IN THE BREACH

In reaction to the events in Israel, we feel intolerably weak, helpless, and uncomfortably near to despair. Yet, thinking of this in the small hours, I was drawn to contemplate the Carthusians. If we believe, as several Popes have said publicly, that the contemplative orders have an important part to play in the life of the Church, we must recognise that that function can only be based on the power of prayer. Their sole business is to pray for the world; given that fact, the combined force of 450 professional prayer generators (to count only the number of Carthusians at present in the world) must be enormous. And if we add to that all the other orders for whom prayer is their central occupation, we arrive at a vast concentration of power. Such power is of the utmost importance when the hounds of Hell are loosed upon the world. The media speak of counter-offensives upon the battlefields in Ukraine; in the chaos unleashed in the Middle East military and propaganda weapons cancel each other out and atrocities are joined and compounded by vengeance. At such times diplomacy is an indispensable component; but, like all adult acts of civilisation,  it is slow to start and almost imperceptible in its successes.

A Godless world has no more to offer and no other remedies to try. But faith has armies reason knows not. Legions of angels, to be sure; but while they are mentioned in Scripture, they have not often been perceived in earthly action. No; as St Teresa of Avila said, we need to remember that God has on earth no hands, no eyes, no ears other than ours. This may be enough for what is known as humanitarian aid; but there is more. For there is in this world a vast army that works and fights in alliance, in joint command, in communion, with the forces of Heaven: the immense, international, millions-strong army of prayer. And of this army, the contemplative orders are the commandos, the special forces, the shock troops. 

What can we do to support them? We are their reservists, their Territorials, their National Guard. We pray for them, we study them, we make them known, we help them, we do some recruiting for them: they do none for themselves. 

And finally, let us not forget that Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God, a God who singled out this tiny out-of-the-way planet in His vast creation for a special environment of shalom, salaam, peace, and a malkut, a kingdom, a reign, of love between Himself and the humanity He drew out of its oceans. A God Whom we, as a race, repeatedly drive to hot tears of near-despair; but a God Who never gives up on us as long as prayer – the language of love He taught us in our infancy – persists and thrives.  

  

 

TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN

 

 

Words have tones, and words have overtones. The tones are the meanings such as they are researched, ordered and listed in authoritative dictionaries. The overtones are not heard by all, and not heard in the same way by all; the overtones (also called connotations) are determined by the culture of speakers/writers and hearers/readers. If there is a strong mutuality between, say, a speaker and his/her audience; a mutuality that may occur, let us say, at a political campaign rally; the speaker can utter outrageous remarks in such a way that any verbal record would not show anything remarkable; in such a case, the speaker relies entirely on a shared harmony of overtones. In journalism, this is now called a “dog-whistle”.

            In large parts of the American demographic, the word “government” has strongly negative overtones (perhaps because American English also has the word “administration” for more neutral use). In France, no one minds the word “government”; but the word “shareholders” (actionnaires) makes large sections of the French electorate foam at the mouth. 

            And overtones depend, not only on geography but also on historical period. A word that in one age is perfectly neutral or positive may in another age be strongly disliked. I am old enough to remember that in any publicly available printed text the (sexual) “F-word” could not be printed in full; on the other hand, in modern America, the (racial) “N-word” cannot be printed or even, in some cases, referred to. And a particularly intriguing case, one that goes as far as what one might call lexical dissonance, is the French word con, which in one meaning (the original one), that of the female pudenda, is taboo; but which in its other meaning of “a stupid and disagreeable person” is colloquially common to the point of ubiquity. 

            All this leads me to the word “religion”. In the space of my (now not inconsiderable) lifetime, this word’s overtones have gone from neutral and sometimes positive to almost universally negative. When I was young we sang what were then still called Negro Spirituals, among which were stirring songs like “Give me that old-time religion, it’s good enough for me.” Some people’s religion was Christian, others’ Jewish, still others’ Muslim or Hindu; and within the Christian, some people’s religion was Catholic and others’ Protestant. Now, however, to have faith is good, to be spiritual is good, but to be religious? Noooo. 

