On Time and the Novel

A few weeks ago, all the clocks stopped working at my place. The one by my bedside was losing twenty minutes a day; the one in the kitchen the same; my wristwatch lost a bit more every time I looked at it, and my pocket watch was half an hour out.The clocks recovered with new batteries, and a trip to the watchmaker replaced another battery, but the wristwatch had to be cleaned and reset and has been ‘monitored’: I’m told it has lost no time in three days, and now can come home. The jeweller informed me that hand wound watches have to be calibrated, as a little grit can disturb them: watchmaking is a science, she said.

            There's been a project running around Facebook lately that asks people to list their 10 most influential novels. Some interpret this broadly and list their most influential books; some include children’s books, and some non-fiction. I tried to stick to novels, but included children’s books, like The Eagle of the Ninth.

            My boss, Philip Harvey, is a deeply intuitive thinker who as he lists his books includes an exegesis based on the basic principles of each type of book, although he claims to have no system for how to read novels. Ulysses is ‘the greatest comic novel in English’ and Finnegan’s Wake ‘the most terrifying verbal object in world literature’ and on his separate list of 10 children’s novels, The Tailor of Gloucester, ‘a story of the actions of grace.’

            When I looked at my list and tried to make sense of it, I thought that a lot of my most influential novels had to do with time. The Magic Mountain tells us on its first page that it deals with the passage of time and ‘the pastness of the past.’ Proust’s volumes state time as their theme in the title. I might be in search of lost time myself because I show such a preference for historical fiction. Memoirs of Hadrian is set in the Roman Empire; The Nutmeg of Consolation during the Napoleonic era. A Study in Scarlet paints a particular view of Victorian England. I think the pastness of the past appeals to me; I find it more interesting than the future, which is unknown, but which the past illuminates.

            The action of The Magic Mountain comprises seven years. While the main character is sunk in every kind of philosophical debate, artistic manifestation, health concern and family complication, the external world is keeping its own time, so that Hans Castorp suddenly finds himself drafted into the army as WWI breaks out, where all the seven years’ efforts to keep him alive may very possibly come to nothing. It strikes me that this is how time deals with us. We are so deeply engaged with our own lives, and we have to wake up sometimes and look around at what the world has been doing in our absence.

            Even the children’s books The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, although they are fantasies with a religious subtext, show this inexorable passage of time: for all the magical and mystical achievements of the heroes, the great city falls in the end, due to the carelessness of its people, and even its name is lost to history.

            History is what we are living today. And it’s good to remember the name of our city. I’m going to collect my watch, and watch it keep time, and watch time pass.

On hardness of heart, and contempt of God's Word and Commandment.

From the time of Matthew Brady, during the American Civil War, photographs of war dead have been choreographed to affect the public mind. We run out of words to express the horrors of the wars, invasions, and destructions of our times, although Euripides, Shakespeare, and the Bible have told it all before.

            What is hardness of heart? Are our hearts in danger of being hardened by exposure to such demonic images? Or are we instead to be awakened?

            I was amazed last week to have a conversation with someone who claimed in all seriousness that evil does not exist. Everything takes place on a personal level. Everyone is misunderstood. To see all is to forgive all.

            I take strong exception to this view. If we live at peace for generations, we may forget the devastation, cruelty, violence and degradation: the common coin of war. Most of what we see today, we have seen before, only now we see it faster, and infinitely reproducible.

            In The Trojan Women, Euripides gives us Cassandra, who speaks for women raped, sent into slavery, and murdered; Hecuba, whose poignant farewell to her little grandson as he is handed over to be thrown from a cliff to his death tells unbearably of all children relentlessly slain; Andromache, defenceless after her husband’s death in battle. The piteous anxiety of those awaiting their fate when their men have all been slaughtered is left to the chorus to sing.

            Photojournalists capture many, but not all, the images of war and destruction. Some films and photographs are made by the violent themselves: the recording of their deeds is part of their pride in them, and part of the punishment of their victims. (Such film may have further purposes also.) When journalists go into danger to secure these images their motivation is often to awaken the world, not to let us rest but to put into remembrance what has happened and what is happening. To be witnesses.

