I do not read nearly as much poetry as I ought, but I read enough to know it is nourishing to the soul. There is something about poetry that allows one to tap into the deep undercurrents of reality. If “the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaim his handiworks” (Ps 19:19), and if “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Ps 33:6), then divine poetry holds the world together. Indeed, all created existence is divine poetry. Fitting, then, is John’s description “all things were made though” the Word (Jn 1:3), in whom, according to Paul, “all things hold together” (Col 1:17). The nominalists are wrong when they insist that words are merely arbitrary heuristics; inventions in the human mind The postmodernists are wrong when they say words are merely assertions of raw power

Incidentally, this is why words must be manhandled unnaturally in order to be redefined for ideological purposes. Christians who go along with ideological postmodern activists and ideologues that demand reality bend the knee are suckers. Men are not women, a person is not a “they,” and self-designating oneself as “he” or “him” is not a call God leaves up to us. Our pronouns are not self-designated, nor are they “assigned,” they are rather given.

So, nominalists get “words” all wrong, and so do postmodernists, but what about the pre-moderns? What about those superstitious barbarians that believed in magic and the sort? Believe it or not, I think they get much closer to the truth of the matter. Words crackle with electric power, like “magic.” Which is why putting words in the right order often yields spell-like results. This is something C.S. Lewis understood quite well. He calls attention to the fact when he describes the heaven-ward yearning that rises unbidden from the soul whenever the sense of transcendence is awakened by earthly beauty. “These things—the beauty, the memory of our past—are good images of what we really desire;” says Lewis in his famous address, the “Weight of Glory,” “but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from the country we have never yet visited.” And then, as if Lewis himself is aware of how potent his own word-weaving is at this very moment, he calls attention to what his words are doing to the listener/reader: “Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them.”[1]

Lewis gets it. He gets that naming reality is a divine work; those whom he makes in his image participate in this divine activity as his sovereign vice regents, and ought to acknowledge the gravity of what they do accordingly. Is it not baffling and wonderful that Adam is charged to name the living animals (Gen 2:19-20)? Having just spoken them into existence, it falls on Adam to give them names. Language, then traffics in the deep magic of the cosmos.

This, by the way, is why I’m always sure to remind my sons that The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Wingfeather Saga are far superior to the Harry Potter books.[2] And no, the fact that Tolkien and Lewis and Peterson are Christians and Rowling isn’t does not render the former stories better automatically (we are all well aware of the fact that Christians are perfectly capable of creating schlock). But their Christianity does hint at why their stories are better. In Middle Earth, and Narnia, and Aerwiar, magic has a nature. The good guys wield magic along the grooves of reality, which means they have inherent limitations and order. They don’t manipulate nature with magic, they work with it. In these worlds, the bad guys are the ones that fundamentally view the world as malleable, and use magic to impose will upon order.

Consider the Wingfeather Saga. Notice Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli, whose magic is ever and always utilized only according to the will of the Maker. Contrast this with Gnag the Nameless, who perverts nature and melds creatures together in an unholy abomination. In Middle Earth, it is figures like Gandalf and Tom Bombadil who are powerful wielders of magic for good precisely because they do not impose their wills upon nature in order to subdue it to their whims, but rather work along the grain of the world. Bombadil is called the “Master,” who exercises dominion over the Old Forest. It’s right for us to contrast Bombadil with Saruman, who likewise uses magic in order to establish his authority over Fangorn Forest. Under Bombadil’s authoritative dominion, the Old Forest flourishes; under Saruman’s authoritarian domination, Fangorn burns.[3] Narnia has versions of the same thing: the character pair of Uncle Andrew and Queen Jadis view the world in much the same way as Saruman and Gnag—they view magic as an opportunity for imposition. They are alchemists, trying to manipulate nature for their own self-interest. Leeli plays the tune the Maker teaches her, and the darkness is kept at bay; by contrast, Gnag gets his victims and followers to sing that twisted Song of the Ancient Stones and grotesque creatures are the result.[4] This is why That Hideous Strength is such a prophetic novel for our day. As Lewis shows there (and explains in The Abolition of Man), scientism is essentially the twin sister of alchemy. Which means, when you see medical practitioners pumping children with hormones and castrating and maiming human beings, you should think of Saruman burning Fangorn, Jadis destroying Charn, Gnag turning people into Fangs, and Professor Frost worshipping the head of Alcasan.

Rowling’s wizarding world is, metaphysically speaking, far flatter and less interesting than Middle Earth, Narnia, or Aerwiar. In her world, there’s no real metaphysical or natural difference between the white hats and the black hats. The good guys use their magic to circumvent nature for their good ends, and the bad guys do exactly the same for their bad ends. And this is where I think the Christianity of Lewis and Tolkien and Peterson do give them an unfair advantage. Whether they used it self-consciously or not, they have the interpretative key to the cosmos that Rowling lacks, which is why their worlds are intrinsically more interesting. Tolkien and Lewis weren’t simply indulging in fanciful flights of imagination when they depicted their created worlds as sung into existence. If you imagine that the bottom of reality is music, rather than simply taking it for granted as there, your understanding of your place in the world takes on an entirely different mood. This is why I go out of my way to teach my kids that magic is real. What else could we call a tree’s ability to turn water, air, and sunlight into apples? You can call it photosynthesis if you’d like, and I like the word well enough, but my boys will also tell you this thing’s “Christian name:” it’s God’s magic.

