What We See In The Dust

Stories of Staying Awake

I have been at the deathbed of my old friend Stephan Harding this week, and am suitably affected. In the hours before his passing – even as his face had taken the contours of the death-mask – he seemed like a baby, absorbed entirely in drawing through the thinnest of gateways between this world and the next. For a long time there was effort, and then a deeper drop again. He was about to leave. The contractions had taken a while.

As I had parked the car and walked through the rain to his house, it seemed like all his venerable ancestors were waiting, just – just – out of sight. In the tree line.

There was a mist coming in like something from an ancient Chinese poem and everything was utterly quiet. And down in the belly of the house my friend reduced his shape and gradually loosened ties with all that was stopping him stepping out on the trail of truth. Effort and grace in equal measure.

By the time you read this we will be over half way through the first weekend of my course, The Skinboat & The Star, and this intimate last encounter with the living Stephan will be with me, informing me, sobering me, pushing me onwards. This gentle man collaborated with me on a book of Lorca poems a few years ago, and it was an entirely joyous experience. He would sing the poems in Spanish, playing his guitar, and we’d go from there. We laughed a lot, and couldn't believe our luck that we got to do this work.

I have stories of Jonah, Jesus and Arthur for you this week. They all stand alone, but somehow speak to each other. My reasons are a little self-serving. They provide a kind of pluck for me in this moment that I am rather back-footed by grief. Putting one story next to another in a way I don’t entirely understand is invigorating, informing.

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Sometimes Maker says things we don’t want to hear. Sometimes he tells us to go speak truth to power. To push against depravity, to stand against what sickens, to rail against the false. He told Jonah to get himself to Ninevah and through the manner of preaching, confront its dark directives. One person against the momentum of a large, corrupted city. A dangerous place, Ninevah. Jonah wasn’t keen. He literally headed in the other direction, a place called Tarshish. He boarded a ship, tried to keep his head down, rub out the trail behind him. As if, against all conceivable evidence, God somehow couldn’t see him.

Trouble came in the form of a storm and a terrific wind across the waves that tossed the boat as if a toy. The air was thick with gabbled prayers to the many different gods of the sailors as they lobbed chests over the side to keep the boat light. Terror shuddered the crew, and death by drowning filled their minds completely.

Jonah however, Jonah slept. Down in the hold of the boat he drifted on, despite the terrible drama.

Somehow he sleeps, he sleeps, he sleeps,

Jonah is asleep in his own mynde.

All curled up in denial.