The meeting

THE MEETING

This the night when under the dark dome
the hard stars shine and that one
shines brighter than them all, the night
when power and pomp and wisdom and wealth
come seeking a king and find instead
love in ordinary, human love, vulnerable
to all that wounds beneath the sky -
This is that night. It comes again.

For earthly power was melted then
in tears of joy, of journey done,
of understanding what lay there
in poverty of place and rank
and all they knew, these visitors,
collapsed in shards of sudden loss
and left them free to live again -
This is that night.

©C.M.M. 6/01/16

Snuffing out the candles

 We are in the season of Epiphany. Today I took down the (moulting) tree, put the decorations back in the loft, looked out at the rain, noted that the gloom of early morning had moved imperceptibly into the gloom of early evening, and reflected. I reflected on the past fortnight or so, in which the raging energy brought on by the pronouncement of the Bishops (read back - the links are all there) had been dissipated in singing beautiful music and soothed by the magic of Christmas.

And I have been consolidating something I've known for a long time. It's a long time since I stopped thinking that the gospel accounts of the Nativity are literal truth, half a century or more since I realised that in fact the gospels are full of what a student of literature recognises as the hallmarks of a fictional account. (Think of all that direct speech, for starters). And over the years I've heard sermons that have, in their way, dealt with that - pointed out relevance, invited us to think. And I've thought.

Now, as the rain batters on my study window, I can see clearly what it does, all this magic. I don't care that the stories of the shepherds, the angels, the Magi (and Eliot's wonderful poem about them) - I don't care that they can't possibly be true in the way that it's true that I was born in Glasgow. I don't want them changed in any way, for they are perfect. They are perfect poems that contain a truth that inspires, and they are best absorbed as poems, enhanced by art and music and beauty.

And what does this truth inspire me to? I suppose in one way you could say that it inspired me to become a damned nuisance. It certainly knocked me off a comfortable path and set me climbing the spiritual equivalent of the Aonach Eagach, on a ridge walk that I'm still clambering along more than forty years later. It's exciting, it's bound only by trust and love and balance, and that's how I want it to remain.

What does not inspire is a set of rules. Dogma and authoritarianism aren't very thrilling either. Dry politicking within ecclesiastical structures leaves me cold, and people - men, usually - telling me what can and cannot be done because of history and prejudice will tend to set me off on yet another mountain, to sustain the metaphor.

So what about all the beauty and mystery and the stories that tell us of Love incarnate and inspire us to love justice and truth and our neighbours as ourselves? I can't imagine that our bishops, for example, haven't had a bit of that for themselves this Christmas. None of them, after all, is as old as I am - surely they're not blasé about the mysteries they dispense? Does none of it do something to rekindle the fire that, presumably, used to burn in them?

Because in the end, that 's what it does, this season we've just had. It rekindles a fire. Dangerous element, fire - but warming and wonderful. Gives you courage. Gives you passion. I have heard at least one of our bishops preach with passion - but a new image has just presented itself to me, and it seems horribly apt.

Bishop's mitre as candle snuffer.

Icon, anyone?

Hibernation ended

Journey over, eh? The Magi - and I love this picture of them, with their anachronistic clothing and their impatient gait as they press forward with their gifts - have arrived at the place where the infant lay, and have presumably gone again, returning "by another route" to their palaces on slopes, as Eliot puts it, changed men who had to face how they would live after such an experience. And we, their descendant Gentiles, will in a couple of days find ourselves at the Baptism of Jesus, a baby no longer but a mature man facing the call of God to do something extraordinary.

I've been thinking about this as I prepare a sermon for Sunday, and the idea of living through change in oneself has taken over. I can remember how overawed I became shortly after finding I was expecting my first child - I was standing at a bus-stop in Clarence Drive when I was suddenly overcome with the enormity of the changes this as yet invisible child would produce in my life. (If I'd known it would involve leaving the West End of Glasgow and living in Dunoon I might have panicked even more, but there you are). But now, all these years on, I look back calmly and with huge satisfaction at the way it all panned out: what was I afraid of?

Only thing is, I don't think satisfaction is what it's about. Not this change, not this Epiphany. I have a worrying feeling that it may be about continual growth, continuing challenge, continual willingness to try, to accept, to move on. Tonight I noticed it was significantly lighter at 4pm than it has been. Hibernation is not an option, is it?

Oh, darn ...

New poem

I've posted a new poem on frankenstina - this year's somewhat bleak take on the journey of the Magi. I wonder how many of us look at people around us, on the same journey as ourselves, and wonder if they're as confident as they seem about it. Are they wondering, as Eliot's magi did, if this is all folly?

A thought for the season

Epiphany. Camels swaying out of the east, over the stony desert. Starlight behaving unnaturally. Lordly strangers prostrating themselves before a Jewish baby. Revelation - and recognition. Whatever we think of the traditional images, the last is what still strikes us. In our lives, in our relationships, in our knowing.

And recognition can be the most elusive.