Living Wittily

"Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back..."

Today I invite you to read a poem. It was written nearly 400 years ago by the Church of England priest, George Herbert. Not many people read him these days. The language is as old as the King James Bible, and it comes from someone who had served the King and court, but who chose to be a country parson rather than a royal diplomat.

One of my treasured books is an early Victorian edition of the poems of George Herbert (1863). I was given it for my 40^th birthday by my good friend Kate. She was a passionate teacher of English literature to generations of Open University students, adult literacy classes, and anyone within earshot who wanted to learn the beauty and power of our language. I spoke with one of her students the other day, “She never told me I wrote badly; she always told me how to write better.” (The previous post is the Eulogy prepared for Kate's funeral)   

Reading a poem takes time, and patience, and a willingness to be spoken to in the deep places.  Many of our best loved hymns are poems, set to music. Words are one of the important ways that God speaks to us, guides and comforts us, and leads us into truths that change us. So here is Herbert’s poem:

LOVE

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
            Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
            "Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
            "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
            So I did sit and eat.

LOVE is the name Herbert gives to the Christ. In this poem Herbert imagines the conversation between Christ and our hearts every time we come to the Communion table. As sinners we don’t feel worthy. Our guilt gets in the way of our joy. We need forgiveness every time. Sin embarrasses us, shame humiliates us, and we wish ourselves away from the One we have wronged.

But, says Herbert, each of us is a guest. 'Quick-eyed Love' sees our reluctance, hears our regret and knows our guilt, and reminds us 'who bore the blame'. That’s why I read this poem from time to time at our Communion services. It's a reminder that we are guests, that Christ is the one who issues the invitations, waits to welcome us, and says who is worthy.

The time will come when we will be able again to hold Communion services in our churches as openly and freely, without the current health restrictions. It matters so much that we aren’t able to sit alongside each other. We can’t fully enact the fellowship we share in Christ by serving each other and passing bread and wine one to the other.

But Herbert’s poem reminds us of the most important thing: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst.” Whatever else does or doesn’t happen, it is Jesus’ table, we are his guests, and the living Christ is present.

When we come to the Communion table to share in the Lord’s Supper, Christ the saviour is there. Love bids us welcome. The same generously open invitation shines from the much loved words of the Communion Order of Service:

Come to this table, not because you must but because you may,
not because you are strong, but because you are weak.

Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come,
but because you need mercy and help.

Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more.

(The book pictured above is one of the best one volume introductions to Herbert and his poetry.) 

Kate Durie 1950-2021: "She looked humanely forth on human life..."

“Kate was realistic, practical, kind, thoughtful, hugely intelligent and quick witted, full of life and cultural interests, funny, & brave in the adversity of the MND which she did not want to define her.” If this was a responsive Eulogy I would expect to hear a congregational Amen.

A woman of words, she chose many of the words to be read, sung and prayed at her funeral service. They express what mattered to her most – of life and literature, of faith and love, of hope and humanity, of God and beauty, of the tears and laughter, of the tragedy and comedy and history that are woven through the story of every human life.

Kate was born in Barnsley in 1950. Rick remembers a happy childhood of a big sister whose initial resentment of the baby brother usurper turned into a lifelong alliance. Kate was always there for Rick, from the times she sat on him to calm him down to helping him pass the Baptist Church SS exam – in which he scored higher than her! The mature Kate of the rapier wit informed by the best of English literature, was entirely evident when in an argument with Rick 8, and Kate 12. He made the mistake of calling her an idiot. Her response, “The devil damn thee black thou cream faced loon. Where got’st thou that goose look” (Macbeth Act 5 Scene 3)  Incidentally, the only recorded time Kate showed any interest in football was in 1997 when Barnsley FC were promoted to the Premier League. It gave her the chance to show off her local history, the club having been founded by the Rev Tivverton Preedy - as she remarked, "such a Dickensian name".    

Kate excelled at school, took a first in English Lit at Kent, graduated M.Phil from Oxford and began her working life at University of Aberdeen. There she met Alastair, they quickly engaged and married – later Kate explained the rush that Alastair wanted to go grouse shooting, a comment without rancour, but with that sardonic humour both warm and forgiving of human foibles and failings, including her own.

 Marriage and the care of her children became a life focus for Kate over the growing up years. I met Kate, Alastair, Ruth and Alex in 1984 when I came to be minister at Crown Terrace Baptist Church in Aberdeen. During those years Kate and Alastair were deacons, both were preachers, and our friendship quickly developed. Kate wrote dramas and skits to go with the theme of the service – she was such a script writer – her portrayal of Laban, the sleazy Del Boy father in law, played in the church by a man of impeccable integrity who relished the hand rubbing, trilby-wearing con-man, outwitting Jacob. Kate looked back on those days as formative when church was fun and a safe place for folk to explore their faith.

