THE DARK IN THE LIGHT

Today is St Lucy's Day, in the old Julian calendar the winter solstice. Lucy was a martyr under Diocletian, dying in A.D. 304; but her name implies light, and she has often been identified with the return of light after the solstice: in some Northern countries she is represented by a child coming into the room wearing a crown of lighted candles. 

On August 15, 1617 John Donne's beloved wife Ann née More died at the age of 33, after 16 years of marriage and just after giving birth to her twelfth child. And on (or about) December 13, Donne wrote this poem, perhaps the greatest poem of mourning in the English language. Advent, here, seems forgotten: in fact, the poem's mourning is precisely defined and augmented because it creates an appalled opposite of Advent: "nor will my Sunne renew". 

A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day, being the shortest day

'Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seven houres herself unmaskes,
     The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
     Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
          The world's whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th'hydroptique earth has drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke,
Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seeme to laugh,
Compar'd with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee
At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:
     For I am every dead thing,
     In whom love wrought new Alchimie.
          For his art did expresse
A quintessence even from nothingnesse,
From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:
He ruin'd mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;
     I, by loves limbecke, am the grave
     Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
          Have wee two wept, and so
Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two Chaoses, when we did show
Care to ought else; and often absences
Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;
     Were I a man, that I were one,
     I needs must know; I should preferre,
          If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest
And love; All, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow,'a light, and body must be there.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.
You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne
     At this time to the Goat is runne
     To fetch new lust, and give it you,
          Enjoy your summer all;
Since shee enjoys her long nights festivall,
Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call
This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this
Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

A couple of explanations help, for a modern reader. He says that, as a result of being ruined by Love, the alchimist who had previously favoured him, he is reborn as the quintessence of Nothing; and defines that negatively by the various orders of being. Men -- humans -- are defined by consciousness; animals are defined by desire; plants and stones also "desire" (plants grow upward because they desire the light; stones fall downward because they desire the earth, or if magnetic desire each other. An "ordinary nothing", like a shadow, still implies a substance of which it is a shadow. 

LUMEN IN NOCTE TEMPORIS (Light in the dark of time)

Lawrence Alma Tadema, Venantius Fortunatus reciting his poetry to Empress Radegunda

When I was young we were told that between the grandeur of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages lay the Dark Ages. There is some truth in that, though most historians today would probably shy away from the term. But among the glories of the time, a true Light in the Dark, are the Latin hymns of Venantius Fortunatus and his late-6th-century and early-7th-century contemporaries. They replace the quantitative Classical Latin verse with a powerful accentual metre, usually a tetrameter; but their wording is such that the four feet, which we would tend to see as iambics (x /), often sound more like spondees (/ /), which gives them a noble gravitas. I find them irresistibly attractive, addictive even. Also, the Latin is not difficult, which helps! The one often sung, to this day, in monasteries in Advent is "Conditor alme siderum", probably not by Venantius himself but from the same period, which a few years ago was rescued from its 1632 remake and restored to its original text. (There is a lovely sung version here.) My translation is less romantic and "beautiful" than most I've read, but it tries to maintain the metre and to keep something of the austere gravity and economy of wording. Of course it comes nowhere near the Latin . . . (Amusing note: Tolkien borrows this metre, and its sustained gravity, for some of his Elvish hymns: A Elbereth Gilthoniel / siluvren penna miriel . . .)

Conditor alme siderum                      Maker, sustainer of the stars,

aeterna lux credentium                      Eternal light of who believe,

Christe redemptor omnium              Anointed one, redeeming all,

exaudi preces supplicum                    Fulfil the prayers of them that beg.

Qui condolens interitu                       Who, grieving with us that the rage

mortis perire saeculum                      Of death destroys this mortal age,

salvasti mundum languidum             Hast saved and healed a weakened world

donans reis remedium                        Giving the patients remedy

Vergente mundi vespere                    The world turning to eventide,

uti sponsus de thalamo                      As bridegroom rising from his bed,

egressus honestissima                        Sprung from the honourable womb

Virginis matris clausula                     Of her, Thy mother virginal.

Cuius forti potentiae                          To whose almighty power and strength

genu curvantur omnia                        Let every knee now bow and bend;

caelestia, terrestria                             Let all that is in heaven and earth

nutu fatentur subdita                         Acknowledge lordship of Thy will.

Te Sancte fide quaesumus                 Thee, Holy One, in trust we ask,

venture iudex saeculi                         Judge of the world who is to come,

conserva nos in tempore                   When comes the faithless enemy

hostis a telo perfidi                            Preserve us from his weaponry.

Sit Christe rex piissime                     To Thee, Christ, king of piety,

tibi Patrique gloria                             Be glory, to the Father too,

cum Spiritu Paraclito                         And to the Spirit Paraclete,

in sempiterna saecula. Amen.           For ever to eternity. Amen.

BETTER THAN I COULD HAVE SAID IT

It is a great privilege (as well as a challenge) to have a daughter who is both a priest (in the Church of England) and a teacher and chaplain (at Magdalen College School in Oxford). She is kind enough to send me her sermons for the school chapel; and the recent one on "Trying to Make Sense of Advent" I found so striking that I asked her if I could publish it on my blog. I do so here with her permission.

TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF ADVENT 

   There are plenty of Christian words in the lexicon whose meaning I find myself having to explain. Many have been taken over by business. So,  Confirmation is something I will do after pencilling in a meeting and then making sure I can attend. Font is what I can spend hours choosing to make sure that my document makes the best first impression on my peers. Luckily, Advent still has a vestige of its original meaning: mostly thanks to the commercial world who have retained it for their myriad chocolate advent calendars.

   In fact, even a sense of what it means is contained within that commercial wrapper, because ‘advent’ means ‘coming towards’ and includes a sense of anticipation and excitement, of waiting and watching. Anyone who can remember being very young, or anyone who has cousins or nephews who are very little will know how painful the wait can be; particularly for those whose understanding of time still comes in terms of ‘three sleeps’ … or ‘four episodes of peppa pig’.

   In Church, at this time of year we get the incredible readings from the Prophets: ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On them hath the light shined.’ And this introduces the central theme of advent and one which it is so easy to appreciate and understand as the evening draw in and the mornings take forever to arrive: from darkness to light.

   Advent comes at that particularly difficult time of year, just after the clocks have changed and just before we start getting properly excited about Christmas and it offers us two things: hope and the chance to think beyond ourselves. It lifts us up and shines a light into the dark corners of our hearts at the same time.

   The advent we are waiting for is an extraordinary and unbelievable event. It is the moment in history when a timeless, changeless God decides to intervene in our mucky, grotty world. It is the thing we all want God to do ‘why wont he just intervene’ and yet refuse to believe he ever does. We argue about the impossibility of suffering and a benevolent God and say that if God really did care and really was omnipotent then he would DO something but we cant hear the hollow laughter in the wings as God whispers to his main actor ‘but I already have done something and they still wont believe me.’

   Of course, we are being asked to believe in the most ridiculous miracle anyone could posit. The creator of the universe, the First Cause of the Big Bang, the author of Time itself cares enough about each tiny speck of human matter enough to find a way to enter time, to be created to live a life of cause and effect. I don’t actually have a problem believing stories of shepherds and angels, of a virgin birth, of a miraculous escape from a cruel tyrant. Part of the reason that the empirical veracity of these stories don’t trouble me is because their truth lies in the meaning behind them. And part of the reason they don’t trouble me is because if God really is the creator of the universe, of course God is capable of being born of a virgin.  

   So, hope and repentance. How does advent package up these two things?

  Hope first of all. When terrible things happen to us, or to those we love, one of the reasons we can feel overwhelmed is because hope has been extinguished.  Hope is what lets you live from one day to the next without the walls closing in on you. Hope is what gives you a reason to get up in the morning. Hope is what gives you a point to life. Hope gives you a path through the pain and out the other side. Hope is what makes you believe there might a path out the other side.

   The idea that God might be interested enough in you and me is what starts to turn the story around. Not that God will swagger in like Clint Eastwood and gun down the baddies, but that a seed of hope can be brought into the darkness by the birth of a baby. We all know how wonderful new life is: how many of you have seen the picture of Mr Elton’s new baby? Babies are cute, they are adorable, the make us smile, they give us hope.

And the creator of the universe creates hope in us through the creation of  new life. This is how God wants to save us. Not as part of a wild west action movie but by connecting with our most sentimental side, the side of us that knows what love is and knows how to love. Why would God do it this way?  To make sure we are not threatened or bludgeoned into belief, but encouraged and drawn into belief. Belief that there is indeed good in the world, when all around us seems to contradict that. The belief that there might even be a future even when life feels utterly bleak. The belief that joy is an actual  thing.

   And what about the other side of the story? That Advent shines a light on our darkest places? This is the Church’s belief that advent is also about the coming of Judgement. When Pure Goodness enters our world, we see our own shadows very clearly in the bright light it casts and we are judged by it. We see perfection and we know we cannot measure up. And our response is repentance. Or at least it should be. Suddenly we recognise our own part in the muck and gloom of the world. We see how evil and wickedness are not just things which are ‘out there’ they also reside in our own hearts. And so we take the time to look more closely at ourselves and to acknowledge those things we ought not to have done and to offer them back to God. ‘There is no health in us, Lord and we are sorry.’ Deceit. Self aggrandisement.  Cruelty. Arrogance. We know them all. The people in our community with whom we come into contact every day … if you asked them to write you a reference what would they say? Mine would be equally split between those who think I am an angel and those whom I am permanently letting down because I never have enough time for them. What about you? Where have you fallen short of the very best you can be? Is it in the way you spoke to the boy in your houseroom this morning? Or the teacher you lied to? Or the excuses you gave for not spending time with your parents? Or the hurtful things you said to your sister? In exactly the same way you would try and get your house ready for Christmas, or even your houseroom, you should be trying to get your own house in order – the house where your soul resides. Jesus is on his way and you should be taking the time to think seriously about that. There may be some decisions to be made. Some discussions to be had. Some tidying up to be done.

