Living Wittily

1 John: A Love Letter to the Church. (Thought for the Day March 20-26)

Monday

I John 1.5 “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 

When Jesus stood up at the Feast of Tabernacles and said, “I am the Light of the world”, his disciple John remembered that 50 years later. Light is the source of life, so is Jesus. Light enables us to see the truth, so does Jesus. Light guides us on our way; we don’t know the way ahead of us, but Jesus does, and he is the light ahead of us and the light we walk towards.

Tuesday

1 John 1.6-7 “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

A hypocrite is someone who pretends to be what they’re not. To say we are a Christian but make a habit of acting unchristianly means we do not do the truth. We are all talk and no action, all claim but no evidence. The true follower of Jesus walks in the light of Jesus and lives in fellowship with other followers. John is saying that the way a person lives should bear scrutiny by others. Otherwise….

Wednesday

1 John 1.7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

We can all fail to live out our faith, make mistakes, and behave unchristianly. When John describes our way of life as a walk, he means the overall direction of travel, the things we make a habit of, the recognisable characteristics of the life we live. Sin is to miss the turning, to walk into the shadow, to behave out of character. Such sin is forgiven by the love of Jesus, the light that purifies. God is the Light that searches and heals our brokenness. The Light of the World is life-giving and life-changing. 

Thursday

1 John 1.8-9 “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness”.

To confess our sins to God is to walk into the light, out of the shadows of guilt, shame, regret, and remembered failure. God is faithful and just – in Christ God has shown that he is on our side, and to be trusted. “There is no sin so deep that His love is not deeper still.” Corrie Ten Boom’s timeless reminder.

Friday

 1 John 2.1-2 “But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Sometimes a hymn is the best commentary:

“On the mount of crucifixion fountains opened deep and wide; through the floodgates of God's mercy flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love, like mighty rivers, poured incessant from above, and heav'n's peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.”

Saturday

I John 2.3 “We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.”

As straightforward as that. John was remembering 50 years on, the words Jesus spoke after washing the disciples’ feet: “If you love me you will obey what I command.” Love isn’t only emotion and feeling; it is faithful commitment and loving action towards the one we love. And, of course, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” In the life of the church there is not other bottom line.

Sunday

1 John 2.  “If anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.”

So there it is. This short letter was once described as “The Tests of Life.” The litmus test of Christian discipleship is to seek with all of our hearts to live as Jesus did. The barcode identifier of a Christian is one who obeys Jesus word. What is being looked for on the spiritual cardiograph, is a growing love for God.

…………………..

Kindle, O Lord, in our hearts we pray, the flame of that love which never ceases, that it may burn in us, and give light to others.

May we shine forever in your temple, set on fire with that eternal light of yours which puts to flight the darkness of this world:

                                                            In the name of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.

Tikkun Olam, Mariupol, and Not Knowing What to pray.

The Hebrew script for Tikkun Olam - "to repair the world." This was the first stage of the tapestry "Bright Wings" which I completed in January 2021. The finished piece hangs above my reading chair.

 

Tonight I watched the Russian President walking around Mariupol as if he was attending an official opening of some new project. In reality he was in a city that was destroyed on his orders, where hospitals were bombed on his orders, and where the numbers of those killed, injured, and displaced adds hugely to the sum of human suffering inflicted by Russia under this man.

 

Sometimes we are given unlooked for clarity on the texts we have found the hardest verses of Scripture to interpret. "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8. 26)

 

I've never liked the phrase, "There are no words", when confronted by tragedy. Of course there are words - angry words, truth-telling words, judgemental words, anguished words. More true to say, "I can't think of the right words." And perhaps that's because we are having a hard time interpreting our emotions, and understanding our own thoughts.

 

That's when Romans 8.26 comes on like a light bulb. Prayer isn't only about our fluency of words and lucidity of thought. Sometimes we offer the Spirit of God space to pray in our hearts with words beyond our knowing and that are beyond human utterance.

 

The astonishing truth is that the Spirit of God participates in the suffering of creation. God is present in suffering love amongst those whose world is broken, even in Mariupol. I want to pray judgement, punishment, justice - but somewhere deeper than I can possibly know, the Spirit prays within me with the pathos of God, and in words beyond articulation in any human voice.

Tikkun Olam.

Spirit of God repair our world,

repair our hopes,

repair our communities,

repair our humanity,

repair our hearts,

Tikkun Olam.

Peace-making is a Call to Repent of Creating the "Repugnant Cultural Other."

Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

I am tired of culture wars. I'm weary of conflicted opinions fuelled by endless anger, contested worldviews excluding each other, and confrontational ideologies as the default of public discourse encountering disagreement.

Susan harding coined the phrase "repugnant cultural other." It is a neat and ugly description of that process of demonising the other, misrepresenting the argument, refusal to understand the person, and the evacuation of empathy and compassion the better to wound and reject those who think differently, live differently and are different, and therefore a threat to the way we want the world to be.

As if who and what we are is the norm to be imposed by some form of imperial imposition by the loudest voices and most ruthless strategists. 

Culture war is a battle for the supremacy of one viewpoint over others, a refusal of tolerance, often accompanied by a self-righteous claim to truth and right. Tolerance is not weakness if it is holding to our own convictions while doing our best to listen, understand, and respect the convictions of others. Intolerance is not always strength; most times it is insecurity with the volume turned up.

Peacemaking is a call to repent of all that. Not just be sorry for waging war on our own behalf, but to turn away from the very concept of culture as a war. But turn towards what?

How about turning away from culture war towards the counter-cultural Kingdom Jesus came to announce, inaugurate, and demonstrate in his own ministry? If repentance is a change of direction, then continually and faithfully, I am called to a determined turning away from that inner violence that sees the world as a battlefield, and towards that inner orientation to the peacemaking God.

For the avoidance of doubt, Jesus said: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

And in case we miss it, Jesus also said: " But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."

Then there's this. Jesus' most ardent follower was once his sworn enemy. Paul waged his own culture war against followers of the Nazarene. Until that is, he met the Nazarene called Jesus. Blinded by hatred and his own implacable sense of being right, he was even more and literally blinded by the dazzling intensity of the risen Jesus asking him what the hell he thought he was doing! Hate and hell are siblings.  

Twenty years later Paul wrote this, unmistakably based on what Jesus said:

"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written:

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Rom 12.18-21)

Oh I know. Jesus wasn't slow to confront, to contradict, to contest. Gentle Jesus meek and mild is an image of hymn-book imagination. And Paul could also rage and engage in culture war tactics, this time on the side of Jesus and in Jesus' name.

But. Alongside all the confrontational episodes in Paul's letters, are the ethical constraints which draw their power and motivation from God's love revealed in the crucified Christ, which triumphs in the life-giving life of the risen Lord, and is made effective by the Spirit in the life of the Christian community which is the Body of Christ called to embody the reconciling love of God.

I Corinthians 13 is not a nice wee poem about being nice to people; it is a call to a life-discipline of peacemaking by being someone for whom love is the primary norm in following Jesus.

The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22 are not unattainable ideals, nor are they a warm and pious wishlist; they are the natural outgrowth of walking in the Spirit of Jesus, the shaping of the character towards Christ-likeness.

Philippians 2.5-11 describe the self-giving love of One who was in very nature God who emptied himself, took on human form and became obedient to death on the cross.This is not a call to follow Jesus' example of utter self-emptying and self-giving love. How could it be? It's actually part of an argument for peacemaking in the community that is the Body of Christ. "Let this mind-set be yours which was also in Christ Jesus...Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves."

Which brings us back to the Sermon on the Mount with its call to enter the Kingdom of God, to live by the values of that Kingdom, to hear and obey the words of Jesus and live differently, counter-culturally and alternatively to the power games, anxious possessiveness, and competitive rivalries of the prevailing culture which by and large, "doesn't do God."

Blessed are the spiritually hungry, the sorrowing, the meek, the hungry and thirsty, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. These are not the characteristics of the culture warrior, the keyboard warrior, the insecure and intolerant who needs an enemy in order to have an identity over and against this "other". 

I'm trying to explain what I think and how I feel in the divisive acrimony that has become our established civic and political style. I'm calling in question our way of confronting real and deep issues of cultural health - such as:

how we treat other people, human like us, who land on our shores in small boats;

how we are unable to discuss all too human experiences such as those raised by human sexuality and gender identity;

how far too often, in too many places, we fail to welcome and embrace difference and diversity in the tribes and languages and peoples and nations and cultures and races that make up the human world, Revelation 59-10.  

how we address the effects of climate change without polarisation and paralysis caused by greed, fear, ignorance, denial, and without allowing the loudest most powerful voices to silence the cries of those whose human future depends on the decisions made by the powerful. 

