Everyman

I have just finished Philip Roth's Everyman, the story of a secular Jew who tries, and fails, to make sense of his existence.

Roth is a good writer. I appreciate his skills, even though I could live without some of his rather graphic descriptions. In this book he weaves a thoughtful tale around the life of a self-obsessed man who spends almost his entire life terrified by thoughts of his own mortality. The story begins at his graveside. The dead man's relatives share memories which slide seamlessly into the narrative. They represent different eras of the man's life: two estranged sons, a distraught daughter, an ex-wife, a still-faithful older brother. He is buried beside his parents in a semi-derelict Jewish cemetery. In the annihilation of the grave, he is 'everyman.' His fate is universal.

Lacking any kind of religious faith, despite the piety of his father, the man seeks meaning in his work in an ad agency. He is successful, but eventually retires, only to see his colleagues fall, one by one. He seeks meaning in family, but fails to control his passions, and so becomes only a serial husband and a part-time father. He seeks meaning in sexual conquest, indulging in behaviors that come close to being abusive. In the end, he is left ogling young women as they jog on the boardwalk near his New Jersey home, remembering the man he had been and no longer was. Tormented by ill-health, in later years, he resents the vigor of his older brother and distances himself from him. He is horrified by the loneliness, boredom and pain of old age. Finally, at a time when he doesn't really expect it, still making plans, he dies on the operating table.

Is he really 'Everyman'? I sincerely hope not. He may be a poster boy for the hopelessness of life without Christ. He may be a fitting illustration for a sermon about Ecclesiastes. He is not everyman. He does not possess the intellectual courage to question his prejudices. He never seriously challenges the easy atheism he adopted as a youth. He does not have the moral backbone to think through the consequences of his frequent, damaging lies. He is pure subjectivity, unable to prevent himself from harming those he loves, thinking, in the end, only of himself.

Towards the end of the story, he visits his parents' graves and seems to hear his mother's words of encouragement, "So, you lived, then." He also hears his father's advice, "Atone for what you have done and make the most of what time you have left." It is advice he chooses to ignore. Faced with the reality of his increasing frailty, the loss of passion, and the inevitability of death, and having no concept of judgment, he struggles to survive, if only for a little longer. "So long, Pops," says his still-angry, adult son, as he throws a clump of soil into the grave.

In the middle ages, an anonymous Roman Catholic writer wrote a mystery play known as The Summoning of Everyman. In it, God sends death to earth to seek Everyman, in order that he might give an account of himself. Despite it's pre-Reformation allegory, which makes it difficult for modern Christians, the play makes sense of death by placing it within the context of divine judgment. The Summoning of Everyman comes from an age when life was cheaper and considerably shorter than today. But it succeeds where Everyman fails, because it takes seriously not only our mortality, but also our homesickness for heaven.

Dead Men Rise Up Never

Proserpine - by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Jack London has a tale, from his youth, of going to sea on the Sophie Sutherland, a three-topmast schooner, seal hunting off the coast of Japan. London tells of a fellow-sailor, an unpleasant man known only as "The Bricklayer" who died and was buried at sea, with "a gunnysack, half full of galley coal... fastened to his feet." Against naval tradition, the seventeen year-old Jack London took over his recently-departed colleague's bunk. His other shipmates warned him that the Bricklayer would not be pleased. He would come back to haunt the lad.

Then, on an ugly night, Jack was startled to see an ominous shape on deck, near the spot where the Bricklayer had been tipped over the side. Intellectually, he could not fathom what he was seeing. Was it a spectre, risen from the deep? Surely, "dead men rise up never." Finally, after an agony of self-doubt, Jack plucked up the courage to confront the ghoul, only to find himself face to face with an equally terrified Newfoundland dog.

