177 in his autobiography, anthony trollope says this about himself as a writer:
178 i have always desired to 'hew out some lump of earth' and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walk here among us-with not more of excellence, nor with exaggerated baseness-so that my readers might recognized human beings like to themselves, and not feel themselves to be carried away among gods or demons. if i could do this, then i thought i might succeed in impregnating the mind of the novel-reader with a feeling that honesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while falsehood fails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure and sweet and unselfish; that a man will be honored as he is true and honest and brave of heart; that things meanly done are ugly and odious and things nobly done beautiful and gracious...there are many who would laugh at the idea of a novelist teaching either virtue or nobility - those, for instance, who regard the reading of novels as a sin and those who think it to be simply a pastime. they look upon the tellers of stories as among the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures of a wicked world. i have regarded my art from so different a point of view that i have ever thought of myself as a preacher of sermons and my p0ulpit as one which i could make both salutary and agreeable to my audience. i do beleive that no girl has arisen from the reading of my pages less modest than she was before and some may have learned from them that modesty is a charm well worth preserving. i think that no youth has been taught that in falseness and flashness is to be found the road to manliness; but some may have learned from me that it is to be found in truth and a gentle spirit.
words like Trollope's are in many ways out of fashion now. to speak of women as pure, sweet, unselfish and to be loved and of men as tru, honest, brave of heart and
179 to be honored smacks of a view of things that we no longer find palatable. for a novelist to speak of himself as a preacher of sermons puts everybody off. but when Trollope-than whom i believe there is no greater novelist in english-says that the calling of a writer is to teach virtue and nobility and when he expresses the hope that people will learn from his words that true manliness, true humanness, is to be found not in falseness and flashness but in truth and a gentle spirit, that is something else again.
the truth of it seems to be that it is not only that literature contains metaphors but that literature essentially IS metaphor. writers (note: or speakers) travel through life like the rest of us, seeing the sights and responding to them in all sorts of inner ways and then, like the rest of us, they need, in their loneliness, to put it into words. like God saying 'Let there be light' so that by nameing it He can bring it into being, the writers of literature (note: and all speakers of words!) say, 'let there be this -this putting into words of their experience of (note: or response to) life - so that it can more fully and effectively be both for themselves and for the rest of us.
in a letter to a friend about The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky wrote, 'the chief problem dealt with throughout this particular work is the very one which has, my whole life long, tormented my conscious or subconscious being: the question of the existence of God. clearly the question was not an academic one for D but a question that arose out of what he calls his tormenting experience and to put that experience into words he did on a far larger scale what Shakespeare, for instance did when he wrote 'How like a winter hath my absence been from thee'. my experience of God and of no-God, D says, is like...and then the whole
180 complex structure and treasury of The Brothers Karamazov comes forth as a single metaphor which enable us to participate in the depths of that experience as no academic disquisition could ever do.
and what is the effect upon us, as readers, of sharing that experience? in what way and to what end does that work of literature speak to our lives out of D's life? the book could hardly be less didactic in any narrow sense. it is full of darkness and ambiguity. the characters are continually lacerating themselves and each other through their terrible pride. ivan's devastating attack on belief in an all-powerful and loving God nearly overwhelms us as it nearly overwhelms his brother Alyosha, and Al himself, whose whole live is supposed to speak for the defense, is in many ways the least convincing character in the book. it teaches no easy lesson about virtue and nobility and yet to read it as seriously as it asks to be read and as it it was written, is to emerge from it in some profound way the better for it in the sense of closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit that Trollope names. and so it is, i think, with any work of literature that is worth the time it takes to read it.
...words written (note: spoken) 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, can have as much of this power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alived within ourselves. that, i suppose, is the final mystery as well as the final power of words: THAT NOT EVEN ACROSS GREAT DISTANCES OF TIME AND SPACE DO THEY EVER LOSE THEIR CAPACITY FOR BECOMING INCARNATE. and when these words tell of virtue and nobility, when they move us closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit by which we b ecome fully human, the reading of them is sacramental; and a library is as holy a place as any temple is holy because through the words which are treasured in it the Word itself becomes flesh again and again
Monday, December 7, 2015
12.7.2015 DERELICTION by frederick buechner
...taken from 'a room called remember' uncollected pieces, #12
115 psalm 74. 1-16 O God, why dost Thou cast us off forever? why does Thy anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture? remember Thy congregation, which Thou hast gotten of old,...direct Thy steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! Thy foes have roared in the midst of Thjy holy place; ...at the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes. and then all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. thy set Thy sanctuary on fire; to the ground they desecrated the dwelling p0lace of Thy name. we do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long...yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth...Thine is the day, Thine also is the night.
john 16.7-8 nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. and when He comes, He will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
according to the book of Kings, it was 'in the 5th month, on the 7th day of the month-which was the 19th year of king nebuchadnezzar, king of babylon' that the babylonian forces entered jerusalem and, among other things, destroyed the great temple of solomon in
116 all its glory. 't the upper entranced they hacked the wooden trellis with axes, says the 74th psalm, 'all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. they set Thy sanctuary on fire'. you can all but hear the chaos and din of it - the falling masonry and splintering wood, the massive cedar beams overlaid with gold thundering to the floor, the crackle and hiss of flames as they swept up the walls all carved with pomegranates, palm trees, lilies, as they feathered with fire the great olivewood cherubim with their outstretched wings who can ever forget it - the burning embers floating through the sky and the terrible heat of it as the priests scattered before it like dead leaves before the wind?
'to the ground they desecrated the dwelling place of Thy name, says this horror-struck psalm. 'the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! Thy foes have roared in the midst of Thy holy place'. and that of course was close to the worst of it: that the place which was destroyed was not just the pride and glory of jerusalem but was also God's place. thy didn't exactly say it was the place where God dwelled because at its wisest israel alwayhs stopped just short to saying that God dwelled anywhere is space, but it was the place where God tabernacled at least, where He pitched His tent, camped, to hear prayer and accept sacrificed, the place where his secret name was spoken and heard, where his glory was at least glimpsed as isaiah had glimpsed it in the year when king uzziah died. so of all the places anywhere, the Temple was the holiest place. if God made Himself known anyplace, that was where He did it. and now that place was a shambles, a smouldering ruin, an unholy mess.
there are many things you could say about it and one
117 of them is simply that king nebuchadnezzar put king Yahweh to rout and took His temple the way Grant took Richmond. you could say that when it came to a direct confrontation, not even God in His holiness was a match for babylonians in their might with their hatchets and axes and flaming torches. you could say, if you dared to say it, that God is only a dream, a shadow, a word, whereas hatchets are solid and real the way babylonians and bombs are real; and that on the day when this whole planet is finally chopped down, burned up, the dream of god will vanish with it as surely as the Temple did on the 5th day of the 6th month with king nebuchadnezzar standing by at the hotline to get the good news. that is one thing you could say and my only guess is that there were probably more than a few in jerusalem who were saying it in 586 BC just as there are more than a few who are saying it today. Neb routed God because God is of no substance and reality in Himself, and thus eminently routable. Neb was able to dispose of God and His temple, both, with comparative ease because God, if He had ever existed at all, was dead and gone before Neb got there.
but needless to say, that was not what the prophets were saying. what the prophets were saying was that the reason Neb was able to destroy the temple of god in all its holiness was that God had long since left the Temple to its fate in anger and despair and taken His holiness with Him. the prophet Jeremiah went and stood right in the court of the temple itself on the eve of its destruction and said it - in the terrible candor of his calling blurted it out with such force that his eyes bulged in their sockets: 'do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is
118 the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord'. he shouted it three times in a row so nobody would miss it. and then he spoke what he believed was the word of God himself: 'will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, ...go after other gods...and then come before Me in this house, which is called by My name and say, 'we are delivered'? for Jeremiah, in other words, the Temple fell to the babylonians like a house of cards not because God was a pushover but because a house of cards was what God's people had made of it.
'we are delivered, they said in their temple while it was still in business. they had been delivered at the Exodus and many a time since. they had left behind them in egypt the worst bondage of all which was bondage to themselves. they had been shown the way to get the hell out, but they were still in hell because by letting their faith become mainly a matter of ritual and busyness inside the Temple and by living their lives outside the Temple as though there was no God at all to give a hang how they lived them and thus was really no God at all, hell was what they had made for themselves and within themselves. it was they themselves who had desecrated the temple, Jer said, and the babylonians had only delivered the coup de grace. now they were on their own. God was no longer to be found where for centuries they had expected to find Him. and the 74th psalm begins like a dog howling at the moon: 'O God, why dost Thou cast us off for ever?...remember Thy congregation, which Thou hast gotten of old'. but as far as the psalmist can tell, God did not remember them. 'we do not see our signs', he says. 'there is no longer any prophet and there is none
119 among us who knows how long'. that was the worst of it all, the people of the exodus, the people who had been delivered, were lost, and their cry is a cry of dereliction that even after two and a half thousand years has still such a ring of reality to it that it is hard to hear it and remain unmoved, hard to think of it as having mere historical interest. 'O God, why dost Thou cast us off?' is there anyone who has not only heard that cry but at times also cried it?
there is a restaurant in a city somewhere, a sort of quick lunch place with no tablecloths on the tables, just the ketchup and mustard jars on the bare wood. it seems to be raining outside. an elderly man with a raincoat and umbrella has turned at the door. another man glances up as he sits there smoking a cigar over a newspaper and the remains of his coffee. tow teenagers sit at a table, one of them with a cigarette in his mouth. they are all looking at the same thing, which is an old woman and a small boy who are sharing a table with the teenagers. their heads are bowed. they are saying grace. the people watching them watch with dazed fascination. the small boy's ears stick out from his head like the handles of a jug. the old woman's eyes are closed, her hair untidy under a hat that has seen better days. the people are watching something that you feel they may have been part of once but are p0art of no longer. through the plate-glass window and the rain, the city looks dim, monotonous, industrial. the old woman and the boy are saying grace there, and for a moment the silence in the place is fathomless. the watchers are watching something that they've all but forgotten and will probably forget again as soon as the moment passes. they could be watching creatures from another
120 planet. the old woman and the boy in their old fashioned clothes, praying their old fashioned prayer, are leftovers from a day that has long since ceased to be.
it is not fashionable to praise Norman Rockwell overmuch, that old master of nostalgia and american corn, but we have to praise praise him at least for this most haunting and maybe most enduring of all his Saturday Evening Post covers which touches on something that i think touches us all. it was some 30 years ago that he painted it, but the likeness remains fresh and true to this day and or course it is a likeness of us and of a world not unlike the one the 74th psalm describes.
for us the Temple still stands, to be sure. the great cathedrals still stand. the churches still stand, big ones and little ones, some that are almost full every sunday and others that are almost empty. the Church is till in business, in other words, but the question is, what is that business, what goes on in these strange buildings scattered thick over the surface of the earth? why do people continue to go there? what do they find when they get there? what do they fail to find? why do people go to them no longer? fundamentalists, liverals, evangelicals, humanists, charismatics, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses - are all of them doing the same thing or are they doing different things? are some of them doing it right and others doing it wrong? is there any sense in which you can say that God is present in any of them or all of them? these are not rhetorical questions, questions whose answers i plan to pull out of the hat at the end of my sermon. it's because i don't know the answers that i'[m asking them both of you and of myself. and it's because some of you may share my confusion and uncertainty that it seems crucial
121 to ask them also of God. maybe at least part of our business in a church is to ask what is going on in it. is there anything more or less important, real, holy, going on there than anyplace else?
as a church we have not been demolished with hatchets and axes and torches and the foes of God have not roared in our sanctuary except insofar as from time to time you and i are His foes. the church is intact. the plumbing and furnace work, at least most of the time. the sunday school rooms are clean and adequately lit. the bills are paid. the ministers by and large earn their keep. sermons are preached, the young are baptized and married, the old buried. the sick and lonely are visited and the poor remembered and the congregation more or less does its share too. the wine is poured and the bread eaten over and over again. 'drink this, eat this, in remembrance of Me', and He is remembered here and we come to remember and be remembered. we pray. we worship. sometimes we even open our hearts a little to the one who promises to lead us out, to deliver us and who has delivered us at least as far as this place itself where with such faith as wee have, we sometimes yearn above all things for full deliverance and sometimes, i suspect, would turn it down cold if the chance came because with part of ourselves we cling to things as they are even when they are killing us and we are far from eager to find out what full deliverance might mean.
the church is intact in many ways and at their best most of the things the church does serve their purpose - sometimes, we pray, serve even Christ's purpose - and at their worst are probably at least harmless. but is it possible that something crucial is missing the way something
122 crucial was missing in the Temple at Jerusalem in 586 BC, which is why it fell like a ton of bricks? 'you are the body of Christ, paul said, and if you stop to think of it at all, that is a most fateful and devastating word. Christ on this earth was the healer of the sick, the feeder of the hungry, the hope of the hopeless, the sinners' friend and thank God for that because that means He is also our hope, our friend. thank God for every time the church remembers that and acts out of that.
but Christ was also a tiger, the denouncer of a narrow and loveless piety, the scourge of the merely moral, the enemy of every religious tradition of his day, no matter how sacred, that did not serve the Kingdom as He saw it and embodied it in all its wildness and beauty. where he was, passion was, life was. to be near Him was to catch life from Him the way sails catch the wind. He was the prince of peace and when he said, 'I have not come to bring peace, but a sword', what He presumably meant was that it was not peacefulness and passivity that He came to bring but that high and life-breathing peace that burns at the hearts only of those who are willing to do battle, as He did battle, to bring to pass God's loving, healing, forgiving will for the world and all its people.
in these ways too the church is called, you and i are called, to be Christ's body, to be life-givers and when i think of that, i think of a new england college where i preach from time to time in a vast Gothic chapel that is used only once or twice a year and the rest of the time stands empty. and i remember how the last time i was there and looked out into all that great vaulted space which month after month is full of nothing but shadows, it struck me as saying such what the Rockwell cover is saying. the other people in the restaurant look with dazed
123 astonishment at the old woman and the small boy at their prayers because something seems to be alive and real inside them in that unlikely place, something that in many a place where you would expect to find it seems scarcely alive at all. even when churches are full to overflowing, it is often hard not to sense an inner emptiness as great as the emptiness of that college chapel - the sense that though the great feast is still in progress and many of the guests still in their seats, the heart has somehow gone out of it, the passion, the adventure have been replaced by shadows, and the host himself no longer there.
is that the truth of it - the church as museum, as echo? many would say so. in the part of the world where i come from, the people who say so are apt to be some of the wisest, most concerned people there are. they have little or nothing to do with the church because for them the church speaks a dead language, is for them a dead-end street. and if we are honest, you and i - we who are the church and try to hold on to whatever there is to hold on to in it - i think we have to admit that often they are right. often, i'm afraid, the church is a place where preachers preach not out of their depths but out of their shallows, and who, when they try to show forth the great transforming truths of the faith that once set the world on its ear, speak not out of the experience of those truths in their own lives but speak instead like american tourists abroad who believe that if only they say the hallowed old words often enough and forcibly enough, everybody will be bound to understand whether they know the language or not. often, i'm afraid, the church is a place where bread and wine and prayers and hymns and worship have little more significance than the secret rites of a Greek-letter fraternity. sadder still, the church often seems to be a gathering124
of men and women who, whatever they find there, take so little of it out into the world with them that if one of them were to sit down at McDonald's and say grace, or say or do anything to suggest he or she is a christian, the golden arches would sake with astonishment-and so, i suspect, would we. i think of an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous, which has no building, no budget, no priesthood, but only people who come together wherever they are to seek help in their helplessness from each other and from God and who are ready at any ungodly moment of day of night -which is to say, of course, at any godly moment-to go to each other's rescue, whereas you and i, who are called above all things to be Christs to each other, tend to pass like ships in the night. in our own genteel and unobtrusive ways will we 'steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, go after other gods, and then come before (Him) into this house which is called by (His) name and say, 'we are delivered'? the one who asks that question is Jeremiah, and there can be no great mystery as to whom he asks it of.
125 there is nothing the world can't destroy if it puts its mind to it, including the world itself. the temple of solomon was destroyed as much by the jews within as by the babylonians without. and the church as the body of Christ is destroyed not just from without by a world that sees it as a dead end street but by people like you and me who destroy it from with9in by our deadness and staleness, our failure to be brave, to be human, to take chances; by the sterility and irrelevance and sup0erficiality and faddishness of so much of our churchly business and by our tragic-comic failure to move around in the world as though being a christian makes not just a nominal difference but all the difference in the world. but if the Temple can be destroyed
126 and maybe deserves to be destroyed, God is not destroyed, Jeremiah says. even if the temple lies in ruins, God will find a new place to pitch His tent and that place is the human heart: the law to be put within us, the Counselor to come, the breath of life.
which hearts and where then? in whose hearts does something of "God well up, something of new life start to live...
sisters and brothers, we must love one another or die. surer than the law of gravity is sure, that is the law. and in those hearts where that law is written and kept, there the Counselor has come and God dwells and the world itself begins to become the Temple. 'O God, direct Thy steps to the perpetual ruins' that can never ruin Thee. direct Thy steps to us to to Thy church in its emptiness and darkness. Thi9ne is the day, but Thine also is the night. Thine also is the night.
