Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Solace

  • And Did Those Feet

    And Did Those Feet

    I felt it as soon as I sat down, the presence. Or was it a smell, a feeling, a sound of silence.

    In that ancient, musty, old church there was solace. In the smell of ancient books of prayer dedicated to an antique deity, in the cool damp of carved stone set to bare earth, there was another world. And, it seemed, a better one.

    Could I hear a reedy chant in ancient Latin or early English? Did I see flickering candles lighting well used books of hours?

    Was I there, in some other time and place, singing with those men of far off belief. I think I was. And I know I wanted to be.

    It seemed then, as it has so often felt to me over many difficult decades, that we miss something in life if we fail to heed such presence. Whatever, whenever, wherever or indeed if that presence may be.

    Is it god, the universe or merely some reflection of one’s own complex mind. Which of itself may be a mere scion of another and more complex structure.

    Or does it matter. Do we need to ask, to question or does it suffice to follow that presence and lose oneself in something greater.

    And afterwards in the woodlands and fields of this old county, that presence followed me. Gently insisted I listen to the rustle of the wind and the creeking of the trees.

    Made it known that its voice could be found in silence, far from the thunder and violent aesthetics of modern man. Far from the roar of the jets of war, far from the polemic of anger and greed and self.

    Can I dwell in that place of quiet voices and meditative peace for the rest of time. Can I seek out that presence and stay with it, whatever it may be. I think that I can. I know that I wish to.

    Can I leave behind anger and greed and merge with the infinite when I hear it calling. I hope so.

    An odd time of late and some curious experiences, deep in the trance of meditation.

    A Norse woman intruding into my thoughts, and then the odd sensation that it was myself in another time and place.

    A former incarnation it seemed. I am not, apparently, the single being I thought I was these past years.

    A sense of loss of self but connection to something greater. Peace, calm, beauty, meaning. What meaning? I can not say, I am none too sure, but more than its lack felt in a waking world so often bereft of any apparent purpose.

    Can I tell you the meaning of the universe? That I have discovered the eternal, whether within or without. I don’t think I can.

    What I can say is that there seems to be more than is customarily apparent to our waking selves in normal states of consciousness.

    I am living in a bubble of great beauty in an otherwise ugly and war torn world. I hope to remain there and wish others could too.

  • A Valediction to the Church of England

    A Valediction to the Church of England

    Only the Church of England would sign its own death warrant.

    Our local church has no incumbent (they can’t afford it, it seems) and a retired clergyman offered to take services there for free, in addition to providing a choir and organist at his own expense.  The services were to be based on the Book of Common Prayer, which is currently outlawed at our local Godshop.

    In their great wisdom, the Churchwardens and the bureaucrats from head office (think “Yes Minister”) turned him down. Apparently no changes can be made at this moribund and all but abandoned building until a new full time vicar is appointed. Which will be another 18 months in the making.

    It is too radical apparently to offer a service whose liturgy was written by Archbishop Cranmer and has served more discerning members of the Church of England for over 500 years.

    To look a gift horse in the mouth is a brave and foolhardy step for an institution on the edge of extinction.

    Most of these places are waiting to die as, sadly, are most members of the dwindling and decrepit congregation. God’s waiting room as they say.

    At my local church there is no organist and the few services they offer are accompanied by a juke box. The services themselves are low church, which is fine for those who like badly written lyrics and tunes only a child under three years old could properly appreciate.

    There is no Book of Common Prayer. Instead, there is something written in a language designed for those unable or unwilling to expand their vocabulary beyond the 500 or so words they customarily get by on.

    The beautiful old building is locked and barred every day.

    What use is a church if it is closed to visitors? What use is a place of worship if it locks out those who would rest there a while  in quiet contemplation?

    As usual with human affairs, the whole matter is cursed by politics.

    My parents lived in the village for 30 years and both are buried in the local churchyard.  I myself own a cottage here and although not a conventional god botherer, find solace in the beauty of the music and the ritual of the traditional church.

    I offered to be a key-holder so that I could open up the venerable old wreck to visitors who came knocking at my door.

    But I am not an insider and apparently the right to a key is a closely guarded privilege. Perhaps one has to be an apostle or at least an ordinary disciple?

    Insurance companies would prefer churches to be opened every day – statistically an open church is less likely to face vandalism.

    Given such an attitude, an early death is assured for this and countless other local churches.

    So there you have it. An empty and locked church with virtually no congregation. Requiescat in pace.

