Thirty-Third Day of Lent: The Straw of Grace

For a summary of Passus XIV, see Thirteenth Day of Lent.

In Passus XIV, Imagination helps Will to work through some of what he experienced in his dream within the dream.  Early on in his long discourse he addresses the issue of Dowel:

            “But money and conventional wisdom encumber very many:

            Woe be to him that possesses them, though he dispose of them well.

            Those that know and do not act shall be whipped with many scourges.

            But common cleverness and unnatural wealth—

            As rogues to be gentlemen and the unlearned teachers

            And Holy Church the help of whores, the covetous, and the greedy—

            Dries up Dowel and Dobest it destroys.

            But grace is like straw spread to make them grow again.

            Yet grace grows nothing till the will of God give rain,

            And soften wicked hearts through righteous deeds.

            But before that righteous will grows up, God acts himself

            And sends the Holy Spirit forth to make love spring:

            The Spirit bloweth where it listeth.

            So grace without the grace of God and good works

            Can never be, be sure of it, though ever we pray.”

Imagination’s teaching here about Dowel is twofold.  First, he reminds us how the goods of this world, both its wisdom and its wealth, can kill the life of virtue, the good life (Dowel) within us.  But, secondly, he adds that grace can make Dowel grow strong again where God acts first and sends his Holy Spirit into our hearts.  If Dowel, living a godly life, is like a plant, then the habits of this world parch, shrivel, and starve it, while grace makes it possible for the weakened plant to be nourished by the Holy Spirit, which God rains upon the earth of our souls.  Wealth surpassing natural bounds and the conventional wisdom of the world are like a killing drought for the soul from which we need not only the Spirit’s rain but also the moisture-retaining straw of grace to save us.

Why is it that Imagination talks about two different things here which heal the shriveled flower of our soul, the straw of grace and the rain of the Holy Spirit?  The Holy Spirit is all of God, truly Almighty, all-healing, all-saving—why does there need to be anything else?  Can’t God just send his Holy Spirit to heal the debilitating effects of sin and the weight of worldliness in a single sublime instant?  What is this straw of grace and isn’t it a sort unnecessary middleman between the Holy Spirit and our lives?

The reason God must lay the straw of grace upon our souls is that God wants us to be able to receive his Holy Spirit and not just be affected or changed by it.  God is not going to save us without our being able to receive the gift of salvation he offers.  God, although he made us without us, is not going to save us without us.  And so he lays the straw of grace upon our souls so that the mighty rain of his Holy Spirit, instead of crushing and pummeling the weak shoot of our free will and then running off wasted into worldliness or evaporating into the aridness of wealth, can be gradually drawn in by the roots of Dowel, a good will, and nourish the life of God within us.

Our salvation is not a matter of God flipping a switch in our hearts, but a matter of our hearts being able to receive, share, and cooperate with God’s Holy Spirit.  It is not a matter of mere pardon or mere acceptance, a legal, technical sort of thing, but a growth and flourishing whereby our lives begin to be the life of God.  For that the Holy Spirit must rain into us—for he is God’s life.  But to be able to receive this rain in our weakened state of sin and the inhospitable climate of the world we must be prepared, aided, overspread, and covered by the work of grace.

“When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up.  Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture.  Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.  Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.”  As he said this, he called out, “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!””  (Luke 8:4-8)