So, I go back to the teaching of Jesus, and the wisdom of the Son of God - about loving my neighbour because I love God, about being a peacemaker like God, and about praying, "Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

I for one can't combine the mindset of the culture warrior with the mindset of the ambassador of Christ entrusted with such a ministry of reconciliation. And I have no intention of resigning my ambassadorship. Why? Because "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not counting people's sins against them...we are Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us." Reconciliation is the identity recognition barcode of those who represent Christ in the arenas where culture wars take place. 

The Politics of Mercy.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

 

Should the teaching of Jesus as, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount, be considered relevant as a standard by which individual Christians and Christian communities judge the policies of the Government of the day?

 

Is the parable of the Good Samaritan, and Jesus words "Go and do likewise" merely about how I treat other individuals, or is it a principle that guides how human communities are to respond to human brokenness?

 

The picture is a postcard of a painting of the Sermon on the Mount. It came from a friend who attended the David Hockney Exhibition in 2010, and who has never been persuaded that this Christian thing has much to offer in our current mess. It sits in my postcard holder, which I can see on the shelf behind my computer, any time I can bear to watch the debates in the House of Commons.

 

So I guess you could say I'm asking for a friend.

Lent with R S Thomas: "...love questioning is love blinded with excess of light."

There is no surprise that the eucharist is an important theme in the poetry of R S Thomas. Well of course it is, he is a priest, and when all else fails him there is substance and reality in the bread and the chalice. Again and again he alludes to the broken bread and body, the blood of Christ, the Cross and the chalice.  Likewise the sea and in particular its movement and noise, the waves and the wind, the tides ebbing and flowing, the unseen depths of an ocean filled with mystery and dark with secrets.

The two images of restless sea and celebrated eucharist are brought together in a brief poem

The breaking of the wave
outside echoed the breaking
of the bread in his hands.

The crying of the seagulls
was the cry from the Cross;
Lama Sabachthani. He lifted

the chalice, that crystal in
which love questioning is love
blinded with excess of light.¹

Here, in an ascetic economy of words, Thomas tells the double drama - breaking waves and breaking bread; seagull's cry and Jesus cry of dereliction; sun reflecting on the sea and light radiating from the silver chalice, and the vast ocean and the fruit of the earth and of human hands are each and all enfolded in love.

This is Thomas at his most devotional, when love is allowed to be perfected as the radiated blessing of the Redeemer Creator. The chalice is "that crystal in which love questioning is love blinded by excess of light."

So few words, such theological intelligence, an apophatic theology of illumination, an experience of love asking for proof of truth, and being blinded by what it cannot truly or fully ever see or comprehend.

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not comprehended it", said John in a Prologue whose depth theology caused Thomas's heart to vibrate with sympathy, and with questions. And of that hardest question of all? About whether God's love is believable?

The answer is broken bread, a seagull's cry, and a crystal clear chalice radiating the light of Creation and Redemption. The beatific vision may well be described in such terms, when "love questioning is love blinded with excess of light." Or in the words of another Apostle, when seeing through a glass darkly gives way to seeing face to face, because "faith hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love."

1. The Echoes Return Slow, MacMillan, 1988, page 69.

(The photo was taken on the Aberdeen beach, the seagull obligingly posing on the horizon)

 

There is no surprise that the eucharist is an important theme in the poetry of R S Thomas. Well of course it is, he is a priest, and when all else fails him there is substance and reality in the bread and the chalice. Again and again he alludes to the broken bread and body, the blood of Christ, the Cross and the chalice.  Likewise the sea and in particular its movement and noise, the waves and the wind, the tides ebbing and flowing, the unseen depths of an ocean filled with mystery and dark with secrets.

The two images of restless sea and celebrated eucharist are brought together in a brief poem

The breaking of the wave
outside echoed the breaking
of the bread in his hands.

The crying of the seagulls
was the cry from the Cross;
Lama Sabachthani. He lifted

the chalice, that crystal in
which love questioning is love
blinded with excess of light.¹

Here, in an ascetic economy of words, Thomas tells the double drama - breaking waves and breaking bread; seagull's cry and Jesus cry of dereliction; sun reflecting on the sea and light radiating from the silver chalice, and the vast ocean and the fruit of the earth and of human hands are each and all enfolded in love.

This is Thomas at his most devotional, when love is allowed to be perfected as the radiated blessing of the Redeemer Creator. The chalice is "that crystal in which love questioning is love blinded by excess of light."