The title of Jack London's short story (later purloined by others) comes from Swinburne:

From too much love of living,

From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

Whatever gods may be

That no man lives forever

That dead men rise up never

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

The Garden of Proserpine: A.G.Swinburne 1866

Is it true, though, that "dead men rise up never'? Ernst Troelsch, the German sociologist, had an unsophisticated answer to this question. His response is typical of many today. Troelsch argued that, since dead men do not rise, Jesus Christ could not have risen from the dead. And that's the end of that. The central pillar of Christianity is swept away, by fiat. Troelsch simply declares, like David Hume before him, that resurrection just does not happen. Since there is no evidence of dead men rising in our experience, it follows that no dead men have ever risen, or ever shall.

What are we to make of this argument, given that, as Paul says, "if Christ is not risen we are, of all men, most to be pitied" (I Corinthians 15:19)? Wolfhart Pannenberg points out that Troelsch takes a very dogmatic approach to the question of resurrection. Based upon his presuppositions, Troelsch dictates what can and cannot happen. According to Troelsch, and a horde of modern disciples, the question of resurrection is non-sensical. It does not happen today and it did not happen 2,000 years ago.

Troelsch's argument is based upon inductive reasoning, moving from a particular example to a general rule. The particular example he chooses is his own experience. He then proceeds to draw his conclusion based upon his chosen premise. This is obviously unsatisfactory. Observation cannot eliminate the possibility of resurrection, it can only establish probability.

If "dead men rise up never," how do we account for the witness of the New Testament? It cannot be wish-fulfillment, given that the devastated disciples were in no fit state to create the fiction. Neither would they have been prepared to suffer so cruelly for an obvious untruth. Could it not be that the bodily resurrection of Jesus provides the best explanation of the events? Often, it seems, our response to the empty tomb tells us more about ourselves than we imagine. Secular people give a secular response. But Christians tend not to be so concerned. We judge matters of life and death on the basis of what we know about Jesus, not the other way round, and certainly not on the basis of Troelsch's dogmatic metaphysical presuppositions.

We don't need to apologize for our faith. When our opponents dismiss the resurrection of Christ out of hand, they merely display secular fundamentalism. Swinburne's vision of the underworld was of a grey place without fear but also without hope. Is it wrong to hope for something better?

Dragonflies and Death

If you are in need of a good laugh let me recommend the Agnes Browne Trilogy by Brendan O'Carroll. It's been described as Angela's Ashes without the misery. The books are set in working class Dublin, beginning in the 1960's. Raw and earthy, with the kind of humor I remember so well from my own upbringing in the North of England, O'Carroll's tales are both evocative and skilfully wrought. The author weaves together such disparate themes as abuse and alcoholism, adolescent angst and adult alienation. Hidden within the humor lies one of the tenderest love stories you will read anywhere. The Irish seem to have a knack for moving seamlessly between pain and laughter, tragedy and comedy. If you can get beyond some of the foul language, the books are well worth reading.

Many things in the books delighted me; some made me laugh out loud; but several things surprised me. First, there is very little sectarianism in the story. One of the incidental characters is a Jewish businessman who has fallen upon hard times. His generosity is in sharp contrast to the callous violence of his son. But, in the narrative of the Browne clan, that son is just a villain, not a Jewish villain. I have no idea whether or not this is an accurate representation of working-class Dublin in the late twentieth century. Given the other prejudices that are given expression in the books, particularly the small-minded hatemongering of the skinheads, this comes as a surprise. O'Carroll makes his characters generally sympathetic to a family member who turns out to be homosexual (Agnes wonders when he is going to come out of the wardrobe...) but it is still a member of the family who almost kills him when he goes 'queer bashing.' There's a certain tension here. Sectarian violence is largely controlled in the Browne Trilogy, presumably for the sake of the story. The streets are, by and large, safe. In a society in which alcohol abuse is such a way of life, I'm not sure how authentic this really is.

Secondly, in the same way, there are no anti-British themes explored. The young men go to England to find work. One of them dies there, the victim of both the avarice of others and his own appetite for heroin. A mere fifty years after the Easter Uprising I would have expected more antipathy toward the old enemy. The 'Troubles' are only mentioned once, in passing. Yet this was the period during which the green of the South and the orange of the six counties of the North were both stained with blood.

