Every Riven Thing (Christian Wiman)

   God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made 

sing his being simply by being 

the thing it is: 

stone and tree and sky, man who sees and sings and wonders why 

God goes.  Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made, 

means a storm of peace. 

Think of the atoms inside the stone. 

Think of the man who sits alone 

trying to will himself into the stillness where 

God goes belonging.  To every riven thing he’s made 

there is given one shade 

shaped exactly to the thing itself: 

under the tree a darker tree; 

under the man the only man to see 

God goes belonging to every riven thing.  He’s made 

the things that bring him near, 

made the mind that makes him go. 

A part of what man knows 

apart from what man knows, 

God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made. 

--Christian Wiman, Every Riven Thing (2010)

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Christian Wiman has said that Riven means broken. It means shattered or wounded or unhealed, and I think that notion is very important to me and my notion of God and of religion:  that we are broken creatures, very broken creatures.  And I don't think of God as necessarily healing that brokenness as much as participating in it.

To hear Out of Silence, A Poem, an interview with Christian Wiman on On Being, click here.

Image source:  https://www.wallpaperflare.com/person-standing-on-stone-beside-tree-photo-wallpaper-164610
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