     

     

     

  • Lead Kindly Light

    Lead Kindly Light

    I found myself transported back to the time of Cardinal Newman this evening, sitting in a glum old seaman’s church on the coast at Walmer.

    Neo Gothic and built in 1848, it sits opposite the sea where for hundreds of years the locals took supplies out to ships sheltering in the Downs.

    Once one of the biggest ports in the country, nearby Deal housed Nelson and Lady Hamilton on occasion, as the British fleet was anchored offshore, protected in a sheltered channel between the shingle shore and the legendary Goodwin Sands.

    The evening glowered; the light was poor and the rain drizzled down on the grey, cold and lifeless seafront.

    And yet.

    And yet there was calm, beauty even. I love dour Victorian churches with their fake Gothic arches and their heavily coloured (and equally heavily didactic) stained glass windows. The folk seemed from another time too. I was reminded of my fierce old Baptist grandmother, born at the end of the 19th Century, who lived in nearby Ramsgate.  She was present somehow, amidst these local townspeople, a part of them.

    Similar class, similar trade I guess and these people too reminded me of nothing short of Victorian shopkeepers. Was it my imagination or did I see mutton chop whiskers and frock coats? Who knows, the light played tricks on me perhaps.

    Apart from one youthful member of the Choir, I seemed to be one of the younger participants.  A not uncommon occurrence if one has a passion for sung evensong, in a format which has remained little changed since the days of Henry Tudor.

    As is my wont, I turned up early for a few minutes of peace and reflection and while the choir practiced I thumbed through the race card.

    I have often sung versions of Cardinal Newman’s beautiful poem but tonight the words struck me with more than usual poignancy.  We were to sing it as one of the hymns.

    “Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
    Lead thou me on;
    The night is dark, and I am far from home;
    Lead thou me on;
    Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
    The distant scene: one step enough for me.”

    I felt a mixture of emotions. A fish out of water perhaps, despite my unmistakable Englishness.  It’s been a long time since I sat in my grandmother’s modest children’s clothing shop in Ramsgate, filching Victorian pennies out of the ancient wooden till.  With permission from the old dear, I hasten to add.

    The other side of the family was different altogether – wealthy, vulgar perhaps, with hindsight. And the years since childhood have taken me so far from Ramsgate and little shops in provincial high streets. More is the pity maybe.

    Glamour, travel, expensive hotels and, well, some degree of wealth I suppose. For all that that means.

    So it is grounding, I guess, sitting in this church. Back to my humble roots perhaps, or those of my grandmother.

    And those wonderful words of Newman – let someone else worry. Look not where your path might lead. The night was indeed dark and although I was not far from home, I felt it. Emotionally, physically.  I am all too often amidst encircling gloom and pride certainly ruled my will. Probably still does.

    To have the childlike faith Newman talks of – what a wonder that must be.

    So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
    Will lead me on.
    O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
    The night is gone,
    And with the morn those angel faces smile,
    Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

    But, you know, with or without conventional faith there is a lot in the teaching. The code of behavior – modesty, kindness, lack of show. The idea that you should just plug on and let it all happen. And let someone else worry about it.

    The whole experience left me feeling quiet, contemplative and satisfied. Cut out the god stuff and those Christians have got much of it spot on.

     

  • Alone in a Pew

    Alone in a Pew

    If you are going to church, go alone and go when it is empty.

    And preferably locked, so that you have to knock on some ancient’s door to borrow the huge old keys to the locks.  Make sure it’s old – quietly ringing with a thousand years’ of contemplation and quiet voices.  And it should have books – musty, sacred, old  books containing arcane prayers in a language you barely understand. And best if it is remote and utterly still and quiet except for a few rooks in the churchyard.

    Then you sit and you listen. Perhaps you look at some ancient prayers, not as an act of obeisance to some deity you were taught about in childhood, but to plumb the very depth of the human condition. To put you in touch with who you are and who we all are. Our common concerns and joys, our hopes and our fears.

    And yes, perhaps to access some sense of the “divine”, however you may interpret that word, that feeling. The intuition that something is out there, even if that something is a mere echo of the human spirit itself.  That is divine enough – consciousness is itself miraculous. The arising of feelings and mind from mere matter. Out of carbon and oxygen and hydrogen arose some spirit, some entity which could contemplate the universe and the very matter from which it arose. Special enough to produce a sense of the numinous.

    “Stand in awe…… : commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, and be still.”

    How apt, these ancient words and how beautiful. And how many such phrases can you find, combing through those musty old books. Reject what you will, take what you will. You drift, in and out of consciousness, in that quiet place. You pick a few words here and there and think about them. You  close your eyes, you drift into a mild trance.

