Kennedy

Studdert Kennedy is not what I would call a good theologian, although I would agree he is a fine poet. Some of his views of God and the Christian Gospel have no foundation in the Bible, but I include his poem here as the spirit of his verse does appeal to me, and there are some things that he writes which are helpful.



Woodbine Willie Faith

How do I know that God is good? I don't.

I gamble like a man. I bet my life

Upon one side in life's great war. I must,

I can't stand out. I must take sides. The man

Who is neutral in this fight is not

A man. He's bulk and body without breath,

Cold leg of lamb without mint sauce. A fool.

He makes me sick. Good Lord! Weak tea! Cold slops!

I want to live , live out, not wobble through

My life somehow, and then into the dark.

I must have God. This life's too dull without,

Too dull for aught but suicide. What's man

To live for else? I'd murder some one just

To see red blood. I'd drink myself blind drunk,

And see blue snakes if I could not look up

To see blue skies, and hear God speaking through

The silence of the stars. How is it proved?

It isn't proved, you fool, it can't be proved.

How can you prove a victory before

It's won? How can you prove a man who leads,

To be a leader worth the following,

Unless you follow to the death - and out

Beyond mere death, which is not anything

But Satan's lie upon eternal life?

Well - God's my leader, and I hold that He

Is good, and strong enough to work His plan

And purpose out to its appointed end.

I am no fool, I have my reasons for

This faith, But they are not the reasonings,

The coldly calculated formulae

Of thought divorced from feeling. They are true,

Too true for that. There's no such thing as thought

Which does not feel, if it be real thought

And not thought's ghost - all pale and sicklied o'er

With dead conventions - abstract truth - man's lie

Upon this living, loving, suff'ring Truth,

That pleads and pulses in my very veins,

The blue blood of all beauty, and the breath

Of life itself. I see what God has done,

What life in this world is. I see what you

See, this eternal struggle in the dark.

I see the foul disorders, and the filth

Of mind and soul, in which men, wallowing

Like swine, stamp on their brothers till they drown

In puddles of stale blood, and vomitings

Of their corruptions. This life stinks in places,

'Tis true, yet scent of roses and of hay

New mown comes stealing on the evening breeze,

And through the markets din, the bargaining

Of cheats, who make God's world a den of thieves,

I hear sweet bells ring out to prayer, and see

The faithful kneeling by the Calvary

Of Christ.

I walk in crowned streets where men

And women, mad with lust, loose - lipped and lewd,

Go promenading down to hell's wide gates;

Yet I have looked into my mother's eyes,

And seen the light that never was on sea

Or land, the light of Love, pure Love and true,

And on that Love I bet my life. I back

My mother 'gainst a whore when I believe

In God, and can a man do less or more?

I have to choose. I back the scent of life

Against its stink. That's what Faith works out at

Finally. I know not why the Evil,

I know not why the Good, both mysteries

Remain unsolved, and both insoluble.

I know that both are there, the battle set,

And I must fight on this side or on that.

I can't stand shiv'ring on the bank, I plunge

Head first. I bet my life on Beauty, Truth,

And Love, not abstract but incarnate Truth,

Not Beauty's passing shadow but its Self.

Its very self made flesh, Love realised.

I bet my life on Christ - Christ Crucified.

Behold your God! My soul cries out. He hangs,

Serenely patient in His agony,

And turns the soul of darkness into light.

I look upon that body, writhing, pierced

And torn with nails, and see the battlefields

Of time, the mangled dead, the gaping wounds,

The sweating, dazed survivors straggling back,

The widows worn and haggard, still dry - eyed,

Because their weight of sorrow will not lift

And let them weep; I see the ravished maid,

The honest mother in her shame; I see

All history pass by, and through it all

Still shines that face, the Christ Face, like a star

Which pierces drifting clouds, and tells the Truth.

They pass, but it remains and shines untouched,

A pledge of that great hour which surely comes

When storm winds sob to silence, fury spent

To silver silence, and the moon sails calm

And stately through the soundless seas of Peace.

So through the clouds of Calvary - there shines

His face, and I believe that Evil dies,

And Good lives on, loves on, and conquers all -

All War must end in peace. These clouds are lies.

They cannot last. The blue sky is the Truth.

For God is love. Such is my Faith, and such

My reasons for it, and I find them strong

Enough. And you? You want to argue? Well,

I can't. It is a choice. I choose the Christ.