            It is a pity. The word comes from a Latin verb, re-ligare: to bind together again. The idea behind it is that somehow, Heaven and earth got separated, and that this is tragic. I’ve often wondered that so many people find the idea of Original Sin hard to comprehend. Looking around one (and inside one), it seems so obvious: our human mind is capable of imagining something flawless, perfect; but we are incapable of realising it. Something always comes along and buggers it up. This being the case, any idea, person, or institution dedicated to binding-together-again Heaven and earth, perfection and BHF (basic human fuckup); to restoring the link between the despairing human soul and hope, between the woundedly resentful and the charity of love, between the helplessly angry and peaceable friendship, should surely be welcomed and cherished. Alas, this is too often not the case, and the media, social and otherwise, who delight in the excitement of conflict, eagerly exacerbate the tensions.

            I should like us to restore re-ligio to its ancient and merited glory. Let us be re-ligious in every part of our life. Let us try, wherever we can, to re-tie the broken strings and cables, to bridge the gaps, to mend the bridges; and most especially those broken ties between simple, hurting humans and a loving God who cannot force them to love him back, and who weeps among angels.    

OF WATER AND LIGHT

“For with thee is the well of life: and in thy light shall we see light.” (Psalm 36)

Coming upon this while reading through the day’s psalms, I always feel a thrill run down my spine: the sure sign of true poetry. The well of life reminds me of Spenser’s characterization of Chaucer as “the well of English undefiled”. The well, of course, is not un puits but une source, a wellspring, a spring in the grass from which water flows unceasingly. God, says the Psalmist, is not the well: the spring is with him. It is near him, in his proximity; it is complicit with him, on his side, part of what God creates and wants us to recognize. 

We may imagine – as God always lets us imagine – himself, the Ancient of Days, seated in a meadow of his own creation, perhaps on the Seventh Day, tired but content, contemplating a new and unspoiled planet, and at his foot, in the unimaginably lovely fresh grass, a spring bubbling, its water coursing in rivulets down the hill. The water is life. Which is very insightful of the Psalmist: we now know that the sine qua non for a planet to support life is the presence of water. And the spring of that life is with God.

He created it, after all; but the beauty is that he kept it with him: close to him, never far away. He does not let the bubbling up of life out of his sight. Whatever it becomes later; whatever mud weighs it down, whatever filth pollutes it, whatever cruel droughts dry it up; if we trace it to its source, we shall find God, watching over it.

Life and light, in the good fortune of English, are alliterative twins; and the image of life is followed by an even more puissant one of light. Light allows us to see: to see things, to see the world, to see our neighbours. But what allows us to see light? In one sense, light is invisible; but what the Psalm tells us us that that is only one sense. In another, we see light; but we see it “in thy light”, in the light of God. No easy image of the Ancient of Days here. Can we get our mind round this? “In thy light shall we see light.” Light, the very essence of our consciousness, the primary element that allows us to see everything else, is itself secondary. We see it in, in the context of, as part of, as an emanation of, His light. 

How do we adjust this to our known and felt experience? We think we see light all the time, whether we ‘believe in’ God or not. We live, move and have our being in a world where light is an everyday occurrence. So in what way can it be secondary? Perhaps we should entertain the possibility that only when we see light in His light do we see light pure, light as it was created to be when God said “let there be light.” Any light, then, which we see on our own, without first adjusting our mind’s eye to God, is a polluted light, a light subtly touched by original sin. An uncomfortable thought; but those who have known conversion can tell you that it changes even your way of seeing – i.e. light. Perhaps they, for the first time, are seeing light in His light.

And finally, both life and light together spurred the Psalmist – unknown to us, but he must have existed as a real person, King David or no – to compress them together and so make a flash of pure poetry. Which in itself is always a new way of seeing.