115 psalm 74. 1-16 O God, why dost Thou cast us off forever? why does Thy anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture? remember Thy congregation, which Thou hast gotten of old,...direct Thy steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! Thy foes have roared in the midst of Thjy holy place; ...at the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes. and then all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. thy set Thy sanctuary on fire; to the ground they desecrated the dwelling p0lace of Thy name. we do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long...yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth...Thine is the day, Thine also is the night.
john 16.7-8 nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. and when He comes, He will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
according to the book of Kings, it was 'in the 5th month, on the 7th day of the month-which was the 19th year of king nebuchadnezzar, king of babylon' that the babylonian forces entered jerusalem and, among other things, destroyed the great temple of solomon in
116 all its glory. 't the upper entranced they hacked the wooden trellis with axes, says the 74th psalm, 'all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. they set Thy sanctuary on fire'. you can all but hear the chaos and din of it - the falling masonry and splintering wood, the massive cedar beams overlaid with gold thundering to the floor, the crackle and hiss of flames as they swept up the walls all carved with pomegranates, palm trees, lilies, as they feathered with fire the great olivewood cherubim with their outstretched wings who can ever forget it - the burning embers floating through the sky and the terrible heat of it as the priests scattered before it like dead leaves before the wind?
'to the ground they desecrated the dwelling place of Thy name, says this horror-struck psalm. 'the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! Thy foes have roared in the midst of Thy holy place'. and that of course was close to the worst of it: that the place which was destroyed was not just the pride and glory of jerusalem but was also God's place. thy didn't exactly say it was the place where God dwelled because at its wisest israel alwayhs stopped just short to saying that God dwelled anywhere is space, but it was the place where God tabernacled at least, where He pitched His tent, camped, to hear prayer and accept sacrificed, the place where his secret name was spoken and heard, where his glory was at least glimpsed as isaiah had glimpsed it in the year when king uzziah died. so of all the places anywhere, the Temple was the holiest place. if God made Himself known anyplace, that was where He did it. and now that place was a shambles, a smouldering ruin, an unholy mess.
there are many things you could say about it and one
117 of them is simply that king nebuchadnezzar put king Yahweh to rout and took His temple the way Grant took Richmond. you could say that when it came to a direct confrontation, not even God in His holiness was a match for babylonians in their might with their hatchets and axes and flaming torches. you could say, if you dared to say it, that God is only a dream, a shadow, a word, whereas hatchets are solid and real the way babylonians and bombs are real; and that on the day when this whole planet is finally chopped down, burned up, the dream of god will vanish with it as surely as the Temple did on the 5th day of the 6th month with king nebuchadnezzar standing by at the hotline to get the good news. that is one thing you could say and my only guess is that there were probably more than a few in jerusalem who were saying it in 586 BC just as there are more than a few who are saying it today. Neb routed God because God is of no substance and reality in Himself, and thus eminently routable. Neb was able to dispose of God and His temple, both, with comparative ease because God, if He had ever existed at all, was dead and gone before Neb got there.
but needless to say, that was not what the prophets were saying. what the prophets were saying was that the reason Neb was able to destroy the temple of god in all its holiness was that God had long since left the Temple to its fate in anger and despair and taken His holiness with Him. the prophet Jeremiah went and stood right in the court of the temple itself on the eve of its destruction and said it - in the terrible candor of his calling blurted it out with such force that his eyes bulged in their sockets: 'do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is
118 the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord'. he shouted it three times in a row so nobody would miss it. and then he spoke what he believed was the word of God himself: 'will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, ...go after other gods...and then come before Me in this house, which is called by My name and say, 'we are delivered'? for Jeremiah, in other words, the Temple fell to the babylonians like a house of cards not because God was a pushover but because a house of cards was what God's people had made of it.
'we are delivered, they said in their temple while it was still in business. they had been delivered at the Exodus and many a time since. they had left behind them in egypt the worst bondage of all which was bondage to themselves. they had been shown the way to get the hell out, but they were still in hell because by letting their faith become mainly a matter of ritual and busyness inside the Temple and by living their lives outside the Temple as though there was no God at all to give a hang how they lived them and thus was really no God at all, hell was what they had made for themselves and within themselves. it was they themselves who had desecrated the temple, Jer said, and the babylonians had only delivered the coup de grace. now they were on their own. God was no longer to be found where for centuries they had expected to find Him. and the 74th psalm begins like a dog howling at the moon: 'O God, why dost Thou cast us off for ever?...remember Thy congregation, which Thou hast gotten of old'. but as far as the psalmist can tell, God did not remember them. 'we do not see our signs', he says. 'there is no longer any prophet and there is none
119 among us who knows how long'. that was the worst of it all, the people of the exodus, the people who had been delivered, were lost, and their cry is a cry of dereliction that even after two and a half thousand years has still such a ring of reality to it that it is hard to hear it and remain unmoved, hard to think of it as having mere historical interest. 'O God, why dost Thou cast us off?' is there anyone who has not only heard that cry but at times also cried it?
there is a restaurant in a city somewhere, a sort of quick lunch place with no tablecloths on the tables, just the ketchup and mustard jars on the bare wood. it seems to be raining outside. an elderly man with a raincoat and umbrella has turned at the door. another man glances up as he sits there smoking a cigar over a newspaper and the remains of his coffee. tow teenagers sit at a table, one of them with a cigarette in his mouth. they are all looking at the same thing, which is an old woman and a small boy who are sharing a table with the teenagers. their heads are bowed. they are saying grace. the people watching them watch with dazed fascination. the small boy's ears stick out from his head like the handles of a jug. the old woman's eyes are closed, her hair untidy under a hat that has seen better days. the people are watching something that you feel they may have been part of once but are p0art of no longer. through the plate-glass window and the rain, the city looks dim, monotonous, industrial. the old woman and the boy are saying grace there, and for a moment the silence in the place is fathomless. the watchers are watching something that they've all but forgotten and will probably forget again as soon as the moment passes. they could be watching creatures from another
120 planet. the old woman and the boy in their old fashioned clothes, praying their old fashioned prayer, are leftovers from a day that has long since ceased to be.
it is not fashionable to praise Norman Rockwell overmuch, that old master of nostalgia and american corn, but we have to praise praise him at least for this most haunting and maybe most enduring of all his Saturday Evening Post covers which touches on something that i think touches us all. it was some 30 years ago that he painted it, but the likeness remains fresh and true to this day and or course it is a likeness of us and of a world not unlike the one the 74th psalm describes.
for us the Temple still stands, to be sure. the great cathedrals still stand. the churches still stand, big ones and little ones, some that are almost full every sunday and others that are almost empty. the Church is till in business, in other words, but the question is, what is that business, what goes on in these strange buildings scattered thick over the surface of the earth? why do people continue to go there? what do they find when they get there? what do they fail to find? why do people go to them no longer? fundamentalists, liverals, evangelicals, humanists, charismatics, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses - are all of them doing the same thing or are they doing different things? are some of them doing it right and others doing it wrong? is there any sense in which you can say that God is present in any of them or all of them? these are not rhetorical questions, questions whose answers i plan to pull out of the hat at the end of my sermon. it's because i don't know the answers that i'[m asking them both of you and of myself. and it's because some of you may share my confusion and uncertainty that it seems crucial
121 to ask them also of God. maybe at least part of our business in a church is to ask what is going on in it. is there anything more or less important, real, holy, going on there than anyplace else?
as a church we have not been demolished with hatchets and axes and torches and the foes of God have not roared in our sanctuary except insofar as from time to time you and i are His foes. the church is intact. the plumbing and furnace work, at least most of the time. the sunday school rooms are clean and adequately lit. the bills are paid. the ministers by and large earn their keep. sermons are preached, the young are baptized and married, the old buried. the sick and lonely are visited and the poor remembered and the congregation more or less does its share too. the wine is poured and the bread eaten over and over again. 'drink this, eat this, in remembrance of Me', and He is remembered here and we come to remember and be remembered. we pray. we worship. sometimes we even open our hearts a little to the one who promises to lead us out, to deliver us and who has delivered us at least as far as this place itself where with such faith as wee have, we sometimes yearn above all things for full deliverance and sometimes, i suspect, would turn it down cold if the chance came because with part of ourselves we cling to things as they are even when they are killing us and we are far from eager to find out what full deliverance might mean.
the church is intact in many ways and at their best most of the things the church does serve their purpose - sometimes, we pray, serve even Christ's purpose - and at their worst are probably at least harmless. but is it possible that something crucial is missing the way something
122 crucial was missing in the Temple at Jerusalem in 586 BC, which is why it fell like a ton of bricks? 'you are the body of Christ, paul said, and if you stop to think of it at all, that is a most fateful and devastating word. Christ on this earth was the healer of the sick, the feeder of the hungry, the hope of the hopeless, the sinners' friend and thank God for that because that means He is also our hope, our friend. thank God for every time the church remembers that and acts out of that.
but Christ was also a tiger, the denouncer of a narrow and loveless piety, the scourge of the merely moral, the enemy of every religious tradition of his day, no matter how sacred, that did not serve the Kingdom as He saw it and embodied it in all its wildness and beauty. where he was, passion was, life was. to be near Him was to catch life from Him the way sails catch the wind. He was the prince of peace and when he said, 'I have not come to bring peace, but a sword', what He presumably meant was that it was not peacefulness and passivity that He came to bring but that high and life-breathing peace that burns at the hearts only of those who are willing to do battle, as He did battle, to bring to pass God's loving, healing, forgiving will for the world and all its people.
in these ways too the church is called, you and i are called, to be Christ's body, to be life-givers and when i think of that, i think of a new england college where i preach from time to time in a vast Gothic chapel that is used only once or twice a year and the rest of the time stands empty. and i remember how the last time i was there and looked out into all that great vaulted space which month after month is full of nothing but shadows, it struck me as saying such what the Rockwell cover is saying. the other people in the restaurant look with dazed
123 astonishment at the old woman and the small boy at their prayers because something seems to be alive and real inside them in that unlikely place, something that in many a place where you would expect to find it seems scarcely alive at all. even when churches are full to overflowing, it is often hard not to sense an inner emptiness as great as the emptiness of that college chapel - the sense that though the great feast is still in progress and many of the guests still in their seats, the heart has somehow gone out of it, the passion, the adventure have been replaced by shadows, and the host himself no longer there.
is that the truth of it - the church as museum, as echo? many would say so. in the part of the world where i come from, the people who say so are apt to be some of the wisest, most concerned people there are. they have little or nothing to do with the church because for them the church speaks a dead language, is for them a dead-end street. and if we are honest, you and i - we who are the church and try to hold on to whatever there is to hold on to in it - i think we have to admit that often they are right. often, i'm afraid, the church is a place where preachers preach not out of their depths but out of their shallows, and who, when they try to show forth the great transforming truths of the faith that once set the world on its ear, speak not out of the experience of those truths in their own lives but speak instead like american tourists abroad who believe that if only they say the hallowed old words often enough and forcibly enough, everybody will be bound to understand whether they know the language or not. often, i'm afraid, the church is a place where bread and wine and prayers and hymns and worship have little more significance than the secret rites of a Greek-letter fraternity. sadder still, the church often seems to be a gathering124
of men and women who, whatever they find there, take so little of it out into the world with them that if one of them were to sit down at McDonald's and say grace, or say or do anything to suggest he or she is a christian, the golden arches would sake with astonishment-and so, i suspect, would we. i think of an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous, which has no building, no budget, no priesthood, but only people who come together wherever they are to seek help in their helplessness from each other and from God and who are ready at any ungodly moment of day of night -which is to say, of course, at any godly moment-to go to each other's rescue, whereas you and i, who are called above all things to be Christs to each other, tend to pass like ships in the night. in our own genteel and unobtrusive ways will we 'steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, go after other gods, and then come before (Him) into this house which is called by (His) name and say, 'we are delivered'? the one who asks that question is Jeremiah, and there can be no great mystery as to whom he asks it of.
125 there is nothing the world can't destroy if it puts its mind to it, including the world itself. the temple of solomon was destroyed as much by the jews within as by the babylonians without. and the church as the body of Christ is destroyed not just from without by a world that sees it as a dead end street but by people like you and me who destroy it from with9in by our deadness and staleness, our failure to be brave, to be human, to take chances; by the sterility and irrelevance and sup0erficiality and faddishness of so much of our churchly business and by our tragic-comic failure to move around in the world as though being a christian makes not just a nominal difference but all the difference in the world. but if the Temple can be destroyed
126 and maybe deserves to be destroyed, God is not destroyed, Jeremiah says. even if the temple lies in ruins, God will find a new place to pitch His tent and that place is the human heart: the law to be put within us, the Counselor to come, the breath of life.
which hearts and where then? in whose hearts does something of "God well up, something of new life start to live...
sisters and brothers, we must love one another or die. surer than the law of gravity is sure, that is the law. and in those hearts where that law is written and kept, there the Counselor has come and God dwells and the world itself begins to become the Temple. 'O God, direct Thy steps to the perpetual ruins' that can never ruin Thee. direct Thy steps to us to to Thy church in its emptiness and darkness. Thi9ne is the day, but Thine also is the night. Thine also is the night.
Monday, November 23, 2015
SWITZERLAND IN ENGLISH PROSE AND POETRY by arnold lunn.....an englishwoman writes from switzerland (eveline amstutz)
232 some time ago i read Mountain Jubilee by arnold lunn in which his nostalgia for switzerland and the mountains and snows of switzerland flows out on almost every page. this is all very flattering for switzerland, but i wonder how many people who have been privileged to 'see the war through' in england realise the nostalgia for england which people - chiefly women like myself - have endured all these years. nostalgia, not just to be home, but to be able to pull our weight with all the others in england.
i use the word 'privileged' advisedly because i feel that it has been a privilege to witness at close quarters the resurrection of england, of english tradition, of all that made the english what they have been and what they will always be. it looked, to many of us who saw the view from the distance and who did not live in it, as if england was losing something, and we yearned over our country and clung fast to our belief that it couldn't really be happening.
and then the war came and all our beliefs were justified, for england showed herself to be what she has always been - superb! we who have made our homes in other countries have -at least, i have -longed to be home during this resurrection and to do something! i don't mean that i longed for honour and glory, at least not the bombed out of house and home kind of honour and glory, but just to feel that i was doing my share with all the other women of england. i felt i wouldn't mind coping with food shortage, difficulties of transport, danger, lack of fuel, national work, anything, if i knew that whatever the discomfort was i was putting up with it quietly and as a matter
233 of course - for england! letters i had from england did not help. there were things waiting for me to do there, i was wanted. one letter ran: 'why aren't you here now? we need women like you'.
however, i am still here and i found things to do, later. none of them the least heroic or important, but i am still doing them. there was 'Digging for Victory' to be done, which has played and which is still playing, such an important role in switzerland. every corner, every sloping bank, every inch of land must be made to produce. i could dig and i dug with a will, joining the big cultivation plan put into action throughout the country. public parks became vegetable gardens, potatoes adorned the squares in our town and corn waved where corn had never waved before. there were the refugees, civil and military, pouring into the country. no public body could cope with them all at once and it was up to private people to do what they could. in my letter of last year i may have told what happened when i started to beg for the french soldiers in murren. within ten days i was able to fit out 250 men with clothes, thanks to the Swiss! that's the way the swiss give. everyone i asked, asked someone else and things came pouring into the house till it looked like an old clothes shop. one woman in the village took two shirts off her washing line and gave them to me, saying: 'i must just wash a little oftener'.
the red cross is always needing help and getting it; organisations which provide clothes, food, parcels, comforts for prisoners of war, exist in every town. we sew, collect books, anything and everything and since the capitulation of italy, has come another influx of refugees, english and american soldiers and italians, civil, military and political refugees, from the highest in the land to the poorest and meanest. they all have to be cared for. in the beginning many italians came in with permission from the swiss government, but the only way open to them now is the 'black' route, slipping between german guards, braving the mountains or the dangers of being smuggled in somehow by italian partisans. i have just come back from a little place on the italian-swiss frontier, where i was in touch with these brave men and women and knew as much of their activities as their trust in me allowed them to tell. their lives are in their hands every moment of the day and
234 night and they are still bringing italians, british and american soldiers over the frontier at an incredible rate. they brought 27 british officers up to within sight of the frontier whilst i was there, but when these men decided to join up with their own forces instead of crossing into internment in switzerland, the partisans took them and handed them safely over in an amazingly short space of time. many of the tales i should like to tell must wait till after the war, because quite a few of these italian partisans are living in switzerland as respectable citizens and those of us who know anything - just don't know anything at all!
