“Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing…”Andrew Marvell
This idea fascinates me. It is one I know is true, yet cannot prove. It is the idea that only when we are in our deepest suffering and worst despair can we receive this certain divine gift. Despair is a window through which divine light shines.
It reminds me very much of Jesus Christ’s first beatitude, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
The experience of divinity is the most amazing thing about it, no doubt. But also amazing is that man can conjure neither the divine nor his own despair.
Men cannot bring God to Earth. We lack that power. And men naturally hate despair, are absolutely repulsed by it, and will do just about anything to avoid it. And many succeed in avoiding it. But those who happen upon it, or intentionally choose not to avoid it, are endowed with riches beyond any riches physics could ever measure, “so divine a thing.”
Avoiding this despair is, especially in our world, quite simple; there’s suicide, there’s intoxication, there’s amusement. But in any man with even the tiniest shred of faith, such despair becomes inevitable because even the littlest bit of faith will cause a man to accept life, to choose a moment of sobriety, to allow his mind a period of thought long enough to be crushed by the weight of life.
And when the weight has so destroyed him that he has lost all hope, he must once again choose between suicide, intoxication, and amusement, on one hand, or to continue in his despair. Again his faith is tested, and if he continues further in his despair, he has affirmed his faith. He has affirmed it because the only way he can possibly continue in such despair is by faith. And if he does continue, he comes to see “so divine a thing.”
Then he can walk through the storm he never believed he could survive because he has accepted superhuman aid. He can walk through death to new life because it is only in despair that he realizes his inability to live on his own and so accepts divine assistance. Only when the torential downpours of mortality halt his journey does he recognize his desparate need for his divine father’s help, and so only then does he open his eyes to see the divine hand offering divine support.
Then his faith, which has been tempered and tried by fire, becomes stronger. And in such faith, faith which has been purified by “magnanimous despair,” comes abundant joy and abundant peace.
Magnanimous despair:
the voice of Christ crying out,
“why have you abandoned me?”
Magnanimous despair:
the tragedy of humans mistakenly
- “they know not what they do” -
murdering their protector, their father.
Magnanimous despair:
the terror of learning that
our victim is God, and has come back.
Oh so divine a thing
to be forgiven, to be redeemed,
even after we have committed such vicious acts,
and before we even have to beg for mercy.
It couldn’t have happened without magnanimous despair.
Magnanimous despair alone could show us so divine a thing.