Finally, there is no anti-clericalism either. One very serious nun is mocked. Her false teeth are knocked out with a convenient cucumber, which is no less than she deserves for her harsh treatment of the brood of children entrusted to her care. But a priest, working with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, is praised. Most of the major events of Agnes' life, and those of her children, are marked by the church. And yet the story contains scarcely any mention of the Christian faith. Whatever Catholicism remains hardly influences the Brownes. They lie, steal, cheat and fornicate without reference to a distinctly Christian moral code. They are hard-working and generous, and they are loyal to one another (although they also fight incessantly), but their virtues are not specifically Christian. As the story unfolds, we watch them adopting the values of a godless world. At first, for example, Agnes is wounded when Simon decides to co-habit and not to marry; later, she has no problems taking her over-sexed French lover to her bed. Perhaps the all-pervasive public religion of Agnes' youth has lost so much influence that, by the end of her life, the Roman Catholic Church is simply irrelevant and is therefore ignored.

An illustration of this is the attitude to death displayed by members of the Browne family. An assumption is made that beyond death there is a place of pure happiness, call it heaven if you will, that has no relation to morality, or to God. When Agnes suffers an aneurism and slips into a coma she has a vivid dream of her old friend Marion, dead for 25 years. In her dream, hanging between life and death, Marion tells her that in this secular heaven the bingo halls are open all day and she can drink as much cider as she likes. The only rule is that one cannot see from one realm to the next. Marion thinks that it is a stupid rule, and says so. Apparently one can also swear in heaven.

Earlier in the final book, The Granny, Dermot Browne explains death to his son, Cormac, by means of a parable. He tells the child that death is like a grub, rising through the water of a pond to become a dragonfly. All the grubs in the pond wonder what lies beyond the surface. Eventually, one brave grub volunteers to climb a blade of grass to see what is there, and then to come back to tell the rest of them. He climbs until he feels the sun upon his back and then, a wondrous thing happens, he turns into a magnificent dragonfly, decked out in yellow, green and blue. He cannot go back to tell the others so, instead, he flaps his four wings and flies away into the sunshine with a big smile on his face. "So you see, Cormac," says Dermot, "that's what 'died' is. Your mammy has become a dragonfly." (The Granny p.140)

It's a pretty story to tell a six year old, but it is also nonsense. Without the assurance of faith and the knowledge of the resurrection we have absolutely no reason to tell our children that there is a happy land, far, far away. And what exactly does it mean to say, as O'Carroll does on at least two occasions, that at death we become dragonflies? Don't dragonflies die too? Aren't thousands of them snapped up as soon as they emerge from the water, long before they can fly, smiling, into a welcoming sky?

Hope, without Christ, is empty. It is not much more than wishful thinking. It cannot comfort the dying, it cannot relieve the pain of those who are left behind. Sentiment can never be a substitute for a living faith.

I'm not sure I want to be a dragonfly when I die, but I do want to be with Christ. Wherever He is will be heaven indeed.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Agnes Browne Trilogy consists of The Mammy; The Chisellers; and, The Granny. All are published by Plume, a member of the Penguin Putnam Group.

My Way?

Apparently, things are not what they used to be in the funeral business in the UK. Increasing numbers of Britons are now choosing secular funerals, so the music being played is changing. Out are the standard hymns used for generations. In are selections deemed more appropriate, either by the dearly departed, or by those gathering at the wake. A survey of 30,000 funerals last year showed hymns on the decline, except in Scotland. In England and Wales it's a different story.

X Factor winner Alexandra Burke's cover of the Leonard Cohen classic 'Hallelujah' is proving popular, although many of us have never quite worked out what it's all about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsuXbkrA_AQ

Other favorites include Bette Midler's 'Wind Beneath My Wings,' Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's 'Time to Say Goodbye,' and, most popular of all, Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.'