            A martyr is a witness: that’s the meaning of the word. And so many journalists have been and are being martyrs for the truth. They witness to the contempt of God’s Word and Commandment — to love, and not to hate — that we pray to be delivered from in the Litany. God commands love: love for God first, and then for humankind, God’s living image. The images of violence depict the desecration of the image of God. And this is evil. I think it’s a good, if limited and partial definition of evil: desecration. What God makes holy you must not profane.

            For those who repent, forgiveness is possible. For those who take pride in their violent deeds, God is their judge. For ourselves, we pray to be delivered from hardness of heart. To heed the martyrs, to be awakened, for our hearts to be broken, broken open and shared with our tears.

On Reaping What We Sow.

A few days ago I had a pleasant surprise. While I was standing at the supermarket checkout, a lovely young mother of two active boys hailed me by a former name. At first I didn’t know who I was; I didn’t recognise her, for I’d last seen her when she was ten years old. I used to teach ballet, and here was one of my students reappearing to me. This is an example of reaping what we sow.

            Past activities prove to leave a lasting imprint. You might be so busy from day to day that you haven’t time to think about a word carelessly cutting deep, or indeed a moment of praise or support that will bear up another for a long time. You might think you’re engaged in a hobby or have put on a one- time- only party or have just volunteered to help out, to say nothing of being in a line of work that’s going to mark you for the rest of your life, even after you changed jobs or got a new vocation. You might be practicing and think it’s only practice. Yet all of these have the potential for you to reap what you have sown: the bad and the good.

            It doesn’t stop there, though. You might reap what others have sown. This again can be the bad and the good. We acknowledge our debt to those of the past who have left us valuable ideas, institutions, works of art and the public benefactions of our culture. We may show gratitude as we consider our families, the difficulties they faced and the generosity they showed as they passed on to us their attentions, their educations, their friendships, their material goods as well as their genes. We reap what they sowed every day.

            We may also reap what the feckless, confused or malicious among us have sowed whether in moments of distraction or deliberate harm. For example, from the drunken driver who causes a road accident we might reap anything from a broken arm to a grave.

            Entire nations may reap what they have sown. Environmental disasters can result from blind government policies or private greed; diseases can plague the population where the public health is neglected. Even more commonly, nations may reap what others have sown, in the form of economic catastrophes,exploitation, invasions and wars.

            These are seeded not only by other nations but sometimes by individuals. The ministers of governments, most particularly the leaders of governments, bear heavy responsibility for the crop of human welfare or human suffering laid down on their watch. Pious emperors and kings, classed as martyrs of the faith (like Charles I of England or Nicholas II of Russia) have nonetheless bloodied their lands through weakness (disguised as inflexibility), arrogance, and failure of understanding. A glance at the state of the world may see this in play.

            Solomon prayed for wisdom, and was granted it. When rulers pray only for power, the path of wisdom is lost, and many innocent persons reap bountifully of misery.

            If you want to know what the future holds, and what of your own you may reap, take a look at what you are doing today. It will have consequences, both good and bad. And pray that all the powers of this world may be given hearts of mercy and justice. That is, to have a harvest of wholesomeness and peace. Amen.

             

           

MH17: On Deliverance from Evil

Some say that reading the news is bad for your health. Surely it is often bad for your peace of mind. This week has featured progressing catastrophes in the Middle East, the violent end of a civilian plane as it fell to earth over a zone of civil war, ongoing sieges, mass kidnappings and sectarian murders in parts of Africa. And that’s just today’s reporting.

            The writers of the Bible, some of them historians, understood fighting over the land. Very little seems to have changed since those ancient days with the cruelties denounced by the prophets. Micah knows about those who ‘devise wickedness and evil deeds’ and then ‘perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away; they oppress householder and house.’ (Micah 2:1-2) ‘Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man’ says Psalm 140, ‘preserve me from the violent man … Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked…’ (KJV). The violent are much with us today, for it seems no time or place has been free of them: often their deeds carried out in the name of religion.

