Makes you think… Robert Frost kept his faith close, grew up with a strong but mystical view of the Bible and its meaning. His early years, adversity in life, quest for light in darkness, and depth of inquiry show up in much of his poetry, which is permeated by real hope – deep, abiding, yet mortally unknowable, thus ever to be searched for, along paths “less traveled.”
Among my favorite poems, at once filled with hope and the realization of our mortal limits, God’s presence and promise, yet invisibility – except in fast passing moments, is this one: “For Once, Then, Something.”
“Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs. Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths, and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too-clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple shook whatever it was that lay there at the bottom, blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.”
Somehow, I think Frost was trying to say, in a roundabout way, something we all know but do not often speak about. Search as we may, we seldom see fully what God intends, although often His intent and interventions are in the pattern of our lives as we look backward.
Frost into something – he knew it, as we know it: God gives us hints, long had, and many are corroborated throughout the Bible. In these hints resides a combination of joy and anticipation, hope and knowledge that we do not know. Frost makes you, or at least often makes me, understand the timeless elements of life again – and in that, he just makes you think.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
RBC, it is true that we do not our Father’s agenda, but whether we do good or evil, He knows what we will do and He uses our actions to advance His agenda that is heading toward the 1000-year reign of Christ Jesus and the renewal of His creation. Robert Frost’s poems are wonderful.
Have a good weekend.