and spiritual realms.

New life in the Gospel’s story so often is born in confession- a kind of truth telling that calls us to recognize how we have wounded and to know our own wounds. Hope will stand on the threshold of the church when it is willing to speak honestly of its brokenness- to own its inquisitions and name how it has pandered to power. And thankfully, there is more to this story, for we rejoice in the testimony of those though whom we glimpse redemption: a single woman I know caring for children in South Africa, artists in my local church using their gifts to reflect glory, a little boy trusting that his dad will dine with a King. If we will ask to see and take part in healing, justice, the kingdom of God, we will find much to rejoice in. Confessing and rejoicing: Blake’s church and ours will need both for resurrection.