Make me my loom then

Wiki commons illustration of a distaff

Procrastinating my work, I came across an old poem that I remember reading as a child:

Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheele compleat;
     Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate,
     And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.
     My Conversation make to be thy Reele,
     And reele the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele.

Make me thy Loome then, knit therein this Twine:
     And make thy Holy Spirit, Lord, winde quills:
Then weave the Web thyselfe. The yarn is fine.
     Thine Ordinances make my Fulling Mills.
     Then dy the same in Heavenly Colours Choice,
     All pinkt with Varnish't Flowers of Paradise.

Then cloath therewith mine Understanding, Will,
     Affections, Judgment, Conscience, Memory;
My Words and Actions, that their shine may fill
     My wayes with glory and thee glorify.
     Then mine apparell shall display before yee
     That I am Cloathd in Holy robes for glory.

("Huswifery," by Edward Taylor)

I see my grandmother in here. Of course she didn't use a "distaff," but she was a master of all things domestic, and she was also my only close family member who really attempted to tell me how to pray to God.

As a child, the idea that my life be like a machine dedicated to the glory of God had great appeal, at least in theory. At first glance this poem really brings to life the simple elegance of that thought: God is great, and I am his loom, his distaff.

But "Understanding," "Conscience," "Memory" and all those other bits of the human are in fact greatly reduced in this metaphor, even if the poet took steps in the last stanza to name them. Naming isn't enough; one wants to know how Affections can be at once "mine" and also at once "thy Swift flyers neate." The last-ditch effort to call the affections "mine" can't turn back the general sense from the beginning that all of the Self belongs to God, is in fact his tool.

So the poem now seems to me a preservation of a profound mistake, or at least a profound tension inherent in one's relationship to God. I love God, I serve God, may all of myself be only a tool to God; this is what I think and feel. But what right do I have, in this former scheme, to think and feel? I suppose I am treading the same old road that Satan faced in ages past, leading in the end to the decision that I cannot serve God, that not all of myself be a tool to God. Perhaps rather God is a tool for me! As far as that goes, I do at this moment have great sympathy for the Devil.