THE BEST MEDICINE

Recovering after an operation, I have been reading George Herbert, a sovereign remedy for all ills. And so I share with you this exquisite poem, which has moved me almost to tears for more than half a century.

How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean 

Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; 

         To which, besides their own demean, 

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. 

                      Grief melts away 

                      Like snow in May, 

         As if there were no such cold thing. 

         Who would have thought my shriveled heart 

Could have recovered greenness? It was gone 

         Quite underground; as flowers depart 

To see their mother-root, when they have blown, 

                      Where they together 

                      All the hard weather, 

         Dead to the world, keep house unknown. 

         These are thy wonders, Lord of power, 

Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell 

         And up to heaven in an hour; 

Making a chiming of a passing-bell. 

                      We say amiss 

                      This or that is: 

         Thy word is all, if we could spell. 

         Oh that I once past changing were, 

Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! 

         Many a spring I shoot up fair, 

Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither; 

                      Nor doth my flower 

                      Want a spring shower, 

         My sins and I joining together. 

         But while I grow in a straight line, 

Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own, 

         Thy anger comes, and I decline: 

What frost to that? what pole is not the zone 

                      Where all things burn, 

                      When thou dost turn, 

         And the least frown of thine is shown? 

         And now in age I bud again, 

After so many deaths I live and write; 

         I once more smell the dew and rain, 

And relish versing. Oh, my only light, 

                      It cannot be 

                      That I am he 

         On whom thy tempests fell all night. 

         These are thy wonders, Lord of love, 

To make us see we are but flowers that glide; 

         Which when we once can find and prove, 

Thou hast a garden for us where to bide; 

                      Who would be more, 

                      Swelling through store, 

         Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

IN THE CLOUD? (SCARY. COMFORTING.)

Reading about Moses, about the Lord moving into Solomon’s Temple, and about the Transfiguration, there is that sense of Immensity suddenly moving right in. The Cloud, in each case, is hard to imagine: something like ball lightning only MORE, more intense, huger, and not going away. This is how the Creator manifests Himself to very occasional, very chosen and doubtless very terrified little humans. 

It made me think about the insanity of scale. I have shown before, on this blog, the current astronomers’ map of the Universe, above, with its Googols of constellations and Googolplexes of planets. If (and there is no reason to assume it’s not so) the God we woship created all this, how --- the stammering consciousness asks itself --- can this be the same God whom we call Father, to whom we pray about our little souls, and in whose presence Brother Lawrence so cheerfully cooked potatoes? When I think about this, my synapses very nearly short out. Of course, one can say that this is yet one more proof that Christianity is nonsense. Judaism, at least, preserves a sense of scale in that God is concerned more with a people than with individuals; Islam seems to be more about trumpeting God’s infinite greatness than about any interest of His in small human matters; and there is Christianity teaching us to worry about what the Creator of the Universe (see map) thinks of what we said to our spouse last night. When you fully take that on board there is the sound and smell of burning connectors. 

And yet. And yet. Keep thinking. Imagine, not that we Earthlings are merely an accidental breadcrumb on the skirt of the Universe, but that we inhabit something deliberately unique. Perhaps SETI is doomed to failure. Perhaps we really are alone. Is that depressing? Not necessarily. Imagine that this gorgeous tiny blue jewel of a planet was created by a joyous Creator in an outlying corner of the Whole, as an experiment, as a laboratory where, over the millennia, something was made to grow that could think, could react to Him, could create in its turn – Rembrandt, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. 

But He too saw the insanity of scale – well, let’s say the extremity of scale. So first He chose a people, and communicated with them in ways they could (just) understand. And they behaved, of course, as humans will. But/And, in the end, He saw they were ready for a new way to bridge the scale gap. And He created, for and with and out of His Son, the Second Person of His triune Being, the Incarnation. An ordinary human that humans could talk to. Incredible! I remember my colleague Irving Layton, a wonderful Canadian Jewish poet, saying to me, “But Roger, Jesus is my Jewish brother. My brother farts. Does God fart?” What could I say? “Yes, Irving.”

