“You live that you might give…”
By guest author, Anna Silber
This is the eighth in a series of blogs meant to introduce our readers to participants in our ordination preparation course at The Seminary of the Christian Community in North America. Each one will contemplate a work – or works – of art that speak to their path and Christ’s working in the world in some way. We have heard from Victoria Capon, Jeana Lee, Mimi Coleman, Lesley Waite, Elizabeth Majoros and Kate Kennedy, and Jong-Won Choi. Today we introduce you to Anna Silber.
Sara Robbins published a series of poems in 1945, as the tragedy of World War II played out on the world stage. Through the darkness of outer events and the pain of inner suffering, she had the eyes to see meaning, and the artist in her found the words to express it. She was a psychologist, teacher, and writer, and like many sensitive artists, the life of the soul was her field of study. She lived in Woodstock, New York, just upstate from where I live now in Spring Valley, and while there is not much publicly known about her life, the content of her book of poems entitled Crushed for Better Wine makes me feel like I know her personally. Throughout these 11 poems she is vulnerable, probing, and even confrontational at moments. Her poems are intimate and sincere, often addressing the reader directly as brother or friend, as in her short poem entitled Communion:
Brother, when you meet my thought in space,
Remember that I come with it.
Clothe me in your imaginings,
Breathe life into my heart
And make me not a stranger:
For we, who are fashioned of the light,
We are one in spirit.
Our day has not yet come
When walls shall fall between us,
And soul shall speak to soul
A silent language.
Ms. Robbins’ poetry is utterly religious in that she continuously directs our gaze upward toward God as the true source of healing, and wholeness. After reading her work, I often have the feeling that I’ve just prayed. Without moralizing she deals in the moral sphere, and with compassion she points out the places where we trip and get caught by the traps of life, demonstrating a familiarity with those parts of the human heart that are not yet free. She is indeed gifted in that high art of expressing soul experiences with tenderness and warmth, but without sentimentality, using images sparingly and masterfully to do that work for her. Her poetic reproaches offer a mirror, objective and clear, often revealing me to myself. In her poem called Beggars, she takes to task the vain heart:
…Pity him
Who lives to please the many, the all,
To lap the tinsel raindrops
As they glisten in the sun…
Yet overlooks the sun;
Whose appetite for esteem
Is more than his longing for God.
He knows not that only God can quench the arid heart,
Only spirit can feed the spirit.
In a poem, entitled That Crumb shall be a Feast, (included in its entirety below)Ms. Robbins takes up the theme of offering. Of all her poems I find this one particularly moving. She employs explicitly religious language in the description of an activity she sees as universally human. Too often religious language draws circles around groups of people, uniting some, separating out others. But she artfully breaks through this separating tendency by turning to images from nature that belong to all, like the stars, the sun, the fruiting trees – she reveals their religiousness and unites us therein. Perhaps this is what draws me to her work the most. It feels priest-like, and through her words I hear her speaking to the priest in every human soul. She has found a way to articulate this truly human activity of offering as it applies to every heart no matter how flawed, or imperfect, or hindered – she makes it obvious and simple.
From the beginning of my time in the Seminary, the theme of offering has been my companion. It first came to me in the form of an assignment to share a contemplation on Luke 21. I chose to focus on the Widow’s Offering. In the gospel, the poor widow’s gift, her ‘crumb’, was lauded by Christ Jesus as worth more than the gifts of the rich men, who gave out of abundance. The Widow’s offering resounds in my heart when I read this poem and the author’s encouraging words fire me with enthusiasm for the activity of giving, of offering. The author reminds us that there is nothing more fulfilling to the human heart than to freely offer, indeed to ‘give as He gives.’ Note the images she uses from the plant world, describing the offering of the fruiting tree:
…Returning the seed joyously
A thousand times multiplied
In gracious surrender.
A sculpture by the author, Anna Silber
In this poem Ms. Robbins touches into the subtle and delicate place where the activity of offering is at once a bestowal of grace from above. She tells us that joy and abundance are involved. I can’t read this poem without thinking of the gifting that comes with Christmas time and the words we sing in carols like The Drummer Boy or In the Bleak Midwinter. Both of these tender carols center around the natural human response when faced with the recognition of what God has graciously bestowed upon humanity and the earth through the Christ child. What shall I give Him? Do I have a worthy gift? We hear the answer both in these carols and in this poem. Give Him your heart, play your song, make your living into your offering. She ends the poem with this powerful thought about offering, again speaking directly to the reader:
You say not you are giving…
You live that you might give.
In this moment of world crisis, not entirely unlike the state of the world that Sara Robbins was observing when she wrote these poems, the temptation is to feel united through the tragedy of outer events. Perhaps her poetic words can lift our gaze and remind us that we can find ourselves united not only in earthly suffering, but also ever and again joyously and abundantly through Him.
That Crumb Shall be a Feast
You who give…
Give to others
As freely as God gives to you
Your daily breath.
Give as He gives you
The heavens and the earth,
As He spreads the night and the stars
That you might rest in that peacefulness,
Replenishing your wasted energies.
Give as He gives you the sun
That pours freely over you and life,
And bathes you in its healing light
And its lovingness.
You who give…
Give as He gives
The seedlings to be mothered in the earth
To multiply,
To feed and nourish His beloved flock,
Give
As the trees yield their fruit in season,
Spreading their branches to the skies,
Returning the seed joyously
A thousand times multiplied
In gracious surrender.
You who give…
What is there you have to give
That was not always His,
Loaned to you on borrowed time
To use and share
In your span of life.
Sooner or later it shall be returned,
As the waters flow back to the source,
As the rivers return to the ocean…
And not a drop is lost.
And you who give
And know not how to give,
And bind yourself to your giving
As a reminder,
A loan and sanguine hope of expectation…
Give not.
Without the vestments of your love
Your giving goes forth bare and empty of meaning,
A thing without a soul.
And you who say
There is naught that you can give,
You speak sinfully:
For locked within your heart
Are the riches you must share.
For no life is void of the living,
Your misfortune and your distress
Have enriched you with understanding.
The pain has been your blessing and your treasure
That must be shared with others
And returned to life as knowledge and as wisdom.
You will say,
My words, what are they…
They fall on barren ground:
But no ground is always barren,
No word is ever lost
But that it find the way to the soul of the needy.
What greater gift can man bestow
Than a word dipped in love and kindness,
Soul food…
For the hungered and the lonely:
Words rich with living
That speak of courage to the fearful
And to the weary are a fulcrum and a brace.
You who say
Mine is an improverished life,
What have I that man can share…
You are wrong.
For what gift more holy than inspiration…
What higher service
Than to light a heart that has lived in vain
Among the shadows.
And if your giving is but a crumb dipped in love,
Made sweet with the spirit of sharing,
That crumb shall be a feast set before the Lord;
And all who hunger and thirst shall come,
The seen and the unseen:
They shall come with lighted candles rejoicing
To sing praise in silent benediction.
And you who give-and give in selflessness,
Your selflessness is even greater than your gift.
Your giving is not seen of men,
And your gifts are made holy with your silence:
They shall always live
And thrive in the secret portals of your soul.
For you are the giver of life,
The servant of God:
You spread yourself over mankind,
Feeding His cup of light
To the hungered and the famished.
You say not you are giving…
You live that you might give.
Anna lives in Spring Valley, NY with her husband and two daughters. Before joining the Seminary, she worked in Waldorf Education as a class teacher at Green Meadow and as a Director at Sunbridge Institute. She is often seen walking wooded Threefold paths with her dog and driving around with a car full of children.
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