we women who have our relatives in england are in constant anxiety, often without news and with no hope of reunion till after the war. true, we, our husbands and children are safe and that is a great deal for which to be thankful. life is complicated, housekeeping is difficult, little food can be bought without coupons and clothes and footwear are rationed. we have all we need if not all we want, and when one remembers that we are feeding and clothing 80,000 refugees as well as ourselves, it is a miracle of organisation that we are all fed and clothed, particularly when one looks at the map and studies the position of switzerland for a moment!
for the last 10 months i have had two italian children in my home and they will remain for the duration of the war. the extra coupons i have had given me for them has enabled me to see that they have had not only all they need, but all they want. and the first to give was a village woman who slipped coupons into my hand, saying: 'we don't need it. give it to thee little ones, they need feeding up'. strict as the rationing is, everyone can spare something where they see refugees.
difficult times bring out character and i have seen many surprising things in this country. i have seen true heroism in the little, irritating affairs of everyday life and i have seen a lot of sad exploitation of circumstances. i have heard grumbling from people whose position certainly does not entitle them to grumble and i have seen stoicism where i least expected it. generosity and open heartedness have come from people whom i never suspected of possessing either and men behaviour from people i had believed to be made of different stuff.
we have had our alarms and excursions, of course. how could it be otherwise, situated as we are? our men are mobilised, our
235 frontiers fortified and manned. but inside those frontiers, no matter what happens outside them, is switzerland, safe, her people pursuing their normal lives as far as possible, eating their daily bread in confidence and trust, the children secure, homes undamaged and the future - we hope and trust - assured. and in this hope and trust we can look proudly at the three flags which fly side by side over swiss soil. three flags very much alike in shape and form, since all are crosses. the cross of christianity, oldest of them all, which has never been torn down to make room for any other emblem; the white cross on the red ground, our national flag which has flown over free switzerland since the middle ages; and the red cross on the white ground which henri dunant, swiss founder of the society of the Red Cross, made by reversing the flag of his country. as long as we can keep these in our hearts, i think we need little else, the cross of Christ for faith, the cross of switzerland for hope and the red cross of charity, the charity which out of our own security we give with both hands in thankfulness that we have it to give.
thank You Lord for the many delightful things in this little book and, for me, a bit of an introduction to switzerland which i have loved and been intrigued with since reading of Your followers, the waldensians who lived, though often hunted, there for centuries....o keep us from thinking well of ourselves, Lord. only You are good and all true good flows from Your lowly grace. amen.
i use the word 'privileged' advisedly because i feel that it has been a privilege to witness at close quarters the resurrection of england, of english tradition, of all that made the english what they have been and what they will always be. it looked, to many of us who saw the view from the distance and who did not live in it, as if england was losing something, and we yearned over our country and clung fast to our belief that it couldn't really be happening.
and then the war came and all our beliefs were justified, for england showed herself to be what she has always been - superb! we who have made our homes in other countries have -at least, i have -longed to be home during this resurrection and to do something! i don't mean that i longed for honour and glory, at least not the bombed out of house and home kind of honour and glory, but just to feel that i was doing my share with all the other women of england. i felt i wouldn't mind coping with food shortage, difficulties of transport, danger, lack of fuel, national work, anything, if i knew that whatever the discomfort was i was putting up with it quietly and as a matter
233 of course - for england! letters i had from england did not help. there were things waiting for me to do there, i was wanted. one letter ran: 'why aren't you here now? we need women like you'.
however, i am still here and i found things to do, later. none of them the least heroic or important, but i am still doing them. there was 'Digging for Victory' to be done, which has played and which is still playing, such an important role in switzerland. every corner, every sloping bank, every inch of land must be made to produce. i could dig and i dug with a will, joining the big cultivation plan put into action throughout the country. public parks became vegetable gardens, potatoes adorned the squares in our town and corn waved where corn had never waved before. there were the refugees, civil and military, pouring into the country. no public body could cope with them all at once and it was up to private people to do what they could. in my letter of last year i may have told what happened when i started to beg for the french soldiers in murren. within ten days i was able to fit out 250 men with clothes, thanks to the Swiss! that's the way the swiss give. everyone i asked, asked someone else and things came pouring into the house till it looked like an old clothes shop. one woman in the village took two shirts off her washing line and gave them to me, saying: 'i must just wash a little oftener'.
the red cross is always needing help and getting it; organisations which provide clothes, food, parcels, comforts for prisoners of war, exist in every town. we sew, collect books, anything and everything and since the capitulation of italy, has come another influx of refugees, english and american soldiers and italians, civil, military and political refugees, from the highest in the land to the poorest and meanest. they all have to be cared for. in the beginning many italians came in with permission from the swiss government, but the only way open to them now is the 'black' route, slipping between german guards, braving the mountains or the dangers of being smuggled in somehow by italian partisans. i have just come back from a little place on the italian-swiss frontier, where i was in touch with these brave men and women and knew as much of their activities as their trust in me allowed them to tell. their lives are in their hands every moment of the day and
234 night and they are still bringing italians, british and american soldiers over the frontier at an incredible rate. they brought 27 british officers up to within sight of the frontier whilst i was there, but when these men decided to join up with their own forces instead of crossing into internment in switzerland, the partisans took them and handed them safely over in an amazingly short space of time. many of the tales i should like to tell must wait till after the war, because quite a few of these italian partisans are living in switzerland as respectable citizens and those of us who know anything - just don't know anything at all!
we women who have our relatives in england are in constant anxiety, often without news and with no hope of reunion till after the war. true, we, our husbands and children are safe and that is a great deal for which to be thankful. life is complicated, housekeeping is difficult, little food can be bought without coupons and clothes and footwear are rationed. we have all we need if not all we want, and when one remembers that we are feeding and clothing 80,000 refugees as well as ourselves, it is a miracle of organisation that we are all fed and clothed, particularly when one looks at the map and studies the position of switzerland for a moment!
for the last 10 months i have had two italian children in my home and they will remain for the duration of the war. the extra coupons i have had given me for them has enabled me to see that they have had not only all they need, but all they want. and the first to give was a village woman who slipped coupons into my hand, saying: 'we don't need it. give it to thee little ones, they need feeding up'. strict as the rationing is, everyone can spare something where they see refugees.
difficult times bring out character and i have seen many surprising things in this country. i have seen true heroism in the little, irritating affairs of everyday life and i have seen a lot of sad exploitation of circumstances. i have heard grumbling from people whose position certainly does not entitle them to grumble and i have seen stoicism where i least expected it. generosity and open heartedness have come from people whom i never suspected of possessing either and men behaviour from people i had believed to be made of different stuff.
we have had our alarms and excursions, of course. how could it be otherwise, situated as we are? our men are mobilised, our
235 frontiers fortified and manned. but inside those frontiers, no matter what happens outside them, is switzerland, safe, her people pursuing their normal lives as far as possible, eating their daily bread in confidence and trust, the children secure, homes undamaged and the future - we hope and trust - assured. and in this hope and trust we can look proudly at the three flags which fly side by side over swiss soil. three flags very much alike in shape and form, since all are crosses. the cross of christianity, oldest of them all, which has never been torn down to make room for any other emblem; the white cross on the red ground, our national flag which has flown over free switzerland since the middle ages; and the red cross on the white ground which henri dunant, swiss founder of the society of the Red Cross, made by reversing the flag of his country. as long as we can keep these in our hearts, i think we need little else, the cross of Christ for faith, the cross of switzerland for hope and the red cross of charity, the charity which out of our own security we give with both hands in thankfulness that we have it to give.
thank You Lord for the many delightful things in this little book and, for me, a bit of an introduction to switzerland which i have loved and been intrigued with since reading of Your followers, the waldensians who lived, though often hunted, there for centuries....o keep us from thinking well of ourselves, Lord. only You are good and all true good flows from Your lowly grace. amen.
Monday, November 2, 2015
11.2.2015 REQUIEM by thomas nash
briefly this book, by a professor from drew university, says that seminaries have largely become bastions of non-Biblical thinking/teaching/practice(?!) but that there is a young group of men and women who are rejecting-challenging this by moving to ground their beliefs in a renewed study (and imitation?) of the church Fathers of the first five centuries focusing on their understanding of scripture. very enlightening..encouraging...hopeful.
9 without a story we do not know who we are.
10...speaking of current theology..'their inventions have been invented many times before and...were typically called heresies. ('heresy' has mostly disappeared today...)
..chesterton observed that the trouble with someone who does not believe in God is not that he will end up believing in nothing; it is, rather, that he will end up believing in anything.
11 ..the circus that is theology today...
33 ..an interloper who steals property must be caught and fairly charged as an expression of justice. secularization is such an interloper. we have witnessed the theft of church property by forces alien and inimical to the church. stolen property must be reclaimed. thieves must be brought to justice.
there are times when a counterthesis needs to be put sharply over against a prevailing thesis. if the countervailing argument is not put pungently against a harsh, insensitive taskmaster, it will be easily dismissed.
the rhetorical assignment under those circumstances is to enter in good humor the arena and strike telling blows. the plaintiff must sometimes make a case that refuses to be disregarded. if i hit had rhetorically, it is because i have seen innocent persons being hit much harder.
34..by liberated i mean those persons who are the sexual experimenters, the compulsive planners of others' lives, the canonical text disfigurers, and ultrafeminists (as distinguished from the great company of godly women..the liberated characteristically understand themselves to be freed from oppressive, traditional constraints of all sorts and shapes. liberated is not a term applied to them from outside their self-understanding, but a term they frequently apply to themselves. by liberated, they usually imply:
doctrinally imaginative
liturgically experimental
disciplinarily nonjudgmental
politically correct
multiculturally tolerant
morally broad minded
ethically situationist and above all
sexually lenient, permissive, uninhibited
...an engulfing attitude that we have been liberated from our classic christian past, from the patriarchalism of christian scriptures, from benighted jewish and christian traditions and from their oppressive social systems.
9 without a story we do not know who we are.
10...speaking of current theology..'their inventions have been invented many times before and...were typically called heresies. ('heresy' has mostly disappeared today...)
..chesterton observed that the trouble with someone who does not believe in God is not that he will end up believing in nothing; it is, rather, that he will end up believing in anything.
11 ..the circus that is theology today...
33 ..an interloper who steals property must be caught and fairly charged as an expression of justice. secularization is such an interloper. we have witnessed the theft of church property by forces alien and inimical to the church. stolen property must be reclaimed. thieves must be brought to justice.
there are times when a counterthesis needs to be put sharply over against a prevailing thesis. if the countervailing argument is not put pungently against a harsh, insensitive taskmaster, it will be easily dismissed.
the rhetorical assignment under those circumstances is to enter in good humor the arena and strike telling blows. the plaintiff must sometimes make a case that refuses to be disregarded. if i hit had rhetorically, it is because i have seen innocent persons being hit much harder.
34..by liberated i mean those persons who are the sexual experimenters, the compulsive planners of others' lives, the canonical text disfigurers, and ultrafeminists (as distinguished from the great company of godly women..the liberated characteristically understand themselves to be freed from oppressive, traditional constraints of all sorts and shapes. liberated is not a term applied to them from outside their self-understanding, but a term they frequently apply to themselves. by liberated, they usually imply:
doctrinally imaginative
liturgically experimental
disciplinarily nonjudgmental
politically correct
multiculturally tolerant
morally broad minded
ethically situationist and above all
sexually lenient, permissive, uninhibited
...an engulfing attitude that we have been liberated from our classic christian past, from the patriarchalism of christian scriptures, from benighted jewish and christian traditions and from their oppressive social systems.
11.2.2015 APPENDIX B (taken from Thomas Nash's 'requiem')
152 according to the last five quadrennial editions of the United Methodist Book of Discipline, homosexuality is declared 'incompatible with Christian teaching'. ..
since McGovernization, every mainline protestant denomination (presbyterian, episcopalian, united methodist, united church of Christ, disciples of Christ, among others) have faced a repeated challenge from proactive advocates of the moral legitimacy of self-avowed, practicing H. it is sometimes argued that any genitalia of any sex interfacing with any body orifice is compatible with christian teaching, just as long as a condom is used.
in response to claims for moral legitimization of behaviors widely though displeasing to God, each of the mainline denominations has dutifully appointed elaborate study commissions to report back to the general legislative body on how the church might respond to this for of sexual orientation practice and advocacy. the typical procedure has been, first, that a study commission had been formed McGovernistically
153with an assumed race and gender balance of moral and biblical experts. second, these study commissions typically report back to the general body in favor of relaxing moral constraints on H. usually they are confident of winning a majority. third, the general legislative body then promptly rejects the recommendation of the study commission. no mainline denomination better illustrates this recurrent pattern than the beleaguered united methodists.
every general conference..since 1972 has been tested..
the report rightly pleaded once again, as have christian traditionalists repeatedly pled, for a stop to violence against those who practice same sex intercourse. the civil rights of those with 'alternative sexual orientations' must be vigilantly protected without conceding the moral viability of their claims to social or moral legitimation. 'chistian gay-bashing' is no more excusable than the 'homophobe-bashing by gay rights advocates...
the fact that H practice is not a weighty moral matter was asserted by the united methodist sexuality report as a 'consensus among christian ethicists', yet without any evidence to support this...all the conspicuous christian teachers who have resisted same sex intercourse (john chrysostom, augustine, thomas aquinas, martin luther, john calvin ...) ..are weighed in such a debate less heavily than selected modern proponents of moral relativism and utilitarian permissivism.
154...the normative moral force of all biblical texts on same sex intercourse may be explained away by their cultural context. this leads to the conclusion that any statement in the bible can be reduced to culturally equivocal ambiguity and indeterminacy on the premise of cultural relativism...an..evasion of the normative character of scripture
157..ordinary christian laity know that any behavior is incompatible with christian teaching insofar as it blatantly defies clear scriptural mandates.
158 they wonder why this is so difficult for the professional exegetes on the sexuality study to grasp. (note: every man to his bible, his knees...his house fellowship!)
..suppose a caucus of fornicators was to petition the church to legitimize fornication as a sexual orientation and a lifestyle toward which many christians are prone...
..both homosexual and heterosexual sinners are invited to the Lord's Table on the same basis: repentance and trust in God's forgiving grace and the determination to amend, insofar as possible , by acts of reparation, injuries done ..
..shall a child molester who has no intent whatsoever of changing his predatory behavior and who views his behavior as quite inoffensive to God also be welcomed again and again to the Lord's Table?
159...i am tempted to quit using the term homosexuality altogether, rather, i think that a more graphic phrase would be same-sex oral or anal intercourse, or more inclusively, anal/oral/-either/or-both/and-any-gender-all-orifice orgasm.
since McGovernization, every mainline protestant denomination (presbyterian, episcopalian, united methodist, united church of Christ, disciples of Christ, among others) have faced a repeated challenge from proactive advocates of the moral legitimacy of self-avowed, practicing H. it is sometimes argued that any genitalia of any sex interfacing with any body orifice is compatible with christian teaching, just as long as a condom is used.
in response to claims for moral legitimization of behaviors widely though displeasing to God, each of the mainline denominations has dutifully appointed elaborate study commissions to report back to the general legislative body on how the church might respond to this for of sexual orientation practice and advocacy. the typical procedure has been, first, that a study commission had been formed McGovernistically
153with an assumed race and gender balance of moral and biblical experts. second, these study commissions typically report back to the general body in favor of relaxing moral constraints on H. usually they are confident of winning a majority. third, the general legislative body then promptly rejects the recommendation of the study commission. no mainline denomination better illustrates this recurrent pattern than the beleaguered united methodists.
every general conference..since 1972 has been tested..
the report rightly pleaded once again, as have christian traditionalists repeatedly pled, for a stop to violence against those who practice same sex intercourse. the civil rights of those with 'alternative sexual orientations' must be vigilantly protected without conceding the moral viability of their claims to social or moral legitimation. 'chistian gay-bashing' is no more excusable than the 'homophobe-bashing by gay rights advocates...
the fact that H practice is not a weighty moral matter was asserted by the united methodist sexuality report as a 'consensus among christian ethicists', yet without any evidence to support this...all the conspicuous christian teachers who have resisted same sex intercourse (john chrysostom, augustine, thomas aquinas, martin luther, john calvin ...) ..are weighed in such a debate less heavily than selected modern proponents of moral relativism and utilitarian permissivism.
154...the normative moral force of all biblical texts on same sex intercourse may be explained away by their cultural context. this leads to the conclusion that any statement in the bible can be reduced to culturally equivocal ambiguity and indeterminacy on the premise of cultural relativism...an..evasion of the normative character of scripture
157..ordinary christian laity know that any behavior is incompatible with christian teaching insofar as it blatantly defies clear scriptural mandates.
158 they wonder why this is so difficult for the professional exegetes on the sexuality study to grasp. (note: every man to his bible, his knees...his house fellowship!)
..suppose a caucus of fornicators was to petition the church to legitimize fornication as a sexual orientation and a lifestyle toward which many christians are prone...
..both homosexual and heterosexual sinners are invited to the Lord's Table on the same basis: repentance and trust in God's forgiving grace and the determination to amend, insofar as possible , by acts of reparation, injuries done ..
..shall a child molester who has no intent whatsoever of changing his predatory behavior and who views his behavior as quite inoffensive to God also be welcomed again and again to the Lord's Table?
