THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

Jack, a boyhood friend, and I were emailing back and forth to set a date to get together before the holidays set in. After we set the date and place, his and Kathy’s home, he talked to his brother Tom and mentioned that Arlena and I were coming over for dinner. Tom said that he had been listening to Sirius XM a few days before and heard a song by The Vogues that he remembers me using in a sermon forty-four years ago and remembered what it was about!

Jack went on in his email to ask me about a poem that has been haunting him almost as long, if not longer, Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven. I said that I remember it well because it was the favorite poem of my high school English teacher. I also said that as famous as that poem is, I did not like it back then and I still don’t, mainly because I am not a fan of poetry.

After I sent my email, I found the poem online and read it again. I still don’t like it. It takes too much work to decipher, but I suppose that is what all good poems are to do: make us ponder the words, wrestle with their meaning, make them part of our being. I don’t want to work that hard: give it to me plain and simple…and make it rhyme.

Nevertheless, I worked my way through the poem and have to admit that while it was difficult to get through, it was and is worth it. The truth is, the imagery Thompson paints has remained with me since high school. In fact, it is so vivid that it is indeed very memorable and unforgettable no matter how difficult the poem.

The picture Thompson paints, at least for me, is about me, about my sometimes relationship with God. The truth and the reason why the poem is so famous is that the poem speaks to every one of us and our often relationship to God. We all, if I may be so bold to include every believer, spend an inordinate amount of time running away from God, running away from our responsibilities to live as God wants us to live, as we know we should be living, as we truly want to live.

The saving grace is that God, The Hound of Heaven, keeps chasing us down, never lets us get too far away. Eventually we stop running away and start back towards the Hound. Would that we remain that way. But we do not. All too often we turn tail and run away once again; and once again the Hound sets out after us, catches up to us and brings us back home.

The good news is that the chases are fewer and further between as we grow older and wiser, but they never end. That’s what sin is all about: our going after what we know and the Hound knows we want but do not need, after what is harmful to us and others but what seems so delicious and desirous.

And why would the Hound of Heaven give up on us, stop chasing after us? After all, the Hound loves us so much that he sent his son to give his life for us because of his love for us. What’s a little chase now and then?