Sermons on Colossians

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Pied Beauty

Have you ever considered the beauty of dappled things, pied beauties? Hopkins did and has inspired me to take note of the brinded cow, stippled trout, the mottled leaves. Hopkins was trained at Oxford and later became a Jesuit priest. Upon his induction into the priesthood he burned much of his work. However, he must have eventually realized that Christ is not only against (some) culture; he is for it, for its beauty and transformation, since Hopkins took up the pen later on in life to create some of his best work. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1884-89) GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;	5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:	10
Praise him.