“Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” —Gen 22:2 

For generations, the subject of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son has been a contentious matter in the Bible. How can a God who is adamantly opposed to child sacrifice expect such “atrocious” behavior from his followers? I was able to reconcile such behavior with an answer based on logic and good doctrine after reading Tim Keller’s Counterfeit God.

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to wait for someone? Abraham, like every other childless father, understands the agony of waiting for a child. God promised him that his offspring would be counted as stars in the sky, but his aspirations faded with each passing year, and having a kid became a faraway dream. God finally granted him Isaac at the frail age of 100, and he was pleased. But, more importantly, has he been waiting for his child or for God? Is God nothing more than a means to an end? Was it his child or the One who gave him the child who brought him the most joy? The problem is that by putting his child before God, he has made Isaac into an idol for him, and such a relationship would suffocate and pervert Isaac. Now, in order to comprehend why God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, we must first grasp the cultural context and meaning of the firstborn.

First, in ancient times, a man’s and his family’s aspirations and goals were placed in his firstborn son. The decision to forego the firstborn son is akin to a surgeon foregoing the use of his hands or a visual artist foregoing the use of her eyes (Keller, 2005). Because the firstborn typically inherits the most of a family’s estate, he serves as the family’s representative.

Second, routine offerings were paid to God in exchange for pardon of sins in ancient times. God was summoning Abraham to make a burnt offering for the sins he and his family had committed. As a result, God’s assertion that his only son’s life was forfeit was not unreasonable or contradictory. God wasn’t asking him to walk into Isaac’s tent and slay him, but rather to settle the family’s obligations. (Keller, 2005)

Although we can now see that God’s demand was understandable, this did not make it any less terrifying. “God is holy,” Abraham was confronted with the ultimate question. Isaac’s life is on the line as a result of our wrongdoing. God, on the other hand, is a God of grace. He has stated that via Isaac, he wishes to benefit the entire planet. How can God be both holy and just while also generously fulfilling his salvation promise?” (Keller, 2005)

He had no idea what the answer was, but he believed God nonetheless. This is similar to Job’s statement, “He knows what he is doing with me, and when he has tested me, I will come out as pure gold” (Job 23:10). He was only able to push one foot after another up that mountain because he believed God was both holy and kind.

As with all great stories, this one concluded with a lovely resolution: God spared Isaac, and now both God and Abraham realized that he loved God above all else.

How Poetry Counter Political Tragedy

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

By Adam Zagajewski

September 17, 2001

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

Poetry, with its innate “rhythmic movement” (Tupper, 1918), is a natural medium for people to express strong emotions when they are overwhelmed by major political events. However, in the light of the 9/11 attacks, the potential downsides of poems taking on such iconic subjects were revealed: they “risk not only devolving into cliché but also perpetuating the violence of terror and the violence of grievance and revenge” (Metres, 2018).  Amid such a predicament, past works by Polish poets resurfaced, because they went beyond the narrow confines of facticity and hatred. Clare Cavanagh, a Professor of Slavic Literature, claims that the Polish poets are “masters at converting the anguish of modern Polish history into meditations, at once personal and universal, upon the nature of human suffering” (Cavanagh, 2005). Adam Zagajewski is one such master. His poem, “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” (TTPTMW), originally written as a commentary to the forced Ukrainian exile during the Poland-Ukraine War in the 1940s, reaches beyond its historical intention to heal the wounds of bereaved during 9/11. My essay will discuss how this poem binds these two political events together by engaging the reader through an emotive approach. I argue that, despite the political slant of the poem, it emphasises more on personal experience against the backdrop of political tragedy, to articulate a distinctive response. It calls people to recollect the small moments of joy, to undermine the horror of a political tragedy. Such response is achieved through using accessible imagery to illustrate joy and pain, engaging the reader in a personal conversation, and emphasising more on coping with pain and less on condemnation.

First, the speaker uses accessible imagery from nature, instead of deep philosophy, to illustrate joy and pain. He begins by letting the reader relive small moments of inner joy through the finer things in life. In lines 2, 3 and 16, the speaker recounts the good things offered by nature, like distinct, beautiful seasons, ‘wild strawberries’, ‘the dew’ and ‘acorns’ (TTPTMW, 2, 3, 16); they bring small moments of happiness to ordinary life. Instead of using deep philosophy to offer solace against tragedy, the speaker encourages us to relive the small joys of life, and cling onto their beauty to persevere through painful moments. Moreover, he uses other aspects of nature to reveal the devastation caused by the war, to show that we cannot unsee these devastations, and need to learn to live with pain. In lines 4 and 5, the speaker writes, ‘The nettles that methodically overgrow / the abandoned homesteads of exiles’ (TTPTMW, 4-5). The speaker is juxtaposing the past abundance of the land with its current desolation. The land filled with ‘wild strawberries’ is now only inhabited by ‘nettles’ after the residents went into exile. The overgrowth of nettles paints a picture of losing control: when people cannot even take care of their own lives, they cannot keep the land trimmed and tidy. Through the perspective of nature, the speaker shows that the repercussions of political tragedy are real since they cannot be unseen; we need to live on despite the sorrow.

In a similar vein, natural imagery is effective because they are starkly different from politics. Political events and systems are human-made, complex and messy; nature is unprocessed, straightforward and easily understood. By juxtaposing the complexity of politics and simplicity of nature, the speaker is showing how humans over complicate things; as a result of self-centredness, corruption and violence, we inflict great harm on fellow humans —-‘civil blood makes civil hands unclean’ (Shakespeare, 1597).  Summing up, by intertwining nature with joy and pain, and juxtaposing nature with politics, the reader can recollect ephemeral moments of happiness, see grief with clear eyes, and persist through anguish by clinging onto small moments of joy.

