This poem is intended to be a footnote to all prayers.
We do not, and cannot, fully understand, comprehend, 'get' God. Not completely.
And this poem is a reminder that in all of our shortcomings, God 'gets' us and makes up the difference, I guess you could say.
Though, it's much more than making up the difference.
So when you pray. Allow God out of the box we've put Him in.
Be open with what you say to Him, because no matter what you say, He'll translate it according to your heart.
"He Whom I bow to only knows to Whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring 'Thou',
And dream of Phedian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, adress
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts.
Unless...
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense.
Lord, in Thy great
Unbroken speech
Our limping metaphor translate."
Poem by C.S. Lewis
* Ineffable:
1. Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable.
2. Not to be uttered; taboo.* "Phedian fancies..." - Phedias was a sculptor in Athens who oversaw the sculpting of the Greek gods. (Makes more sense now.)
