If you'd like to read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, or Part Four of this series, find the link and click.
It's been a long ride through "Joy Through Christ" by Elder Marion D. Hanks, but today we come to the end of it with this, the final quote - which isn't a quote at all, but a poem with an invitation to all, very appropriate since it's almost Valentine's Day:
The Quote
“World, O world, of muddled men,
Seek the Peace of God again:
In the humble faith that kneels,
In the hallowed Word that heals;
In the courage of a tree,
In the rock’s integrity;
In the hill that holds the sky,
The star you pull your heart up by;
In the laughter of a child,
Altogether undefiled;
In the hope that answers doubt,
Love that drives the darkness out. …
Frantic, frightened, foolish men,
Take God by the hand again.”
—Joseph Auslander
It's a lovely poem - expanding the world of God far beyond formal religion into nature and baby laughter and love and hope - all the good things in this life that are blessings from God Himself.
But what of the man who wrote it?
Joseph Auslander (the husband of my twelfth cousin twice removed) was a very celebrated poet, it appears. He went to Harvard and taught English there. He was also the first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress - a lovely little title to throw on one's resume.
His best-known work is a collection of poems called The Unconquerables, a tribute to the resistance of those nations occupied by Nazis during World War II.
But the books of his I'm most interested in are More Than Bread, a collection of his poems, and another called Letters to Women.They sound like intriguing titles
Strangely, I could not find the poem quoted above, but he did write quite a bit of work. I'll post another poem of his here that I like instead, from More Than Bread.
The poem is called "Feet of Clay", and it's pretty long and similar in tone to the poem above, so I'll post just this exquisite exerpt of it here:
"...The god whose bones
Cannot stay bound,
Who pushes stones
And stars around,
And is not found,
Anywhere beneath
Lock and key
But blows a breath,
But stands a tree
Straight over me:
That is the god
Whose hand I trust:
Himself no clod,
He will not thrust
Me into dust:
Confucius moulders
In his tomb;
But this god smoulders,
The world for whom
Is narrow room;
For whom heaven
Is no vast place;
But the heart, even
One heart's slight grace,
Sufficient space...