159...i am tempted to quit using the term homosexuality altogether, rather, i think that a more graphic phrase would be same-sex oral or anal intercourse, or more inclusively, anal/oral/-either/or-both/and-any-gender-all-orifice orgasm.
11.2.2015 SOPHIA from Requiem by Thomas C. Nash (1995)
27 ...i come from a strong tradition of liturgical toleration that views Holy Communion as a uniting and converting sacrament - uniting the Body of Christ and converting the heart. in all my years of coming to the Lord's Table, i have never once seriously considered withdrawing from a Communion service because of a scrupulous conscience.
SOPHIA WHO?
yes, i had read Wisdom's Feast, coauthored by our guest homilist, so i knew in advance that she had frequently spoken of Sophia as a goddess to be worshiped. in that book, Sophia is referred to as 'a strong, proud, creative goddess within the biblical tradition'...who
28 is this goddess? 'S is, in fact, the God of Israel expressed in the language and imagery of the goddess'.
S wo4rship is not designed to be merely a transitory liturgical experiment, but the fabrication out of whole cloth of a feminist goddess who might be imported into christian worship. the practical question that religious feminists are pressing is 'how can the image of the goddess become accessible to a broad range of women?...since the chapel service was taken verbatim from this book, it is impossible to pretend that this particular service had no relation to this particular book, one of whose coauthors was our homilist.
the introduction of S worship into the liberated old line churches was by a deliberate strategy designed to proceed by a series of calculated stages through which the goddess character of S would be recognized only gradually. in a 5 tier process the homilist had proposed that feminists gradually might bring a congregation to invoke S by taking these steps: 'these stages are: 1. basic and unobtrusive reintroduction of S...2. addressing issues of women's identity in relationship to S; 3. celebrating and deciphering the Jesus-S connections; 4. exploring and celebrating S's presence in all things; 5. invoking S to address questions of human suffering'.
the intent is to legitimize the goddess: 'we must find a way to mainstream the goddess into the universe within which women are actually living their lives'. but car must be taken that the S worship and preaching not offend too abruptly, for 'in our experience, the best way to begin talking about S is to address a meaning of the text that does not concentrate on the goddess character of S'. hence a strategy of incremental homiletical duplicity is recommended: first conceal the 'goddess character of S', then later introduce her overtly in the Eucharist.
i approached the service with some disquiet. i wondered whether it would be best not to attend at all. i might be tempted to do or say something rash, due to my apprehension and annoyance. ...
29 anyway, this still is my worshiping community, so i felt that i had a right to receive the sacrament duly administered. i wanted meekly to come to the Lord's Table without political posturing or ideological skewing. so i decided not merely that i could go. but that i must go and hoped for special wisdom in responding...
our first hymn was entitled 'S', in which was sung the praise of S, vagely objectified into a deity distinguishable from the Triune God. it is S who 'ordains what God will do':
she's the teacher we esteem
and the subject of life's theme.
lover, counsel, comforter,
life is gladness lived with her. ...
with this imitation hymn i began to feel more queasy and manipulated. i wondered whether i was in a place where some other lord than Jesus Christ was being worshiped. i felt just a little (for the first time in my life) like the apologists of the 2nd century must have felt when confronted with the challenge of attesting the Lordship of Christ amid a pagan pantheon of Greco-Roman deities.then came the homily, which was addressed to a highly targeted audience- mostly true blue feminists and maybe a few pale blue hangers on, but no one who might possibly have any critical resistance to feminist rhetoric. in the name of inclusiveness, all other audiences were excluded, disregarded and to some extent demeaned.
the homilist took some time to recount an event of a stormy experience of a combat weary feminist cleric. it was a victory story in which a pious United methodist lay leader and other members were counseled out of participating in her church and invited to change their membership
30 to another church. using the rhetoric of inclusiveness, she recounted how the preacher had proclaimed the virtues of doctrinal diversity, yet specifically invited all who did not agree with her to leave and look for another church. she was apparently oblivious to the inconsistency that exclusion and divisiveness were being practiced precisely in the name of inclusiveness and doctrinal pluralism. there was not the slightest recognition in her demeanor of any inconsistency. her language was filtered carefully through the sieve of egalitarian exclusionary rhetoric. she did, however, tip her hand enough to reveal the value commitments of the lay leader who was driven out: he believed in the confession that Jesus is Lord, in monogamous covenant sexual fidelity and in protecting the life of the unborn.
...the spare scriptures imported occasionally into the service were carefully culled chiefly from the Apocrypha and some Wisdom literature (proverbs 8-9; psalm 104). ben sirach was quoted, but not in any way that would give offense to feminists - only those passages that seem to reify Wisdom into a deity distinguishable from the Triune God. to reify is to objectify, to make an object or think of an idea or symbol. to reify the idea of sophia (the greek word for 'wisdom') is to treat that idea as a personal deity differentiated from the holy trinity...
31...i pondered whether i could in good conscience stay to receive Holy Communion. this was my first experience ever in thinking about withdrawing from a communion service because something offensive to the Lordship of Christ was occurring right there at the Lord's Table. it was becoming clear to me that the god worshiped in this fantasyland was not the triune God made flesh in Jesus Christ, but the reified persona of S, distinguishable from the Trinity. i began to consider how i might inconspicuously withdraw from the service without making a scene.
nothing seems more unbecoming at the Lord's Table than a public demonstration of outrage or divisiveness or pique or politicized commotion...
32 Communion. i was coming to the conclusion quietly that in good conscience i was going to be forced to absent myself somehow. but how?
i prayed for wisdom...just at that time the homilist herself gave me the decisive clue. she urged the gathering not to delay in asserting their convictions. she said that the longer feminists delayed asserting their authority in worship, the more difficult it would be. she then offered the invitation to come to the Lord's Table, not in the Lord's name, but in the name of the goddess who was speaking through Jesus. this was a very carefully worded rhetorical device. the inviter was not was not the crucified Lord of glory but the Sophia figure who was speaking through Him, by her own authority. ironically, we were being invited to His table, but only so in her name.
that did it...
SOPHIA WHO?
yes, i had read Wisdom's Feast, coauthored by our guest homilist, so i knew in advance that she had frequently spoken of Sophia as a goddess to be worshiped. in that book, Sophia is referred to as 'a strong, proud, creative goddess within the biblical tradition'...who
28 is this goddess? 'S is, in fact, the God of Israel expressed in the language and imagery of the goddess'.
S wo4rship is not designed to be merely a transitory liturgical experiment, but the fabrication out of whole cloth of a feminist goddess who might be imported into christian worship. the practical question that religious feminists are pressing is 'how can the image of the goddess become accessible to a broad range of women?...since the chapel service was taken verbatim from this book, it is impossible to pretend that this particular service had no relation to this particular book, one of whose coauthors was our homilist.
the introduction of S worship into the liberated old line churches was by a deliberate strategy designed to proceed by a series of calculated stages through which the goddess character of S would be recognized only gradually. in a 5 tier process the homilist had proposed that feminists gradually might bring a congregation to invoke S by taking these steps: 'these stages are: 1. basic and unobtrusive reintroduction of S...2. addressing issues of women's identity in relationship to S; 3. celebrating and deciphering the Jesus-S connections; 4. exploring and celebrating S's presence in all things; 5. invoking S to address questions of human suffering'.
the intent is to legitimize the goddess: 'we must find a way to mainstream the goddess into the universe within which women are actually living their lives'. but car must be taken that the S worship and preaching not offend too abruptly, for 'in our experience, the best way to begin talking about S is to address a meaning of the text that does not concentrate on the goddess character of S'. hence a strategy of incremental homiletical duplicity is recommended: first conceal the 'goddess character of S', then later introduce her overtly in the Eucharist.
i approached the service with some disquiet. i wondered whether it would be best not to attend at all. i might be tempted to do or say something rash, due to my apprehension and annoyance. ...
29 anyway, this still is my worshiping community, so i felt that i had a right to receive the sacrament duly administered. i wanted meekly to come to the Lord's Table without political posturing or ideological skewing. so i decided not merely that i could go. but that i must go and hoped for special wisdom in responding...
our first hymn was entitled 'S', in which was sung the praise of S, vagely objectified into a deity distinguishable from the Triune God. it is S who 'ordains what God will do':
she's the teacher we esteem
and the subject of life's theme.
lover, counsel, comforter,
life is gladness lived with her. ...
with this imitation hymn i began to feel more queasy and manipulated. i wondered whether i was in a place where some other lord than Jesus Christ was being worshiped. i felt just a little (for the first time in my life) like the apologists of the 2nd century must have felt when confronted with the challenge of attesting the Lordship of Christ amid a pagan pantheon of Greco-Roman deities.then came the homily, which was addressed to a highly targeted audience- mostly true blue feminists and maybe a few pale blue hangers on, but no one who might possibly have any critical resistance to feminist rhetoric. in the name of inclusiveness, all other audiences were excluded, disregarded and to some extent demeaned.
the homilist took some time to recount an event of a stormy experience of a combat weary feminist cleric. it was a victory story in which a pious United methodist lay leader and other members were counseled out of participating in her church and invited to change their membership
30 to another church. using the rhetoric of inclusiveness, she recounted how the preacher had proclaimed the virtues of doctrinal diversity, yet specifically invited all who did not agree with her to leave and look for another church. she was apparently oblivious to the inconsistency that exclusion and divisiveness were being practiced precisely in the name of inclusiveness and doctrinal pluralism. there was not the slightest recognition in her demeanor of any inconsistency. her language was filtered carefully through the sieve of egalitarian exclusionary rhetoric. she did, however, tip her hand enough to reveal the value commitments of the lay leader who was driven out: he believed in the confession that Jesus is Lord, in monogamous covenant sexual fidelity and in protecting the life of the unborn.
...the spare scriptures imported occasionally into the service were carefully culled chiefly from the Apocrypha and some Wisdom literature (proverbs 8-9; psalm 104). ben sirach was quoted, but not in any way that would give offense to feminists - only those passages that seem to reify Wisdom into a deity distinguishable from the Triune God. to reify is to objectify, to make an object or think of an idea or symbol. to reify the idea of sophia (the greek word for 'wisdom') is to treat that idea as a personal deity differentiated from the holy trinity...
31...i pondered whether i could in good conscience stay to receive Holy Communion. this was my first experience ever in thinking about withdrawing from a communion service because something offensive to the Lordship of Christ was occurring right there at the Lord's Table. it was becoming clear to me that the god worshiped in this fantasyland was not the triune God made flesh in Jesus Christ, but the reified persona of S, distinguishable from the Trinity. i began to consider how i might inconspicuously withdraw from the service without making a scene.
nothing seems more unbecoming at the Lord's Table than a public demonstration of outrage or divisiveness or pique or politicized commotion...
32 Communion. i was coming to the conclusion quietly that in good conscience i was going to be forced to absent myself somehow. but how?
i prayed for wisdom...just at that time the homilist herself gave me the decisive clue. she urged the gathering not to delay in asserting their convictions. she said that the longer feminists delayed asserting their authority in worship, the more difficult it would be. she then offered the invitation to come to the Lord's Table, not in the Lord's name, but in the name of the goddess who was speaking through Jesus. this was a very carefully worded rhetorical device. the inviter was not was not the crucified Lord of glory but the Sophia figure who was speaking through Him, by her own authority. ironically, we were being invited to His table, but only so in her name.
that did it...
Friday, October 30, 2015
10.30.2015 taken from THE GOLD CORD, the story of a fellowship by amy carmichael (1932)
foreword...the Dohnavur Fellowship is a group of Indian and European men and women who work together in the south of India. its friends wanted to know how it began...
from an old Gaelic Rune:
Jesu, son of the virgin pure,
be Thou my pilgrim staff,
throughout the lands (2x)
Thy love in all my thoughts,
Thy likeness in my face,
may i heartwarm to others
and they heatwarm to me,
for the love of the love of Thee (2x)
8...and now, in a place quite unlike a city street on a riany day, another great truth was made vital. it was the grave of the pioneer missionary, Ragland. it lies on a bare plain in North tinnevelly, near a small, ruined house. the day had been hot, we (the Walkers of Tinnevelly and i) had had a rackety journey and a walk on a glary white road. nobody seemed inclined to speak, the stifling heat discouraged speech and we hung about the ugly little ruin and the depressing tombstone like wet socks put out to dry, to quote a perfect word for the feelings of hot, limp people at the end of a blistering day. it did not seem the moment for anything inspiring to happen; but suddenly mr. walker, ragland's spiritual successor, broke the tired silence with words that are associated with R: - 'of all plans of ensuring success, the most certain is Christ's own-becoming a corn of wheat, falling into the ground and dying: 'verily, verily, i say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit'. forgotten then were the heat, the fag of life-forgotten was everything. for a minute we stood in silence, and i know that the prayer rose then from the depths of our hearts: Lord, give it to us to live that life and to die that death and to bring forth fruit unto life eternal...
16...f.b. meyer had been stuck by the bedecked christian women of the South. he had also come full upon caste and debt- both prickly subjects and when he pleaded that the whole burnt offering might be laid on the altar, he named them explicitly as hindering things, instead of skating round them and giving, what all india loves, 'a spiritual address'. his words were an offence. his sensitive spirit felt this acutely. years afterwards he wrote to us that he had been sorely tempted over that series of meetings. and small wonder. he had spoken plain words and the devil never forgives plainness of speech.
to us who were left to bear the brunt of the blame after this most unpopular mission was over, came a great calm. we saw the road clear before us; the only thing was to go on. two or 3 fellow missionaries and a few christians were one with us in spirit and that was cheer. but we learned to go on unaffected by approval or disapproval. for the matter of the jewels was only one of a series of tests and disciplines; and we proved the truth of words that we read much later: 'there is always something more in your nature which He wills to mark with the Cross...
62...my flesh and my heart faileth-let them fail. for God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. has anyone ever been able to tell what our glorious Lord can be to man, woman, or little child whom He is training to wait upon Him only?
63...life is battle-yes, but it is music. it knows the thrill of brave music, the depths and heights of music. it is LIFE, not stagnation. oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed (happy, very happy) is the man that trusteth in Him.
66...it is God's truth that one loving spirit sets others on fire.
..if our children were to grow up truthful they must be taught by those who had a regard for truth; and not just a casual regard, a delicate regard. on this point we were adamant.
...and we learned that to cling to a creature is to 'fall with the sliding creature'. our story may find its way to someone who must do what may seem foolish ('narrow-minded' is the usual adjective). it is well to know that when the devil finds that his fiery darts fall harmless, sometimes he plucks from his quiver the light-feathered arrow of a smile. but the only way of peace is to go on quietly, so we went on, and tried to obey our light.
69...we have never been led to go on to higher education. when a keen girl-student recovering from a long illness began to learn greek for recreation, it was that she might be able to study her new testament better and so do more for the younger ones. we never had time for what (to us) would have been luxury. and as they grew older, we tried, by means of travelling on the king's business, and with the splendid help of books, to enlarge our children's minds so that they would be always eager to learn more.
71...those were years of rigid economies, for though we were never burdened about funds, we thought in terms of pence, not shillings, much less pounds. receipts for gifts were often gummed on the back of post cards to save stamps and stationery. and everything else was done in that careful spirit. but no one knew that we were at times almost in straits. they only knew that all our needs were supplied, for we told them so, and it was true. the times of shortness were for the proving of faith; the end of almost each year saw us with something over.
72...if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you- we asked for that as a present experience, and i believe received in some measure a life that was quickened and sustained for the sake of the children.
...'the work' will never go deeper than we have gone ourselves. 'i bear in my body the marks-i bear branded on my body the scars of Jesus as my Master....how often we have pondered the paragraph beginning, in stripes and imprisonments, in tumults and labours-and felt unworthy to be called followers of the Crucified.
can he have followed far
who has nor wound nor scar?
76...from the first the children did the work of the compound; we teach them to keep their little world orderly because of the cloud of witnesses. (foot. a friend, writing of bishop westcott, says this beautiful thing about him: ' in the presence of the unseen he met all life, and you could not surprise him out of it. in this atmosphere he worked and breathed. not only god Himself, but the cloud of witnesses, the communion of the unseen body of Christ, were more real to him than the things seen'. and the same friend tells a story of how the bishop's chaplain, finding him struggling late and minutely one night over the draft of a service for a humble country church, reminded him that the congregation would not be critical. 'they are accustomed to anything, he said. with a gentle, surprised smile, such as elisha's might have been in dothan, the bishop looked up from his desk and said, 'you forget: WHO are 'the congregation? we are only an infinitesimal part of it'.
