Golconda

Can you name a famous poet? I can hear you –Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, E. E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, John Donne and maybe somebody might throw in Shel Silverstein or Maya Angelou and the word lovers toss on Shakespeare and Rumi. But who’s missing? Think greeting cards… yes, Emily Dickinson! What a fascinating woman who wrote over 1,500 poems but only published reluctantly a handful during her life time. She was by her own admission eccentric, recluse and detached. However, her insights though often shrouded in an obsession with death and eternity have made many stop and ponder life and love. In her poem entitled, “Your Riches Taught Me Poverty” she writes, “I ’m sure it is Golconda, Beyond my power to deem,— To have a smile for mine each day, How better than a gem!” That is, true riches of love is not in physical gifts like gems but gifts of the heart like a smile. But if we are sure it is Golconda… then what in the world is Golconda?

Golconda is a word that means “a source of great wealth.” It’s based on an ancient city in Southern India that was known for its wealth from nearby diamond mines. Dickinson a very humble spirit knew that the wealth of love was discovered in the poverty of spirit. Having attended a seminary for women Dickinson’s poems are full of theology and religious references. Though single all her life she knew that loves’ riches were best taught in poverty. Jesus began His Sermon on the Mount with, “Blessed, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).” The nature of God’s sovereignty and covenant relationship with His creation ensues from an awareness of our own poverty and a hunger and thirst for His righteousness. Thus we acknowledge God is the true source of great wealth! This is one of those facets of the radiant glory of God that reveals itself in paradox… the first will be last, the least the greatest, in dying we live and in weakness is our strength. None of it makes sense unless we recognize that His great riches have taught us poverty! He is Golconda… our source of great wealth!

Another great line from a Dickinson poem about books is, “our kinsmen of the shelf.” It reminds me of the C. S. Lewis line, “we read to know that we are not alone.” The Bible is a wonderful library that reveals sometimes in narrative, sometimes in poetry but mostly in confession of men and women of faith about the struggle to lay up treasures in heaven not on earth! And because our kinsmen are on that shelf the struggle continues in you and me. May God bless us with clarity of soul to know that our God is the only true Golconda! -DAN