In terms of the longest wait for posthumous recognition, perhaps the seventeenth century poet Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) wins the prize. He was virtually forgotten for two hundred years. Not much is known about him. He was the son of a shoemaker. His parents died when he was young, and he was raised by relatives. He studied for the Anglican priesthood, served a country parish, and concluded as chaplain for an English lord. He didn’t travel in literary circles and died in his late thirties. He had so few possessions that he could dictate his will on his deathbed. His papers were passed to his brother, and he was lost to history.
In 1896, a man was rummaging through a wheelbarrow of old manuscripts about to be trashed at a street bookstall when he came upon a collection of poems that stunned him. “This must be the lost work of a brilliant writer,” he thought to himself. In 1967, a second collection of writings by the same author was found in a town dump by a man looking for spare parts for his car, and a third set of writings was discovered in library stacks in 1997. They all belonged to Tom Traherne and his popularity has been growing ever since. Someone went to the trouble of researching C.S. Lewis’ letters to determine which writers he urged people to read. The author Lewis recommended most was Thomas Traherne! His writings display an ardent, childlike love of God and creation. There is a tendency in Christian circles to become so mired in the reality of sin and the corruption of this fallen world that we lose sight of the world God made and the world God loves. When we are children, the beauty and wonder of creation capture our imagination. The natural world loses its charm through familiarity and pedestrian worries as we age. Thomas never lost his childlike wonder. God creates the world solely for our enjoyment. It should be at the top of our to-do list each day to enjoy creation, love the life God has given us, and live with gratitude. One prayer by Thomas expresses his childlike faith: