THE CONFESSIONS OF MARY ROWLANDSON

Here's an assignment I just completed for my First-Year Seminar.  By far, I'd have to say it's my best work to this point!  I post it here as a means of sparking interest in Mary Rowlandson.  It's really quite cool.  The first I read her was kind of bored by it, and dismissed it as "typically Puritan" (which I'm not saying is ESSENTIALLY a bad thing. ).  However, as I wrote this paper and reflected upon it, I've been struck by how deeply involved the Lord is in each of our lives.  More than that, I felt it drives home something Corrie Ten Boom once said -- "There is no hole so deep that He is not deeper still!" 

Here is a link to a copy of Mary Rowlandson's Narrative in its entirety.  I hope you take advantage of it -- I intend on doing so when I have the time.

Even after a hasty perusal, one can readily see that A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is the work of a pious Christian woman.References to the Christian Bible permeate the account. In fact, in the excerpt we were required to read for this week, the Scriptures are either directly cited or generally alluded to twenty-four times. However, the Christian nature of Rowlandson’s recounting of her captivity among the Indians consists of much more than citing Scripture verses or referencing prominent Biblical figures, such as Jeremiah and Job. In many ways, Rowland’s Narrative typifies the sort of personal and spiritual narratives that have been a mainstay of Christian literature since the Confessions of St. Augustine of Hippo.

Prior to her captivity, Mary Rowlandson enjoyed a respectable position in Puritan society. Rowlandson was married, and the mother of at least three children. Her husband was a member of the Puritan clergy and minister for the town of Lancaster. Given the taunts Rowlandson’s Indian captors directed against her, it would seem that her husband was fairly prominent in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. For instance, the Indians frequently taunted Rowlandson with the supposed reports of her husband was being pressured by the colony’s governor to remarry.

This ideal existence ends suddenly and dramatically with the Indian attack on Lancaster in February 1675. Rowlandson’s capture by the Indians constitutes her “fall from grace”. In short order, she sees her town laid to waste, her neighbors butchered or captured, and her family dispersed. Nine days into her captivity, her youngest daughter dies as a consequence of wounds suffered in the Indian attack. Her remaining two children are separated from her, and imprisoned in different Indian villages from her. Perhaps the worst part of the situation was the fact she is now enslaved to people she distrusts and abhors, as seen in her frequent descriptions of the Indians as bullying “savages” and “pagans”.

This “fall from grace” and Rowlandson’s sense of it is reflected in both the passages of Scripture and the Biblical figures Rowlandson references. For instance, one of the quoted verses is Psalm 137:1. It reads: “By the Rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion” (NIV).Psalm 137 was composed during the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, which was seen as a punishment for Israel’s disobedience and refusal to obey God. Thus, in quoting this verse, Rowlandson is expressing her belief that her captivity is the result of a lack of faithfulness or obedience on her part.

Finally, Rowlandson’s narrative reaches its personal and spiritual climax in the Thirteenth Remove where she writes:

I asked them to go out and pick up some sticks, that I might get alone, and pour out my heart unto the Lord. Then also I took my Bible to read, and I found no comfort here neither, which many times I was wont to find.

This is the lowest point in her captivity.Rowlandson prays for strength and guidance, but receives none. She searches through the Bible for wisdom, but again her efforts are unsuccessful.However, rather despair of salvation at this point, Rowlandson places her trust in the Lord, writing:

Yet I can say, that in all my sorrows and afflictions, God did not leave me to have my impatience work towards himself, as if His ways were unrighteous. But I knew that He laid upon me less than I deserved.

A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a disturbing but engrossing account of a woman placed in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. But more than the physical conflicts and difficulties, it also provides us with great insights into Mary Rowlandson’s personal and spiritual struggles.

The Final Dialogue                                                      

Socrates speaks:

Does God require an orator to speak for Him?

     A Daniel Webster to cajole, extol, and persuade

           The hearts and minds of fallen men?

Or a comely maiden with eyes brown like almonds

     To feed Him, clothe Him, attend to His every need,                   

           Lest He wilt when He meets the crowd?

I ask you, O Euthyphro, these facts to now explicate,

To make my queries’ answers plainly and generally known.

For when you say these things of love, hope, piety,

     That ‘tis but service to God, a meeting of His needs—               

          These thoughts make just cause for death.

O dearest friend, turn your most learned mind to think

     Of those proud, silvery-tongued rogues who dwelt of old

          And a sign of God demanded;

Like petulant schoolchildren, their Maker them all consumed.         

I ask you, as a boon, to recall these tales from yore!

For what need, joy, or good can He hope to derive?

     From beings born imperfect with impious hearts

          When He is the First Cause – perfect?

