Epiphany - Star of Wonder

 

 "Without the quest, there can be no epiphany."
(Constantine E. Scaros)

 "Epiphany Poem"

 

The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.
The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.
The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.
The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.
The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.
                                                   (George Mackay-Brown)

 

I've always liked the sound of the word "Epiphany". I probably use it far too often, way out of context and largely inappropriately. I also know some very charming and articulate atheists who enthuse about their "epiphanies" and "road to Damascus" moments.

The Christmas story tells us that wise men and uneducated shepherds alike followed an uncharted and unusually bright star as a celestial augury; many might find this naïve in these times of out-of-this-world technologies such as space telescopes and particle physics. We've witnessed eclipses of the moon and sun, the appearance of "new" stars and planets, asteroid storms and catastrophically extreme weather; the latter, all too prevalent in our Christmas and New Year news. Sometimes jaded about disasters in the Great Elsewhere, we call it misfortune closer to Home.

When I was little, someone told me the sun was the morning star. Far from being scientifically correct, it seemed very comforting. It still does, even after discovering the joys of the late lamented Sir Patrick Moore, Professor Brian Cox and of course Doctor Who. Our solace in familiarity and continuity evolves from childhood fears: the moon lights the night and the sun will be there to greet us in the morning.

Maybe we're so keen to establish continuity, order and control, unravelling the mysteries of the universe as we harness new ways to exterminate mankind, that we take for granted the true wonders of our lives. A Facebook friend pointed out today that the sun really is always waiting beyond the dark, stormy skies and unprecedented tides. Aside from being our morning star, the sun never actually sets, blazing in the Great Elsewhere while we sleep. We've lost the wonder of things we cannot recreate or fully capture because they support our everyday existence.

The thing I find most haunting about George Mackay-Brown's poem for Epiphany is that it makes no mention of the traditional gifts associated with the magi. Frankincense, gold and myrrh would be heady gifts for an infant even by Kardashian standards. The real gift from these learned and respected men was that they acknowledged wonder and followed faithfully into the unknown; an epiphany for them and the greatest gift of all to themselves, as much as any offering they could make to an unknown baby born in a barn.



"There's nothing better when something comes and hits you and you think 'YES'!"  
(J.K. Rowling)

 "I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking."  
(Albert Einstein)

 "I had an epiphany a few years ago when I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.”
(Moby)

"Looking into the spirit of others is sometimes like looking into a pond. Though we aim to see what's deep in the bottom, we are often distracted by our own reflection."
(Katina Ferguson)

"The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany."
(Rebecca Solnit)

"God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell."
(Nicholas Sparks)

"These are maybe the most exciting stars, those just above where sky meets land and ocean, because we so seldom see them, blocked as they usually are by atmosphere…and, as I grow more and more accustomed to the dark, I realize that what I thought were still clouds straight overhead aren’t clearing and aren’t going to clear, because these are clouds of stars, the Milky Way come to join me. There’s the primal recognition, my soul saying, yes, I remember."
(Paul Bogard)

"I always like those moments of epiphany, when you have the next destination."
(Brad Pitt)

 

"Lark in the Clear Air"  Cara Dillon (version)

 

Partners in the dance

"It sometimes takes a state of solitude to bring to mind the real power of companionship." 

(Stephen Richards)

Maurice with Evelyn

This Wednesday morning sees the funeral of my brother-in-law's stepfather. Maurice survived on his own for only six months after the death of his beloved Evelyn, Gordon's mother. I tried to gently warn Gordon this might well happen: sadly, I've seen this too many times when one half of a close and longstanding partnership dies. Maurice took to his bed at Christmas, his first in around forty years without Evelyn. Always a capable and proud Yorkshireman, strong in mind and body, he seemed to be broken somehow.
Admitted to hospital in February, he'd made it known that he didn't want to be fed, would not want to be resuscitated; didn't really care to go on. Maurice had survived Dunkirk and the trials of World War II in North Africa; his first wife had given up waiting for him to return from war and literally found someone else. Maurice married again and had two children with his second wife; when she became ill with cancer, he nursed her through her final months.
A hard-working weaving over-locker in the Yorkshire mill industry, he met former mill-girl Evelyn after the death of Gordon's father, Harry. Maurice and Evelyn had a courtship of tea-dances and a dancing partnership that continued into their eighties, when time began to slow their steps. My own humble experience of ballet and other dance has confirmed to me that the harmony and companionship of dance partners requires chemistry, understanding, respect, commitment and practice - rather like marriage, I would guess. Maurice was a devoted husband; Evelyn relied on his presence when they were both largely housebound during the past few years.
My brother-in-law pronounces himself an unequivocal atheist but has found some comfort that his mum and stepfather, as well as his dad, are all now resting in "eternal sleep". I have thought to myself that this is more than I've ever heard from other self-professed atheists; and actually very close to the sentiments of the Catholic "Requiem Eternam". Even though he's recently retired himself, I understand that Gordon is gazing into the void that inevitably gapes when your parents or step-parents pass: I know from experience that you're never too old to feel orphaned. I hope he and Maurice's son and daughter will take comfort that both Evelyn and Maurice were blessed to find devoted companionship not once but twice in their lives. I hope I've planted a tiny grain in Gordon's mind that his mum is to be reunited with the two great loves of her life. Her dance-card is complete.

"Eternal rest grant unto them Oh Lord

and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace,

Amen."

"When the years have done irreparable harm,

I can see us walking slowly arm in arm,

Just like that couple on the corner do:

Girl, I will always be in love with you.

Then when I leave this Earth

I'll be with the angels standin';

I'll be out there waiting for my true companion,

Just for my true companion."

(From "True Companion", Marc Cohn)

"Gallant Hussar" Eliza Carthy

Come what Mayan...

