Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.
Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.
I'm going to my own hearth-stone
Bosomed in yon green hills, alone,
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet.
In the poem “Goodbye” Ralph Waldo Emerson writes that all the glories and knowledge of man mean nothing because a man can meet the God of the universe in a bush. This core belief is that man can know God through his heart and own soul rather than through thought and knowledge.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited as one of the leading intellectuals and developers of the philosophy of American transcendentalism. He believed that God could only be known through nature and the personal experience and intuition of a human being, rather than religious tradition and orthodoxy. This was a significant departure from the thought of his time, as many in the 19th century, including his own denomination the Unitarian church, believed that experiencing God and a person’s spirituality in general were tied to institution of the church, rather than the individual. It was also a departure from the “rational thought” and more materialistic thinking that personified the age of enlightenment.
But is it possible to know God through nothing but our individual experience and revelation? I believe that one can experience God’s presence and glory through His creation, that we can experience His presence anywhere, not just exclusively in the church. The problem with pure transcendentalism is that there is no solidity. It speaks of experiencing God through nature, but gives no indication of just who God is and what He’s like. There are no absolutes or concretes; therefore its foundation is a shaky and uncertain one. At the same time we must be careful of the other extreme. If we rely only on knowledge, our minds, religious tradition and orthodoxies alone and reject the heart then we don’t know God, we simply know about God.
So what is the answer? How are we to know God? I believe Jesus Christ summed it up in Mark 12:30. “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.” We can’t simply rely on our own heart and soul alone to guide us into knowing the true God. Neither can we rely exclusively on the mind. In order to know God, we must first believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and the Son of God. He is the only way to the Father. Then we must love God with everything we have, our strength, our heart, our soul and our mind. When we do that we will experience God’s presence and love in our hearts and souls, and also in our minds be secure in the knowledge of who God is and His infinite love for us.
