The Former Things Have Passed

Adrian Barns

"The former things have passed"

In this essay we're going to examine the three concepts of the consummation, lamentation and anticipation. Within these three concepts the story of mankind from beginning to the end is told. The first concept is consummation which begins in the Garden where mankind is celebrating the unbroken relationship with God and others. Here there was joy and peace. The second concept will be lamentation the fall from the Garden were mankind is cursing the loss of the perfect relationship between God and mankind we are also realizing the consequences for our actions is death and that we are not made for death. In lamentation we have lost our perfect harmony. Before all hope is lost God our sovereign Father leaves us with anticipation that we can have that perfect relationship again though his son Jesus Christ. We will explore examples of poetry that are based on these same components, consummation, lamentation and anticipation and see how these poems compare to our concept.

Consummation is one of the most important part of any relationship the time to become one within the relationship. Having this time of consummation and celebration enable each other to build a solid foundation for the relationship to stand on, so when storms come there will be grand moments to reflect on and the hope is that the relationship can withstand the storm. The most significant consummation in this poem for me was when Shakespeare said "Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. The glorification that there is nothing love cannot with stand but endures until death. It's amazing you have this emotion that can only be seen though words and actions but yet its stronger then the world most resilient mineral. In Psalms 100 David writes "For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endures to all generations" Here David is praising and celebrating God's goodness and mercy lasting forever. In Sonnet 18 he writes "By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed, but thy eternal summer shall not fade" Here Shakespeare is celebrating his lover's beauty by writing that she will never lose her beauty, her youth will never fade.

The definition of death is the end of life of and cell or organism. In humans and animals death is normally cause by the cessation of a vital organs. Lamentation is the concept that the Garden is lost and death is inevitable. Author Dylan Thomas wrote a poem called "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" in this poem Thomas writes " Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had no forked lightning they do not go gentle into that good night" Here Dylan is showing that even wise men know that has to come. Even with knowing that death has to happen due to our imperfect relationship with God. Wise men still hope that death will not happen to them. Next we have a poem written by Elizabeth Bishop the poem is titled "One Art" my first impression before reading this poem is that it is about art a magnificent work of art that some has seen and felt so compelled they wrote about. The title is misleading this is a poem. The poem is about great loses and how it is not a disaster to lose things, such as homes, and even love ones. Bishop writes " The Art of Losing" isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their lost is no disaster" Here the author appears to be content with the loss due to loss of certain things seem to be unpreventable. Lamentation here is the loss of the Garden the broken covet that sealed our death. Last but not least we have Psalms 30 David cries out to God how long will thy hide thy face from me? David feels his enemies have been exalted over him. David has committed acts that are sinful which leads to death (figuratively) so David feels as if God grace has left him.

Out of all three concepts we're dissecting the ideal of anticipation is my