Second, by actively engaging the reader in a personal conversation, the speaker creates a safe space for emotional connection and makes an individual feel valued and understood when an individual may feel insignificant and frustrated by the backdrop of a large-scale political event. He achieves such close engagement through the frequent use of the pronoun ‘you’, and a struggling tone. In the poem, the most frequent pronoun is ‘you’, making the experience personal for the reader. The poem says, ‘You watched the stylish yachts and ships;/…You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere, /you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully’ (“Try to Praise”, 6,10,11). The use of ‘you’ makes the reader feel that the speaker is speaking to the reader in a one-to-one conversation, making the reader feel valued. Besides, be it the leisure activity of watching yachts, or the painful exile and death of refugees, the speaker invites the reader to see the scenes from a first-person perspective. Instead of prescribing the reader with appropriate emotions, he wants the reader to summon her own emotions when seeing the scenes with her own eyes. Such invocation is powerful and emotionally engaging for the reader.

Furthermore, through a struggling tone, the speaker establishes an emotional connection with the reader by showing that he empathises with the reader on the difficulty of overcoming grief (Cavanagh, 2005). The paradoxical refrains of this poem, ‘Try to praise the mutilated world’, ‘You must praise’, ‘You should praise’ and ‘Praise’, shows the speaker knows how difficult it is for the reader to cope with the tragedies, as it is challenging to praise a world that is seriously afflicted. Yet, the constant repetition shows a deliberate effort from the speaker to engage the reader. The speaker’s voice is relentless but not demanding, for he understands the reader needs repeated prompts to accept his call, that is why there are four refrains within twenty-one lines. The reader feels the speaker can empathise with her. Thus, through constant reminder and empathy, the speaker establishes an emotional connection, making the reader feel safe and secure to relive the experiences, both good and bad. Summing up, the struggling tone and the use of the pronoun ‘you’ engage the reader on a profoundly intimate level, creating a safe space for the reader to recollect her own experiences, leave the reader feeling understood.

Third, by deliberately focusing less on condemning the perpetrators and more on coping with grief, this poem puts personal experience at the centre of the poem, instead of politics. Criticising the villains is not the focus of the poem. Throughout the poem, the speaker did not tag any nationality or political side to anyone; he merely describes the tragedies. Without specific reference, he demonstrates neutrality, diminishes hatred between the villain and the victim, and exposes the futility of blame. The attention on the vice of politics is intentionally reduced.

Instead of political condemnation, the bulk of the poem focuses on the personal awakening of hope amidst grief. The speaker first encourages people to accept unavoidability of pain and then offers a glimpse of hope through the imagery of a thrush. He highlights the inevitability of pain in lines 13 and 14, ‘Remember the moments when we were together / in a white room and the curtains fluttered’. Although the ‘white room’ seems to be safe and secure, the curtains are fluttering due to winds entering from the window. The fluttering curtains represent the turbulence in life and the fact that one can never be inoculated from external, unpleasant influences. As pain is fatefully unavoidable, it is all the more important that one accepts it with tranquillity, instead of hatred. Moving on, he began to stir up hope in people. In line 19, he describes the tragedy as ‘the gray feather a thrush lost’. He is making an intertextual reference to Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Darkling Thrush’, where ‘thrush’ is a symbol for hope (Hardy, 1899). He implies that the tragedy is only one feather, the thrush still has many feathers, and abundant hope awaits those who can see past the agony and see the big picture. Thus, by focusing less on condemnation and more on coping with grief, the speaker sheds more light on personal experience of accepting pain and invoking hope, so people will be encouraged to move on, instead of being consumed by resentment after a political tragedy.

In conclusion, as shown throughout the paper, poetry, as a political commentary, conveys more than factual information by engaging the reader emotively. This poem, by focusing on personal experience in the setting of political tragedy, encourages people to relive the small moments to joy, to counter the horror of political tragedy. By using accessible imagery from nature to illustrate joy and pain, the speaker allows the reader to relive moments of joy and pain and motivates us to persist through the pain. Such an approach is only possible because he successfully engages the reader in a personal conversation through using the pronoun ‘you’ and a struggling tone. Furthermore, he emphasises more on coping with pain and personal experience, less on condemnation and politics. All in all, Zagajewski persuades convincingly using simple truths, instead of deep philosophy; he is not only a talented poet but also a gifted healer of the soul.

Reference

Tupper, James W. “Poetry and the War.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 26, no. 4, 1918, pp. 445–467. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27533149.

Metres, Philip “Beyond Grief and Grievance: American Poetry in the Wake of 9/11 (2011).” The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2018, pp. 17–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.9949963.6.

Cavanagh, Clare. “Lyric and Public: The Case of Adam Zagajewski.” World Literature Today, vol. 79, no. 2, 2005, pp. 16–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40158663.

Hardy, Thomas. “The Darkling Thrush.” The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, Jon Stallworthy. New York: WW      Norton and Company, 2005. 1155. Print.

Shakespeare, William. “Prologue,” Romeo and Juliet, Lit2Go Edition, (1597), accessed December 29, 2019, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/201/romeo-and-juliet/4314/prologue/.

Zagajewski, Adam. “Try to Praise the Mutilated World.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 11 Sept. 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/09/24/try-to-praise-the-mutilated-world.