When the Duries moved to Stirling Kate immediately began rebuilding her social networks, opened up educational and teaching opportunities, and made new friends. She began her 30 year association with the Open University – teaching courses on Shakespeare (of course) Victorian Literature (ditto), Byzantine Art (What?), The Northern and Italian Renaissance,(Yes these too).

Kate was a lifelong learner, and a lifelong teacher. She believed passionately in education as a doorway to richer life and enlarged opportunities, a pathway to a stronger sense of self and a way of building confidence in others. She was an educational socialist – access, support, opportunity for all who want to learn. She was a consummate teacher. At the OU she was well known as a tutor who believed in her students, no matter where their starting point. One student told me, “She never told me I wrote badly; she always showed me how to write better.” The quality of a teacher is evident in feedback that is informative, formative, and aims to be transformative.

Kate’s warmth and acceptance of people as they are made her an ideal counsellor for Cruise. And "Blessed is the book group that has a Kate Durie; they shall never be boring.” Kate was one of the best listeners I’ve ever known – I remember sending her the well-known words of George Eliot, whose name was near the top of her literary Canon: “A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

Later in life when Alastair and Kate separated, she moved to Edinburgh and quickly established new roots. A church where relationships could be formed towards friendship, and where faith could grow; reading groups, a poetry group and a Shakespeare group and a revelling in the cultural richness of theatre and art galleries, cinema and open doors days. Ruth remembers on one Open Day sixteen visits to various historic and architectural places of interest. She remains astonished at the vast amount of historical scandal Kate carried around in her head, about artists, poets, architects and other notables.

Education, learning and teaching defined Kate’s approach to all of life. She taught more than history, art and literature. She taught her children how to cook; she collected recipes like poems. Her OT Victoria learned a lot about books and literature in those conversations that interweave with all kinds of carers. She loved the animals that shared her home, from Caleb to Zac, and a succession of cats – she loved cats and quoted chunks of Kit Smart’s My Cat Jeffrey. Hospitality took on a warm, broad, welcoming embrace in Kate’s home – home- made soup (carrot her speciality – her friend Phyllis 40 years on still makes that recipe!) baking, conversation and small talk, and a sense of gladness and gratitude oozing from Kate towards those who sought her company. “What do we live for if not to make the world a little less difficult for each other?” (George Eliot)

Kate and I spoke every few weeks on the phone. That always included an oral exam on what I’d been reading, an exchange of family news, and often a two person seminar on things literary, theological and historical. She introduced me to so many fertile furrows, and I gave her pointers for good theological reading. Not sound and safe, but searching and risky. This was a reader who was reading with critical appreciation, Rowan Williams before he became Archbishop. She hadn’t only read C S Lewis – she wrote about him, lectured on him in the United States, and was one of the first people to present C S Lewis as other than an evangelical apologist above contradiction.

When it became clear that Kate was unwell, and she was eventually diagnosed with MND, she set about adjusting her life in order to prepare for a very different future. She wouldn’t call herself brave, more pragmatic, practical, determined to outwit a condition that would gradually diminish her possibilities. All we had known of Kate’s problem solving skills, practical common-sense, inventive mind, and spiritual resilience made her determined to resist the encroachments as long as she was able. For a time she still strode out, this time with a cane. That cane she wielded as a sword against the enemy. Then the mobility scooter and Sheila and I on one of our visits were recruited as her minders as she took it out for a test drive along the obstacle course of Balcarres St pavements.

In one of our recent phone conversations we recalled one of the first literary conversations she and I had. Kate came up after the service and said, “You quoted Robert Browning.” Yes I did. “It was from Paracelsus.” Yes it was. “It was perfect. I’ve always said Browning shouldn’t be quoted by preachers, he’s too dense. You proved me wrong.” Away she walked. The words come back as words of defiant hope, but without denying the pull of despair:  “If I stoop into a dark tremendous sea of cloud, it is but for a time; I press God's lamp close to my breast; its splendour soon or late will pierce the gloom; I shall emerge one day.”

Kate’s Christian faith was never based on already found answers. Her mind was too sharp, her mood more interrogative than declarative. She had grown beyond the various iterations of Christian faith too ready to settle for certainty, and too impatient of mystery, too worried about not knowing. In the theological sense Kate loved mystery, and refused steadfastly to reduce God to manageable proportions or propositions. She trusted the humanity of Jesus, his tears and his anger, his compassion and patience, the sheer gratuitous fun of turning water into the best ever wine. She could entrust herself to the Lord of all faith, whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe – Christ, the master carpenter, using those tools that shape and form us towards Christlikeness.