So few words, such theological intelligence, an apophatic theology of illumination, an experience of love asking for proof of truth, and being blinded by what it cannot truly or fully ever see or comprehend.

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not comprehended it", said John in a Prologue whose depth theology caused Thomas's heart to vibrate with sympathy, and with questions. And of that hardest question of all? About whether God's love is believable?

The answer is broken bread, a seagull's cry, and a crystal clear chalice radiating the light of Creation and Redemption. The beatific vision may well be described in such terms, when "love questioning is love blinded with excess of light." Or in the words of another Apostle, when seeing through a glass darkly gives way to seeing face to face, because "faith hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love."

1. The Echoes Return Slow, MacMillan, 1988, page 69.

(The photo was taken on the Aberdeen beach, the seagull obligingly posing on the horizon)

A community knowingly grounded in God's love.

Always, I return to Walter Brueggemann when I need a shove. We all need someone to motivate us towards continuing and keeping going, to restore faith resilience and frayed hopes, to make us pay more attention to what in heaven's name the church is for!

"The church as an alternative community in the world is not a 'volunteer association', and accident of human preference. The church as a wedge of newness, as a foretaste of what is coming, as a home for the odd ones, is the work of God's sovereign mercy. For all its distortedness, the church peculiarly hosts God's power for life."

"Imagine any community without a church. For it is that odd community, knowingly grounded in God's love, that persistently raises human questions of neighbour justice, and that persistently enacts and answer to these questions in love and care."

"The church in a quite specific way is the place where large dreams are entertained, songs are sung, boundaries are crossed, hurt is noticed, and the weak are honoured. The church has no monopoly on these matters,. Its oddity, however, is that it takes this agenda as its peculiar and primary business. In all sorts of unnoticed places, it is the church that raises the human questions." 

(Texts Under Negotiation. The Bible and Postmodern Imagination. Fortress press, 1993, pages 36-37)

There is an optimism all through those sentences. I know, the church doesn't always live up to those demanding words. But when it does it comes close to that astonishingly grace-laden metaphor, that the church is the Body of Christ.

And by the way, Dietrich Bonhoeffer for one, took that metaphor far more seriously than mere metaphor. When Paul said, "You are the Body of Christ", he was saying something far more demanding, radical and realistic than the children's-talk banality of "And that's a bit like Jesus!"

Not merely, "Your are like the Body of Christ"; not even "You are to strive to be like the Body of Christ". To use the more technical term, ontologically, in reality, as a matter of fact, "You are the Body of Christ."

For Bonhoeffer the Pauline maxim means, the church is Christ existing as community. Where the church gathers in every location and time, the risen Christ by his own Word and promise, is in the midst as the one who animates, guides and gives the community its identity and character as, in reality, the Body of Christ.

All of that is implied in Brueggemann's words, and provides the theological sub-structure of the church's ministry and mission, or its mission of ministry. The church raises, as Jesus invariably did and does, the human questions of justice and neighbourliness, of reconciliation and peace, of welcome and friendship, hospitality and love. When the church fails in this mission of ministry, it weakens its identity, and needs to hear again the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, "You are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it." Jesus' agenda is "the church's peculiar and primary business." 

In that sense, every church business meeting should have an agenda shaped by what we believe ourselves to be. "We are the Body of Christ". Now. Here. So what is it that we should be doing? If this church is Christ living through this community what should we give our energy, money, time and abilities to?

I think in those sentences above, Brueggemann points us to some of the essential life-giving oddities of Christian commitment. They could quite easily be turned into prayers for guidance, and prayers of intercession, by a community "knowingly grounded in God's love." 

The Importance of the Arts as Educators of Our Culture.

 

“A symphony orchestra today costs less than a football player, what legacy do we expect to leave to our children? Culture doesn't exist to make profit, it exists to educate. If this doesn’t change, in future generations superficial and very dangerous people will prevail”.

Richard Muti

 

I agree with Muti in all kinds of ways, but offer two thoughts.

 

First, culture is not a one way exchange - culture exists to educate, but that culture is founded on values either humane or less humane, and therefore on an agreed ethic. What happens when a culture's ethical values move from human wellbeing as priority, to economic profit and power as priority? One consequence is that such a culture perpetuates the very values that makes for dangerous people.

 

My second thought is about the importance therefore of those who are counter-cultural for the sake of improving the prevailing culture. Critique of cultural goals, norms and priorities is one of the most important tasks of the musician, artist, poet, and indeed all for whom human values of common good and community building, of compassion and respect for persons. How do we influence that which a culture educates us towards, and when necessary help recover an ethic for human flourishing?