And so, yes, we have the map of the Universe; but we also have Yeshua bar Yosef, the builder and rabbi from Nazareth in Galilee (an ordinary town, now a city, been there, my son-in-law comes from there). And now ordinary fishermen and their wives, Roman sergeants, unpopular tax collectors, quiet scholars and provincial hookers could talk to – to HIM. To YHWH. To the Creator. He healed people. He had moods. He cried for his friend. He was loved by at least one man and one woman. 

Yes, well. And then, being human, they fucked it up. Exactly as he knew they would, they killed him. So much for that experiment. But no. Because in that unimaginable night of Easter, He – now again all of He, one again within the Triune God -- killed Death. Not death – death is still around and will take us all, for a while. But Death. 

And so the experiment continues, at a new level. The Universe is still there, unfolding (as Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said) as it should; our little blue ball is still there, with us humans busily overcrowding it; and (and this is the point) he, Yeshua bar Yosef, Yeshua Meshiach, Yeshua the Anointed, Yeshua Christos, having risen from the dead, is still here also. Here to be talked to. Here to be loved, here to be confided in, here to heal broken hearts. Here as human, here as God. Here to be communicated with in every Communion, in every Mass. Being the little stumbling creatures we are, could we ask for more? The synapses glow again, the energy flows. Gratias agimus tibi, propter magnam gloriam tuam.   

THE SILENCE OF ADVENT

Yule demands incessant busyness; Christmas demands waiting in silence. How to combine the two? Perhaps we can learn from the Carthusians. A novice-master tells a young monk the complexities of “silence”: to shut oneself up in cell for incessant prayer is not silence as the order’s Statues understand it. Opposed to “noise”, “silence” demands that we identify the source of the noise first, and when we do so we find that much of the clamour comes from one’s own heart. Outward silence does not still this, on the contrary: it invites it. True silence consists first of all of listening: you begin by listening to the others around you – not just what they say, but what they are not saying. You listen to what you can gather of their deep needs, feelings and concerns. Meanwhile, you go about your business – business-business or Yule business – but listening quietly to all you meet.

Once you learn to listen to others (for a Carthusian, “your brothers”, for the rest of us, our families, loved ones, and anyone else who comes our way), you have a much better chance of being able to listen to God. Why? Because your own self, your own ego, your own desires, wishes, prejudices, feelings, thoughts, temper, and what you will, have learnt to shut up. And this, says the old novice-master, is true Silence. Silence happens when your own self has learnt to be quiet. In true Silence, only God speaks. Sometimes in His own voice, in the ears of your heart; sometimes in the voice of your brothers, your sisters, and your neighbour.

And when that happens, you can go about your Yuletide busyness – buying presents, ordering the turkey, decorating the house, adorning the Christmas tree, sending cards, planning convivial meals and stocking up on whisky – in a perfect silence of waiting, of expectation, and of hope. The silence of Advent.  

PATER, ET FILIUS, ET SPIRITUS SANCTUS. SICUT ERAT IN PRINCIPIO, ET NUNC ET SEMPER.

Andrei Rublev, "The Holy Trinity" (icon, 1400-1425).

The Trinity is a world, not of definition, but of prayer.

You can see how it began. In those years when Yeshua walked the earth, he tirelessly taught everyone who would listen about the Father. Our Father. Not just the Great God who made the universe; not just the jealous God who chided Israel; not just the just God who would one day judge the earth; but a God who was, is, and always will be our Father, our loving Father who may get justly irritated with his children but whose love for them will neither falter nor fail. He even taught us the words to address our Father.