77...we had always much singing and silence counted with us too. we found that the children could learn to understand silence. we had a minute's silence before beginning our worship together and often a pause somewhere in the middle. it could never be long, because there were so many who were very small. the day from 5 am until 10 pm was divided among us, each taking certain hours for prayer-not the whole hour, but whatever space could be given and a prayer-bell-a disc of metal hung under a tree-was struck hour by hour. from the first we found that even very little children used the bell with a sweet and simple confidence.
as we went on continually asking that the ways of prayer might be opened to us, we learned that the kind of intercession that is like a musical chord, every note in harmony with every other and all seeking to be tuned perfectly to the keynote (the will of our great Intercessor) is something worth guarding at any cost.
we found prayer choruses uplifting too. years afterwards, we sent a few of these out in a small book called Wings, but they could only be a few and the music which wings the words could not always be given. we grew into a kind of prayer that is, for us at least, very helpful. we ask to be led bny the Holy Spirit from point to point, each prayer leading on from the preceding prayer till the particular subject laid on our hearts has been dealt with,
78 and we have the assurance that the Lord will complete all, as Kay translates Ps. 138.8.
this way of prayer is just the opposite to the kaleidoscope kind, which darts hither and thither all over the earth or over a number of scattered interests (often within the limits of a single long prayer) leaving the mind which has tried to follow perhaps dazzled, perhaps tired. it is a much simpler thing. such prayer is often brief; it is often silent or it may take the form of song and we are lifted up as with wings to our lord's feet. it is possible only when all who are praying together do thoroughly understand one another, are, indeed, as one instrument under the control of the spirit of God, who moves on each severally as he will or unites all in silence or in song. such prayer asks for something not easily defined. Darby's translation of exodus 23.21, 'be careful in his presence', comes to mind as a word that expresses its quietness and awe, and the jubilant psalms show its joy.
the habit of having a settled prayer day once a month was a great help. it led to something which we could not do without now-occasional extra days when we plan, so that the many whirling wheels of our busy world shall run down as much as possible and we be set free to give ourselves to prayer. 'do not be so busy with work for Christ that you have no strength left for praying', said hudson taylor once. 'true pray requires strength'. to secure even half a day's quiet in a large family like ours needs careful planning beforehand, but it is worth that. again and again things have happened after such a day that nothing we could have done could have effected, for prayer is truly force. so when the constraint is upon us we yield to it, believing it to be of God. sometimes to one or another privately this compulsion comes and we have a quiet room set apart for this purpose; no one goes there except for quietness. when it comes to all, then, after we have had some time alone, we meet as on our usual prayer day and this way of being together in prayer is a strand in our gold cord.
foot..others have felt the same necessity. 'when any Sisters life of prayer has been seriously broken in upon, as when a Nurse-Sister has had a succession of bad cases, arrangements are made for counteracting the effect of this when the special time of strain is over.
'the time that is thus set apart for quiet and prayer may seem to some to be excessive. but it is to be remembered that the sisters in india have to face a heathen world, and to work in an atmosphere which is, whether they are conscious of it or not, full of deadly evil influences; and that this, when it is combined with hard work in a very enervating climate, tends greatly to wear them out and makes it very necessary for them to be in direct and habitual contact with him who is the Source of life'. -oxford mission to calcutta.
'Christ knew how the holiest service, preaching and healing, can exhaust the spirit, how too much intercourse with men can cloud the fellowship with God, how time, full time, is needed, if the spirit is to rest and root in him, how no pressure of duty among men can free from the absolute need of much prayer..andrew murray
79 it was not long before we began to understand the reality of the authority often exercised, especially at night , by the evil one, our enemy, upon the minds of these lately delivered from his prison-house. so far as we knew, the babies were not affected, but older children and converts were. if strong threads of affection bound the heart to anyone in the old life, then there would be at times distress, apprehension of trouble there, perhaps a vivid dream revealing it in tangible form. the immaterial became material, or the material appearing in the immaterial stuff of dreams disturbed and sometimes seriously injured, the life of the one thus strained. often we heart afterwards of what had been happening just at that time hundreds of miles away (miles matter nothing where spirit forces play) and were able to trace the influence to its source. tuesdays and fridays, the nights given up to demon worship for thousands of square miles in the south, seemed to ask for special guarding by prayer, for the throb of tomtoms which filled the air and the weird cries of the worshippers were sometimes reminiscent and sounds, like scents, have extraordinary recalling power. but any night might hold a need.
for all such conditions we found just one sure antidote-the peace of God. let the will close down the door on the old life with its allures, its pictured memories, let the last thoughts before falling asleep be set on Him, the Eternal keeper who neither slumbers nor sleeps, let some hymn or psalm or calming promise or assurance fill the last conscious moments and the spell will be broken. an old prayer (SirThomas Browne's )
80 is as sure of an answer in an indian room tonight as it was in an english home 300 years ago:
while i do rest, my soul advance,
make me to sleep a holy trance
that i may, my rest being wrought, awake into some holy thought.
and now and here, as always everywhere, there is One whom the winds and waves obey and He draws near to the frightened soul and says, it is I; be not afraid. and when He is as near as that, the weakest of His little children sleeps peacefully and is almost sure to waken into some holy thought.
were then ever naughty? 'you know, dear children, you are in a beautiful garden, but the serpent entered the garden of eden, remarked an excellent friend one day, in the course of a sunday address and he thought that he was giving them information.ther was, i fear, an impious chuckle in more than one small soul, though, to our relief, the upturned faces were suitably demure. did they not know that? why, of course. snakes love gardens. and as for the serpent who 'entered the garden of eden', they know him only too well. but, even so, the garden helped. a carelessly disobedient child would be sent to find a disobedient plant, one whose leaves ought to grow alternately or opposite or in whorls and which disobeyed its law; a destructive one would be told to stick on the leaf it had plucked off from pure wantonness-a deplorable habit, too common here. for punishments were various. a quarrelsome child had a deer's horn tied round her neck or, ir very small, was put in a barrel out of which she could not climb, and in which she soon tired of her own cxompany and sometimes persistent offenders were given switches and told to go and fight it out-this always ended in laughter.
two fables often came to mind in those days. when we were perplexed by diverse advisers (for we found that both books and people differed considerably about the proper way to bring up children), then we thought of aesop's old man and his donkey. and when we hardly dared to do anything for fear of doing wrong, the mother bear story..was delightfully in point: 'shall i, said the bear's cub to his mother move my right paw first or mjy left or my two front paws togetheer or the two hind ones or all four at once or how? 'leav off thinking and walk, grunterd the old bear. so in a great simplicity we tried to let the children grow as the green things about tjhem grew, not too closely regarded, not pulled up at frequent intervals to see how they were getting on. and there was always the hope that they would be part of the crown of flowers that our Lord would werar one day.
83 often then, much more often than now, we had to take risks. what soldier does not? it was second nature to hazard anything to save a child. we tried to walk wisely and lawfully too, but at a time when the only adoption the Law recognized in the case of a girl was that of a temple-woman it was impossible to be always on the safe side. to have a missionary in fail would not have been comfortable for the Society with which we, (mabel wade and i) were at that time connected, so we arranged with the Secretary on the field that if one of us were imprisoned, that one should drop out...
..once the word was caused to run quietly through south india that should a little girl for whom we were known to be fighting a losing fight in the courts, appear at any mission station she should be protected and passed on safely . and this was done. how often we have thanked God for fellow missionaries.
..a child of 8 was about to be dedicated to the god of one of the great temples of the south. her father had married out of caste. this had made trouble, so he had killed his wife and was about to marry again. in a case like that, the child, if there be one, is
84 usually dedicated (note-to the temple where she becomes a sex slave) and the family starts afresh. we tried to save the child, but could not. now, a month or so later, the indian friend in whose house we had been staying had found that if certain expenses could be met she might be redeemed. one hundred rupees was the sum required. would we send it or not? the answer had to be given at once.
it was the first time such a decision had had to be made. the life of a child was at stake. we sent the hundred rupees.
then doubts arose. NOR SCRIP (throughout, other books that were written concerning this ministry when noted will be captitalized...if i remember :) tells of these and of how they were set at rest. but ponnamal (golden) and pearl, the two faithful indian sisters who shared this matter with me, were unhappy, though their loyal hears trusted me. it was such an unheard of thing to pay money for the redemption of a child. was it strange that they felt apprehensive? i asked then if i might pray for a token that could not be mistaken, to show whether or not we were in the will of our God. and to that the answer, i thought, was Yes. what may i ask, Lord? you may ask for one hundred rupees. we had never up to that time had a gift of 100 rupees.
and it cam. a fellow missionary who knew nothing of this (no one knew outside the house) was caused to think of us and to feel that she should send us something. she was about to write a cheque for a different sum, so she told us..but she felt constrained to make it just 100 rupees. we laid the cheque on the floor like a little new gideon's fleece, and, kneeling round it, we thanked our heavenly Father.
86 ..it was written by walker of tinnevelly and was called CUSTOM AND LIBERTY. no one would publish that...for with a firm touch it dealt with matters that are usually left because they are too thorny to be comfortably handled, so we printed it ourselves...
87...to test her vocation we sent Perfection on a long visit to her relatives-graduates, in good positions in the city of madras. she returned from that visit sure of her call and in the steadiness of a purpose that the Lord formed and guards she has gone on ever since.
sometimes in strange ways the call comes that compels. often in india, as in older days in palestine, the Lord speaks to His simple children in dreams. we do not explain this or defend, we only know that it is so. there was one, hardly to be called a child of the household, though she had
88 been baptized, who sat on the floor day after day with her hair streaming round her shoulders and her eyes pouring out tears - for she was a widow.
she must stay in that dimly lighted room. she must sit there and mourn. so said her mother in law, also a baptized hindu rather than a genuine christian. so she sat and wept loudly, as custom ordained and lamented according to custom and because she had a very bad temper and her mother in law's was still worse, that house, though wealthy, could hardly be called happy.
after some troubled months, the widow had a dream. one whom she did not recognise, dressed in a long white robe, came to her and said, 'i will send you to a place where they all love one another. He vanished with the word, and she woke. 'if this comes to pass within 7 days i shall know that it is certainly the doing of the Supreme, she said to herself. within a week a festival was held in the church near by. the bishop came to it. the missionary took him to see the old mother in law and her daughter in law, as being the noted coverts of the place. he stood silently in the doorway and looked at the widow. then slowly he said something in english. the missionary translated. the words were the same that she had heard. how it was effected she does not know, but a few days later she and her little son arrived in Dohnavur..
89...money came to build a school. 'is it impossible to make the idea of entire consecration the foundation of education? was andrew murray's question when he was founding his Huguenot Schools two or three generations ago...
..once it was a conversation at the breakfast table. missionaries from different parts of india were in Dohnavur that day. all were one in lamenting that the type of chistian we turned out from our various institutions was so lacking in certain qualities which make for character. i could not help wondering, as i listened to the talk of these seniors, how a new type could be expected to evolve from an old mould. it could not be that the plastic stuff poured into the mould was incapable of receiving a finer impression. everything in me refused that explanation. ..'open your ears to what walker iyer says to you about spiritual things (things theological), but close them if he speaks of other things' (things theological), was the advice given to his convert lads by their schoolmaster in the mission school. this was the mould. how expect a new type from it?
..'the raft the current carries where it will' is the Tamil synonym
90 for the life swayed by the surrounding usual. those rafts were everywhere.
in our mountain ravine, just above our swimming pool, a small tree grows on the rock in mid-steam. when the river is in flood and a roaring torrent pours over the little tree, whipping off its every leaf, it stands unmoved. its root grip the rock. we wanted the children to be like that. 'give them time to root, we used to say to our advisers. 'we are training them for storms and floods.'
93 but fears came up perpetually and danced before our eyes like wearisome, mischievous goblins; we found that we could only go on if we leaned all our weight on the promises. and there was always a sense, even then, that something good lay ahead and that we were being shaped for that good thing, though we did not know what it was. their Redeemer would not waste the children. if only they had the sovereign quality of truth, somehow the way would open. so we tried to bring them up to be truthful and faithful, ready for any sort of hard work, not slackers. and though, when we could not answer the frequent, 'and what are you going to do with them? with a clear cut pan and must have appeared unpractical and foolish, we were not cast down. 'Thou knowest, Lord; Thou hast not show us yet, but Thou knowest', we used to say to Him, and found it comforting. 'only teach us how to train them in honesty and thoroughness, in detachment from the spirit of the world and in a pure indifference to all its tinsel allurements. give us some to help us who will understand about the gold and silver and precious stones. let us not be disappointed of our hope. and he answered with a word of strong consolation; for He Himself knew what He would do.
98 O merry love, strong, ravishing, burning, willful, stalwart, unslakened, that brings all my soul to Thy service and suffers it to think of nothing but Thee. Thou challengest for Thyself all that we live; all that we savour; all that we are.
thus therefore let Christ be the beginning of our love, whom we love for Himself. and so we love whatever is to be loved ordinately for Him that is the Well of love, and in whose hands we put all that we love and are loved by...
O love un-departed! O love singular!...
we praise thee, we preach thee, by the which we overcome the world; by whom we joy and ascend the heavenly ladder. in thy sweetness glide into me: and i commend me and mine unto thee withouten end. richard rolle (1290-1349), THE FIRE OF LOVE , AND THE MENDING OF LIFE.
99 all through those years of beginnings we had lived with a menace in our ears. it was like living within sound of the growls and rumblings of an approaching storm.
at last, in 1910 and 1911, the storm broke upon us and we were plunged into a welter of troubles in the law courts. it was then that for the first time we understood the 77th psalm-with one exception, it seems to me, the most poignant in the whole psalter. will the Lord cast off forever? and will He be favourable no more? is His mercy clean gone for ever? doth His promise fail for evermore? hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger in anger shut up His tender mercies? and i said, this is my infirmity: but i will remember the years of the right had of the most High.
but still, though we did remember, those awful questions pierced us, for the child for whom we had fought so hard was alone in her desolation, snatched from us by powers too strong for us and she had clung to us with all her might. the thought of her was like the probing of a spear and a cruel voice cried aloud in our ears, turning the spear-point in the wound: 'hath God forgotten to be gracious?
it was then that a scale was given to us by which to measure all that could ever be again. never more could ordinary trials and trifling rubs appear worth the energy of agitation that is so often spent on them; and we have never yielded to the temptation to make mush of them without a felling of shame. for that long series of law suits was a long, single hunt; the hunters were very evil men and the hunted was a child who had trusted us to save here.
her name was Jewel, and when was young, pure spirited girl to whom we had given a promise that no power on
100earth could make us break, that we would never give her up to her iniquitous mother. when we gave her that promise we did not know how impossible, from the human point of view, it was going to be to keep it. after anxious months and a miracle of deliverance, J had been given to us in open court. her mother and her responsible relatives had signed a yadast (a document handing her over to us). but they went back on their word and filed a suit against us, accusing us of breaking the child's cast, which according to the terms..we were bound to keep inviolate. the judge at that time was Sir Charles Spencer, afterwards of the High Court, Madras; when it was known that he would try the case, the false witnesses fled. not for silver nor for gold would they face the keen eyes of that sahib, they said. the case was dismissed and with thanksgiving we brought our J home. but the relatives bided their time. they waited till a new judge came, then they moved again on a new charge.
the matter created a stir allover south india. missionaries of every name and government officials who know about the notorious mother, openly stood by us and all the better hindus and muslims of the country side, for once united, were with us in sympathy. we had what everyone thought was a good case; but, to the general astonishment, the court ordered us to return J to her mother. the Courts of Heaven intervened then. while we were away fighting for her, a courageous friend, a guest who was staying in Dohnavur, helped the child, disguised as a Muhammadan boy, to escape. and she was passed from hand to hand till Handly Bird, the Great-heart of south india, risked everything and carried her off to china, where she was sheltered for 6 years. of this we knew nothing for a long time, for our friends who acted for us carefully kept the knowledge from us. an anonymous post card, 'For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him', greatly comforted us' but many felt that, should J be found and brought back, the only way to save her would be to broadcast her
101 story, so we wrote it and held it ready. a page from it now (for we had not to use it) may show the supreme hour of that long fight, the hour of utmost defeat, when for the first time we tasted public shame and scorn and knew how little we had drunk as yet of the cup of our Saviour's agony for souls. but that hour of our humiliation in the sight of men was the hour that shone as no other hour in our lives had ever shone and it shines in our memory still like a great star in a moonless night. this is the page:
the hours between sunset and midnight of that last night (the night before we went to court for the last time) were sacred to Jewel. as we lay close together on the cane cot on the verandah we fell into silence; but our last talk was of john the baptist and of faith that nothing can offend. and before i left her i took her hands in mine and looked down into her upturned face, 'promise me, whatever happens, by His grace, you will never be offended in Him'. and she repeated, 'i promise by His grace, i will never be offended in Him'. for a moment we stood so in the starlight, looking into each other's eyes. then we look up together to Him, our Beloved, 'Lord, dear Lord, whatever happens, by Thy grace we will never be offended in Thee'. then we parted. the child stayed in Doh, and we started for our night's journey by bullock cart. and on the way the open oval of the cart framed the Southern Cross.
next morning at 11 o'clock the court opened. for 1-0 minutes or so we stood straining our ears to catch the words of the judgment read by the judge. but he read inaudibly and our pleader told us that we must ask to be allowed to read it ourselves, which we did. it was handed down to us and we went to the court library, where the clerk read it to us. we were as those smitten in the place of dragons.
but we were not forsaken. we were sitting wound the table, the clerk was floundering slowly through the bulky manuscript, some 30 or 40 pages of foolscap, glancing at us every now and then to see how we bore it, his drone occasionally jumping into a metallic staccato was an encouraging grunt from the mother's pleader roused him, when suddenly i saw through the open door a paradise flycatcher, a dear bird that had cheered us before. it alighted on a branch of the mango tree near the door and looked in as if giving a message to someone; and then it flew in among the dark green shadows, its long, white tail-feathers streaming like little pennons of victory.
the heavy, hot hour wore on: we had reached the last long minute of it, when a word stung like a whip-lash. the
102clerk was wide awake now. the cruel face across the table tightened up. the mother's pleader shot forth his hand and snatched the paper from the clerk. 'Costs! has she to pay them? for the whole suit?' he had never dreamed of that.
then suddenly, all unbidden, unprayed for, came a strange triumphant joy utterly unprayed for before. we might have been the victors, it was such a victorious joy. it welled up like the springing of a fountain. it was so new, so pure, that i did not recognise it for my own. was it the sudden shining of His face? was it the joy of those who departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name? was it that sacred joy?
i do not know. but i do know that all that went before and all that had to follow, when the time came for paying the price in hours emptied of all conscious illumination, was as nothing in comparison with one moment of that joy.
