![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2025\/03\/John-Donne-St-Pauls-Cathedral.jpg\")
<\/a>statue at St Paul\u2019s Cathedral
photograph by
Luke McKern
Wikicommons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I am quite fond of John Donne, and I look for excuses to point this out. Today is one of them. John Donne was born in London on the 22nd of January, 1573 and died on this day, the 31st of March, in 1631.<\/p>\n
His family were recusant Roman Catholics. He studied at Cambridge but was not awarded a degree as he could not take the oath of supremacy, which included acknowledging the sovereign as head of the church. Donne then read the law, and was admitted to the bar.<\/p>\n
Rather than take up a practice he traveled through Europe giving him the opportunity to master several modern languages. And then returned to England hoping to find employment in the diplomatic corps.<\/p>\n
However he fell in love with Anne More, his employer\u2019s daughter and they secretly married. When this was discovered Donne was both fired and imprisoned.<\/p>\n
Finally freed he and his wife retired to the country where he practiced law. Finances were difficult. Perhaps not unconnected\u00a0he and Anne had twelve children together. Ten survived infancy and seven to adulthood.<\/p>\n
Eventually he was elected to parliament. While this position didn\u2019t pay, it gave him connections just as his poetry began to attract notice. And he attracted a patron, Sir Robert Drury, who significantly eased his financial burden. And finally things began to fall \u00a0into place for his life.<\/p>\n
While Donne had years before rejected Catholicism he had not formally joined the Church of England. The king informed him that he would be welcome at court, but only if he took Holy Orders. Donne took this as evidence of a divine call, and fully embraced Anglicanism and was ordained a priest.<\/p>\n
He quickly received numerous preferments, including becoming Dean of St Paul\u2019s Cathedral in London. He would be remembered as an eloquent preacher and devoted churchman. And the day his death would become a feast day within the Anglican calendar.<\/p>\n
Of course today we mostly recall him as one of the principal metaphysical poets. Early in life a lot of his poetry had, shall we say, an erotic tinge? But, as he matured his focus turned to the matters of the fully engaged heart, and he gave us some beautiful angles into the matters of the deep.<\/p>\n
And truthfully, I love that connection between eros and agape.<\/p>\n
And for me, I\u2019ve long found that one poem a full on celebration of the nondual\u2026<\/p>\n
No man is an island, Pointing true. And, taking it all together, fully deserving that feast, I think.<\/p>\n It reminds me of a flood of Zen and Mahayana texts. Immediately I think of the Hua Yen image of Indra\u2019s Net. I think of the tenth of the Ox Herding pictures, and the fat guy returning to the market place with those bliss bestowing hands. I think of case 6 in the Blue Cliff Record and Yunmen\u2019s earth shaking \u201cEvery day is a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n And I think of Eihei Dogen\u2019s Genjokoan<\/p>\n \u201cTo study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things. To be enlightened by the ten thousand things is to remove the barrier between self and other.\u201d<\/p>\n A small Zen appreciation of a universal truth manifested in a Seventeenth century English life\u2026<\/p>\n
\nEntire of itself,
\nEvery man is a piece of the continent,
\nA part of the main.
\nIf a clod be washed away by the sea,
\nEurope is the less.
\nAs well as if a promontory were.
\nAs well as if a manor of thy friend\u2019s
\nOr of thine own were:
\nAny man\u2019s death diminishes me,
\nBecause I am involved in mankind,
\nAnd therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
\nIt tolls for thee. <\/em><\/p>\n