On Notes: Taking and Giving

I recently had the opportunity to review a book I read six months ago; I took it off the shelf prepared to read it again. Then to my surprise I found an envelope inside, covered in notes! A moment of pleasure and relief. What is it about taking notes that seems to be so helpful?

            Notes, of course, may be mere lists: shopping lists, appointments, the music teacher’s notes on which scales to practice this week. These are notes on things too frequently encountered to be worthy of memorising, because they’re going to change next time around. They might be long (the shopping) or succinct (the dentist). You don’t want to miss anything out, however, forgetting the eggs or the day of the week.

            Then there are study notes: since my book for review was neither my study nor my profession, I was surprised that I’d gone to the trouble to take notes. Study notes are usually about things we ought to remember but know quite well we can’t — at least not without a lot of revision — and even about knowing which things we ought to know. Sometimes also about where to find them. Study notes are typically about things that lack an emotional charge that might help us remember without notes.

            Some moments are easy to remember, like the time the guy blasted his horn and jammed his tank in front of me on St. Kilda Road, giving the finger as he did so. He was then stuck in traffic for the next ten minutes with the satisfaction of being in front of me instead of behind me, until he made it to the parking station that was his ardent destination. Remembering his rego number was instinctive, as such moments of hot resentment tend to stay with you, as do those when you let yourself down, or let other people down, and though you might like to forget them, you often don’t need notes to remind you of your mistakes.

            If note-taking is truly helpful, perhaps taking notes would serve to remind us of the good memories that tend to slip away if we don’t watch them. For some years I’ve kept what used to be called a Commoplace Book, a collection of quotations and references in this case on spiritual topics, all together in one place: notes on my readings. For example, this from Lao Tzu: “Act; don’t compete.” Or this, on discernment: “Obstacles, for Ignatius, were often a sign of the correctness of the undertaking … His conviction was that a great thing awakens contradiction.” (Lambert noted that). Or this, from the Commonplace Book of W. H. Auden (citing a Welsh poet): “Virginal exquisite queen, of long gentle thinking, the colour of breaking day on a deserted sea.” Such notes will surely help recall matters well to return to contemplation.

            Perhaps notes written at the end of the day could reawaken the appearance of grace, even of beauty, in our immediate past. It seems unbalanced to remember our anger, grief, or shame so readily and to forget so easily peace, inspiration, or comfort. God, after all, can forgive: how can we forget all the giving?

On Driving: Angels and Strangers.

I spend what feels like a lot of time driving the car. It may take me an hour or more to get to work, to church, to a party or an entertainment. This probably isn’t any longer than it takes most people, I know. Although driving is a skilled occupation, something about it doesn’t engage the whole mind, as perhaps it should. So what happens to the driving time?

            The time management issue arises when someone cuts you off rushing to be at the next red light before you. I’ve noted that all traffic appears to be slower on a Friday — odd, that, you’d think it would be faster, as people gallop home for the weekend — although it seems to be quicker and less complex than public transport. But driving does count as a waste of human time and the earth’s resources. And it carries its own decisions. How do you dress for driving? Not in the dust veils motorists once needed, but I’d prefer to avoid tight skirts or high heels for an hour behind the wheel.

            Some have pleasant experiences driving: the exhilaration of moving freely down country highways; the sense of independence and agency as I get myself from A to B all by myself after a period of illness when I couldn’t even get myself out of bed; the personal concert the radio or car music player will give a variety of folk with a real variety show of musical tastes: Brandenburgs to keep me awake (slow music hypnotises and the music for a massage will put you to sleep); heavy metal for the church organist; Broadway musicals for the lawyer; trumpet voluntaries for the carpenter; Eurovision for the priest. But in spite of this valuable listening time, a glance at one’s fellow commuters demonstrates all too clearly the charm and delight they find in their daily travel.

