Today would have been James’s 95th birthday. He died quickly and peacefully at home just a fortnight ago, on a warm Autumn evening, 26 October, comfortable, cared for, and surrounded by love.
Continue reading 11 November 2022
Presence
My view is that God does not intervene directly in human affairs: to do so would make us like robots. We are surely meant to meet the many set-backs that we inevitably encounter and learn from them. The Church’s teaching that God sent Jesus into the world to die an appalling death in order to redeem mankind, is entirely an invention of theologians! Jesus would have foreseen that the moment he began to challenge the way the Pharisees taught the Jewish faith he would be arrested as a trouble maker and executed, for Pontius Pilate loathed the Jews and had thousands crucified during his rule. Jesus, as a man, had to endure the terror of knowing what would happen once he was arrested, leading to an excruciating death.
The words of Jesus on the cross – ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ – have such a ring of truth. But, significantly, they were not his final words, which were, ‘It is finished.’ In other words, as he says elsewhere, ‘Abba, I have done the work which you gave me to do’. This should be our prayer too. God may not intervene directly, but God’s presence, nonetheless, surrounds and holds us: we are never ultimately alone. As in the words of the mantra I use: God is present; God is here; God is now.
An exchange
In The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole, the Revd Wiston is being interviewed by one of the Canons. He declares:
‘I believe, Canon Ronder, that before many years are out it will become clear to the whole world that there are now two religions: the religion of authority, and the religion of the spirit. If I were invited to a canonry, or to any post immediately connected with the Cathedral, I would not accept it for an instant. I come, if I come at all, to fight the Cathedral – that is to fight everything in it, round and about it, that prevents me from seeing clearly the figure of Christ.’
To which Canon Ronder replies, ‘Exactly! The Christian Church has made a golden calf of its dogmas. The Calf is worshipped, the Cathedral enshrines it.’
Wiston then says, ‘I care only for Jesus Christ. He is overshadowed now by all the great buildings that men have raised to Him. He is lost from our view. We must recover Him. I would love Christ better in that garden than in the cathedral.’
Speaking and not speaking
‘There is a time to speak and a time to keep silence … a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.’
Thus it is written in the book of Ecclesiastes.
In any close, long-term relationship there can be periods when one partner withdraws into silence and there is no communication. What is important is for the other partner not to rush in saying, ‘What’s the matter?’ A long-term relationship is a fine exercise in patience and listening. Each person is contributing to building the relationship while at the same time continuing to grow and develop their own life in order to be the full person each is meant to be. It is here that, once again, the simple practice of meditation enables us to be more alert to the silence in others, to that which is unspoken.
Tristram again
I previously mentioned Tristram Beresford. A mystic with a daily practice of long meditation, he was also totally involved in the world and its problems, but from a still centre. He once said to me: ‘As I grow older I find I live less from outward things. The more real events are those that happen inwardly and do not register on any scale of movement.’
Tristram
In the course of my long life there have been many people who have had a deep influence on me, and many from whom I have learned. One such was Tristram Beresford who farmed five thousand acres, and was agricultural correspondent for the Financial Times (for which he was awarded an OBE). What very few of his readers knew was that he was also a mystic; every morning before going to work he would spend three hours reading and meditating. Thinking how life is an ongoing journey, I recall the following remark of his:
The journey is from A-Z. I doubt if we get as far as Z in this lifetime; but it is a place from which we can look back and remember how it felt to be at the beginning of the journey. I conceive of Z as the ultimate state of perfect certainty – a complete absence of all doubt.
Journey’s end
Louder sing!
Letting go
I recall something I was once told by a physiotherapist who worked with the dying at a hospice in Hereford. She had observed that the people who had the easiest deaths were those who, throughout their lives, had learned to accept many smaller deaths, such as the death of a loved one, or an ambition, or the loss of some physical ability; whereas those who had fought against any kind of loss or change had the most difficult passing. Right up to the end it is important to learn how to let go. Once again, through the simple practice of meditation we can learn how to be open to change and how to move on.
A personal reflection
Although these reflections will not appear until 2025, I am in fact writing them in February 2022. This is my 94th year and I realise that I may not be here when they eventually come to be sent out … which prompts me to offer a reflection to those approaching old age. We are told to respect the elderly. This does not, however, mean we should be unduly subservient to them (to us I should say.) I am fortunate to have as a lodger a friend who, while keeping a watchful and caring eye on me, does not hesitate to challenge me occasionally. I try to be grateful for such feedback; but occasionally I am piqued! My ego has been pricked! But that is good, for one is still learning, right up to the end. As T.S. Eliot says in the Four Quartets: ‘Old men should be explorers still’.
The ear of the heart
By learning to listen with what St Benedict calls ‘the ear of the heart’ we learn also to become more sensitive to the tone of voice in other people. Someone telephones us or calls by out of the blue and starts chattering away. If we are alert we may detect from the tone of their voice that what they really want is to speak about something else – and so we wait patiently. Our task then is to listen wholeheartedly, not to rush in with good advice! More often than not it is the depth and quality of our listening that enables the other person to find their own solution.