Kate had no real interest in Chalcedonian metaphysics. She knew God’s final, definitive Word became flesh and dwelt among us, in Jesus. That she knew. For everything else we see through a glass darkly…beyond that she was certain that faith, hope, and love are essential in every human life – but the greatest of these is love. And Kate loved those she loved deeply, faithfully, with that daring risky combination of realism, passion and self-giving on her own terms.  So much was taken from Kate in these last months. But not her faith. Yet another of my debts to Kate is she introduced me to the poet Denise Levertov. I finish with Levertov’s poem, written when she too was suffering her final illness:

Suspended

I had grasped God's garment in the void
but my hand slipped
on the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
must have upheld my leaden weight
from falling, even so,
for though I claw at empty air and feel
nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted.

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

"A Man Who Loves the Trees": Friendship, Grief and a Walk in the Woods.

"A man who loves the trees..." That's me! I climbed them as a boy oblivious that risk assessment might one day be a thing. But all the time I was strengthening muscles, and every tree climbed, was helping me attain a higher perspective from which to view the world. Trees have always been my friends, and if that sounds a bit sentimental, so be it. 

"A man who loves trees walks among them on a dark day..." Yes, that too. Within four days we received news of three deaths, each of them a loss felt at the heart's core, because each was a friend for 51 years, 48 years and 37 years respectively.

So I was walking among trees on a dark day of sorrow at such loss, of grief known as a wound that slices through the whole being. Several recently acquired sadnesses weighing on the heart, and the feeling that identity-defining stories are now closed books on a shelf that can't be opened again.

Love is never free in the exchanges and gifts of friendship. Every true and enduring friendship has its own inherent and gladly paid costs. Often enough such self-expenditure is informal, given and not demanded, but each encounter is a strand binding us in a covenant to care, to be there for and with, and to share in the happiness and hardship of each mile of our human journeying.

"A man who loves trees walks among them on a dark day for the solace he has taken always..." Solace, the gift of our presence which, when shared, becomes consolation. The verb to console describes a coming alongside to bring solace and comfort. So sometimes what I need is trees not talk, aloneness not company, silence not words. Which is why yesterday I found myself walking among the trees on a dark day, doing the work of inner adjustment to the loss of three friends. 

Wendell Berry has written many poems and essays on trees. This one is less well known than it should be:

A man who walks among the trees

walks among them on a dark day

for the solace he has taken there always

from the company of the elders,

and suddenly he sees

such a grace as in all his going

he is always going toward

though never in his foreknowing:

among duller trunks and branches

a dog-wood flower-white

lighting all the woods.

Now if much of the above seems morose then I've made one of my points. But there is more to be said and Wendell Berry says it in this poem which describes the experience of light on dark days, and the grace we are always going toward. On a dark day, in the woods, suddenly we see such a grace that falls across the paths of our going, lighting all the woods.

Yesterday, looking along an avenue of autumn trees, that "dog-wood flower-white lighting" shafted across my path. (See photo above). And that grace which is gift came as a moment of recognition, an unintended so unexpected encounter with a young deer which lasted several minutes of mutual gazing through the low hanging branches.

The thing about loss, sorrow, and grief, is that like all our strong emotions, it takes something outside of ourselves to interrupt them and help us regain emotional and spiritual equilibrium. That is neither to deny the sadness of loss or tranquilise the reality of our sorrow. Rather such graced interruptions allow us to recover enough presence of mind to know more deeply what we have lost, but without forgetting all that we have gained.

"A man who walks among the trees

walks among them on a dark day

for the solace he has taken there always..."

As one example, that 37 year friendship involved fortnightly phone calls, literary conversations, shared support when life had its dark days for either of us, mutual affection, respect, trust and what can best be called in Hebrew "hesed" by which is meant faithfulness, steadfastness, dependability, personal friendship as unspoken but unmistakable covenant.

In numbering the gifts of such a presence in our lives, we catalogue what is no longer accessible by their presence in our lives. But we also enumerate the blessing and joy of having them in our lives, the privilege and burdens of shared confidences and hopes, the sheer miracle of human commitment which grows into understanding, knowing and caring for this person who has chosen us for friend. 

That's the thing about good friendships. As Berry spells it out, such companions are a dog-wood flower white lighting all the woods - including those where we walk, on dark days.  

William J Abraham 1947-2021: Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory

I have just learned of the passing of William J Abraham, to whom I owe a significant debt in my understanding of what it means to live and think as a Christian. Ever since he published The Logic of Evangelism in 1989, I have read much of what he has written. In due course I'd like to spell out further my indebtedness to this fine scholar, Methodist churchman, and philosopher theologian 

 

But for now I note two things: in 2013 William Abraham's son died. In 2017 he wrote the book Among the Ashes, in which he acknowledged that following Timothy's death, “Nothing by way of comment or explanation brought comfort, relief, or intellectual peace.”