Secular humanity has also shuffled off to theme songs from soap operas. Even the music from the Shipping Forecast (giving weather related information) has been used. Somewhat more unusual choices include:

AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell,' Doctor and the Medics 'Spirit in the Sky,' and, of course, 'Another One Bites the Dust' by Queen.

It's interesting to note that the survey was commissioned by Co-operative Funeralcare which, at least in my experience, tends to cater for a more blue-collar or working-class clientele. There may, therefore, be sociological or demographic reasons for this trend, in that working class Britain has been distanced from the church for longer. Nevertheless, it's clear that thousands of people are dying without hope, or at least without hope fixed on the certainties of the Gospel. And that is not funny at all.

I used to worry, when I lived in Newcastle, that I was often asked to pronounce the assurance of salvation over people who had never darkened the door of any church and who, as far as I knew, had no relationship with God. I coped with this by adding a qualifier to the committal. I used to say, "Inasmuch as ....... trusted in Christ as Savior and Lord, we now commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ..."

Now, it seems, I would be saved the bother. I could tell a few entertaining stories about the deceased, express some vague hope about something or other, and then close the curtain to the crematorium while a reality star sings a godless hallelujah.

No wonder Paul says that, if Christ is not risen from the dead we are, of all men, most to be pitied. But that is not the case. Because He lives, we too will live.

Where is our urgency in conveying this hope to a generation that prefers the ersatz to the real, that would rather warble "My Way" than worship the One who is 'the Way, the Truth, and the Life"?

See the original story at http://itn.co.uk/news/8dd23696acf9823b701b27b829bec105.html

Remembering Hillsborough

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. Ninety six football supporters were crushed to death during a FA Cup semi-final game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest held at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield.



At that time, many of the football grounds had fences to keep supporters off the pitch. On that fateful occasion, too many people were allowed into one section of the ground. Thousands surged forward to get a better view, and those at the front were pushed up against the fence. The most horrendous thing of all was that there were members of the press, covering the game, on the other side of the fence. They turned around and began to take photographs as fans, young and old, lost their lives. I remember a sequence of pictures on the front cover of one of the tabloids, the following day, showing the gradual death of several young supporters. No one had the presence of mind to call for bolt cutters. Those on the outside could reach through the mesh and touch those who were dying, but could do nothing to prevent the tragedy. After that, the fences came down. It's better to have a game distrupted than to have lives lost.

On the same day, I'd been listening to a game on the radio. Blackburn Rovers (world's greatest football team, but I'm biased) beat Manchester City by four goals to nil. If I remember correctly, Simon Garner, a great character, hit a hat-trick. To go from the euphoria of victory to the horror of senseless loss in the space of a few minutes is something I won't forget. I suppose the moral is that if you treat people like cattle they will probably behave like cattle.

http://itn.co.uk/news/abd4c14e56efd49166465ce2b3eac68e.html

The Road

A man and his son travel a long-abandoned Road to an uncertain destination, in search of a salvation that is, at the same time, both remembered and the object of their desires, both past and future. They journey through a nightmare, apocalyptic landscape, the result of a blinding flash, and half-forgotten low concussions in the night.

Like Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the travelers find the road to be rife with danger. Death lurks around every corner, watches from a distance, stalks them like prey. In a time beyond mutual annihilation, where only a few survive, where society has collapsed into anarchy, and where the only sustenance is to be scavenged from the ruins of the past, the man and his son travel a Road that is absolutely without hope.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a simple story, at times lyrical, almost poetic in tone, but harsh and graphic in content. McCarthy, searching for foundational truth in a world that increasingly values style over substance, scours the earth and returns to the primal void. Civilization is gone, and with it the restraints that make us able to co-exist. It remains to be seen whether, in this stark vision, anything of value remains.

