I was thinking about not blogging this week, what with it being Holy Week and all, and I’ve said everything there is to say on every subject in the universe, probably. But here I am, out of habit really. There were just a couple of things I’m sure you might be interested in.
The first is the best and most beautiful book I’ve read this year (maybe even for years and years). I said something about it before, but that was before we were all locked inside. It is The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay. I’m not sure what it is about this book, except that as I flew along the pages, every now and then my soul was stricken into the dust. It is a mixture of humor, beauty, and, well, passages like this:
Later in the morning, when I was on deck looking through glasses for the first sight of Trebizond, he came and stood by me and said, “How much longer are you going on like this, shutting the door against God?”
This question always disturbed me; I sometimes asked it of myself, but I did not know the answer. Perhaps it would have to be for always, because I was so deeply committed to something else that I could not break away.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“It’s your business to know. There is no question. You must decide at once. Do you mean to drag on for years more in deliberate sin, refusing grace, denying the Holy Spirit? And when it ends, what then? It will end; such things always end. What then? Shall you come back, when it is taken out of your hands and it will cost you nothing? When you will have nothing to offer to God but a burnt out fire and a fag end? Oh, he’ll take it, he’ll take anything we offer. It is you who will be impoverished for ever by so poor a gift. Offer now what will cost you a great deal, and you’ll be enriched beyond anything you can imagine. How do you know how much of life you still have? It may be many years, it may be a few weeks. You may leave this world without grace, go on into the next stage in the chains you won’t break now. Do you ever think of that, or have you put yourself beyond caring?”
Not quite, never quite. I had tried, but never quite. From time to time I knew what I had lost. But nearly all the time, God was a bad second, enough to hurt but not to cure, to hide from but not to seek, and I knew that when I died I should hear him saying, “Go away, I never knew you,” and that would be the end of it all, the end of everything, and after that I never should know him, though then to know him would be what I should want more than anything, and not to know him would be hell. I sometimes felt this even now, but not enough to do what would break my life to bits. Now I was vexed that Father Chantry-Pigg had brought it up and flung me into this turmoil. Hearing Mass was bad enough, hearing it and not taking part in it, seeing it and not approaching it, being offered it and shutting the door on it, and in England I seldom went.
I couldn’t answer Father Chantry-Pigg, there was nothing I could say except “I don’t know.” He looked at me sternly, and said, “I hope, I pray, that you will know before it is too late. The door won’t be open for ever. Refuse it long enough, and you will become incapable of going through it. You will, little by little, stop believing.”
I could sit here and type out the whole book, just for my own self, but that would not be a good use of my time. I probably will just read it all over again even though I did just.
The other thing I like very much is this very long prayer—one that many prayed during the plague in London in 1665 (hat tip to an Anglican theologian and thinker who was ok with me disagreeing with NT Wright last week).
O Most gratious God, Father of Mercies, and of our Lord Jesus Christ; look down upon us, we beseech thee, in much pity, and compassion, and behold our great misery, and trouble. For there is wrath gone out against us, and the Plague is begun. That dreadful Arrow of thine sticks fast in our flesh, and the Venime thereof fires our bloud, and drinks up our spirits; And shouldst thou suffer it to bring us all to the dust of Death, yet must we still acknowledge, that Righteous art thou, O Lord, and just are thy judgements. For our Transgressions multiplied against thee, as the sand on the Sea-shore, might justly bring over us a Deluge of thy Wrath. The cry of our sins, that hath pierc’t the very Heavens, might well return with showers of Vengeance upon our Heads. While our Earth is defiled under the Inhabitants thereof, what wonder; if thou commandest an evil Angel to pour out his Vial into our Air, to fill it with Infection, and the noisome Pestilence, and so to turn the vary breath of our Life into the savour of Death unto us all! But yet we beseech thee, O our God, forget not thou to be gracious: neither shut thou up thy loving kindnesse in Displeasure. For his sake, who himselfe took our Infirmities, and bare our Sicknesses, have mercy upon us; and say to the destroying Angel, It is enough. O let that bloud of sprinkling, which speaks better things then that of Abel, be upon the Lintel, and the two side posts in all our Dwellings, that the Destroyer may passe by. Let the sweet Odour of thy blessed Son’s all-sufficient Sacrifice, and Intercession (infinitely more prevalent then the typicall Incense of Aaron) interpose between the living and the dead, and be our full, and perfect Atonement, ever acceptable with thee, that the Plague may be stayed. O let us live and we will praise thy Name; and these thy judgments shall teach us to look every Man into the plague of his own heart: that being cleansed from all our sins, we may serve thee with pure hearts all our dayes, perfecting holinesse in thy fear, till we come at last, where there is no more Sicknesse, nor Death, through thy tender Mercies in him alone, who is our Life, and our Health, and our Salvation, Jesus Christ, our ever blessed Saviour, and Redeemer. Amen
Really, it’s fine to search around for reasons why God might allow this to happen. He’s not going to say for sure, at least not right now. We have to go to the scripture and look around for it, and so the answer won’t be, “well, it was because you _________.” But it is actually necessary that we–both individually and corporately–when any bad thing happens, examine our consciences and ask God for mercy. Mercy is a good thing to ask for, as the Great Litany says, “In all times of tribulation; in all times of prosperity; in the hour of death, and in the day of judgement, Good Lord, deliver us.” It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to ponder the fair and righteous judgment of God. Nor also to see his kindness. Both are on full display right at this moment.
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