Ignorance is Bliss

In the poem Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden, the narrator obviously is speaking about his father. Almost automatically when dealing with poetry, this sends out an alert to my brain to look for religious connections. Needless to say, the connections flowed with this piece. The beginning of the poem details all the things the father did for the family with zero gratitude in return. Similarly, God does all kinds of things for us and is the reason for our existence, yet we hardly find time to thank him for all he has done. A little later, the narrator addresses the "chronic angers of the house". This also fits the religious connection. I know personally that one big motivator for prayer is the fear of hell. The narrator arises to dress because he fears his father's anger. Christians fear God's anger with us and rise in prayer to avoid that anger. In the line "what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?", the narrator is basically saying he knows little about love. This is similar to my feelings regarding my faith because I feel that it is not my place to question God's motives or actions because I could not understand them if they were explained. I am in no place to question God's authority or love because I am ignorant to the ways of the kind of love God gives.