            Some of these joys are mechanical, such as driving with a flopping or scratching noise somewhere beneath the car. But more are caused by our own irritation at having to deal with so many companions on the road, with pushy elbows and blurting horns, with the risks posed by vertiginous pedestrians and other road hazards, including but not limited to cranes high in the air swinging over building sites enclosed in barricades and warnings.

            Does driving find out our failings? Do we have to be first at the light? What about our need to know what’s going on when traffic stops for ages, and we’re blocked by a matron in the civilian equivalent of an armoured personnel carrier from finding anything out? Is the need to engage with strangers getting on our nerves?

            Driving is a state of transition, a friend once said. As a widowed person, I’m in a permanent state of transition in any case, transition to an unknown destination. Would it be more relaxing or interesting driving around with company, or not? True enough, I might not trust another person’s driving, even in a taxi. The expressions ‘driving you crazy’ or ‘driving you wild’ may be sometimes accurate descriptions of what goes on behind the wheel, whereas ‘driving you peaceful’ never seems to come to pass.

            Driving is training for life, I think. It has constant change, moments of aggression, flickers of sweet acknowledgement, blockades, road works, delicate individuals in exposed positions, delays, surveillances, anxieties and rests. So our guardian angels are kept busy, as the only prayers we can offer while driving lie in our consideration and care for our neighbours on the road. And this is enough.

On Saying No: Noughts and Crosses

Sometimes, more rarely than the ideal, I find myself having to say No to someone, some project or responsibility. Some of these Nos have been draconian, and have earned me the disrespect of a number of those affected. Some were slight: easily forgiven. Some have left me with lingering regrets, some with self-congratulation. Some have seemed inevitable, as the task was just too big for my compass; some have required introspection and discernment. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could always spread joy and relief by saying Yes?

            Why do we find it so hard to say No? How do we feel when someone says No to us? How many Yeses does it take to fill a concert hall, for example, and how many does it take to keep a committee going? Do we sometimes prevent the solution to a problem by saying Yes in a situation actually requiring systematic restructure from the ground upwards, so that a communal burden can be effectively shared? Or so that bad design can be exposed and a whole new way of action be brought into being?

            I find it especially hard to say No to people’s expectations, and this may be the result of my own daring. I have a tendency to overestimate my strength. A few basic maxims are useful here, such as ‘You can’t be in two places at one time’ and ‘There’s only one of me’. One of my serious regrets may seem a small thing, but to my neighbour it was a real disappointment: the day I had to say I couldn’t drive her to a long promised dog show because I was so exhausted I could hardly get out of bed. My neighbour couldn’t drive, and she’d been training her dogs for ages. How could I let her down so? Such regrets are going to stay with me, for my neighbour died long ago.

            Composer Gustav Holst gave his daughter Imogen the advice to put her health and physical fitness before any other consideration — Imogen Holst became a composer, conductor, teacher, arts administrator, and the amanuensis of Benjamin Britten, so there were eventually many considerations — because you can only get the best out of yourself if you are in good condition, just as you can’t get the best music out of a broken-down piano: what’s needed, he said, is ‘a proper mechanism’. He felt this should come first, and he told his daughter to stop before she became tired. Now this is excellent advice. How often do we stop before we become tired?

            It’s a fact, attested in the Gospels, that Jesus said No. He said No to the Kingdoms of this world and to their glory. He said No in the first instance to the devil, the old tempter, but he said the same No to the people of Jerusalem who welcomed him as their King. He told Pilate that if he had been that worldly King, his followers would be fighting for him. Instead, he was lifted up on the cross prepared for him by the Roman authorities.

        There is in art a concept called ‘negative space’. This is the space between the shapes in a drawing, the silence between the notes in music, the emptiness at the centre of the wheel in the Tao. If we don’t take proper rest by saying No, we won’t be able to say Yes when occasions require it, often without warning, and so fulfil our obligation to be fully present for others. To get the best out of ourselves, we need a proper mechanism: we can’t drive ourselves to the brink by always saying Yes.