 

Among the Ashes is Abraham's explorations into what, nevertheless, makes life liveable and hopeful again following such life diminishing loss. No false sentimentality, no dogmatic certainties grated through gritted teeth, and no pious cliches like 'everything happens for a reason'. Instead, the reconstruction of hope around the hard rock of grief, loss and sorrow, and these as aspects of love, God's and ours. Here is the last paragraph:

 

" [I]n the Christian life of suffering we walk by faith and not by sight. Given the combined weight of divine revelation, of the experience of the love of God, of the reality of conspicuous sanctity, and of our perception of divine agency in the natural world, we have more than enough to secure the life of discipleship. Moreover, the whole story of creation, freedom, sin, providence, and redemption supplies its own illuminating resources even as it provokes a whole new network of questions and puzzles. We can add to this the inescapable note of victory over suffering and death in the person and work of Christ and the extraordinary promises held forth in the gospel. In the midst of our grief and loss, these considerations are present in our minds, but they do not function as they do when we recover our equilibrium and face a future where the absence is always present. In our grief, we are coming to terms with our loves. These loves are indeed an echo of a greater Love that embraces us all and that is given to us in Christ. Yet these lesser loves have their own inimitable place in our hearts and minds; I, for one, would never want to have it otherwise."

 

Those who know our own family story will understand why we also, "would never want to have it otherwise."

A Week of Thought for the Day - Composing songs of Joy from the Circumstances of Our Lives.

Thought for the Day October 11-17, 2021

Theme: “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”

Monday

Psalm 19.8 “The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.”

There is joy in knowing God’s will, and how God wants us to be and to act and behave. Sometimes we worry about how we will know God’s will; this Psalm is telling us to do what we DO know God wills. To live a life close to God, to love God with all we are and have, to care for our neighbour, and to bear witness to Christ.

Tuesday

Psalm 4.7 “You have filled my heart with greater joy, than when their grain and new wine abound.”

Hah! Says the Psalmist. Sure there’s happiness, entertainment and a lot to enjoy in food and drink and parties. That’s not wrong, but it can never be enough. There’s a deeper joy in knowing God, in living a meaningful life of love to God, and service to Christ, who lives in us and through us. And the greater joy in being made new in Christ.

Wednesday

 Psalm 48.1-2 “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God the holy place. It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth.”

We need our minds expanded when we think of God and his purposes for this God-loved world. The whole earth shall see the glory and greatness of God. The good news is to be the bringer of joy to the whole earth. Remember Jesus command: “Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel…and I am with you always and everywhere.” Jesus, the joy of the whole earth!

Thursday

Psalm 92.4 “For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.”

All around us, every day, the clouds and the stars, the trees and the fields, our children and friends, every one of them the work of God’s hands. The blessings we count and the blessings we take for granted, but all the works of God’s hands. And the greatest work of God’s hands are seen in hands nailed to the cross, for love of every one of us – and it is out of that sorrow, sinners like us sing for joy, from grateful and forgiven hearts.

Friday

Psalm 100.1-3 “Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

The New Testament knows nothing of miserable Christians! One of the obvious characteristics of the early church was the joy that was bursting from the seams of these young communities. I’m wondering if one of the ways of recovering from the whole Covid downer, might be heartfelt prayer for a baptism of joy, a rediscovery that we are a resurrection people, the gift of an inner spring of gladness that composes songs of joy from the circumstances of our lives.

Saturday

Psalm 126.5-6 “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.”

We’re only human. Life brings us joy and sadness, peace and worry, health and illness, gain and loss. No, we can’t feel joy all the time. But if we are in Christ, and Christ in us, joy is a deep seated reality because out life is held in the firm grasp of God’s loving purposes. In the whole story of our lives there are tears – of sorrow, and of joy. But our lives will be fulfilled in the harvest of those tears, like the sower carrying sheaves, our lives will bear the fruit of the Spirit, and the harvest of Christ-likeness.

Sunday

Psalm 149.4-5 “For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Let the saints rejoice in this honour and sing for joy on their beds.”

I love this! Lying in bed singing hymns of joy. I’m wondering when any one of us last did that! That’s the thing about the Psalms – emotions are not to be suppressed, but to be either cried or sung, lament or praise, complaint or thanksgiving. It’s about being real before God. These words are about real joy, lying in bed with thoughts of gratitude, praise and the serious joy of knowing the Lord takes delight in us.

…………………………………….

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace

as you trust in Christ Jesus,

that you may overflow with hope

in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.