The Aim Was Song
"He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow." (Psalm 147:18)
"Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!" (Psalm 150:6)
February 8, 2025
Dear friends,
It's only been later in life that I have discovered the joy of reading poetry. Recently, I've read again and again this poem by Robert Frost, "The Aim Was Song".
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Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.
Man came to tell it what was wrong:
It hadn’t found the place to blow;
It blew too hard—the aim was song.
And listen—how it ought to go!
He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.
By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be—
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song—the wind could see.
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I believe that God has placed a multitude of things in nature that draw our attention heavenward. The Bible relates the terms "wind, breath, spirit" to make us think about the animating power of God to create, to breathe, and to speak. Frost reminds us of this special gift from God to convert that movement of air to produce songs. The last phrase in Frost's poem, "the wind could see", gives personification to the wind, that now it (like us) can see the purpose of breath. I'm applying it a bit farther than Frost: we live that we might sing praises to God.
Here are a couple of other posts from this week:
-- On the gentleness of wisdom: what, how, and when to speak.
-- I loved this quote from Eberhard Arnold (founder of The Bruderhof) on the education of children.
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Afterwords is an occasional newsletter on topics of interest to me (Sandy Young) since my retirement from full-time pastoral ministry. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.