This is why describing what happens when words come together to communicate truth, goodness, and beauty as magic is not an exaggeration. There is a deep, metaphysical correspondence between language and all of reality, and as I said before, poetry is a way of tapping into that correspondence at an incomprehensibly deep level.

All the foregoing discussion on language and magic were really just my preliminary remarks before I introduce one of my favorite word-wizards, George Herbert, and one of my favorites of his “spells,” a poem called “Ungratefulness.”[5] What kind of a spell does Herbert weave with this poem? It is a spell that simultaneously frees us from the enchantment of a sinful and bored malaise when considering the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation, and disabuses us of the curse of hubris regarding these profound mysteries. This is precisely how we can be sure that his spell is the good kind—the kind that taps into true reality. The Trinity and the Incarnation are mysteries that cannot be explained away, but only rather adored, which means any articulation of these realities that does not simultaneously enlighten us to their grandeur, while also enshrouding God in the glory cloud of inapproachable and incomprehensible light, falls short. To know God rightly is to live in the beatific place between God’s mystery and revelation. Praise springs up right there, in that sweet spot. And Herbert’s poem does this, for me at least, in three stanzas in the middle of the poem.

I would encourage you to look up and read the poem in its entirety at some point, but I’m only going to examine three of its stanzas here. Both activities (i.e., reading the whole thing in one sitting, and reading bits with reflections) are fruitful, and can be understood as the difference between looking at something, and looking along something. Lewis gets at this distinction in his essay, “Meditation in a Toolshed.” In the spirit of looking at this shaft of light, consider how Herbert sets up his subject matter:

Thou hast but two rare cabinets full of treasure,

   The Trinity and Incarnation.

Thou hast unlocked them both,

   And made them jewels to betroth

The work of thy creation

Unto thyself in everlasting pleasure.

Here, Herbert describes the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation as cabinets full of treasure. Think of a chest, so full of jewels and riches that light seems to emanate off the surface once opened. And Herbert (rightly) praises God for the fact that both these treasure chests have been unlocked and opened by God, for his glory and good pleasure. He then goes on to describe each of these “chests” respectively.

The statelier cabinet is the Trinity,

   Whose sparkling light access denies

Therefore thou dost not show

   This fully to us, till death blow

The dust into our eyes;
For by that powder thou wilt make us see.

The cabinet labeled “Trinity” is, according to Herbert, the “statelier” of the two. It’s so august and its light so intense that we can’t even look at it. “Access” he says, is “denied.” And yet, the cabinet opened, and we see that light is coming from it. God truly has revealed his Triune nature. But he has not done this “fully.” Will he ever? Yes, Herbert says, but first our eyes need to be adjusted. First, death has to blow its dust into our eyes so that by its powder we can see. Aren’t those paradoxes simply delightful? The language Herbert uses is surprising in exactly the way it should be if we are talking about a doctrine as mysterious and grand as the Trinity! For the Christian, the dust that death blows in our eyes does not obscure our vision, it clears it! No longer will the cataracts of sin obscure the glory of the Trinity, once in death we are given powder for our eyes to see rightly. In the meantime, God has been gracious to give us another cabinet, whose treasures are imminently accessible to us.

But all thy sweets are packed up in the other;

   Thy mercies thither flock and flow:

That, as the first affrights,

   This may allure us with delights:

Because this box we know;
For we have all of us just such another.

Here, in this cabinet labeled “Incarnation,” all God’s “sweets are packed up.” In Christ, we have all the treasures of heaven, and they are accessible to us precisely because he was made like us. The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (Jn 1:14). Therefore, where the Trinity “affrights”—where it intimidates us and causes us to shield our eyes in godly fear—the Incarnation “allures us with delights.” I for one, find myself allured by the delights found in Christ, and my desire is often awakened by spells like this one from Herbert. This is what we may call “good magic.” It taps into the reality of the cosmos, and is therefore poetry in service of praise.

[1] C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory.”

[2] It’s only fair that I mention I have only read the first three novels with my sons. I will pick up the others when my boys are bit older, but what I have to say here concerns the metaphysics of the wizarding world, not the story itself.

[3] This observation did not originate with me. For a fuller and delightful treatment thereof, see C.R. Wiley, In the House of Tom Bombadil (Canon Press).

[4] By the way, these creatures, when killed, quickly turn into ash and drift away. In being remade in the image of creeping things, humans who are melded with creatures are made less real. Peterson is on to something there…

[5] George Herbert, The Temple (Canon Press), 89-90.