HUMDRUMLIES

I was rereading the wonderful Carthusian miscellany The Wound of Love where, in the introductory chapters, an author (they are always anonymous) explains the difficulties facing a young monk entering the Order. Seduced by the Absolute, expecting marvels of saintliness, he will be surprised and dismayed by the banality of the daily life there, “a kind of dull grey” with occasional conflicts among the brothers and endless compromises within the “family”. Only gradually will he discover that it is in precisely such banality that God develops the qualities which make the mature Carthusian such a remarkable figure in the world of devotion and prayer.

It touched a chord. Since, at the age of 70, I decided that religion was the adventure befitting this new stage of life, I was beginning to miss the illuminations of the early years, the sense of discovery, and had started to feel a dull grey weight of daily humdrumlies interfering with the adventure. So reading our Carthusian friend made me realise that perhaps precisely that weight of humdrumlies is the stuff of God’s action and His way of addressing one. Of course, once you realise that, you remember that George Herbert had been telling you the same thing ever since you discovered him at the age of 20 or so: you have been a little slow on the uptake.

You also remember Brother Lawrence, that amiable 17^th-century German servant of a monastery who turned out to be the saintliest man there, and whose very simple piety based itself on “the practice of the presence of God” and a continuing conversation with Him. A conversation that went on while he was cooking, baking, sweeping floors and tending the kitchen garden.

It is yet another stage in the education to humility. A Church service is wonderful: “I was glad when they said unto me: we will go into the house of the Lord” (Ps. 122:1). An exquisite service with flawless choirs, as in Oxford, is even more glorious. A simple Mass in a country church is still a Mass, where God is present in a very specific and precious way. But reading the stories of Elijah and Elisha at home, sweeping the kitchen floor “as for Thy laws”, making beds, changing the oil on the family car, cooking vegetable soup or dirty rice while having constantly one’s ear open for the murmur of the Spirit and conversing with Him as freely as with one’s intimate friend or family – that may lead us to unexpected uplands of surprising sunlight.

The Elixir

Teach me, my God and King,

         In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in anything

         To do it as for Thee.

         Not rudely, as a beast,

         To run into an action;

But still to make Thee prepossest,

         And give it his perfection.

         A man that looks on glass,

         On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

         And then the heav'n espy.

         All may of Thee partake:

         Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture—"for Thy sake"—

         Will not grow bright and clean.

         A servant with this clause

         Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,

         Makes that and th' action fine.

         This is the famous stone

         That turneth all to gold;

For that which God doth touch and own

         Cannot for less be told.

George Herbert