But there was more. We are all the Father’s children, but as time went by and the Cross approached, Yeshua increasingly spoke about his own place in the scheme of things. Presumably trusting the disciples to be a little less thick now than they had been before, he began to tell them, in more than just parables, about the place of the Son in relation to the Father. Not just a pretty face; not just a guy. Not just a man. “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Whoa! “All that is the Father’s is the Son’s; and all that is the Son’s is the Father’s.” “You will see the Son of Man [a term from Ezekiel] coming in clouds of glory.”

And then, when he came back to visit them in their loneliness, after the Resurrection when at first they often didn’t recognise him, he spoke of someone else still. “If I don’t leave you, the Comforter cannot come to you.” “I will send you an Advocate.” And he breathed on them, and they received the Spirit – the ruach, the pneuma, the very breath, wind, or spirit that after the Creation brooded over the waters like a gigantic bird. The heilige Geist in German, the Holy Ghost in the original Germanic English, now fallen out of use.

And so, when he had left finally to go back to his (and our) Father, and when the Geist had come upon the motley crowd of Pentecost – the Spirit taking up residence, as it were, in the ecclesia, in the Church, the collective of Christians, and not just in some individuals – one can imagine them sitting around for a few hundred years trying to make sense of all this, even as they prayed. After all, they had to explain it to new converts and interested strangers who wandered in from, say, Hellenistic civilisation where there were lots of gods, and who might say, “Oh, so you have only three gods? Interesting!” No, no, no. Not three gods. One God. “Right,” would say a Jew coming by. “But then what is all this nonsense about three Persons? God is one Person, and one Person only.” No, no, no. Three Persons. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And even the most benevolent would end up saying How does this work?

When I first got to know the Book of Common Prayer, one text I shied away from was the Quicunque Vult, or Athanasian Creed. It always seemed cross and minatory, as well as interminable. Yet reading it again today, on Trinity Sunday, I realised that it is a desperate attempt to understand just that difficult concept, 500 years on. Of course, it also contains anathemas against those who do not believe these essentials to salvation, which were what used to put me off. But it is fascinating in its dogged pursuit of the inexplicable.

The Trinity is a world, not of definition, but of prayer. It is a world of meditation and contemplation. Quicunque, whoever, pursues it in that manner will find a huge glory opening, and welcoming. It is a circle, a dynamic circle, a vast and stately whirl of love. Of a love in relation to which the Universe as we are coming to know it is a mustard-seed.

And Trinity Sunday? My American study of the BCP Collects notes that Trinity Sunday is the border between the season of Christianity’s great Truths and the season of Christianity’s activity and duty in the world. From now on, the liturgical colour is green, as are the fields and the hills beyond my window. Ora et labora: pray and plough. 

And for those who want to be reminded of the hard-edged content of our faith, here is the (pseudo-) Athanasian Creed itself:

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite. So likewise the Father is Almighty; the Son Almighty; and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties; but one Almighty. So the Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord; the Son Lord; and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords; but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity; to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; So are we forbidden by the catholic religion; to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of none; neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created; but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid; the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, let him thus think of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation; that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance [Essence]; but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ; Who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell; rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies; And shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.

WHAT ABOUT THE JUDGING?

A point about “the judging”, as Peter Cook and Dudley Moore memorably put it. “As God is my judge” was an old oath-like phrase. And most of us have an image of such judgement, whether Michelangelo’s or otherwise.

At yesterday’s Gaudete Mass, however, our small hyperactive Algerian priest made a point in his homily that I found interesting, and perhaps consoling, enough to share. The Epistle reading was James 5:9 “Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.” And Fr Jean-Kamel said: “Don’t get this wrong. God will not judge you. God does not judge. God only loves. It is you who will judge you. How? Because God will confront you, as you are, with the immensity, the glory and the absoluteness of His love. And when He does that, you will judge yourself. And if and when you have judged yourself, you will be forgiven, and accepted, and loved.” Rather breathtaking, I thought. Possibly heretical? But when you think it through it makes sense, even orthodoxly. Food for thought; and for rejoicing. Perhaps.