As 2012 draws to a close, a timely cartoon courtesy of the atheist brother-in-law...

"All the Time in the World"  Louis Armstrong

An enterprise of stillness

"Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone."

(Thomas Merton)

Photo: Gigi, album

Some places really do seemed steeped in spirituality. Winchester Cathedral is a wonderfully historic place, in the heart of the city that was once England's capital. The cathedral stands on a site that has housed places of worship or religious learning for more than 1300 years, with a treasure trove of artefacts spanning eleven centuries. The cathedral's library contains the 12th century Winchester Bible and mythology and mysticism rub shoulders along the choir stalls, carved with flora, owls and monkeys, knights and dragons and Green Men.

In the crypt of Winchester Cathedral usually knee high in water, there resides a best loved piece of sculpture. "Sound II", by Catholic sculptor Antony Gormley, is a solitary figure standing in the middle of the crypt, apparently contemplating the water held in his cupped hands. I love Antony Gormley's figures, which include "The Angel of the North" at Gateshead and "Another Place" along the Merseyside shore, not only for their thought provoking situations but because of their typical mix of stoicism and soulfulness.Whenever I've managed to get to Winchester to see this statue, I seem to have come away with Paul Simon's words from "I Am A Rock" weaving through my head:     

"I have my books and my poetry to protect me: I am shielded in my armour;
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb; I touch no one and no one touches me."
The figure seems to be entombed, but does it signify a self-imposed isolation? 

Life-sized and fashioned from lead, the statue was created specifically with the regular flooding of the crypt in mind; during the rainier months, the water below the main body of the cathedral is usually two or three feet deep. Beautifully apt when you consider that the legendary archbishop and patron saint of Winchester, St Swithin of the forty day deluges, is encased and venerated in the church "upstairs". I'm fascinated that the water-bound figure is made from lead: elementary lead is very water-resilient and doesn't dissolve or react under normal conditions. However,  when lead does react within water, the water becomes toxic to the human body. I've often wondered if the figure is descending into the water or emerging from it. Now, I don't feel the necessity to define it either way: I feel the figure is an enterprise of stillness. It could be a figure of recollection, reason, or hope; it could be all three as the embodiment of Faith.
In a perfect blending of faith, art and technology, "Sound II" has been designed so that as the collected rainwater level rises to knee level, it pushes up and along an internal tube into the figure's chest and then pours out into the cupped hands. How many statements does this silent witness make? We should treasure our emotions but not choke on them. We should reflect on our sadness or failure without wallowing in it. The human body is nearly three quarters water. Water is critical to human proliferation and forms an essential part of our metabolism. We know that our world is up to seventy percent covered by water. In it's purity water should be odourless, tasteless, colourless; transparent as truth itself. Yet water is far from simply an innocuous and translucent life-support system. Living by the sea, I'm still amazed that the calming undulation of the water can swell and crash so suddenly. The most placid lake can take life in an instant. The power of water sustains and threatens, just like man; rather like religion.
When I've visited Winchester Cathedral before, I've found the crypt figure to be quite melancholic; this week, on what Simon and Garfunkel really would call "a winter's day, in a deep and dark December", I found it reassuring. It made me smile. I wanted my sister and brother-in-law to appreciate the beauty of "Sound II": my brother-in-law is an avowed atheist, yet he seemed moved by both the setting and the sculpture. He agreed that the figure could be praying or meditating, or simply reflecting. He could even be cleansing himself in oblivious solitude; I was once told by a monk that the figure could be John the Baptist, quietly ever-ready and waiting beneath the ritual, ceremony and visual celebration of the Church.
After some wrangling, I found that my brother-in-law could accept that, whatever his view of organised religions created and interpreted by men, faith itself is a naturally occurring force. I miss two friends in particular from my time working in social services in London; Dale, who would also call himself an atheist or even an anti-theist, and devoutly Muslim Rakib, who is raising his two babies according to his parents' very orthodox faith. I miss the heated discussions across the desks between those two, sometimes culminating in one or all of us laughing at something so profoundly insulting that it could only be hysterically puerile between friends. The fact that we could then get back on the council's phones or have a tea-break together is for me a singular demonstration of faith; whether it be Dale's faith in rationality and the human condition, Rakib's faith in the righteousness of his forefathers or my own all-singing, all-hugging and often wittering take on Christianity. It was (and is) friendship founded in the colour and humour of differences, rather than the starkness of division.
Both my friend Dale and my brother-in-law would stress that devotion to any religion is a sign of weakness, a need to affiliate and be absorbed into something "big" for definition and protection. My own Irish Catholic background has shown me that the clannish tradition in most organised religions can easily lend itself to bigotry and sectarianism. The current violence in Belfast seems to centre on the hoisting and defiling of flags, team colours almost, rather than any theological argument or historical injustice. But I still feel that faith can be hugely resilient and empowering. It's hard to cut kindness or courage into little pieces, even with the sharpest sword. A word of mercy resonates longer and louder than the most potent explosion. You can't burn anyone's faith away at any stake: the ashes of whatever you sought to destroy are carried like hope on the breeze, to be scattered further than you could ever foresee.
I've always felt that the Simon and Garfunkel song was a study in melancholic irony: no-one is an island, made of rock. You can dig your own well by hand to irrigate your particular patch of desert, but someone else will already have invented the bucket. And you will dig in faith that the water is there.

* A Happy and Blessed Holiday-time to Dale and Rakib and those they love*

“Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations, 

I will be exalted in the earth." 

(Psalm 46:10)

" I Am A Rock"  Simon and Garfunkel

"No Man Is An Island"
(John Donne)
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were;
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

"What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe."
(Thomas Merton)