 

To return to Muti and why he is so right - our current culture is precisely the one now fine tuned to produce dangerous people.

Thought for the days of this week: "And he opened his mouth and taught them saying..."

This postcard sits where it can be seen from my desk. 'The Sermon on the Mount III (after Claude)', by David Hockney. It was brought back by a friend fortunate enough to get a ticket for one of Hockney's exhibitions in London, over a decade ago.

For Christians, perhaps two of the most pay attention words we can hear is, "Jesus said..." And the distilled essence of Jesus' teaching begins with, "And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying..."

Jesus Said…

Monday

Jesus said:  “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25.31-46)

To see the presence of Jesus in the face of those who are vulnerable, powerless and in need of support, is a fundamental principle in following and serving Jesus.Full stop.

Tuesday

Jesus said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22.37-38)

We don’t need detailed rules. Just two barcodes of discipleship – Love God with everything we are and have, and love our neighbour no less than we love ourselves. Simple. But not cheap. Costly love never is. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands…”

Wednesday

Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Luke 9.23-24)

Daily. Luke is the Evangelist who remembers that word. Discipleship is an everyday commitment. That’s good news for when we fail, make mistakes, or want to start again. Life isn’t something we cling to, but something we give ourselves to – the best deal in town is to give ourselves in service to God and neighbour.

Thursday

Jesus said: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Mercy. That mixture of compassion, generosity, welcome and inconvenience that makes one human being help another. For Christians, to love others as God loves us, for Jesus’ sake. Jesus told a story about that. It involved a Samaritan, “the one who showed mercy” – same word in both texts. So, go and do likewise!

Friday

Jesus said: “Not just seven times, but as many as seventy-seven times.”

Yes, he’s talking about forgiveness, answering Peter’s question about how many times a person should be forgiven by us. If you’re still counting then you’re not forgiving. The benchmark for comparisons isn’t a number, but the vast incalculable debt God has forgiven us. There’s no comparison between what any of us have to forgive, and what we have been forgiven. Just remember the Cross which makes forgiveness possible as gift and grace. Lord give us a forgiving disposition.

Saturday

Jesus said: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that belong to God.” (Mark 12.17)

You can’t be a Christian who doesn’t do politics. All the other things Jesus said about following him, taking up the cross, loving our neighbour, showing mercy, living out our forgiveness – they don’t stop at the front door of our personal private lives. Every time we walk out that door we go into a world where what Jesus says still has, and must have, a decisive influence on our public life. Of course Governments and politics don’t work on the basis of who Jesus is and what Jesus said – but we do. And that must shape and guide what we think, do and say about the issues of the day.

Sunday

Jesus said: “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3.20-21)

What we do when no one sees us is a good clue to who we really are. When someone is caught out doing something shameful or hurtful or dishonest these days, the ready-made excuse is an apology and statement, “That’s not who I am.” Well, yes it is. Truth is fundamental to good character. Transparency is like a window; light shines through it, and we can see through it. Everything we do is in the sight of God; live, said Jesus, in such a way that people can see through you, and see a life of love for God and neighbour.

Eternal God and Father, you create us by your power, and redeem us by your love; guide and strengthen us, by your Spirit, that we may give ourselves in love and service to one another, and to you,

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

Lent with R. S. Thomas: "the unknown listener and the human search for meaning."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'A Bird's Prayer'

A bird's prayer is its song,

addressed to nobody

but the unknown listener 

to its feathered vernacular.

 

Man's prayer is a trickle

of language gathering to a reservoir

to be drawn on by the thirsting

mind in its need for meaning.¹

Poets' Meeting. George Herbert, R. S. Thomas and the Argument with God, is an intriguingly rich acknowledgement of Thomas's critical appreciation of Herbert's poetry. One of Herbert's most effective sonnets is 'Prayer II', a sustained catena of descriptive clauses that nowhere uses the verb 'to be', and therefore a poem which offers a long menu of options as to what prayer may be at any given time, in the mind and heart of any given human being. The poem ends with a phrase of almost playful profundity: "something understood."

That phrase stirs in the memory when I read the last words of this short poem by Thomas: "the thirsting / mind in its need for meaning." When a poet like Thomas reads and rereads the work of another poet, (and Thomas edited a Choice of Herbert's verse for Faber), it's highly likely that much of the language and content is retained, consciously or unconsciously, and later reminted in different form and words.