Never named, the man and his son descend by foot from the mountainous north country, fearing the approaching winter. They follow the remains of the Road, down through the barren countryside where nothing lives, where every memory is painful, and even the snow is ashen. Along the Road they encounter men-become-animals, cannibals who feed upon their own. Death, and the detritus of a civilization destroyed by nuclear war, accompanies their every step. Even the landscape is devoid of life. Nothing grows. The shore of the sullen, brooding sea is lined with the bones of a million fish. The earth is dead. Those who, somehow escaped the holocaust shall surely not survive. God is not in His heaven; all is not right with the world.


Towards the end of this grim tale a nameless woman embraces the boy. She talks to him of God. Yet when the boy tries to talk to God, he finds himself speaking to his father, now dead. The woman tells him that God cannot be dead because their breath is the breath of God. But on a Road without hope, where every painful breath spreads a mist of blood, can one really speak of God?

On the Road the man and his son, "each the others world entire," are sustained by love. That is a noble vision, but it is not enough. There is no grand narrative behind the tale. There is no destination towards which the Road leads. It leads nowhere. Time and truth have lost all meaning. Philosophy and theology, always uneasy bedfellows, lie together, abandoned in a ruined library. Nothing is of value that cannot be eaten. Man has descended to his most basic instincts - food, shelter, fire. Woman has taken her own life in despair. Survival trumps civilization. Godless and friendless, without a future worth striving to attain, the last human beings slouch, angry yet resigned, towards oblivion.

Meanwhile, in a much older story, Christian travels a road that has a destination, an End.

Christian knows where he began, and why he became a pilgrim, and he trusts that the path he takes will lead him home. At his destination, having endured trials and temptations along the way, and having escaped from perils that threatened to destroy him, Christian finds the peace for which he longed - the blessing of peace with God. For him, the pilgrimage of the Christian life is a journey with purpose, and every step is filled with hope.


Both stories assess the human condition. Both find value in sacrificial love. But one story ends with shattered lungs and a dirty blanket as a shroud; the other story finds meaning in an empty cross and a risen Savior. Christ, the goal of all our journeying, is the embodiment of our hope. In a world grown gray, devoid of meaning, He is The Road: the Way, the Truth, the Life.

A Song from "The Pilgrim's Progress"

"Confessed that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth."
~ Hebrews 11:13 ~

ho would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent,
To be a pilgrim.


Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright,
He'll with a giant fight,
But he will have a right
To be a pilgrim.


Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend,
Can daunt his spirit:
He knows, he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.

John Bunyan

Paradise

Last night, on PBS, Michael Wood, the historian, had an interesting programme in his series on myths and heroes, in which he explored the story of Shangri-La.

In its modern form, the tale of Shangri-La is not very old. James Hilton captured the imagination of a war-weary world in his novel Lost Horizon, which told the story of Westerners rescued from a war-zone by 'plane, who subsequently crash landed in a remote area of Tibet, near Mount Kailash. There, they found what everyone craves - a place of perfect harmony and peace.

They had discovered a lost valley untouched by the struggles of the world, truly a paradise. The story was made into a movie in 1933. It had a wide appeal, probably as a means of escape from the privations of the Great Depression, and the bombast and rhetoric of a certain Adolf Hitler.

The story, like the lost valley of Shangri-La, is fictional. However, it seems to have been based upon a much older story told by one Antonio Andrade, a 16th century missionary at the court of the Moghul emperor Akbar. This ruler had gathered representatives of all of the major religions, because he believed "that it cannot be right to assert the truth of one faith above any other...." Andrade set out in search of a Christian community rumoured to exist in a remote area of Tibet. Eventually, after much searching, he found the hidden valley, and the kingdom of which he had heard. But there were no Christians there. Andrade's account was lost for many years only to be rediscovered in Calcutta in the late 19th century. Its publication led to Lost Horizon.