            The width of such tragedy is notable. There are complaints of greater interest in the fallen plane, with its Western and European context, as comparative silence rests over the current disasters in the Middle East. Sometimes, I think, the problem is not so much lack of interest as lack of words to express our continuing appalled despair. Yet where we fall within the context, where everyone may know someone who knows someone who was on that plane, interest and perhaps comment is natural.

            Matthew records that ‘from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force’ (Matt 11:12). This, to me, is still the case. The kingdom of God particularly favours children; indeed one must be childlike in order to enter it. Yet we find at the hands of the violent, neither ancient sacred monuments nor tender young children are spared.

            Morally speaking, are the deeds of the violent due to original sin, or is there an active spirit of evil at work in the world? The faculty of justice, the chief virtue that inclines us to give to everyone what properly belongs to them, is a divine quality too often lacking in humankind. Original sin, as I understand it, is the likelihood that human beings will fail in justice due to our faults and limitations. And this is a mark that we are not divine; however, we are not animals either. We seem to possess both reason and revelation, and often to ignore both.

            I’m no philosopher: I doubt that I could address these questions if I were. Yet I know that when we pray, we call upon two sides of this question. ‘Do not put us to the test’ says the Lord’s prayer, or ‘Lead us not into temptation; save us from the time of trial.’ Surely whoever brought down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 failed the test, abandoned justice, and gave in to faults and limitations to which humanity is subject.

            But then we also pray: ‘Deliver us from evil. ‘Us’ in this verse, being the entire human race. The destroyed persons, the devastated lands, both the most ancient and the most recent, belong to everyone, everywhere. We pray for divine justice. We pray for deliverance from evil.

On Your Spiritual History

Recently I was interviewed by someone who wanted to know my thoughts about God. This interview was fascinating in many ways, but the initial question took me back a bit. The interviewer wanted to know about my spiritual history: how had I related to questions of God from my earliest beginnings?

            You know, I found this question hard to answer. I realise — looking back on my reply — that I answered largely in terms of my experience of institutional religion. I said I was brought up on the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (1662) in the High Church Anglican tradition. And as a result, my vision of God was of a King, a supreme monarch, and that there were good reasons for this perception, rooted in the Reformation. I related how this came to feel antique, mediaeval, and somewhat oppressive, and how the arguments of my atheist boyfriend encouraged me to leave off going to church, although I didn’t agree with his position.

            And this in spite of being grateful today for Cranmer and King James as the gift of the English language, its beauty, and its spirituality in a form that is in one way at least, eternal.

            My travels through various forms of religious involvement, both within Christianity and outside it, I described by naming things, places, denominations. Where did I go, when God was no longer a king?

            Although later in the interview we fell into a deep discussion of prayer, I found on looking back that my awkwardness in answering that first question hid something interesting. And that, I think, is story.

            We all have a spiritual history. This same atheist boyfriend had a small sister, who used to make up tales about ‘the people who made us.’ He thought that was quaint, the way people deceive themselves without ever having been taught.

            And a history is a story, as accurate as we can make it, about something real, as real as we can make it. It will be profoundly influenced by our own makeup, our times, prejudices, impressions, sins, and failings. Our own history would ideally describe our sensations, emotions, hopes and values as well as events: the meaning is in our ability to find meaning. I feel that a story should flow. A choppy set of facts is no story. It may, of course, not yet have flowed to its destination. But it should be in motion. God, above all, isn’t static.

            It’s good to think about your spiritual history. Each step in it is going somewhere. You may see where you found your ethics, and how you relate to other people. You may see when you were rescued from danger, when you were injured, and when you were amazed into faith. You may learn to trust. Not everyone wants to cogitate on doctrine all the time; not everyone is a philosopher. But you may learn that there is nothing more real than God.

            And this was the last question of my interviewer: the one-word definition of God. Of course this can’t be done. But some have tried to define the Divine. Aquinas thought it was ‘the activity of existing or being’: I AM in the Judaic tradition. I have heard it said that God is love: Dante wrote a Comedy about that. And there are many other views. You will have your own answer. It’s only the best you can do.

            After some thought, I said: ‘Reality.’

On Motivation.