 

On Wishes: Wise and Well

I’ve had quite a few wishes in the last few years, including some that would obviously not come true, such as a wish that some things never had changed and that the past could be different. Sometimes such wishes take the form of regrets, but that would imply only my own inadequate actions and responses to events. Events in the past, of course, may be largely driven by others and well outside my influence. And some may be due entirely to fate.

            Myths and fairy tales from all over the world impress us with warnings against reckless wishes, everything from eternal life (no use without eternal youth) to endless riches (not too good if your daughter turns to gold). The magic box that turns the sea to salt was a favourite story from my childhood: the endlessly turning salt mill that gave of its essence too often (constantly), too fully (far too much for the land) and too unceasingly. So how can we come by an understanding of wise wishes: wishes that are wise for us to wish?

            A wish for company may lay us open to the complicating involvement of other people. A wish to be lovely or charming, when it comes true, may attract the wrong individuals. A wish for wealth can lead to the envy of friends, or to a feeling we don’t know what to do with it all: many lottery winners end by giving it all away by one means or another.

            Some of our wishes come true due to hard work and determination over many years. Sometimes these rewards rejoice us, and sometimes they don’t. The cost of arriving takes into account all the steps away from other portions: sometimes the family, sometimes the arts, or health, or travel, or seeing the world around us. Perhaps even our peace of mind. And sometimes a failure to arrive and reach our wished-for destination will be seen as a close escape.

            Wishes aren’t like prayers. A prayer must begin with a blessing, I find. Blessed is our God … and what can that God do? We can pray for help, for healing, for love or inspiration. And the answer will come on God’s terms. Do we know what wise wishes are? We might find to our surprise that we don’t want our wish to come true after all, that we are wishing instead for what we already have. We don’t have the skill or the mastery to foresee the many possible outcomes of our wishes. At all times, and in all places, a wise well-wishing is always to bless God.

           

On Ambition: Realising Our Dreams

The recent sudden unexpected death of a lovely young woman brought to mind the advice of the music professor when I was at university: he was speaking to a young cellist whose parents were concerned that she would never make a living as a musician. “They say I have to think about what I’m going to be when I finish my education,” she said. But all she wanted to do was play the cello. The professor told her: “Suppose you fall under a bus tomorrow: then it won’t be question of what you’re going to be, but of what you have been.” Music gave her joy, he said, it gave others joy to hear her play, where then was the harm in studying music?

            Ambition comes in many forms. Ignatius Loyola had military ambition: he wanted to win fame and glory on the battlefield. What he got was a severe wound that laid him up at home for a long time with nothing to read but the lives of the saints. Ignatius had to confront the idea that there is more than one kind of glory, and he could still win some of that, but not for himself. He changed his ambition, and spent the rest of his life seeking God’s glory.

            Maybe our youthful ambitions are the most valuable, as long as they lead to consistent action. As an adult student, I heartily wish I’d spent the hours of piano practice that were open to me with my earlier teachers. Even if I had the time and strength, the loss of those earlier hours would always set me back in what’s possible for me to learn now. Something called life tends to intervene. But even when it doesn’t, and skills have developed and careers brought to pass, all worldly enterprises fall apart eventually. What then are suitable ambitions when we’re older?

            The professor’s advice holds good at any age. It won’t be what we’re going to be, but what we have been. Some persons have had the ambition to build a church to stop a plague. Too many have wanted to kill all their enemies. Some who have wanted to win a million dollars have seriously regretted it when they did win.

            The professor thought it was good to do what gives joy. Beauty, harmony, love and attention give joy to others as well as oneself. Even in a small way, every day, we can build happiness within and around us through acts of beauty and mercy and kindness. We could have the ambition to reflect God’s glory through what we have been, rather than trailing regrets and lost causes behind us. Even if no one remembers, we have been part of the music, in the time of the music whose notes were sweet for as long as they lasted, sounding somewhere in the ear of God.

           

On Envy: The Worst of Vices.