Andrade may well have heard the story of a lost kingdom at Akbar's surprisingly post-modern inter-faith conference. The Buddhists told a tale of a wonderful place called Shambala, (Sanskrit for 'peace') in the land beyond the Himalayas, a magical land of harmony and peace, ruled over by the wise, a land of plenty, in the shadow of a magnificent mountain.

Wood may well have identified the source of these legends in a Tibetan mountain-top community which he explored in his television program. Interestingly, the once fertile valley is now barren; the fortress that once protected the King and his family has been destroyed; the revered Buddhist shrines have fallen victim to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. If it is Shangri-La, it is no paradise.

Wood's comment, right at the end of the program was telling: "Of course, paradise may still be found anywhere on earth, but only on earth."

What are we to make of this?

In typical PBS fashion, the cultured commentator makes approving noises when recounting Akbar's search for the Golden Bough that underlies all religious experience. He then goes on to assert, as an article of blind faith, that paradise is only to be found on earth. Given that he has just been exploring the remains of a beautiful kingdom, destroyed by the avarice of men, his conclusion is a little surprising. One would have thought that he would have denied the possibility of paradise on earth, while acknowledging that, for most major religions, that hope is transferred to heaven.

So, what did Jesus mean when he told the dying thief, suffering beside Him on his cross, that, "Today, you will be with me in paradise"? (Luke 23:43) Surely, this: That beyond the grave, for those who trust in Him, there will be be a place where we shall enter into the presence of God. It will be a place of beauty and of peace. For the Christian, the yearning for paradise is not for a specific location on earth, but for the City of God, where Christ shall reign (Revelation 22:2). The word 'paradise' is Persian. It means 'garden' or 'park.' According to the Bible, paradise was lost in a garden.

It will be regained, not on a mountain in Tibet, but when we see our Savior face to face.

A Landscape of the Mind

I've recently re-read A.E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad," a slim volume of poems published in 1896. What a wonderful gift to English literature!

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

is hung with bloom along the bough,

and stands about the woodland ride

wearing white for Eastertide.

Poem II.
Housman (1859-1936), the elder brother of Laurence Housman, the playwright and artist, wrote very little poetry. Then, in 1895, aged 36, he had a sudden burst of creative energy. This book is the result. It's full of the great themes of life and death, of war and peace. It appears to be very simple, almost like primitive poetry, but on closer inspection Housman's work weaves together Classical themes, archaic language, and metres taken from old country balladry. The poems have a slow, yet relentless rhythm; they touch on most of the major themes of life. Rustic and earthy, homespun yet elegant, they create a vista that is both wonderfully attractive and unutterably sad. Shropshire, for Housman, becomes a landscape of the mind, an idealised country haven far from the arid streets of London where
"...till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill." (Poem XLI)
Housman was a native of Worcestershire, not of Shropshire. Nevertheless, in the poems he uses the place names and history of Shropshire to conjure up the hilarity of Ludlow Fair, the wind on Bredon Hill, the swift-flowing Teme and the stately Severn. The Shropshire of Housman's mind is a place where young lads fall in love, then go away to fight Victoria's wars. It's a place where lovers lie down together, but death soon steals them. In a profusion of narrative and evocative language, Housman creates a place that does not change, where the Wrekin hill still looks down, impassivly on the emotions of man, where the vane on Hughley steeple still stands bright against the sky.
It's hard to choose a favorite, but if I have to, I'll go for
Poem XIX - To An Artist Dying Young.
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

Housman’s imagery is stark in its intensity: once the hero was carried high in victory; now he is carried shoulder-high, in a coffin. Whereas once his achievements were lauded by the living, now he can only share his glory with the shades. But there’s still more to the poem. The warning to a man, not to let his name die before he does, and the image of the garland, briefer than a girl’s, remain after the narrative has ceased. Therein lies Housman's true genius. He is not just recreating an antique land of the imagination, he is populating it with people just like us, people for whom the themes of love and death are just as pertinent. We, too, know the pain of loss, the nostalgia for things past.
In one poem, XLVII 'The Carpenter's Son,' Housman speaks of Christ. In his words, I do not sense the devotion of one who has known the soul-satisfying embrace of saving faith. His words are respectful, yet a little cold. In the fifth verse, Christ speaks:
Here hang I, and right and left
Two poor fellows hang for theft:
All the same’s the luck we prove,
Though the midmost hangs for love.