People come into the Carmelite Library to read: journals, study notes, books whose page numbers are carefully recorded from one visit to the next. What motivates them? What is motivation, which must have something to do with movement? Is it an external force — to get out of the wind and rain — or an internal compulsion, like the body’s need to sit down for awhile?

            How much motivation is physical, how much mental? Our thoughts swim in a chemical bath: so do our feelings. When we say we’re not motivated, do these chemicals wash about due to the presence of light, darkness, or wild weather? My dogs aren’t motivated to lift one paw on a cold wet morning.

            Lack of motivation can be fuelled by expectation. Not only today, but in our life frame, we want to fill out the picture and achieve something splendid. But somehow the motivation isn’t there: the getting moving. If you can’t equal or surpass your heroes — or even the child next door — you lose hope. Our culture that demands so much may often give back little. What motivates someone to keep practicing the piccolo for hours every day? Maybe he likes the sound.

            Motivation comes easier when the aim is clear and the reward constant. I’m motivated to go to work to pay my bills, for example. I seem to be less motivated to exercise to improve my health. Is the goal too diffuse, or the reward uncertain? Maybe both, in my case.

            What if we were motivated to do exactly what we want? Seriously. You think you should be motivated to clean the floor, but the idea dismays you so much you want to sit down and cry. So cry. You should be motivated to cook dinner, but you want to relax and watch a film instead. So eat another breakfast today. You’d like to be motivated to practice the piccolo, but you need more sleep than you ever get. So sleep. The piccolo isn’t going anywhere.

            Some things are nearly always motivating. You can do them sitting in an armchair. Look around: you’ll be motivated to praise God. Think about the state of the world: you’ll want to ask for blessings on everyone you know, and everyone you don’t know, too. Prepare yourself to stand witness to the truth, in whatever form that may take on the day that you get moving.

            When the reader left the library, she spoke to me. She said: “It’s a peaceful place to be.”

On transitions: Bishop John McIntyre.

This past long weekend I spent some time travelling through a seasonal rainstorm to see the house of a young person who had just bought their first home. As I crossed the threshold I recalled the first homes of others I had known, for this had much in common with them. An affordable first home is often full of ladders, paint tins, no-more-gaps, carpets in need of replacement and kitchens on the list for determined renovation. It’s a home in process.

            I thought of Janus, Roman god of gates and doorways, who ruled all thresholds including the gate to the gods: prayers to other gods had to go through him, with his double faces, one looking at the past, the other towards the future. And so it is with transitions, directed by our pasts, leading to our futures.

            Big transitions like weddings and graduations may be ceremonies attended by many people, while others may be whisper soft with an audience of one. Some can be planned for; others simply appear, perhaps as a stumbling-block in our way. Not so long ago I passed over the threshold from unthinking health to carefully managed illness, where I was the main witness. Some transitions cross the threshold to the future, like the first day on your first job; others draw heavily on the past, like clearing up the effects of the dead.

            Conversion is of course a transition, from one belief to another, or from no belief to finally getting around to thinking about our relationship to the Divine. Is loss of faith a transition? I’m inclined to think it is not. Maybe if you’ve had a faith to lose, you simply can’t get along with your current Divine-human situation, and have lost energy or intellect for the present. It does take both energy and intellect to hold onto faith, and some people at some times have other things to do.

            While we’re here, I don’t think that when one door closes, another opens. Rather, we pass under the archway from one room or state of being into another, not exclusive of the past but informed by it in memory and reality. In the same way, the future can intrude into the present sometimes in prescient, even unnerving ways.No shut doors: nothing solid in between.

            The great transitions are those Buddha noted as bringing suffering: birth and death. Birth, despite its thrilling manifestations of love and attachment, always leads eventually to death. I think of great spiritual masters who have been taken by death, and of martyrs, whose ends tend to be messily cruel. Of the many family and friends who have gone over the threshold into death, which is thought of as the last transition, the final transformation.

            The ancients thought of the cemetery as a dormitory, where the dead await the transition to life eternal, when the universe attains its end, and all things return to God. This week we lost, suddenly, a valued leader, pastor, and mentor in Bishop John McIntyre. He has gone into the changeless realm, and is free of the constant transitions of our mortal life. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.