I was listening to the radio as I drove home from work one night last week, and they were playing Handel’s Joseph and His Brethren. An aria struck me, where envy is described as ‘the worse of crimes’ because from it all others arise. I’ve known personally of someone who was prepared to murder for envy. It clearly leads to theft, deceit, false witness (a way of life in ancient courtrooms, and in some places testimony can still be bought and sold today), adultery, treachery, and greed. The final item will then lead to oppression of the poor, cheating in business, slave labour, and despoiling of both land and sea. Joseph’s brothers, of course, sold him into slavery out of envy. And the last of the Decalogue forbids it: do not covet anything that is your neighbour’s, because out of this all the other sins will appear.

            What do we envy?  Do I want a beautiful house, a beautiful car, or beautiful clothes? Do I want it enough to steal a car, for example? Why? Will I be more beautiful, or will my life be more beautiful? The person who was prepared to murder acquired a life in prison: that was envy’s reward. This is the secular answer.

            The spiritual answer might be more complex. Why envy at all? Every person is in a unique situation with all its faults and blessings. If I say that ‘other people’ have better health, for example, I forget that millions are dying every year around the world from malaria: the bite of one mosquito. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The rich have their sorrows as well as the poor, and some of these are not redeemable through money. The beautiful often carry their beauty as a burden, overwhelmed by the illusions of others.

            What we ourselves have is often as valuable as anything we might envy.  It can all be lost in a day, too. Do we envy what is present, what is past, or what is to come? Sitting in the pews at St. Peter’s Eastern Hill today, I heard a magnificent choir singing Arvo Pärt’s Beatitudes, and how could I envy the finest seat in the greatest opera house in the world?  I had my hearing: isn’t this enough?  And it all can be lost in a day. Life is too fragile for envy. Let us then bless God.

           

           

On Buildings: The Wear of Time.

I note that my church has awakened to a roof crisis. Yesterday was Stewardship Sunday, and among other facts that came to light, the vestry indicated how big loans had had to be taken to repair a heritage roof on a heritage building, and how dealing with the costs of maintaining historic buildings is a major item of expenditure, that needs to be identified in the ongoing budget. How often do we take account of the tendency of roofs to decay, and of other things to dismay with the inevitable wear and tear of time?

            I was reminded of a class I took in Anglican Studies when I was doing my theology degree: the lecturer advised his students to look first at the roof of any church where they were thinking of taking a clergy position. If the roof’s not sound, he said, you’ll spent all your time there raising funds to fix it, and getting nothing else done. Ironically, this professor soon found himself in England, raising seven million pounds for the roof of a venerable church in Oxford, many centuries old, a historic building if ever there was one. (I believe the writing of many grant applications formed part of this process, and the money, astonishingly, did appear).

            Even my own local house has a tendency to cost me every year on things like painting the fascia boards (wha...?) replacing weathered doors, fixing broken locks and rebuilding crumbling steps, not to mention installing guard rails and better access features due to the faults of my health. So while the building is subject to the onslaughts of time and weather, my body is also showing signs and symptoms. I won’t discuss my car, superstitiously, since it’s booked in for service this week and some major item always needs to be replaced.

            I’ve tended to run my finances on current expenses only, and I suspect this is what happened to the vestry before the roof enlightenment experience. The revelation has occurred that there’s actually less money in my banking for current expenses than I thought, given that more than you’d imagine has to be set aside to combat the depredations of time. Everything decays, as the Buddha says, not only buildings but health, relationships and even spiritual signs. Unless the worn parts are renewed, the eventual account is startling.

            How much time and concentration, then, needs to be set aside for renewal of our spiritual relationships? Do we still dream on, with an image of God formed in our childhood, drawing from a depleting source of energy and life? How much reading, spiritual conversation, liturgy and meditation do we need to do to increase our understanding and commitment to divine matters? How much more love of neighbour do we need to show forth, and in what form? Because mark my words, things are wearing out, and we don’t want the rain coming in.