“From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.”
From Villanelle For Our Time by Leonard Cohen
The words of Leonard Cohen’s song Villanelle For Our Time are actually from a poem by F.R. Scott a Canadian poet, intellectual and constitutional expert. While Scott was at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar he became influenced by the R.H. Tawney a Christian Socialist. That makes a lot of sense as we look at these lyrics. There is a deep sense of personal spirituality and social transformation, and where they connect, going on here. Cohen or Scott, or both actually, are saying that the social coming together of people will find its spark in the personal searching of the heart. That in itself comes from a personal faith that finds its way into the world in humanity finding their vocational places. We play our part, as one of my many mantras goes, when “our deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest need” (Frederick Buechner). Our work coming out of faith is what will bring Commonwealth or God’s Kingdom or however you want to describe a new world order.
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