From the Mar/Apr, 2023 issue of *Touchstone*

Liberation Poetry

by Anthony Esolen

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not.

It’s fitting that the Greek word for “world” here is kosmos:for everything about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, was and is and ever shall be cosmic. Do I mean that the existence and the meaning of all the far-flung galaxies, and of every least filament of subatomic attraction, of particles so small that to call them particles is to engage in a flight of fancy, is summed up in Christ? Yes, I do mean that.

And more. When, with the Psalmist, we behold the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars he set in place, do we see mere matter, extraterrestrial trash, universal mud, or do we touch upon the mysteries of the Creator’s glory? But if God made the world not as a machine but as the fiery and living expression of his will, then it is no stretch to say —in fact, it follows that we should say —that he visits man, too. And how? As the Psalmist never could have expected: he was made flesh and dwelt among us.

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Anthony Esolen is a professor at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in Warner, New Hampshire, and the author of many books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House). He and his wife Debra publish a web magazine, Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com), on poetry, hymnody, language, classic films, and music. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.

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