Why should we start and fear to die?
What tim’rous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate to endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.
These words (vs.1) and vs.3 are also used in 111b and 275b, in each case with a new chorus added.
Don't you just love 'timorous worms'?
The Biblical references I find seem to use worms as objects of disgust and worthlessness rather than a character type. (see below).
The gist of these verses from Watts is that death is terrifying, even though we're supposed to know better (it's the 'gate to endless joy'). But this terror may be eased, banished in fact, by a direct experience of the presence of Jesus (O if my Lord would come and meet...).
Certainly this had a powerful literal meaning in a time that did not deny, hide, and hide from death in the way we do today in this country. It's also not at all bad in a more daily, metaphoric sense -- even though in our heads we may know and believe in the joy of letting go of ego, 'dying to self' we still draw back from it. Only concrete, direct experiences of grace seem to coax us, step by step, into the fulness of life connected to all creation and not limited by our own pettiness.
What tim’rous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate to endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.
These words (vs.1) and vs.3 are also used in 111b and 275b, in each case with a new chorus added.
Don't you just love 'timorous worms'?
The Biblical references I find seem to use worms as objects of disgust and worthlessness rather than a character type. (see below).
The gist of these verses from Watts is that death is terrifying, even though we're supposed to know better (it's the 'gate to endless joy'). But this terror may be eased, banished in fact, by a direct experience of the presence of Jesus (O if my Lord would come and meet...).
Certainly this had a powerful literal meaning in a time that did not deny, hide, and hide from death in the way we do today in this country. It's also not at all bad in a more daily, metaphoric sense -- even though in our heads we may know and believe in the joy of letting go of ego, 'dying to self' we still draw back from it. Only concrete, direct experiences of grace seem to coax us, step by step, into the fulness of life connected to all creation and not limited by our own pettiness.
Job 25.6:
No comments:
Post a Comment