Paulette and I were watching Antiques Roadshow, and the item under discussion was a civil war letter.  It had been written home from a Union soldier who was a patient in a military hospital.  What made the letter special was that it was written in the hand of the American poet Walt Whitman.  Apparently he volunteered at military hospitals, and in addition to helping the nurses he would write letters home for patients who were illiterate or too ill to write.  We were saddened to hear that the young soldier died about a week after the letter was written.

I didn’t know much about Whitman, but I did remember reading his poem “O Captain! My Captain!” mourning the death of President Lincoln, while I was in high school.  This appeared in his collection of poems Leaves of Grass; it was printed in a number of editions throughout his lifetime, and grew larger each time as he wrote more poems.  The title is a pun.  Whitman trained as a typesetter, and to a printer “grass” is the name they give works of minor value.  “Leaves” is a name for the pages they are printed on.  The second meaning comes from the poem “Song of Myself”, which appears in the collection.  In the poem Whitman uses leaves of grass to stand for individuals in a larger group such as society.

In one of those coincidences that make you wonder, the same week Paulette and I watched that episode of Antiques Roadshow, Chapter 40 of Isaiah was part of the lesson in Charlie Meier’s Discipleship bible study.  In that chapter Isaiah uses the same imagery of leaves of grass standing for individuals in the larger body of humanity.  Isaiah notes that grass withers and dies (especially in the Mediterranean climate), which is the way of all human endeavors.

I would like to propose another metaphor.  The leaves of grass are Christians.  Instead of withering and dying, they are watered by the Holy Spirit and together form a beautiful lawn – the New Testament Church.  Please read Chapter 40 of Isaiah.  It is one of the most beautiful in the Bible, and inspired some of the most moving sections of Handel’s Messiah.  Remember:  God loves YOU unconditionally.
Jim