How is it that thy signature everywhere is the beauty of things, yet nobody knows thy name?

This afternoon I took a spin up to Wandlebury on the Raleigh Superbe (photo at end of post) to take a short walk up to the Roman Road and back. The weather wasn't great and it was threatening to rain all the time but I did want, need in fact, to get out for a bit.

Earlier this morning I posted a piece containing Jacob Trapp's variations on the Lord's Prayer contained in his 1968 Lenten Manual called "Intimations of Grandeur". Another piece in that book is a meditation called "How Does It Happen?" which, he says, is after Hans Denck (1495-1527). I'm fairly certain Trapp is, in truth, thinking about Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) who wrote a famous book called "Signatura Rerum or The Signtaure of All Things", however, Trapp's ascription to Denck did send me back to him.

I first became very interested in Denck whilst doing some research on the Anabaptist tradition during my training for the ministry at Oxford University and, in particular, I became fascinated with a little book he wrote called "Paradoxa" which I put into a little booklet form so I could make a copy that would slip easily into a jacket pocket.

It is not clear whether or not Denck's theology was, in fact, Unitarian but my feeling is that it was and this, naturally, made him an attractive figure to me. But this specific matter aside, as the following words from his Wikipedia entry will show, there were other aspects about him that appealed to a liberal, free-religionist like myself:

The "sylvan nave" at Wandlebury

"For Denck the living, inner word of God was more important than the letters of the Scripture. He thought of the Bible as a human product, the individual books being different witnesses of one truth. He did not value the scripture as the source of all true religious knowledge, but the spirit that spoke from within each person. For Denck the sacraments were only symbols: baptism was a sign of commitment, communion a ceremony of remembrance" (Source: Wikipedia).

As I walked around Wandlebury I held in my thoughts Böhme, Denck and Trapp and when I got to the wonderful "sylvan nave" that runs from Wandlbury up to the Roman Road I sat down and prayerfully contemplated Trapp's meditation. I print it below and include a few photographs I took along the way. As always click on a photo to enlarge it. They were all taken with my iPhone 6+ and the Argentum Camera App.

How does it happen in this poor world 
     that thou art so near, 
     yet nobody finds thee? 
That in all things thou speakest, 
     yet nobody hears thee? 

That thy signature everywhere is 
     the beauty of things, 
     yet nobody knows thy name? 

Men close their eyes, 
     and say they cannot see thee. 
They stop their ears, 
     and say they cannot hear. 
They flee from thee, 
     and say they cannot find thee.