Of course, Housman is right, Christ dies for love, yet in the poem it is a strangely ineffectual love. There is nothing of salvation. We feel sorry for the crucified One. Christ's only advice, repeated twice is merely "Live, lads, and I will die."

I think this could be the clue to the whole work. Housman longs for another country, a fairer land, so he invents Shropshire, a landscape of the mind. He is actually searching for heaven, for the place where he will enjoy peace with God, reconciled with his Maker through the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
Poem XL

We wade through the melancholy and the nostalgia. We weep with him at the sight of a loved one leaving whom he shall meet no more. His loneliness and sense of loss are, at times painfully intense. He speaks for us, restless and homesick, until we find our rest in Him, until we come home to God.

At the Team's Head-Brass

I went to a charity booksale today and was surprisingly self-restrained. I did emerge, however, (into the October rain), with a slim volume of poems by Edward Thomas, one of the most-celebrated nature poets of the early twentieth century. Whilst T.S.Eliot was busily adding one tortuous, esoteric phrase upon another, "making obscurity a creed" as someone once said, Thomas was following Hard's lead, using the language of the people to illuminate the beauty of the ordinary. We have Robert Frost to thank for turning Thomas, the hack writer, from prose to poetry. They met in London in 1913. Frost recognized the lyrcal quality of Thomas' best writing and encouraged him to follow the muse. Thomas went on to produce a third of his extant poetry within a mere six months.
One of Thomas' poems is called "At the Team's Head-Brass." A man sits on a fallen elm, watching a farmer plough a field with his team of horses. At every far turn the horse-brasses catch the sunlight; at every near turn the farmer and his watcher exchange a few words, mostly about the War, in France. As the poem begins, and as the team sets off to narrow the yellow square of the field, two lovers disappear into a distant wood. At the poem's end they reappear; the watcher realizes he will not watch that earth be turned again.
"The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team."
It's a poem of contrasts: the fertility of the ancient earth is echoed in the embrace of lovers. The contrast is barely mentioned. In England the fields are ploughed, as they have been for centuries, ready for the seedtime and the harvest. But that world is passing away. Not many miles away, in France, the fields are soaked with blood. Europe's manhood collapses in the embrace of death.
Edward Thomas was killed by a shell during the Battle of Arras on April 9th, 1917.

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There is a chilling beauty in simple words, not to be found in the over-elaboration of the professionally pedantic. That's a lesson a preacher would do well to remember.

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/projects/jtap/tutorials/intro/thomas/head_brass.html

In Life and in Death.

