Book Review: A Theology of Perhaps
Book Review of Various Poems of Emily Dickinson | A Theology of Perhaps
I have never been confident in my ability to understand poetry, but my fear in reading Emily Dickinson on my own slightly subsided when I realized we’d be discussing them in my classes for my MFA program, and with someone as well-versed in Dickinson poetry as our visiting speaker no less - a brilliant man named Bruce. He prefaced Dickinson’s poetry with an overarching theme that I recognized when I’d read her poems but lacked the words for: a theology of perhaps.
Bruce called us to lean into the mystery of Dickinson’s poetry, to submerge ourselves in it, to accept what Dickinson accepted so long ago—“Narcotics cannot still the Tooth / That nibbles at the soul”—she knows we may not get the answers we seek until after death.
Strangely, the ambiguity of her poetry gives me confidence to read it.
She packs each line with multiple meanings, often contradictory meanings, and most of them tackle the concepts of God and the afterlife, two of the most ambiguous and strange topics I’ve had the pleasure of thinking about.
Analyzing Poem #373 - “This World is Not Conclusion”
My favorite poem I read in preparation for the class is “This world is not conclusion,” or Poem #373. It’s short, but packed with punch.
““This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive, as Sound -
It beckons, and it baffles -
Philosophy, dont know -
And through a Riddle, at the last -
Sagacity, must go -
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
Blushes, if any see -
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a Vane, the way -
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul -””
After reading it once, I actually understood the concepts well, which excited me. Dickinson uses the negative “is not” to explain something true. Rather than saying what something is, she details what it is not to narrow its elusive definition. What is this world? Well, I can tell you what it’s not and maybe that’ll answer your question.
Furthermore, she plainly paints human ignorance about something we often pretend to know more about than we actually do—“Philosophy, don’t know...” She deconstructs the concept of faith as something not as strong as we would like it to be, as it “…laughs, and rallies – / Blushes, if any see –.” Faith wanes, faith trips, faith stumbles, faith laughs, rallies, and blushes. The Rock on which we stand is the sturdiest great, good thing in existence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t trip over our own feet sometimes.
“Faith wanes, faith trips, faith stumbles, faith laughs, rallies, and blushes. The Rock on which we stand is the sturdiest great, good thing in existence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t trip over our own feet sometimes.”
Dickinson effortlessly expresses the way most people try to ignore harder questions, like life after death or the mystery of eternal life, but ends the poem with a striking statement, “Narcotics cannot still the Tooth / That nibbles at the soul - .” I love that line.
As created beings, we cannot help but wonder at our origin and the meaning of our existence, and for some of us, the questions seem too large to bear, too hard to answer, so we turn to things that will numb our minds, only to find that the questions are also nibbling away our souls. These are the things that jumped out at me upon my first reading.
A Second & Third Reading of Poem #373
However, by the second, third, and so on readings of the poem, I realized, as with all of her poetry, there is so much more to unpack here. She describes God as “a Species…Invisible, as Music” and “…positive, as Sound…” Even her descriptors for God are ambiguous and mysterious, and the mystery “beckons” and “baffles.”
Though we spend our lives trying to understand, we do not fully know and will not know until death takes us, until we see God face to face. “Though I see through a glass darkly…” I love this poem because it captures the longing to know the unknown and the Unknown but provides a sense of security for fellow readers who feel this way.
“This world is not conclusion” immediately made me think of C. S. Lewis’ quote that ends in, “…that we were made for another world.” Dickinson is expressing that there is something beyond life on earth, that there is an eternal or second life after death.
But as the poem continues, she touches on a Christian understanding of the afterlife, one that asserts something beyond this life that all of humanity seems to recognize. And yet, we don’t know, and nothing in this life can satisfy that longing, so it must happen in the next life.
““If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ”
The questions point us to the fact that there will be an answer, in this life or the next.
All the poems by Dickinson that I read for this particular assignment touch on ideas of life after death and the meaning of life on earth in light of it.
She says in Poem #99, “I shall know why – when Time is over,” expressing that things will become clear in the next life.
She dwells “in possibility…” in Poem #466, in the mysteries of whatever may await her in the next life.
In Poem #698, she says, “I live with Him – I hear His Voice - / I stand alive – Today - / To witness to the Certainty / Of Immortality – .” She is certain of the something that comes, but not certain of what that something may look like or be.
Dickinson’s poetry invites me to sit with the certainty of uncertainty, to dwell in possibility, to submerge myself in the theology of perhaps. And she speaks to the longing in my soul for a meaning in my life now that affects the life to come.
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
While I’m comforted by the wealth of certainty the Lord provides us in His word and His Son, I’m also in awe of His unfathomable character and I love that I can sit in that wonderment often, without needing all the answers.
What are ways you’ve been invited into a “theology of perhaps”?