   Advent. Anticipation. Excitement. Joy. A time to look forward to what could be. A time to consider ourselves as the people we could become. A time to prepare. A time to wait. Knowing that there is light in our darkness and that the darkness can not overcome it. Redemption. Reconciliation. Hope.

Rev. Dr Tess Kuin Lawton

    

DARK: TWO SMALL FLAMES

I wrote this poem many years ago when I was living in New Haven, Connecticut (New Haveners will recognise East Rock). I feel much more positive about Advent now, and wouldn’t write it in this form again; but its wariness and reluctance “not to turn again” echo what I know many others do feel. So, as it may strike some sympathetic sparks, I print it again, as I did last year on a previous blog.

This is the penitential season:

walking home gingerly amid thaw’s debris

you will be met by snuffling, mournful winds,

doubtful travellers from lands

they have not understood, and bearing

rumours that do not inform, serving

only to disquiet. The melting rock

above the city holds no surer news

among its fissures; and altogether

the only certainty is a growing conviction

that soon, soon, the sins you have forgotten

will visit you, settling themselves in your chairs with the thin

worn faces from the pages you turned over.

Is a mind finely attuned

to minor comforts evidence of prison?

If so, this is the day the gates close

behind you; bewildered among the well-aimed spring

of traffic, you stand in an ill-cut suit of thoughts

outside. Free.

And as you meekly walk the way

they pointed out, to your ordained salvation,

the crinkly face of a warder shines

out of a shadow, and for an instant

the workshop’s warmth is curled around your shoulders.

The punishment is freedom.

And as the days crawl on

the sponge looms that will wipe your slate

of all the small warm sins you have committed

and place you, in your salvation suit –

in which, you suspect, you will look ridiculous –

on uplands made for angels, alone.

There really is no other way, it seems;

the rumours the wind mongers are probably true;

and all you can pray for as your home,

unsuited to heaven, crumbles under the lash,

is (mean to the last) that it will be worth it:

meaning, somehow, that what you were told

will all be true and that the land to which,

a shivering refugee, you must embark

will be as good as it seems featureless.

And pray, of course, that if so –

if, naked, you stumble, pierced and pinned

by pains of joy too great for your wretched frame –

your new, untested, fledgling salvation

will bear you at such heights.

The light we have enshrined

and intertwined with pagan hopes

may yet explain this fearful overturning:

but today there are only two small flames

alight – which is not much

to travel by.

SNAKES, CRUNCHY INSECTS AND THE BIG DIPPER

Donatello, John the Baptist

This second Sunday in Advent we were invited to contemplate that disconcerting hippie, Jochanan the Baptizer. Not a friendly type, yet he seems to have attracted big crowds, who came to him, not vice versa. In other words, they went out of town, mostly on foot, and travelled into the desert to hear this famous prophet. He was not a nice man. He wasn’t particularly clean, dressed in what appear to have been tatters, as thin as an anorexic, or as you and even I would be if we lived in 115F heat and fed on locusts and wild honey. (NB: he was ahead of his time, as we are now coming back to eating crunchy insects; but if you have to catch them first you’re not going to put back a lot of the calories. Also, have you ever tried to find wild honey?) So he was a bit of a famous spectacle, worth half a day’s hike to go and see. Moreover, he harangued people, which they always like: he told them, in a voice hoarse with shouting, that they were on a fast train to a blank wall, and that the only way out of the misery they were creating for themselves was to drown.

To drown in the river, and then come up and out. What you will have drowned, he said, is the Old You which, whatever you thought of it, wasn’t worth squat, and definitely not worth saving. What you come back on dry land with is the New You, which at least has a chance.

It worked. Masses of people came out to see him, drowned the Old They in the Jordan, and emerged looking slightly dazed and wondering what the New They would look and feel like.

Then there arrived some classy types, the spiritual establishment, who came out – why? The story doesn’t say explicitly, but one assumes they came out polite, intellectually interested, but with a seriously sceptical attitude, to take a look and possibly sneer. Yet something seems to have happened, because at least some of them appear to have got in the waiting-queue for the drowning. And at that point Jochanan lost his temper. Brood of vipers, he called them: crawly and vile, yet with a kind of low cunning. What got into you, he asked them furiously, to make you come here to escape what’s coming to you?

We don’t know what they replied. One or two may have ended up persuading him they were sincere; we can assume that the others left in a huff, growling at that uncouth and unmannerly man.

But having touched on what was coming, he went on to say that there was Someone on the way much, much more powerful than he, who was coming with a flail, to sort out the harvested corn on His threshing-floor. What I’m doing, he said, is giving you a chance to turn from weightless, pointless and useless chaff into decent grain which He can then bake into pita bread to feed the next five thousand poor hungry buggers. Do it now, before the flail arrives. Go drown; come up; go home. Be new.

What, one wonders, did they feel like during the next week, when the circumstances of their lives clearly hadn’t changed? One suspects that they sort of trudged on, trying to remember that they were now grain, and wondering what that was going to mean. Until the man Jochanan had told them about did arrive. But that’s another story.