this is how we grow: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings...

The more I read of Rilke, the more I want to read. Last night I came upon Richard Rohr's translation of "The Watcher."

How small are the things we choose to fight.

What fights us is so great!

If only we could let ourselves be overcome,

As nature is overcome by a great storm.

Because if we do win, it is a small victory,

And the victory itself makes us small.

Whoever is defeated by an angel,

Always goes away proud and upright, full of strength,

And greater still for having felt his power.

This is how we grow:

By being decisively defeated by ever greater forces.

Fr. Richard uses it in the context of initiation rites for men - how male spirituality needs a unique encounter with powers greater than self that compel some form of loss, surrender, yielding, or relinquishment as the door into wisdom - all the while knowing that the poet resonates with others, too. In my favorite poetry anthology, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, one of my soul mentors, Robert Bly, shares his own translation of "The Man Watching" from start to finish.

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after

so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes

that a storm is coming,

and I hear the far-off fields say things

I can't bear without a friend,

I can't love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on

across the woods and across time,

and the world looks as if it had no age:

the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,

is seriousness and weight and eternity.

(Bly then plays with the middle stanza as follows)

When we win it's with small things,

and the triumph itself makes us small.

What is extraordinary and eternal

does not want to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel who appeared

to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:

when the wrestlers' sinews

grew long like metal strings,

he felt them under his fingers 

like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel

(who often simply declined the fight)

went away proud and strengthened

and great from that harsh hand,

that kneaded him as if to change his shape.

Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how we grow: by being defeated, decisively

by constantly greater beings.

This afternoon a storm is brewing just over our Berkshire hilltops. It is brewing in the soul of America, too. Both storms are wilder than anything in my imagination and offer a needed cleansing - maybe a measure of chaos that could be creative as well - but there are no guarantees. From my little corner of creation, where the day lilies are abundant and the air saturated, when it will break feels uncertain and tense. "But this is how we grow" the poet assures me, "by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings." I believe, I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.