104 her lies a lover who has died for his Beloved and for love; who has loved his Beloved with a love that is good, great and enduring; who has battled bravely for love's sake, who had striven against false love and false lovers; a lover ever humble, patient, loyal, ardent, liberal, prudent, holy and full of all good things, inspiring many lovers to honour and serve his Beloved. raymond lull
105 that court case was the beginning of a long period of keen anxiety, or what would have been anxiety but for the presence of our Shield and our Defence. the shields of the earth belong unto the Lord is a word that we have often proved. we were advised by an english chistian barrister to 'disappear the children and lose their traces'. for precedent is everything in india and there were many evil men who, encouraged by that unexpected order of the court, were ready to go to law to claim children to whom they were not related; false witnesses who would swear to relationship were, of course, only a matter of rupees. but we could not possibly 'disappear the children', so we went on from day to day depending upon the God of our mercy, and when threats muttered more like low thunder than ever, we gathered the children round us and looked up and again and again were delivered from all our fears. but the story of these deliverances would fill a book. when we meet the gallant friends whose prayers and deeds stood round us and wrought for us through those days, will the unwritten stories shine for them like living pictures? will they see, rather than read or hear, what they were used to do in this far away corner of india by the mighty means of prayer.
on the home side good help had before this been given to us. our kindergarten,so sadly closed, had been reopened; a friend who broke down in the University Settlement, Bombay, had come to us, and she stayed with us till ill health forced her home. before that had to be, the answer to our years of prayer had come - strangely enough, through the loss that, more than any other in those early days, cast us upon our God.
106 on august 24, 1912, Walker of Tinnevelly was with Christ. his wife was in england, ill; she cabled in answer to our cable, 'the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord'. a sentence in a letter from bishop Moule when bereft of wife and daughter shows life as we slowly, painfully, learned to live it: 'i am learning the lesson set to the weaned child: i am learning to do without'. we had to learn to 'do without'. did our friend see from the other side the answer to the prayer that we had so often prayed together about the children's education?
15 years before that date, agnes naish of westfield had come to a south indian college with one purpose: to teach and train indian girls to be winners of souls among their own people. she was now with her elder sister, edith, evangelising in the villages. her heart had been deeply moved about the children who are in peril all over south india and through the delirium of a severe illness she had been haunted by the thought of them. when Mr. Walker left us, she and her sister offered to come and help us through the pressure of the time. in the following year they joined our Fellowship, and agnes naish took charge of our school. frances nosworthy, a trained kindergartener, cam a year later and after 2 years, helen bradshaw, also trained; and so our prayer was answered. years afterwards, when the work had grown beyond our expectations (for is it not the glorious tale of all who know our Master that His ways with us pass not only our asking, but even our thinking?) two young sisters, alice and joan roberts, were given and 19 year old joan just lapped up the language, as someone said, and acclimatised so beautifully that her parents' faith was justified in the eyes of many who had looked on doubtfully when one so young came out....
107 soon after agnes naish took charge of the children's education, our principles were tested. a friend of an influential official in the educational world came to stay with us. she told her friend of what we were doing. he was interested and the end of that was the offer of a grant if we would come in, even only partially, under the general scheme. we were to have large concessions, but, of course, would have to prepare our children for the usual examinations. this would have bound us to use as teachers some who could not build in god, silver, precious stones and sometimes (to mention one matter only) to use as readers books which we did not believe could do anything towards forming the character we wanted.
(foot - see The Republic of Plato (golden treasury series, page 15 of analysis) the passage takes point from the fact that our one purpose was to prepare children for war. 'but war implies soldiers and soldiers must be carefully trained to their profession. they must be strong, swift and brave; high-spirited, but gentle. but how must they be educated? - in the first place we must be very scrupulous about the substance of the stories which they are taught in their childhood...truth, courage, and self control must be inculcated by all the stories that are employed in their education'.
we had no freedom of spirit to consent. to be outside the running of the
108 official machine was certain to handicap us in many ways in the future, but we could not touch money that must sooner or later lead to compromise. it was a thing forbidden.
109 ..the searching forces of bereavement were close upon us now. ponnamal (golden), with whom the earliest journeys on behalf of the children had been undertaken,she who had cared so faithfully for the little nursery in neyyoor, gradually failed, and soon became very ill.
we had no liberty of spirit to 'claim healing'; we hardly understand the use of that phrase; we know too little to 'claim' where temporal blessings are concerned. but we felt free to have a solemn service of Prayer and Anointing and Committal. it was led by a friend of many years, dr. stewart of madras, and as we lad palms about our dear ponnamal we knew that, however the answer came, there would be victory, there would be peace.
and as the days passed we were kept in the sme mind. we knew our Father. there was noneed for persuasion. would not His Fatherliness be longing to give us our hearts' desire (if i may put it so)? how could we press Him as though He were not our own most loving Father? in that understanding with Him we lived through the next two years:
and shall i pry, Oh, change Thy will, my Father,
until it be according unto mine?
Ah no, Lord, no, that never could be, rather
I pray Thee, Blend my human will with Thine.
110 and work in me to will and do Thy pleasure,
let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,
Tarry content my Well-Beloved's leisure
at last, at last, even as a weaned child.
can one pass that for peace and deep heart's ease?
it was soon evident that healing as by the touch of His hand was not to be. our Lord often uses His human healers now, so we took ponnamal to hospital.
our neyyoor friends were away at the time, but the Salvation Army hospital at nagercoil in tranvancore was good to us. in the dawn after our night together in the bullock-cart, as it trundled slowly along the road leading between the hills into travancore territory, she and i wondered what the end of that journey would be. would it be relief? neither of us had assurance about that. then what new valley of sorrow was opening before us? these strange valleys which cross the plain of life are not unknown ways to any of the Father's children, but at the entrance the soul trembles just for a moment - then it enters unafraid, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. and so began the walk through the valley which was to prove a valley not of shadow only, but far more of illumination, of springs of water and of corn fields, and at the end, for ponnamal, the light of her Lord's face.
we were three months in nagercoil: 'do Thou so make my bed in all my sickness that, being used to Thy hand, i may be content with any bed of Thy making', was our prayer then.
111 ponnamal suffered long. we need not recall what she has forgotten and what can be shown to the greater glory of God has been told in the book called, PONNAMAL, HER STORY.
but it was not all storm and rain: there were sunny spaces. i cannot show them more tenderly than in the melodious words of the old tale: 'and behold, at a great distance he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautiful with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold. then he asked the name of the country: they said it was Immanuel's Land'. on august 26, 1915, ponnamal was received into the celestial city and to us again was set the hard lesson, to learn how to do without.
we missed her at every turn. we were too few to be able to protect every part of a compound whose wall was nearly a mile long. P's vigilance had been a continual help and now that it was removed the evil one had his chance. anxiety upon anxiety followed. 'no one is indispensable. you will be given another ponnamal', said some easily. mistaken words and vain. they did nothing to help us through.
no, it is not by giving us back what He has taken that our God teaches us His deepest lessons, but by patiently waiting beside us till we can say: i accept the will of my God as good and acceptable and perfect, for loss or for gain. this, word for word, spelled out by ponnamal's death bed, was the lesson set to us to learn:
he said, 'i will forget the dying faces;
the empty places-
they shall be filled again;
O voices mourning deep within me, ceases.
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
not in forgetting lieth peace.
he said, 'i will crowd action upon action,
the strife of faction
shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of manhood, cease.
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
not in endeavour lieth peace.
he said, 'i will withdraw me and be quiet,
why meddle in life's riot?
shut be my door to pain.
desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease.
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
he said, 'i will submit; i am defeated;
God hath depleted
my life of its rich gain.
o futile murmurings; why will ye not cease?'
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
not in submission lieth peace.
he said, 'i will accept the breaking sorrow
which God tomorrow
will to His son explain'.
then did the turmoil deep within him cease,
not vain the word, not vain;
for in ACCEPTANCE lieth peace.
114 but indeed through it all God does make known to us wonderful resources of His mercy. He does help us, beyond all that we can ask or think, by the kindness and gentleness that He teaches others to show us, and by the Light that changes the look of all things and by the uplifting power of His grace and by showing us our task in life and by setting us to help and think for others: so in all these ways He bears us on from day to day. and it is just from day to day that we have to hold on; not looking into or puzzling about the further distances of this life, but doing our best each day with each day's task and each day's duty, trusting God to give us the strength and light which for each day we need. - francis paget, bishop of oxford.
115 we had learned that the best way to protect such a child was to put her in some safe place pending the decision of the court. we could not always depend on a brave guest or on the cooperation of fellow missionaries. so the only thing to do was to put cuckoo where she could not be found, and, if things went against us, to say that we had done so and take the consequences - 7 years' imprisonment.
but ponnamal lay dying. we had been with her through months of suffering and she had counted on us to be with her to the end. how could we leave her> 'but do not think of me, she said to that. in the gathering up of the love of the years she said it, 'do not think of me'.
it was impossible for any english person to travel unobserved with an indian child. we had no indian women who could do it. but there was one who could do it - arul dasan, he who had narrowly escaped having his eyes filled with pepper because he would not turn from his Lord Jesus. he was a young man now and he was with us. he listened as we told him what it might cost if things went wrong. we did not know how the law would regard
116 his share in the matter. it might be impossible to shield him even though we declared ourselves responsible.
opposite to us as we talked, hanging upon the wall, was a picture, 'the vigil'. i took it down and gave it to him. 'keep your vigil, i said, and he took the picture with him. that night he kept his vigil and received his sword and buckler, the empowerment from on high.
and yet it was in fear and in much weakness that he started and it was a worn and weary arul dasan who returned 6 days later. he told us that on the 2nd day, in a house boat on the back waters of travancore, as he sat with the little Cuckoo nestling close to him, a group of men stood talking in the stern. 'look at that child, said one of them and spoke of the criminal case about to come on in madras. the 2 men dropped their voices and went on talking, glancing round again and again at him. the loss of little Cuckoo - prison; arul dasan faced both in that hour
and the accals, the indian sisters, how show the temper of their steel? after arul dasan started on his journey we gathered them together and told them everything. they were all young, inexperienced, timid by nature and terribly afraid of the very word prison..
..it did not appear to help them much to be reminded that in olden days prison was usual. the martyr stories, they seemed to think, belonged altogether to another order of life..
at last someone spoke. 'willit not be possible to have a buthil? (buthil means one who does something instead of another.) and from all round the group came that one word, 'will it not be possible? then, more
117 earnestly still, 'oh, let me be buthil! yes, up to 7 years' imprisonment, 'let me be buthil'..
next day a telegram came -'criminal case dismissed'.
118 when we were sure that all was safe, the friends who had sheltered Cuckoo sent her back to us. we met her at a big junction in the midst of the usual crush and clamour of a railway station. when first she caught sight of us among the crowd there was a whoop, a wild leap into our arms and a joyful jumble up of hugs with all four limbs at once. when we had liberty and leisure to look round, we saw a crowd of smiles.
blessed for ever be the cord that binds those who yield to its mighty bonds one to another. 'do not think of me' - 'let me be buthil'. the love in such words is eternal. this is a thread of our gold cord.
120 in answering the questions of the christian as to the failure of science to throw light on the nature of God, Sir Arthur Eddington says, 'i doubt whether there is any assurance to be obtained except through the religious experience itself; but i bid him hold fast to his own intimate knowledge of the nature of that experience...we may embark on the venture of spiritual life uncharted though it be. it is sufficient that we carry a compass.
121 i have told nothing, so far, of how supplies have come so that we could continue from year to year, because any who care to know about that will find it written in 3 little books, NOR SCRIP, TABLES IN THE WILDERNESS, and MEAL IN A BARREL. but there may be some who would like to know, before they read further, something of how we were taught to take such words as our Lord's about the lilies and the ravens and the sparrows quite simply (perhaps the odd sparrow, the fifth thrown in as an extra by the birdseller, is as good a name as we could find for our fellowship - the odd sparrow that is
122 not forgotten). so i will copy a few paragraphs from the first of these records. they belong to our earliest days and to a time of temptation to fear.
then, as never again for 15 years, i was allowed to taste of the cup which would be poured out for me if the money did not come. allan gardiner, for some hidden good purpose, was allowed to starve to death. therefore such an issue could not be regarded as impossible. the children -i need not trace in writing the end of that thought. but i did that day tread every foot of it in imagination and came to this: suppose the christian world cries shame on the one responsible, what will it matter, after all? the children will be in heaven and is that not better than the temple?...
123we have never lacked any good thing; and during the years of War, people in the towns and villages began to say, 'God is there'; for they could not account for what they saw except by saying that. and, later on, when we were able to do more outside work, we found that true thoughts about His love had already been spread abroad, because of what He had done. we have never had to labour to prove that He hears and answers prayer; the fact of our existence witnesses that it is so.
there were days of tension, days when it cost 15 times more to bring a child from the nearest station than it had cost before the War, because of the fall in value of the pound and the rise in the price of rice, which sent bandy fares
from an old Gaelic Rune:
Jesu, son of the virgin pure,
be Thou my pilgrim staff,
throughout the lands (2x)
Thy love in all my thoughts,
Thy likeness in my face,
may i heartwarm to others
and they heatwarm to me,
for the love of the love of Thee (2x)
8...and now, in a place quite unlike a city street on a riany day, another great truth was made vital. it was the grave of the pioneer missionary, Ragland. it lies on a bare plain in North tinnevelly, near a small, ruined house. the day had been hot, we (the Walkers of Tinnevelly and i) had had a rackety journey and a walk on a glary white road. nobody seemed inclined to speak, the stifling heat discouraged speech and we hung about the ugly little ruin and the depressing tombstone like wet socks put out to dry, to quote a perfect word for the feelings of hot, limp people at the end of a blistering day. it did not seem the moment for anything inspiring to happen; but suddenly mr. walker, ragland's spiritual successor, broke the tired silence with words that are associated with R: - 'of all plans of ensuring success, the most certain is Christ's own-becoming a corn of wheat, falling into the ground and dying: 'verily, verily, i say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit'. forgotten then were the heat, the fag of life-forgotten was everything. for a minute we stood in silence, and i know that the prayer rose then from the depths of our hearts: Lord, give it to us to live that life and to die that death and to bring forth fruit unto life eternal...
16...f.b. meyer had been stuck by the bedecked christian women of the South. he had also come full upon caste and debt- both prickly subjects and when he pleaded that the whole burnt offering might be laid on the altar, he named them explicitly as hindering things, instead of skating round them and giving, what all india loves, 'a spiritual address'. his words were an offence. his sensitive spirit felt this acutely. years afterwards he wrote to us that he had been sorely tempted over that series of meetings. and small wonder. he had spoken plain words and the devil never forgives plainness of speech.
to us who were left to bear the brunt of the blame after this most unpopular mission was over, came a great calm. we saw the road clear before us; the only thing was to go on. two or 3 fellow missionaries and a few christians were one with us in spirit and that was cheer. but we learned to go on unaffected by approval or disapproval. for the matter of the jewels was only one of a series of tests and disciplines; and we proved the truth of words that we read much later: 'there is always something more in your nature which He wills to mark with the Cross...
62...my flesh and my heart faileth-let them fail. for God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. has anyone ever been able to tell what our glorious Lord can be to man, woman, or little child whom He is training to wait upon Him only?
63...life is battle-yes, but it is music. it knows the thrill of brave music, the depths and heights of music. it is LIFE, not stagnation. oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed (happy, very happy) is the man that trusteth in Him.
66...it is God's truth that one loving spirit sets others on fire.
..if our children were to grow up truthful they must be taught by those who had a regard for truth; and not just a casual regard, a delicate regard. on this point we were adamant.