    Somehow all seems right at such times. The watery sun peers through the stained glass and casts its glow on brass and wood and hewed stone. Yes, all seems right with the world. All will be well and all manner of things will be well.

    It isn’t a religious thing.  You are not looking for benediction or grace, for help or the defeat of your enemies.  You do not seek to be saved, you are not looking for reward or an after life.  You are looking for this life, here and now.  You are seeking your own essence, your own meaning and purpose.

    And sometimes you think you have found it. Sometimes, during that half hour of quiet contemplation, on that dusty old pew in the middle of nowhere, you have grasped at some truth, you have found some measure of true peace, equanimity.  Presumably thousands have found likewise over hundreds of years in that place of peace and sanctity.

    You aren’t looking for thanks, or wealth or health. You aren’t seeking advancement or gain or praise.

    You seek yourself. You seek truth, meaning, solace.

    And alone in a pew I usually find those things.

  • Matins in a country church

    Matins in a country church

    In a lifelong search for meaning, I have found little to compare with matins in an English country church, on a quiet summer’s morning.

    According to Google the word is Middle English:

    A service forming part of the traditional Divine Office of the Western Christian Church, originally said (or chanted) at or after midnight. A Christian service of morning prayer, especially in the Anglican Church

    from Old French matines, plural (influenced by Church Latin matutinae ‘morning prayers’) of matin ‘morning’, from Latin matutinum, neuter of matutinus ‘early in the morning’, from Matuta, the name of the dawn goddess.

    The words to the service are contained in the Book of Common Prayer, an anathema no doubt, both to the evangelicals and to modern man in general, sacred or secular alike.  For those with a more ancient and academic set of mind, there is nothing more glorious.

    I had walked there across the fields from home; three local churches were in view but on this morning only one of them had an organist and those magical words on offer.

    The congregation was 6, while organist and cleric brought the total number to 8.  Perhaps one was my junior in age, but most were my equal or senior. The words and music rolled over me, even the responses were sung.

    The Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 51.  Ancient, croaky voices in an ancient and sacred setting.

    It isn’t the god-stuff which takes my breath away.  It is the sheer beauty. The quiet. The stained glass, the art, the meditation. Yes, the ancient loveliness of it all.

    And a return (in my thoughts at least) to my childhood.  To the beautiful and ancient church of my early years and the little prep school choir where I sang for 5 unbelievably old fashioned years in Charles Dicken’s Broadstairs.

    We won’t have it for much longer.  The churches are shutting their doors, the ancient parishioners are the last of their breed. They aren’t making organists anymore. It is living history; revel in it, marvel at it while you may.

    And why should I care? I am as puzzled as the next man by my devotion to such anachronism. Is it because somehow, somewhere I have a small, quiet shred of belief in this ancient religion?

    No, not in any literal sense.

    The address surprised me: “Some say there are many roads up the mountain. That is not so, there is only Jesus Christ”.

    How could I possibly subscribe to such abject nonsense, such narrow minded absurdity? Are millions of Buddhists to be denied “salvation”?  And what of the rest, including the atheists?

    And yet this ancient service always brings me solace.  There is “something” as opposed to “no thing” and I always feel it in such a setting. But that something probably bears little resemblance to the “something” worshiped by Christians.

    I’m sorry to say that Jesus “Christ” is not going to bail us out of our unholy mess.  Good man though he was, he is long dead and gone.  Although in a sense his “spirit” remains, even if only in our memes and memories.

    A post Darwinian world of plenty and justice is something only we can achieve. We are not going to be able to rely on supernatural intervention.

    Science, education and awareness might eventually achieve heaven on earth if we work hard enough at it. It is at least worth trying.

    I seek the numinous, like so many others, but it is to be found within, not without.  It is to be found in a profound alteration of consciousness and it is not going to happen quickly.

    Trans-humanism is a slowly emerging reality.  If I have any creed at all, it is the belief that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, by means of science and technology.  Together with a good measure of the philosophies of kindness and goodness we find in all of the world’s better religions.

    I attend matins occasionally, or sometimes evensong not because I believe in a divinity or his offspring, but because the calm beauty makes me realize what is important in life. And how to live it.

    I attend matins not because I believe god or Jesus is going to save me, but because the embrace of the culture soothes my fractious mind.

    So good old Church of England I hold you dear.  I shall miss you when you have gone. I must attend matins in a country church much more often.