Non Nobis

There is an old Latin hymn which goes like this:

Non nobis nomine, Domine;
Non nobis, Domine —
Sed Nomini, sed Nomini —
Tuo da gloriam!

I am always overwhelmed when I am able to sit in an old English church, in that 'green and pleasant land' where legend has it that Jesus walked during His 'lost years' before the beginning of the Great Ministry. The hymn above says, "Not to our name, Lord; not to us, Lord — but to Your Name, to Your Name, be the glory!"

"To God be the Glory!" It is a thought which one finds in almost all Methodist institutions, carved on lintels and mounted on walls, to remind us that in the end, all things are not done for us but through us for the glory of God. I am reminded of how we are uneven work at best, always resisting God in our own ways. I take heart, though, from the words of Browning's poem, Rabbi Ben Ezra.

Most people stop at the first verse of this poem, because the thought expressed there seems so apt, so complete in itself, that there appears no need to continue. The first verse says:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’

This vision is a safe one, the all-encompassing blessing of a full life, from youth to age. But it doesn't end there. The last verse completes the picture, with yet another vision — that of the work complete:

So, take and use Thy work!
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’th' stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

It is both plea and paean. It echoes with the desire to be complete, yet resounds with the victory of true completion. And today, on a grey, bleak, deathly day at the end of October, I was confronted with my incompleteness. As intimated in previous posts, I am colourblind, I am flawed, I bear the full weight of a broken humanity in me. So I have not seen things which I should have, and I have bought enmity with the currency of language.

Francis of Assisi said, "Seek not to be understood, but to understand." And it is there that my failure lies.