...and we learned that to cling to a creature is to 'fall with the sliding creature'. our story may find its way to someone who must do what may seem foolish ('narrow-minded' is the usual adjective). it is well to know that when the devil finds that his fiery darts fall harmless, sometimes he plucks from his quiver the light-feathered arrow of a smile. but the only way of peace is to go on quietly, so we went on, and tried to obey our light.
69...we have never been led to go on to higher education. when a keen girl-student recovering from a long illness began to learn greek for recreation, it was that she might be able to study her new testament better and so do more for the younger ones. we never had time for what (to us) would have been luxury. and as they grew older, we tried, by means of travelling on the king's business, and with the splendid help of books, to enlarge our children's minds so that they would be always eager to learn more.
71...those were years of rigid economies, for though we were never burdened about funds, we thought in terms of pence, not shillings, much less pounds. receipts for gifts were often gummed on the back of post cards to save stamps and stationery. and everything else was done in that careful spirit. but no one knew that we were at times almost in straits. they only knew that all our needs were supplied, for we told them so, and it was true. the times of shortness were for the proving of faith; the end of almost each year saw us with something over.
72...if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you- we asked for that as a present experience, and i believe received in some measure a life that was quickened and sustained for the sake of the children.
...'the work' will never go deeper than we have gone ourselves. 'i bear in my body the marks-i bear branded on my body the scars of Jesus as my Master....how often we have pondered the paragraph beginning, in stripes and imprisonments, in tumults and labours-and felt unworthy to be called followers of the Crucified.
can he have followed far
who has nor wound nor scar?
76...from the first the children did the work of the compound; we teach them to keep their little world orderly because of the cloud of witnesses. (foot. a friend, writing of bishop westcott, says this beautiful thing about him: ' in the presence of the unseen he met all life, and you could not surprise him out of it. in this atmosphere he worked and breathed. not only god Himself, but the cloud of witnesses, the communion of the unseen body of Christ, were more real to him than the things seen'. and the same friend tells a story of how the bishop's chaplain, finding him struggling late and minutely one night over the draft of a service for a humble country church, reminded him that the congregation would not be critical. 'they are accustomed to anything, he said. with a gentle, surprised smile, such as elisha's might have been in dothan, the bishop looked up from his desk and said, 'you forget: WHO are 'the congregation? we are only an infinitesimal part of it'.
77...we had always much singing and silence counted with us too. we found that the children could learn to understand silence. we had a minute's silence before beginning our worship together and often a pause somewhere in the middle. it could never be long, because there were so many who were very small. the day from 5 am until 10 pm was divided among us, each taking certain hours for prayer-not the whole hour, but whatever space could be given and a prayer-bell-a disc of metal hung under a tree-was struck hour by hour. from the first we found that even very little children used the bell with a sweet and simple confidence.
as we went on continually asking that the ways of prayer might be opened to us, we learned that the kind of intercession that is like a musical chord, every note in harmony with every other and all seeking to be tuned perfectly to the keynote (the will of our great Intercessor) is something worth guarding at any cost.
we found prayer choruses uplifting too. years afterwards, we sent a few of these out in a small book called Wings, but they could only be a few and the music which wings the words could not always be given. we grew into a kind of prayer that is, for us at least, very helpful. we ask to be led bny the Holy Spirit from point to point, each prayer leading on from the preceding prayer till the particular subject laid on our hearts has been dealt with,
78 and we have the assurance that the Lord will complete all, as Kay translates Ps. 138.8.
this way of prayer is just the opposite to the kaleidoscope kind, which darts hither and thither all over the earth or over a number of scattered interests (often within the limits of a single long prayer) leaving the mind which has tried to follow perhaps dazzled, perhaps tired. it is a much simpler thing. such prayer is often brief; it is often silent or it may take the form of song and we are lifted up as with wings to our lord's feet. it is possible only when all who are praying together do thoroughly understand one another, are, indeed, as one instrument under the control of the spirit of God, who moves on each severally as he will or unites all in silence or in song. such prayer asks for something not easily defined. Darby's translation of exodus 23.21, 'be careful in his presence', comes to mind as a word that expresses its quietness and awe, and the jubilant psalms show its joy.
the habit of having a settled prayer day once a month was a great help. it led to something which we could not do without now-occasional extra days when we plan, so that the many whirling wheels of our busy world shall run down as much as possible and we be set free to give ourselves to prayer. 'do not be so busy with work for Christ that you have no strength left for praying', said hudson taylor once. 'true pray requires strength'. to secure even half a day's quiet in a large family like ours needs careful planning beforehand, but it is worth that. again and again things have happened after such a day that nothing we could have done could have effected, for prayer is truly force. so when the constraint is upon us we yield to it, believing it to be of God. sometimes to one or another privately this compulsion comes and we have a quiet room set apart for this purpose; no one goes there except for quietness. when it comes to all, then, after we have had some time alone, we meet as on our usual prayer day and this way of being together in prayer is a strand in our gold cord.
foot..others have felt the same necessity. 'when any Sisters life of prayer has been seriously broken in upon, as when a Nurse-Sister has had a succession of bad cases, arrangements are made for counteracting the effect of this when the special time of strain is over.
'the time that is thus set apart for quiet and prayer may seem to some to be excessive. but it is to be remembered that the sisters in india have to face a heathen world, and to work in an atmosphere which is, whether they are conscious of it or not, full of deadly evil influences; and that this, when it is combined with hard work in a very enervating climate, tends greatly to wear them out and makes it very necessary for them to be in direct and habitual contact with him who is the Source of life'. -oxford mission to calcutta.
'Christ knew how the holiest service, preaching and healing, can exhaust the spirit, how too much intercourse with men can cloud the fellowship with God, how time, full time, is needed, if the spirit is to rest and root in him, how no pressure of duty among men can free from the absolute need of much prayer..andrew murray
79 it was not long before we began to understand the reality of the authority often exercised, especially at night , by the evil one, our enemy, upon the minds of these lately delivered from his prison-house. so far as we knew, the babies were not affected, but older children and converts were. if strong threads of affection bound the heart to anyone in the old life, then there would be at times distress, apprehension of trouble there, perhaps a vivid dream revealing it in tangible form. the immaterial became material, or the material appearing in the immaterial stuff of dreams disturbed and sometimes seriously injured, the life of the one thus strained. often we heart afterwards of what had been happening just at that time hundreds of miles away (miles matter nothing where spirit forces play) and were able to trace the influence to its source. tuesdays and fridays, the nights given up to demon worship for thousands of square miles in the south, seemed to ask for special guarding by prayer, for the throb of tomtoms which filled the air and the weird cries of the worshippers were sometimes reminiscent and sounds, like scents, have extraordinary recalling power. but any night might hold a need.
for all such conditions we found just one sure antidote-the peace of God. let the will close down the door on the old life with its allures, its pictured memories, let the last thoughts before falling asleep be set on Him, the Eternal keeper who neither slumbers nor sleeps, let some hymn or psalm or calming promise or assurance fill the last conscious moments and the spell will be broken. an old prayer (SirThomas Browne's )
80 is as sure of an answer in an indian room tonight as it was in an english home 300 years ago:
while i do rest, my soul advance,
make me to sleep a holy trance
that i may, my rest being wrought, awake into some holy thought.
and now and here, as always everywhere, there is One whom the winds and waves obey and He draws near to the frightened soul and says, it is I; be not afraid. and when He is as near as that, the weakest of His little children sleeps peacefully and is almost sure to waken into some holy thought.
were then ever naughty? 'you know, dear children, you are in a beautiful garden, but the serpent entered the garden of eden, remarked an excellent friend one day, in the course of a sunday address and he thought that he was giving them information.ther was, i fear, an impious chuckle in more than one small soul, though, to our relief, the upturned faces were suitably demure. did they not know that? why, of course. snakes love gardens. and as for the serpent who 'entered the garden of eden', they know him only too well. but, even so, the garden helped. a carelessly disobedient child would be sent to find a disobedient plant, one whose leaves ought to grow alternately or opposite or in whorls and which disobeyed its law; a destructive one would be told to stick on the leaf it had plucked off from pure wantonness-a deplorable habit, too common here. for punishments were various. a quarrelsome child had a deer's horn tied round her neck or, ir very small, was put in a barrel out of which she could not climb, and in which she soon tired of her own cxompany and sometimes persistent offenders were given switches and told to go and fight it out-this always ended in laughter.
two fables often came to mind in those days. when we were perplexed by diverse advisers (for we found that both books and people differed considerably about the proper way to bring up children), then we thought of aesop's old man and his donkey. and when we hardly dared to do anything for fear of doing wrong, the mother bear story..was delightfully in point: 'shall i, said the bear's cub to his mother move my right paw first or mjy left or my two front paws togetheer or the two hind ones or all four at once or how? 'leav off thinking and walk, grunterd the old bear. so in a great simplicity we tried to let the children grow as the green things about tjhem grew, not too closely regarded, not pulled up at frequent intervals to see how they were getting on. and there was always the hope that they would be part of the crown of flowers that our Lord would werar one day.
83 often then, much more often than now, we had to take risks. what soldier does not? it was second nature to hazard anything to save a child. we tried to walk wisely and lawfully too, but at a time when the only adoption the Law recognized in the case of a girl was that of a temple-woman it was impossible to be always on the safe side. to have a missionary in fail would not have been comfortable for the Society with which we, (mabel wade and i) were at that time connected, so we arranged with the Secretary on the field that if one of us were imprisoned, that one should drop out...
..once the word was caused to run quietly through south india that should a little girl for whom we were known to be fighting a losing fight in the courts, appear at any mission station she should be protected and passed on safely . and this was done. how often we have thanked God for fellow missionaries.
..a child of 8 was about to be dedicated to the god of one of the great temples of the south. her father had married out of caste. this had made trouble, so he had killed his wife and was about to marry again. in a case like that, the child, if there be one, is
84 usually dedicated (note-to the temple where she becomes a sex slave) and the family starts afresh. we tried to save the child, but could not. now, a month or so later, the indian friend in whose house we had been staying had found that if certain expenses could be met she might be redeemed. one hundred rupees was the sum required. would we send it or not? the answer had to be given at once.
it was the first time such a decision had had to be made. the life of a child was at stake. we sent the hundred rupees.
then doubts arose. NOR SCRIP (throughout, other books that were written concerning this ministry when noted will be captitalized...if i remember :) tells of these and of how they were set at rest. but ponnamal (golden) and pearl, the two faithful indian sisters who shared this matter with me, were unhappy, though their loyal hears trusted me. it was such an unheard of thing to pay money for the redemption of a child. was it strange that they felt apprehensive? i asked then if i might pray for a token that could not be mistaken, to show whether or not we were in the will of our God. and to that the answer, i thought, was Yes. what may i ask, Lord? you may ask for one hundred rupees. we had never up to that time had a gift of 100 rupees.
and it cam. a fellow missionary who knew nothing of this (no one knew outside the house) was caused to think of us and to feel that she should send us something. she was about to write a cheque for a different sum, so she told us..but she felt constrained to make it just 100 rupees. we laid the cheque on the floor like a little new gideon's fleece, and, kneeling round it, we thanked our heavenly Father.
86 ..it was written by walker of tinnevelly and was called CUSTOM AND LIBERTY. no one would publish that...for with a firm touch it dealt with matters that are usually left because they are too thorny to be comfortably handled, so we printed it ourselves...
87...to test her vocation we sent Perfection on a long visit to her relatives-graduates, in good positions in the city of madras. she returned from that visit sure of her call and in the steadiness of a purpose that the Lord formed and guards she has gone on ever since.
sometimes in strange ways the call comes that compels. often in india, as in older days in palestine, the Lord speaks to His simple children in dreams. we do not explain this or defend, we only know that it is so. there was one, hardly to be called a child of the household, though she had
88 been baptized, who sat on the floor day after day with her hair streaming round her shoulders and her eyes pouring out tears - for she was a widow.
she must stay in that dimly lighted room. she must sit there and mourn. so said her mother in law, also a baptized hindu rather than a genuine christian. so she sat and wept loudly, as custom ordained and lamented according to custom and because she had a very bad temper and her mother in law's was still worse, that house, though wealthy, could hardly be called happy.
after some troubled months, the widow had a dream. one whom she did not recognise, dressed in a long white robe, came to her and said, 'i will send you to a place where they all love one another. He vanished with the word, and she woke. 'if this comes to pass within 7 days i shall know that it is certainly the doing of the Supreme, she said to herself. within a week a festival was held in the church near by. the bishop came to it. the missionary took him to see the old mother in law and her daughter in law, as being the noted coverts of the place. he stood silently in the doorway and looked at the widow. then slowly he said something in english. the missionary translated. the words were the same that she had heard. how it was effected she does not know, but a few days later she and her little son arrived in Dohnavur..
89...money came to build a school. 'is it impossible to make the idea of entire consecration the foundation of education? was andrew murray's question when he was founding his Huguenot Schools two or three generations ago...
..once it was a conversation at the breakfast table. missionaries from different parts of india were in Dohnavur that day. all were one in lamenting that the type of chistian we turned out from our various institutions was so lacking in certain qualities which make for character. i could not help wondering, as i listened to the talk of these seniors, how a new type could be expected to evolve from an old mould. it could not be that the plastic stuff poured into the mould was incapable of receiving a finer impression. everything in me refused that explanation. ..'open your ears to what walker iyer says to you about spiritual things (things theological), but close them if he speaks of other things' (things theological), was the advice given to his convert lads by their schoolmaster in the mission school. this was the mould. how expect a new type from it?
..'the raft the current carries where it will' is the Tamil synonym
90 for the life swayed by the surrounding usual. those rafts were everywhere.
in our mountain ravine, just above our swimming pool, a small tree grows on the rock in mid-steam. when the river is in flood and a roaring torrent pours over the little tree, whipping off its every leaf, it stands unmoved. its root grip the rock. we wanted the children to be like that. 'give them time to root, we used to say to our advisers. 'we are training them for storms and floods.'
93 but fears came up perpetually and danced before our eyes like wearisome, mischievous goblins; we found that we could only go on if we leaned all our weight on the promises. and there was always a sense, even then, that something good lay ahead and that we were being shaped for that good thing, though we did not know what it was. their Redeemer would not waste the children. if only they had the sovereign quality of truth, somehow the way would open. so we tried to bring them up to be truthful and faithful, ready for any sort of hard work, not slackers. and though, when we could not answer the frequent, 'and what are you going to do with them? with a clear cut pan and must have appeared unpractical and foolish, we were not cast down. 'Thou knowest, Lord; Thou hast not show us yet, but Thou knowest', we used to say to Him, and found it comforting. 'only teach us how to train them in honesty and thoroughness, in detachment from the spirit of the world and in a pure indifference to all its tinsel allurements. give us some to help us who will understand about the gold and silver and precious stones. let us not be disappointed of our hope. and he answered with a word of strong consolation; for He Himself knew what He would do.
98 O merry love, strong, ravishing, burning, willful, stalwart, unslakened, that brings all my soul to Thy service and suffers it to think of nothing but Thee. Thou challengest for Thyself all that we live; all that we savour; all that we are.
thus therefore let Christ be the beginning of our love, whom we love for Himself. and so we love whatever is to be loved ordinately for Him that is the Well of love, and in whose hands we put all that we love and are loved by...
O love un-departed! O love singular!...
we praise thee, we preach thee, by the which we overcome the world; by whom we joy and ascend the heavenly ladder. in thy sweetness glide into me: and i commend me and mine unto thee withouten end. richard rolle (1290-1349), THE FIRE OF LOVE , AND THE MENDING OF LIFE.
