Invoking the Muse

I’ve postponed starting a blog for a couple years now because so many of my blogofriends have such catchy titles. It’s intimidating to try to come up with something concise, subtle, and catchy. And maybe this one doesn’t fit those descriptions, but I’m going with it anyways, thanks to Virgil, God rest his pagan soul. The fourth of Virgil’s pastoral poems in the Eclogues starts out, “Sicilian Muses, grant me a slightly grander song./Not all delight in trees and lowly tamarisks.” The Eclogues are 10 poems that the epic poet wrote before any of his other works, all of them from the perspective of shepherds, farmers, lowly rural people. At times political, at times romantic, and at times crude and humorous, all are miniscule in setting, but often more extravagant in topic. Among these, the fourth poem was said by some of the early church fathers to be Messianic. It’s not a stretch. It exhibits ridiculous, and as far as we can know unplanned, parallels to the prophet Isaiah, and strong Messianic language akin to that of the Christian tradition. Written in the political turmoil following Julius Caesar’s assassination, it writes of a hopefulness for a better future, brought on by the advent of a great ruler. His language about a virgin, a newborn baby boy, and nullified sin is what sent the early church fathers for a loop.

In any case, the poem in full is worth a read. But I have borrowed for this blog’s title a phrase from the first line. I am referencing this line alone, apart from the poem as a whole, for the poet’s emotion in writing it. The poet acknowledges his place of relative insignificance, being out in the countryside, but seeks to harp on things more grandiose than his trivial life, as if to say, “I may operate out here where no one sees, but what is about to take place in Rome is a huge moment for us all. After all, y'all must be tired of all this talk of sheep anyway.” In my work as an InterVarsity campus minister, significant things come up all the time – matters of life and death, particularly. Not to mention matters of love and hatred, friendship and romance, the divine and the humane, and so on and so forth. Yet I rejoice that I lead a very day-to-day, routine-oriented life, that impacts a very small amount of people. And that's the case with most of us. The vast majority of us make decisions that leave marks on the world that pale in comparison to the marks which, say, a president, or a writer, or an athlete may leave. I am thankful for my relative insignificance.

Yet, commonness is not the sign of insignificance. Just because all of us experience these things, that does not make them any less significant. Which is why the shepherd could offer his slightly grander song. And so here I also set out with a slightly grander song. Thanks for reading.