Time I got back on the old Blog... It's been too long.
I've been in the ministry for 24 years and, during that time, I've only had three funeral services for children. Of course, I'm glad that there have not been more, but I've been thinking, recently, that I've been blissfully unaware of a huge amount of pain in those I've been called to serve. (Maybe four funerals in two weeks has brought this to mind...).
I've just finished reading "Empty Arms" by Pam Vredevelt, which was recommended to me as a helpful resource for those who have suffered the loss of a child. I was horrified to learn that about 20% of pregnancies (not including abortions) don't come to term because of miscarriage or stillbirth (meaning death after 20 weeks). I had no idea the numbers were so high. For those who have special circumstances such as STD's the numbers are even higher. Which means that there must be a large number of women in the congregation I serve who have suffered in silence. Also, I had no idea how dangerous it can be for the mother to have an ectopic pregnancy (where the child develops in the fallopian tube).
Often, I'm not told about a miscarriage, which is not the end of the world if someone else is providing loving support, but it makes me wonder whether anyone is. I was particularly horrified by some of the stories of well-meaning people saying the most awful things while trying to support a grieving mother who has just lost a child.
Here in Lake Jackson we have a wonderful ministry, begun by church members, called "Johnathan's Ministry." Yes, you guessed it, Johnathan was one of the three. I conducted his funeral service just over four years ago. Lori, who runs the ministry, provides thoughtful, compassionate care for those who have lost children to neonatal death. She does a wonderful job. The problem is that, for months on end, no-one asks for help. And you know that there are needs just crying out to be met.
Two things occur to me. First, the need to provide circles of care within (and beyond) the congregation where women will feel comfortable opening up and then receiving help. It just reinforces for me that concept that the church needs to get smaller as well as larger. Larger, so that more will come to know Christ as Lord. Smaller, so that we can provide the compassionate care of Christ to those in need within the context of small, covenant groups. I suppose we also need to be far more intentional in learning, from books like "Empty Arms" about what those needs are, and how we can be the hands of Jesus.
Second, I need to thank God daily for the safe delivery of our children. Dan is 23 years old now, and I still remember the trauma of the delivery room at the Princess Mary Maternity Hospital, on the Great North Road in Newcastle upon Tyne, like it was yesterday. Looking back, I could have lost both Daniel and Lesley. I had no idea what was going on. That may have been a good thing (I'd have fainted, for sure); but it is not good to take the miracle of birth for granted, or the goodness of God.

FYI:
"Empty Arms" by Pam Vredevelt. Multnomah, Colorado Springs. Second Edition, 1994
I've also found helpful, from a Reformed Theological perspective:
"When a Baby Dies" by Ronald H. Nash. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1999.
This is more of a theological study of salvation as it applies to stillborn babies. It is not really something that I would put in the hands of a grieving parent.

Sadness in Lancaster County

Sad news today from Lancaster County, PA, where a gunman forced his way into an Amish one-room schoolhouse, tossed out the males and the older women, and, after barricading the doors, bound about a dozen young girls then began shooting them. Three died, including a 15 year old teacher's assistant, and then the perpetrator took his own life. Seven others are critically wounded. He was a local father of three who was, apparently, taking vengeance for something that happened to him 20 years ago. This is the third such attack in the last week.
Something is terribly wrong. I remember these kind, gentle people from when we lived in Pennsylvania, several years ago. This is one of the most horrifying things I have read in a very long time. What are we to say?
The news doesn't make it any more likely that I will end up as a pacifist, despite the obvious links between that belief and Christianity. On the other hand I'm not about to sign up with the NRA either. I suppose it's being brought up in Britain, where the police are, mostly, unarmed. (That, and the thought that there will always be somebody with a bigger gun!) It just seems to me that senseless, seemingly random acts like this are the greatest confirmation of the Christian doctrine of Man (to use its historic name). We are fallen people. We are not as we were intended to be. Our rebellion against God, and His purposes has led us into evil. We have rejected His ways. We have lost our fear of divine retribution. We are totally depraved. There is no good thing in us. The scariest thing about murder and mayhem is that, "there but for the grace of God, go I." Only when I am constrained by society, by reverence for God's Law, and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, am I safe from the beast that dwells within.
The Christian estimate of humanity takes sin seriously, even when it is unpopular to do so. No manner of excuses, sociological, psychological or whatever, can take away our guilt. While popular theory emphasises the feelgood factor, and tells us how wonderful we are, the Gospel begins with the bad news that we are, indeed guilty, and that we shall have to answer to an almighty God.
Yet the Gospel is also Good News. It reminds us that forgiveness is possible, and that repentance and faith can lead to changed lives. I have seen it. I have known it in my own life.
But today, the God who weeps with the gentle people of Lancaster County, and who will one day return to judge the earth, is still able both to comfort the afflicted and to afflict those who have grown comfortable in their sin. May those who have lost loved ones, or fear their loss, know the blessing of His presence, and the assurance both of salvation and of judgement.
Presbuteros