Why "Brittle Crazy Glass"?

The term "brittle crazy glass" comes from the brilliant English poet George Herbert, from his poem "The Windows."

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
    He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
    This glorious and transcendent place,
    To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
    Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
    More reverend grows, and more doth win;
    Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
    When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
    Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
    And in the ear, not conscience, ring.

In the great cathedral of Winchester, the enormous East window is the size of two tennis courts. In 1642, Oliver Cromwell's forces smashed the magnificent window into bits because they deemed the artwork to be idolatrous. That night, the villagers snuck into the cathedral and gathered up the shards, keeping them hidden in their homes until the civil war was over. Afterward, they brought them all out and began the Herculean task of putting them all back together as they had been. But it soon became evident that this was impossible. So they put the broken pieces back together in a mosaic of shapes, colors, and partial images--a hand here, an eye there, a leaf, a word, a patch of sky. The result is stunning, not only in its beauty, but also in its meaning. The window is not the thing; it's the light, "thy story" shining through the window, and the combination of the light and the glass, doctrine and life, which makes the window the new thing. Not just preachers, but everyone, is like that: brittle, crazy (distorted or flawed) glass, either being broken or being put back together. Brilliant. Literally.