Then
the tumble of words came back. The dark ooze of something that feels too close
to despair. I always regret going on Facebook at bedtime, this morning most of all.
War
taints everything. It sows the seeds of violence in our souls and makes us cruel with
one another. It makes us angry, and self-righteous, and arrogant. Not us. Me.
It has made me all those things. I have raged and watched others rage as I read the posts and responses on Facebook. I have posted myself, in a lather of indignation. I have
wondered why MPs who voted for war feel offended by angry emails and tweets,
when they themselves have chosen violence as the only way to resolve a
conflict. The anger goes deep and spreads wide. My soul is polluted and
my thoughts corrupted with my own violent hatred of the men who make this a world where
wars must be fought.
The
water ripples beneath the wings of the swan, and then it is gone. The sun is rising,
and all is alive with birdsong and light. I get dressed and walk along the
river. I watch the geese and the ducks and the swans. I listen to the high cry
of the gulls. I gaze on the lazy winding river that has been this way for
thousands of years. I think of the body that drifted to our island a
few weeks ago, and of all the bodies that drift on rivers of time, mourned for
a while then melting into eternity. The river swallows our lives, carries them
out to the ocean, dissolves them in the tides of history where only the
monumental solidities of war and conquest retain their shape.
I
gather kindling for the fire, cracking the sweet green sticks beneath my foot in
an ancient ritual that soothes me. Long before wars for oil, long before drones
and bombs, human beings did this for warmth, for light, for life.
I
walk in search of silence. I walk in search of my Advent poem. Every
year in Advent, I write a poem for the Christmas card. It always comes to me if
I wait, patiently stirring the silence, feeling it thicken until words begin to
take shape. I thought it would be the same this year, but it’s not. I stir, and
the silence coagulates like clotted blood. I wait, and the words that come are
bitter and ugly, full of satire and cynicism. What poem will suffice for a
Christmas card at a time like this?
Last
night, I went to my first carol service of the year, in Digby Stuart Chapel at the University of Roehampton where I work. I
nearly didn’t go. I couldn’t bear the thought of singing Christmas carols at
such a time. I thought of the obscenity of declaring war in the first week of
Advent. Was this the last crucifying gesture of a secular age?
But who says Advent is a time of peace? I thought of God choosing to be born
amidst the bureaucracy of an empire that sent a pregnant woman to a distant
town because then as now procedures must be followed. I thought of the child
born among the animals, of Herod’s tyranny and the flight of that small family
into Egypt, of the tortured victim on the cross and the mother weeping on the
ground.
As
we sang those old familiar carols, I thought of Robert Kaggwa, our chaplain who
never knew that the carol service he organised last year would be his last. He
died in January. He was everywhere and nowhere last night in the candle glow of
memories and music. Sue Acheson was there too in the sadness and the memories - an RSCJ sister and friend who died too young this year after a cancer diagnosis. I imagined Robert and Sue in a different, better world, watching us with a wisdom that eludes us and a peace that we long for.
I
felt something timeless and deep and true beginning to melt the solid core of
war. The silence stirred. I glimpsed a word. The word was ‘hope’.
This
morning, walking by the river, I did not find poetry but I found words, words that began to shift
the landscape of my soul. For me silence is always a particular form of
words, a particular expression of being that shapes itself in language when the
clutter of everyday speech is cleared away. I dared to reach out and touch the
darkness and give it names – rage, hate, resentment, helplessness.
Helplessness. That’s what it is. I am helpless, and I do not want to be
helpless.
All
this I think as I walk by the river and listen to the gulls, my arms full of
kindling and the low winter sun turning the water to silver and silk, dazzling
me.
Last
night, before the carol service, I went into the small Sacred Heart chapel. It’s a Puginesque jewel, lovingly restored two years ago
by the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart who founded the College. It
is one of the few buildings to have survived a World War II bomb which destroyed
much of the College. My generation easily forgets that bombs can also fall from
the skies in indifferent cruelty on the cities of Britain. At the weekend, out
walking with my baby grandson in Bristol, I was reminded how the iron railings
on the Victorian garden walls had all been removed during the war to make
weapons. The stumps are still there, mute reminders of a trauma that is
increasingly remembered only as heroism and glory, for would we ever fight
another war if we truly remembered the trauma?
I
am reading Stan Goff’s book, Borderlines.
I recommend it for those who think that there is ever any glory in war.
Last
night, I sat in silence for a while in that small chapel before the carol service began in the larger chapel next door. I
gazed at the tabernacle, and noticed for the first time the word ‘Jesus’ carved
into the wood beneath it. I am not good at silent contemplation. I am not good
at noticing things. Even in silence, I am always distracted, speaking in my
head, writing, composing, rationalising, sifting, imagining.
I
swing out into the silence, as one might swing out over an abyss. I swing out
towards that word ‘Jesus’ beneath the tabernacle. I swing towards it in
silence. I never arrive, for it recedes. I can’t grab it, squeeze it, make it
offer up words of explanation and definition. It is just there, as silent and
enigmatic as the tabernacle itself, gazing back at me. But it gives me a gift,
a word, and the word is ‘hope’. That's the word that came back to me in the service.
That’s
what is wrong with all those abandoned Advent poems I’ve been writing in my
head. Not one of them speaks of hope.
As
we sing the carols, I don’t think so much as feel the helplessness of the
newborn child, the terror of the refugee family, the anguish of the mother at
the foot of the cross. When Mary wept on the flight into Egypt, her tears fell
on the ground and flowers sprung up. That’s why Lily of the Valley is sometimes
called Our Lady’s Tears. If a refugee mother’s tears make flowers spring up,
the borders of Europe should be covered in flowers by now.
There
is hope because God is in the helplessness. That’s God’s hiding place among us.
Do not be afraid, the angel said to Mary, when he arrived with the beating
wings of a swan in flight. Do not be afraid. Was it her helplessness that
allowed God space to become?
After
the service, I am speaking to my dear friend Sister Mary Hinde. I find myself
telling her about my time before the tabernacle. A small miracle happens
between us. She is a modern sister, with little time for traditional devotions.
But she told me that, as she waited for the vote on whether to bomb Syria in parliament the night
before, she went into the small chapel in the house she shares with some other
sisters, took the host out of the tabernacle and put it in a simple monstrance.
She sat in front of it and tried to pray. She found herself saying to God, ‘All
this is going on, and you are just there, as bread. That’s all you are for us.
Bread. You don’t do anything. You’re just there. ' She paused, and I waited. 'That’s the mystery,' she said, 'And I realized it's enough. The bread is enough.'
We
both wept. Bread. Hope. Maybe peace, one day. For now, the bread is mystery enough.
It’s the helplessness of God with us.
 |
| Digby Stuart Chapel - angel |