To Herbert's 14 lines of non-argument and non-definitions of what prayer is, Thomas does provide a definition of what prayer is. And it reads like a further outworking of that spiritually reticent and modest claim that prayer is, at least, or at most, 'something understood'. Not everything. Nothing final. But something. On full show throughout the prayer, but especially its closing clause, Herbert's genius in reining in the spiritual arrogance that thinks communion with God can be exhaustively, or even sufficiently reduced to the controlling definitions of human language. Such linguistic precision and theological control, Thomas scorned. But the urge to understand, the desire to know, the irresistible frustration of the mystery, that inner drive to understanding, that he recognised within himself.

The last stanza is one unpunctuated sentence defining what prayer is, but without clarifying beyond the thirsting mind with its confessed need for meaning. In contrast the first stanza pauses at the first line, the comma alerting the reader to the simplicity of what is said, and at first a feeling that enough is said.

"A bird's prayer is its song." I could almost live with that as a lovely fusion of ornithology and creation spirituality!

But the stanza continues, raising a question that has long exercised philosophical theologians, 'To whom is prayer addressed? The answer Thomas provides has its own ambiguities, "the unknown listener.' The bird sings regardless of being heard; the beauty and lyrical sound have their own meaning. But that won't do. The poet is sure enough that the prayer is addressed, but only to the most limited of audiences, 'the unknown listener', and one who understands the 'feathered vernacular', the common speech of the bird. Who is the unknown listener? Does it matter if they are known, recognised, even there? Who better understands the 'feathered vernacular' than the unknown listener, the originating impulse of the singer of the song? 

Compared to the song of the bird, human prayer is not music but speech, not song but language. The 'trickle of language', is likened to the stream that replenishes the reservoir. But a reservoir of what? Not the mind, the thirsting mind is what draws from the reservoir. Each of us create, find and borrow the words we use as we develop our own style of speech, and prayer. Liturgical repetition is a regular trickle of language which forms us in a tradition, and slowly leaves its deposits that nurture the spiritual life. What we read and sing, countless conversations which are the fabric of friendships and relation building, the words of intimacy with those closest to us, our inner responses to goodness, beauty and truth, the whole inner life becomes the reservoir of what and who we are becoming.

It is from this continual trickle of the gathered experience of relationships, language, people, place, memory and self-awareness, that the inner reservoir of identity and unique individuality of who we are is continually being formed, "to be drawn on by the thirsting / mind in its need for meaning."

"Drawn on" can, of course, mean either drawn as in attracted and pulled towards, or drawn as in water from a well or reservoir. Here, however, the poet intends the verb 'draw' to relate particularly to the image of the reservoir as resource to be drawn on - to construct meaning, to formulate thought, and only then to seek the translation of thought and meaning back into the trickle of language. 

Such a short poem, but the singing bird unselfconsciously making music for whoever happens to hear, and the thirsting mind's restless search for meaning, contrasts with some poignancy with the deeply human longing to know, to understand, to discover who it is that may, or may not, hear the song. There is, I think a wistfulness in the contrast, the poet producing an elegant comparison of bird and man, song and language, the unknown listener and the human search for meaning, and the longing for some tangible sign that what the mind draws on and ponders and gives language to, may eventually be spoken, and then heard by the unknown listener.

Here as in so many poems, spiritual autobiography is woven through the poem. What we are reading and therefore hearing, is the voice of experience, a theology of longing. Thomas sees and hears a bird sing its prayer for the sake of singing to its unknown listener, while for him prayer is much more complicated. As if he is looking at his own reflection, gazing into his own reservoir of language, his prayer a search for meaning, purpose, and the unknown listener who will hear his song, and shape from the reservoir of his language, 'something understood.' ²

1. R. S. Thomas. Uncollected Poems. (Eds.) Tony Brown and Jason Walford Davies, Bloodaxe, 2013, page 175.
2. All the photos on this post are my own, and my personal intellectual property. Please ask permission to reproduce them on another platform. Thank you. 

A Morning at the University of Aberdeen.

 

 

When the sky is blue in a way that seems to make the word blue a redundant adjective,

and you're walking amongst buildings centuries old and recently constructed,

and you spend an hour sharing coffee and back and forth conversation with a colleague about all things theological,

and you come out and look at a world busy with the work of the human community who make all of this a living space,

then saying 'thank you' is a way of saying yes to the good things highlighted by a sun intending to shine all day!