99 all through those years of beginnings we had lived with a menace in our ears. it was like living within sound of the growls and rumblings of an approaching storm.
at last, in 1910 and 1911, the storm broke upon us and we were plunged into a welter of troubles in the law courts. it was then that for the first time we understood the 77th psalm-with one exception, it seems to me, the most poignant in the whole psalter. will the Lord cast off forever? and will He be favourable no more? is His mercy clean gone for ever? doth His promise fail for evermore? hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger in anger shut up His tender mercies? and i said, this is my infirmity: but i will remember the years of the right had of the most High.
but still, though we did remember, those awful questions pierced us, for the child for whom we had fought so hard was alone in her desolation, snatched from us by powers too strong for us and she had clung to us with all her might. the thought of her was like the probing of a spear and a cruel voice cried aloud in our ears, turning the spear-point in the wound: 'hath God forgotten to be gracious?
it was then that a scale was given to us by which to measure all that could ever be again. never more could ordinary trials and trifling rubs appear worth the energy of agitation that is so often spent on them; and we have never yielded to the temptation to make mush of them without a felling of shame. for that long series of law suits was a long, single hunt; the hunters were very evil men and the hunted was a child who had trusted us to save here.
her name was Jewel, and when was young, pure spirited girl to whom we had given a promise that no power on
100earth could make us break, that we would never give her up to her iniquitous mother. when we gave her that promise we did not know how impossible, from the human point of view, it was going to be to keep it. after anxious months and a miracle of deliverance, J had been given to us in open court. her mother and her responsible relatives had signed a yadast (a document handing her over to us). but they went back on their word and filed a suit against us, accusing us of breaking the child's cast, which according to the terms..we were bound to keep inviolate. the judge at that time was Sir Charles Spencer, afterwards of the High Court, Madras; when it was known that he would try the case, the false witnesses fled. not for silver nor for gold would they face the keen eyes of that sahib, they said. the case was dismissed and with thanksgiving we brought our J home. but the relatives bided their time. they waited till a new judge came, then they moved again on a new charge.
the matter created a stir allover south india. missionaries of every name and government officials who know about the notorious mother, openly stood by us and all the better hindus and muslims of the country side, for once united, were with us in sympathy. we had what everyone thought was a good case; but, to the general astonishment, the court ordered us to return J to her mother. the Courts of Heaven intervened then. while we were away fighting for her, a courageous friend, a guest who was staying in Dohnavur, helped the child, disguised as a Muhammadan boy, to escape. and she was passed from hand to hand till Handly Bird, the Great-heart of south india, risked everything and carried her off to china, where she was sheltered for 6 years. of this we knew nothing for a long time, for our friends who acted for us carefully kept the knowledge from us. an anonymous post card, 'For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him', greatly comforted us' but many felt that, should J be found and brought back, the only way to save her would be to broadcast her
101 story, so we wrote it and held it ready. a page from it now (for we had not to use it) may show the supreme hour of that long fight, the hour of utmost defeat, when for the first time we tasted public shame and scorn and knew how little we had drunk as yet of the cup of our Saviour's agony for souls. but that hour of our humiliation in the sight of men was the hour that shone as no other hour in our lives had ever shone and it shines in our memory still like a great star in a moonless night. this is the page:
the hours between sunset and midnight of that last night (the night before we went to court for the last time) were sacred to Jewel. as we lay close together on the cane cot on the verandah we fell into silence; but our last talk was of john the baptist and of faith that nothing can offend. and before i left her i took her hands in mine and looked down into her upturned face, 'promise me, whatever happens, by His grace, you will never be offended in Him'. and she repeated, 'i promise by His grace, i will never be offended in Him'. for a moment we stood so in the starlight, looking into each other's eyes. then we look up together to Him, our Beloved, 'Lord, dear Lord, whatever happens, by Thy grace we will never be offended in Thee'. then we parted. the child stayed in Doh, and we started for our night's journey by bullock cart. and on the way the open oval of the cart framed the Southern Cross.
next morning at 11 o'clock the court opened. for 1-0 minutes or so we stood straining our ears to catch the words of the judgment read by the judge. but he read inaudibly and our pleader told us that we must ask to be allowed to read it ourselves, which we did. it was handed down to us and we went to the court library, where the clerk read it to us. we were as those smitten in the place of dragons.
but we were not forsaken. we were sitting wound the table, the clerk was floundering slowly through the bulky manuscript, some 30 or 40 pages of foolscap, glancing at us every now and then to see how we bore it, his drone occasionally jumping into a metallic staccato was an encouraging grunt from the mother's pleader roused him, when suddenly i saw through the open door a paradise flycatcher, a dear bird that had cheered us before. it alighted on a branch of the mango tree near the door and looked in as if giving a message to someone; and then it flew in among the dark green shadows, its long, white tail-feathers streaming like little pennons of victory.
the heavy, hot hour wore on: we had reached the last long minute of it, when a word stung like a whip-lash. the
102clerk was wide awake now. the cruel face across the table tightened up. the mother's pleader shot forth his hand and snatched the paper from the clerk. 'Costs! has she to pay them? for the whole suit?' he had never dreamed of that.
then suddenly, all unbidden, unprayed for, came a strange triumphant joy utterly unprayed for before. we might have been the victors, it was such a victorious joy. it welled up like the springing of a fountain. it was so new, so pure, that i did not recognise it for my own. was it the sudden shining of His face? was it the joy of those who departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name? was it that sacred joy?
i do not know. but i do know that all that went before and all that had to follow, when the time came for paying the price in hours emptied of all conscious illumination, was as nothing in comparison with one moment of that joy.
104 her lies a lover who has died for his Beloved and for love; who has loved his Beloved with a love that is good, great and enduring; who has battled bravely for love's sake, who had striven against false love and false lovers; a lover ever humble, patient, loyal, ardent, liberal, prudent, holy and full of all good things, inspiring many lovers to honour and serve his Beloved. raymond lull
105 that court case was the beginning of a long period of keen anxiety, or what would have been anxiety but for the presence of our Shield and our Defence. the shields of the earth belong unto the Lord is a word that we have often proved. we were advised by an english chistian barrister to 'disappear the children and lose their traces'. for precedent is everything in india and there were many evil men who, encouraged by that unexpected order of the court, were ready to go to law to claim children to whom they were not related; false witnesses who would swear to relationship were, of course, only a matter of rupees. but we could not possibly 'disappear the children', so we went on from day to day depending upon the God of our mercy, and when threats muttered more like low thunder than ever, we gathered the children round us and looked up and again and again were delivered from all our fears. but the story of these deliverances would fill a book. when we meet the gallant friends whose prayers and deeds stood round us and wrought for us through those days, will the unwritten stories shine for them like living pictures? will they see, rather than read or hear, what they were used to do in this far away corner of india by the mighty means of prayer.
on the home side good help had before this been given to us. our kindergarten,so sadly closed, had been reopened; a friend who broke down in the University Settlement, Bombay, had come to us, and she stayed with us till ill health forced her home. before that had to be, the answer to our years of prayer had come - strangely enough, through the loss that, more than any other in those early days, cast us upon our God.
106 on august 24, 1912, Walker of Tinnevelly was with Christ. his wife was in england, ill; she cabled in answer to our cable, 'the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord'. a sentence in a letter from bishop Moule when bereft of wife and daughter shows life as we slowly, painfully, learned to live it: 'i am learning the lesson set to the weaned child: i am learning to do without'. we had to learn to 'do without'. did our friend see from the other side the answer to the prayer that we had so often prayed together about the children's education?
15 years before that date, agnes naish of westfield had come to a south indian college with one purpose: to teach and train indian girls to be winners of souls among their own people. she was now with her elder sister, edith, evangelising in the villages. her heart had been deeply moved about the children who are in peril all over south india and through the delirium of a severe illness she had been haunted by the thought of them. when Mr. Walker left us, she and her sister offered to come and help us through the pressure of the time. in the following year they joined our Fellowship, and agnes naish took charge of our school. frances nosworthy, a trained kindergartener, cam a year later and after 2 years, helen bradshaw, also trained; and so our prayer was answered. years afterwards, when the work had grown beyond our expectations (for is it not the glorious tale of all who know our Master that His ways with us pass not only our asking, but even our thinking?) two young sisters, alice and joan roberts, were given and 19 year old joan just lapped up the language, as someone said, and acclimatised so beautifully that her parents' faith was justified in the eyes of many who had looked on doubtfully when one so young came out....
107 soon after agnes naish took charge of the children's education, our principles were tested. a friend of an influential official in the educational world came to stay with us. she told her friend of what we were doing. he was interested and the end of that was the offer of a grant if we would come in, even only partially, under the general scheme. we were to have large concessions, but, of course, would have to prepare our children for the usual examinations. this would have bound us to use as teachers some who could not build in god, silver, precious stones and sometimes (to mention one matter only) to use as readers books which we did not believe could do anything towards forming the character we wanted.
(foot - see The Republic of Plato (golden treasury series, page 15 of analysis) the passage takes point from the fact that our one purpose was to prepare children for war. 'but war implies soldiers and soldiers must be carefully trained to their profession. they must be strong, swift and brave; high-spirited, but gentle. but how must they be educated? - in the first place we must be very scrupulous about the substance of the stories which they are taught in their childhood...truth, courage, and self control must be inculcated by all the stories that are employed in their education'.
we had no freedom of spirit to consent. to be outside the running of the
108 official machine was certain to handicap us in many ways in the future, but we could not touch money that must sooner or later lead to compromise. it was a thing forbidden.
109 ..the searching forces of bereavement were close upon us now. ponnamal (golden), with whom the earliest journeys on behalf of the children had been undertaken,she who had cared so faithfully for the little nursery in neyyoor, gradually failed, and soon became very ill.
we had no liberty of spirit to 'claim healing'; we hardly understand the use of that phrase; we know too little to 'claim' where temporal blessings are concerned. but we felt free to have a solemn service of Prayer and Anointing and Committal. it was led by a friend of many years, dr. stewart of madras, and as we lad palms about our dear ponnamal we knew that, however the answer came, there would be victory, there would be peace.
and as the days passed we were kept in the sme mind. we knew our Father. there was noneed for persuasion. would not His Fatherliness be longing to give us our hearts' desire (if i may put it so)? how could we press Him as though He were not our own most loving Father? in that understanding with Him we lived through the next two years:
and shall i pry, Oh, change Thy will, my Father,
until it be according unto mine?
Ah no, Lord, no, that never could be, rather
I pray Thee, Blend my human will with Thine.
110 and work in me to will and do Thy pleasure,
let all within me, peaceful, reconciled,
Tarry content my Well-Beloved's leisure
at last, at last, even as a weaned child.
can one pass that for peace and deep heart's ease?
it was soon evident that healing as by the touch of His hand was not to be. our Lord often uses His human healers now, so we took ponnamal to hospital.
our neyyoor friends were away at the time, but the Salvation Army hospital at nagercoil in tranvancore was good to us. in the dawn after our night together in the bullock-cart, as it trundled slowly along the road leading between the hills into travancore territory, she and i wondered what the end of that journey would be. would it be relief? neither of us had assurance about that. then what new valley of sorrow was opening before us? these strange valleys which cross the plain of life are not unknown ways to any of the Father's children, but at the entrance the soul trembles just for a moment - then it enters unafraid, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. and so began the walk through the valley which was to prove a valley not of shadow only, but far more of illumination, of springs of water and of corn fields, and at the end, for ponnamal, the light of her Lord's face.
we were three months in nagercoil: 'do Thou so make my bed in all my sickness that, being used to Thy hand, i may be content with any bed of Thy making', was our prayer then.
111 ponnamal suffered long. we need not recall what she has forgotten and what can be shown to the greater glory of God has been told in the book called, PONNAMAL, HER STORY.
but it was not all storm and rain: there were sunny spaces. i cannot show them more tenderly than in the melodious words of the old tale: 'and behold, at a great distance he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautiful with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold. then he asked the name of the country: they said it was Immanuel's Land'. on august 26, 1915, ponnamal was received into the celestial city and to us again was set the hard lesson, to learn how to do without.
we missed her at every turn. we were too few to be able to protect every part of a compound whose wall was nearly a mile long. P's vigilance had been a continual help and now that it was removed the evil one had his chance. anxiety upon anxiety followed. 'no one is indispensable. you will be given another ponnamal', said some easily. mistaken words and vain. they did nothing to help us through.
no, it is not by giving us back what He has taken that our God teaches us His deepest lessons, but by patiently waiting beside us till we can say: i accept the will of my God as good and acceptable and perfect, for loss or for gain. this, word for word, spelled out by ponnamal's death bed, was the lesson set to us to learn:
he said, 'i will forget the dying faces;
the empty places-
they shall be filled again;
O voices mourning deep within me, ceases.
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
not in forgetting lieth peace.
he said, 'i will crowd action upon action,
the strife of faction
shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of manhood, cease.
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
not in endeavour lieth peace.
he said, 'i will withdraw me and be quiet,
why meddle in life's riot?
shut be my door to pain.
desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease.
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
he said, 'i will submit; i am defeated;
God hath depleted
my life of its rich gain.
o futile murmurings; why will ye not cease?'
vain, vain the word; vain, vain:
not in submission lieth peace.
he said, 'i will accept the breaking sorrow
which God tomorrow
will to His son explain'.
then did the turmoil deep within him cease,
not vain the word, not vain;
for in ACCEPTANCE lieth peace.
114 but indeed through it all God does make known to us wonderful resources of His mercy. He does help us, beyond all that we can ask or think, by the kindness and gentleness that He teaches others to show us, and by the Light that changes the look of all things and by the uplifting power of His grace and by showing us our task in life and by setting us to help and think for others: so in all these ways He bears us on from day to day. and it is just from day to day that we have to hold on; not looking into or puzzling about the further distances of this life, but doing our best each day with each day's task and each day's duty, trusting God to give us the strength and light which for each day we need. - francis paget, bishop of oxford.
115 we had learned that the best way to protect such a child was to put her in some safe place pending the decision of the court. we could not always depend on a brave guest or on the cooperation of fellow missionaries. so the only thing to do was to put cuckoo where she could not be found, and, if things went against us, to say that we had done so and take the consequences - 7 years' imprisonment.
but ponnamal lay dying. we had been with her through months of suffering and she had counted on us to be with her to the end. how could we leave her> 'but do not think of me, she said to that. in the gathering up of the love of the years she said it, 'do not think of me'.
it was impossible for any english person to travel unobserved with an indian child. we had no indian women who could do it. but there was one who could do it - arul dasan, he who had narrowly escaped having his eyes filled with pepper because he would not turn from his Lord Jesus. he was a young man now and he was with us. he listened as we told him what it might cost if things went wrong. we did not know how the law would regard
116 his share in the matter. it might be impossible to shield him even though we declared ourselves responsible.
opposite to us as we talked, hanging upon the wall, was a picture, 'the vigil'. i took it down and gave it to him. 'keep your vigil, i said, and he took the picture with him. that night he kept his vigil and received his sword and buckler, the empowerment from on high.
and yet it was in fear and in much weakness that he started and it was a worn and weary arul dasan who returned 6 days later. he told us that on the 2nd day, in a house boat on the back waters of travancore, as he sat with the little Cuckoo nestling close to him, a group of men stood talking in the stern. 'look at that child, said one of them and spoke of the criminal case about to come on in madras. the 2 men dropped their voices and went on talking, glancing round again and again at him. the loss of little Cuckoo - prison; arul dasan faced both in that hour
and the accals, the indian sisters, how show the temper of their steel? after arul dasan started on his journey we gathered them together and told them everything. they were all young, inexperienced, timid by nature and terribly afraid of the very word prison..
..it did not appear to help them much to be reminded that in olden days prison was usual. the martyr stories, they seemed to think, belonged altogether to another order of life..
at last someone spoke. 'willit not be possible to have a buthil? (buthil means one who does something instead of another.) and from all round the group came that one word, 'will it not be possible? then, more
117 earnestly still, 'oh, let me be buthil! yes, up to 7 years' imprisonment, 'let me be buthil'..
next day a telegram came -'criminal case dismissed'.
118 when we were sure that all was safe, the friends who had sheltered Cuckoo sent her back to us. we met her at a big junction in the midst of the usual crush and clamour of a railway station. when first she caught sight of us among the crowd there was a whoop, a wild leap into our arms and a joyful jumble up of hugs with all four limbs at once. when we had liberty and leisure to look round, we saw a crowd of smiles.
blessed for ever be the cord that binds those who yield to its mighty bonds one to another. 'do not think of me' - 'let me be buthil'. the love in such words is eternal. this is a thread of our gold cord.
120 in answering the questions of the christian as to the failure of science to throw light on the nature of God, Sir Arthur Eddington says, 'i doubt whether there is any assurance to be obtained except through the religious experience itself; but i bid him hold fast to his own intimate knowledge of the nature of that experience...we may embark on the venture of spiritual life uncharted though it be. it is sufficient that we carry a compass.
121 i have told nothing, so far, of how supplies have come so that we could continue from year to year, because any who care to know about that will find it written in 3 little books, NOR SCRIP, TABLES IN THE WILDERNESS, and MEAL IN A BARREL. but there may be some who would like to know, before they read further, something of how we were taught to take such words as our Lord's about the lilies and the ravens and the sparrows quite simply (perhaps the odd sparrow, the fifth thrown in as an extra by the birdseller, is as good a name as we could find for our fellowship - the odd sparrow that is
122 not forgotten). so i will copy a few paragraphs from the first of these records. they belong to our earliest days and to a time of temptation to fear.
then, as never again for 15 years, i was allowed to taste of the cup which would be poured out for me if the money did not come. allan gardiner, for some hidden good purpose, was allowed to starve to death. therefore such an issue could not be regarded as impossible. the children -i need not trace in writing the end of that thought. but i did that day tread every foot of it in imagination and came to this: suppose the christian world cries shame on the one responsible, what will it matter, after all? the children will be in heaven and is that not better than the temple?...
123we have never lacked any good thing; and during the years of War, people in the towns and villages began to say, 'God is there'; for they could not account for what they saw except by saying that. and, later on, when we were able to do more outside work, we found that true thoughts about His love had already been spread abroad, because of what He had done. we have never had to labour to prove that He hears and answers prayer; the fact of our existence witnesses that it is so.
there were days of tension, days when it cost 15 times more to bring a child from the nearest station than it had cost before the War, because of the fall in value of the pound and the rise in the price of rice, which sent bandy fares
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