The Hippopotamus and the Church!

T.S. Eliot’s love of cats soon became a collection of poems known as Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (Possum was Eliot’s nickname given to him by friend Ezra Pound). This is his only book of light verse which would eventually be turned into the stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber which opened in London in 1981 and ran for 21 years and 18 years on Broadway. However, another poem of Eliot’s which I think we should take time to read, is the poem Hippopotamus, written around 1919. Its comical yet serious, sincere and playful. In short it is a satire against the church and written some 8 years before Eliot would join the Church of England. The poem compares the Hippo’s innocence with the corruption of the Church. Even though the Church seems to come out on top, it is the Hippo that rises to Heaven while the Church remains on earth in a miasmal – poisonous vapor- mist! The word “kist” is Scottish and means a chest for storing clothes and linen. Have fun pondering this work and Eliot’s satire. In places you might find it very apt!

The Hippopotamus
The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The ‘potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way-
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the ‘potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist. T.S. Eliot (1919?).

Prayer:
Loving God, we celebrate
your confidence in human kind as you charge
us with the task of being your ambassadors
of grace and mercy, love and forgiveness. You,
O Lord, trust us as stewards of your creation and
charge us to be one another’s keeper.
Sadly, we have often failed, being distracted by
personal gain and selfish interest. Often we have been
reluctant to go the second mile,
hesitant to share rather than hoard,
slow to give away rather than possess.
Breathe new life into our bodies that we might dare
to become the body of Christ, the Church.
And may we the Church be
a community of open doors and open hearts,
a community of warm welcomes and a generous acceptance of one another.
O Lord, renew the possibilities of the Church with your promises
to be present amongst us. Amen.