Undone
A Modern Rendering of John Donne’s Devotions
By Philip Yancey
Rabbit Room Press, 145 pages, $18
Two years after his appointment as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, John Donne became ill with fever and believed that he would soon die. Lying on what he thought would be his deathbed, he composed Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Around 50 years of age, he had lived a varied and complete life. He had survived his beloved wife, several of his children, and many of his friends.
What he produced during his extended sickness has become a classic of English literature and Christian spirituality. Prolific and popular Christian author Philip Yancey has rendered Donne’s work into accessible and attractive contemporary English, not diluting but focusing Donne’s powerful insights. Here is a book for all of us to read, for all of us must die, and so many who are dear to us die before we do.
Donne provides 23 of what he calls stations of his sickness. Each has its own title, and in each one the first section is followed by what Yancey calls a “Reflection” and a “Prayer.” Yancey also bookends Donne’s stations with two of his own at the start and five at the end, for a total of 30. Thus the work can be read at the rate of one station a day over the course of a month.
A review of Yancey’s titles for Donne’s stations can constitute a meditation in its own right. Consider them: Early Symptoms, Faltering Senses, Bedridden, Calling the Doctor, Quarantine, Fear, Consultation, The King’s Physician, Diagnosis, Stealth Symptoms, The Heart, Breath, A Rash, Critical Days, Insomnia, The Funeral Bell, The Passing Bell, The Death Knell, Hope, Purging, Resurrection, The Source, and Relapse.
The voice of these devotions changes from that of someone convinced that death is at hand to someone experiencing recovery. First the prospect of impending death is emergent day by day for Donne, then what emerges is restoration to health. His sickness had been misdiagnosed as Bubonic plague, a scourge that took vast numbers of his contemporaries to their graves. Donne’s malady was instead a spotted fever such as typhus.
He wrote these devotions in 1623, recovered from the illness that prompted them, and continued to serve as dean of St. Paul’s until his death in 1631. The 1666 Great Fire of London destroyed the old St. Paul’s that Donne loved. His marble memorial sculpture was the only portion of the old cathedral that survived the Great Fire to be included in Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. There it can be seen to this day.
Donne writes as one of the most able of poets, one who is thoroughly at home with the biblical usage of specific words. The grace with which he leads us into the depths of Scripture puts him in the first rank of biblical preachers. No wonder that he filled London’s largest church with people eager to hear him preach.
Many a devout contemporary of Donne’s kept a skull within sight as a reminder of death. Multiple plagues, high mortality among children and among women in childbirth, churches surrounded by active graveyards, and other factors conspired to keep death close to everyone’s awareness. Donne did his part to contribute to this societal theme of momento mori, “remember death.” He also presented with great force and effectiveness the reality of a vast and inescapable God who judges and saves and loves. Like St. Augustine’s Confessions, Donne’s Devotions is a single prayer addressing God again and again. Death is powerful, unavoidable, yes, but God is as well, and far more so.
“Do not send to ask for whom the bell tolls,” perhaps the best known prose passage by John Donne, comes from his Meditations. Nearby is a related passage that stands out for me, based on how residence in the St. Paul’s deanery caused him to hear numerous bell tollings connected with deaths, especially during a time of plague:
The bell tells me that a neighbor’s soul has departed, but to where? I don’t even know the man’s identity, much less his spiritual condition and how he spent his life. I wasn’t present at his sickness or his death, and from this bedside I can hardly quiz those who knew him.
I have only my charity, which tells me he was gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. I owe him that mercy, because I received the benefit of his instruction when the bell tolled, which motivated me to pray for him. I did pray, with faith, and so I faithfully believe that his soul has gone to everlasting rest.
Over the centuries, Devotions on Emergent Occasions has enriched the lives of many. Philip Yancey’s modern rendering will bring it to the attention of new audiences whose hearts will be touched by what John Donne wrote on his sickbed.
Yancey seems to have been equipped for his task in several costly ways. His father died at the age of 23 during the 1949 American polio epidemic, and Philip and his brother were overshadowed by this early loss. During the 2020 COVID pandemic, Yancey lived in a mountain refuge where he labored for several months to make Donne’s Meditations accessible to 21st-century readers. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Yancey recognized that the meditations of a 17th-century preacher spoke to him in new and terrible ways.
Readers of Undone may ask themselves: “Who among those I know needs to have this book?” I was not far along in my reading when I realized that I must send Undone to two friends: one who is undergoing hospice treatment, the other who lives with Parkinson’s disease. You may have a similar list.
