Morning parish, this just in – Bardskull, Guardian Book of the Day.
“spiritual autobiography, a self-reckoning... the propulsive, self-willed rhythm, the incantatory style that you can well imagine Shaw having long since perfected under starlight and around smoky campfires.”
Bardskull by Martin Shaw review – a mystical voyage
Lent’s dipped a touch at this late stage. There’s been the odd ham roll, a sip of Lagavulin, a cigar may have been puffed. Fifty one years of feasting, I’m not always so good at fasting. At least in a domestic setting. Y’know it’s actually easier fasting in the woods than when the freezer’s groaning with venison, elk and lamb. I didn’t make a bad fist of Advent so I know it’s possible, but I’ve not been so diligent on my intention this time. For every intention there’s usually a secret counter-intention buried within, and this time it hasn’t been so secret. I suspect I haven’t really said yes to the event. I open the Bible at random and here’s the happy news:
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
Matthew 23:26
As the poet Tomas Tranströmer says: you look so good the slum must be inside you.
I guess there are many different kinds of yesses. Some are as simple as a nod, a grunt, a thumbs up. Maybe I just winked jauntily at Lent but didn’t really get behind it with full voice. But something happens when we give it voice. Words were like magic say Nalungiaq of the Inuit.
In the very earliest time, when both people and animals lived on earth, a person could become an animal if he wanted to and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals and there was no difference. All spoke the same language. That was the time when words were like magic. The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance might have strange consequences. It would suddenly come alive and what people wanted to happen could happen—all you had to do was say it.
Nobody could explain this: That's the way it was.
Nalungiaq (an Inuit poem, translated by Edward Field)
I believe that words really do have power secreted within them. So I’m going to think about people that said yes. It may not sound ‘wild’ to be attendant to Lent, but in a world that encourages feast feast feast that’s exactly what it is. It elevates desire to longing, always a deep and interesting move. Desire can be quickly sated, longing less so. As near as I can tell, God wants to create a new kind of relationship with me, and this kind of discipline is part of that.
We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the present and let our illusions die.
W. H. Auden
Ok, I’m going to dig into some yesses now. This short essay has three elements, my three-step programme. 1. I have to move into what James Hillman called ‘a poetic basis of mind’. 2. Seek out an inspirational figure to focus on. 3. Tell a story that shows me the consequence of ignoring all limits.
Here we go.