Truly I ask you, does God need a—                                                  

Euthyphro makes his response:

O my dear, dear Socrates, that hemlock I fear

Has gone to your head far more speedily

Than we your jurors originally thought.

Can you still not see the light though it

Stares you cleanly in your face?  To conceive                                   

This grand thought was no difficult matter,

Not in the least to the meek who observe

The ancient rituals, and remember

Lessons learned at the breast of their nursemaids.

It is as I have been taught, and it is                                                   

As I have taught it to my poor brothers.

A sinful lot is what you say we are,

And from me, you shall not hear a dispute.

Still we have our reasons still full intact,

And with but an effort them we can use                                           

To attain the very celestial heights

Where one day we shall be as the gods are.

You, if I remember it correctly,

Argued so when you quoted the dogma

Of the divided line and the black cave.                                             

You are wise.  It makes my heart very sad

To think you die a sinful reprobate.

That God needs the assistance of our race—

Can truly there be any doubt at all?

Socrates returns:

“Does God require an orator to speak for Him?”                              

     I posed the question like the hour still was noonday

          When my wonderments you evaded.

O my dear Euthyphro, how foolish we both are—

     I forgetting that I was poisoned, now deceased,

          As are you, my fellow phantom.                                              

Now as the sun once shined, I wholly can discern the Truth.

I see His eyes, which cried many bitter tears for my sake;

I see His hands, which bled my sad soul to purchase.

     And now I see you, O Euthyphro, so clearly;

          I see you now inside the flames.                                              

Poor, poor friend, you truly believed, while I doubted,

     And see my glorious company, and look at yours!

          I pity you, my poor brother.

For you had a silvery tongue, soul, and brains, but not the Truth;

How strong your faith was!  Alas, in naught it was confided.          

Euthyphro, as the demons engulf him:

Preposterous!  Preposterous!  You lie!  You lie!

You cheat!  You dotardly fool! 

I go where you longed to go! 

I go to where I should, to the heaven of my soul!

I’ll see you burn in hell, and relish it!                                               

You pest! You gad-fly!  You empty-minded gad-fly!

BURN! BURN! BURN!

***

Opinions?

This shall be my first post, not only in a long while, but also since I have arrived at Dickinson College.  In honor of this moment, I present a favorite poem of mine: many of you might be familiar with it.  Enjoy!

ULYSSES

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

A Few Good Men*

What this dying world could use is a willing Man of God
Who dares to go against the grain and works without applause;
A man who'll raise the shield of Faith, protecting what is pure;
Whose love is tough and gentle; a man whose word is sure.

God doesn't need an Orator who knows what just to say;
He doesn't need authorities to reason Him away;
He doesn't need an army to guarantee a win;
He just needs a Few Good Men.

Men full of Compassion, who Laugh and Love and Cry-
Men who'll face Eternity and aren't afraid to die-
Men who'll fight for Freedom and Honor once again-
He just needs a Few Good Men.

He calls the broken derelict whose life has been renewed;
He calls the one who has the strength to stand up for the Truth.
Enlistment lines are open and He wants you to come in-
He just needs a Few Good Men.

(repeat chorus twice)

***

This song has a lesson to teach we Christians.  Each of us has received unique gifts from the Almighty.  In some cases, our gift might be the ability to speak with power and authority, as Christ did to the Jews of the 1st Century AD.  In others, it might be a surpassingly beautiful singing voice. 

Yet, the question I ask you is this: Are any of those gifts important in and of themselves?  I don't believe so.  They are tools -- a means to the achievement of an end.  If one does not have the will to use them for their intended purpose, they are worthless.  You might as well as not possess them at all. 

Before anything else, God wants us to be men and women who are full of compassion, who laugh, love, and cry, and who are able to look eternity in the eye and not fear death.  Friends, let our hearts be reformed, and our wills bent the way God would have them bent, and Providence will take care of the rest.   

*Chorus denoted in ITALICS.

Currently Listening 21 Number Ones By Kenny Rogers see related

Nationals/Virginia Trip Bulletin #1

We survived our red-eye flight from Denver International Airport into Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Baltimore, MD.  Departure time: Twelve o' clock AM, Mountain Daylight Time.  Time of arrival: Five o' clock AM, Eastern Daylight Time.  The flight went well -- only a little turbulence here and there at the beginning and the occasional crying infant towards the end.  Still I am more exhausted than I have been in a terribly long while.

On a lighter note, I have query: Do people in Virginia eat anywhere else besides McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's, and Pizza Hut?  Before we leaving Denver, we had planned on finding somewhere to eat breakfast as soon as we had landed and fetched our rental car.  Four hours later, we finally found an International House of Pancakes (IHOP).  God answers prayers!

Anyway, I thought I'd share that thought.  See most of you very, very soon!