Personas of the imagination 4 — kindness — Abbot John

It was my prayer partner Margery who alerted me to the emerging theme of kindness in The Hawk and the Dove books, thirty years ago when the first volumes in the series were written. She read the first two volumes, in which Brother John came onto the stage as the infirmary assistant, and said of him, thoughtfully, "John was kind, wasn't he?" And I realised that, yes, I supposed he was. That set me off thinking about it, and sowed the seed for articulating the gospel imperative of kindness in the character of John Hazell, who became abbot of St Alcuins after the death of Father Peregrine.

The unfolding narrative proposes that kindness expresses the heart of God, and is transformative in the path of discipleship. Kindness is what enables people to get up and start again, allows them to feel heard and understood and develop moral strength. Kindness more than severity shapes and grows disciples. It needs boundaries and backbone, of course. John, both as infirmarian and abbot, challenges and rebukes his brethren when necessary; his natural and firm exercise of authority forms the framework within which kindness is lived out. Particularly in The Long Fall, when he has to manage the care of his sick and disabled abbot, John has to counter the turmoil and chaos into which Peregrine is thrown, by requiring something of him as well as supporting him. But though he is honest and direct, he is always kind.

The novels where William's story takes centre stage explore the cost of kindness, and the difficulty of espousing kindness as a principle within the unyielding structures of church discipline. Sometimes a man has to choose between ecclesiastical regulation and the practise of kindness, and where the road forks John always chooses kindness. The novels propose that this is the risk and the cost of love, and you can see it in the life of Jesus in his encounters with the Pharisees and Temple authorities:

This is what life and responsibility do to you, he thought; this is the terrible power of human love. It dissolves all certainty. You make adjustments and modifications. Love and religion are uneasy bedfellows, over time. It’s hard to forget the screams of the man you burn at the stake. The act may have been accomplished in all righteousness, but you still lie awake at night, remembering the livid agony. So here he stood, the guilty accomplice of kindness.

In the eighth book of the series The Beautiful Thread (from which the above quotation is also taken), Abbot John offers his brethren a Chapter address about kindness:

There was this nook out of the wind’s way, tucked between the bellying out of the octagonal chapter house and the buttressed wall of the main body of the church. Here William sat on the tufting grass, smelling the fragrance of lavender, sage and rosemary growing there. Herbs were planted everywhere at St Alcuins – because they were useful and beautiful, healing and fragrant, low maintenance and extremely easy to grow. Absently, he stretched out his hand and rubbed the leaves of the lavender . . . the rosemary . . . breathing in the clean, wholesome scent. 

Screened from view in this discreet cleft, he listened to Father Gilbert reading the chapter of the Rule set for today, his voice carrying out through the small door that this morning stood wide open, propped back with a rock. 

‘“Behold, here I am”,’ Benedict quoted Psalm thirty-three. And Father Gilbert concluded the portion set: ‘“Behold, in His loving kindness the Lord shows us the way of life.”’

William was by now familiar with the effect the place had on him, and experienced without surprise the curious reaching forth, the yearning hunger that called from the very depths of his viscera to the unknown blue mystery of the infinite. Amen, his soul in silence saluted the words.

And then, what he wanted to hear: Abbot John addressed the sons of his house.

‘In loving kindness, the Lord shows us the way of life. My brothers, opposing contrasts are often used to guide us. One such is perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem – perfect love casts out fear. What an interesting opposition. At first thought we incline to perceive hatred as opposed to love. Yet often hatred turns out to be wounded or distorted love, the result of abuse and rejection. It’s a steep task, turning hatred to love, certainly – but the true opposition is fear.  You cannot love where you fear – you cannot. Fear is inherently self-concerned, where love of its nature looks outwards, self-forgetful. Fear wants to get away where love wants to connect. 

‘Thinking of kindness, then, of loving kindness – I asked myself, for our guidance, the deepening of our wisdom – what is the opposite of kindness. The first thing that springs to mind is cruelty, naturally enough. Or meanness – mean-spiritedness, maybe. But cruelty . . . well . . . it is, you might say, a secondary thing. A fruit, not a root. The same with meanness. They are what we see. They are the behaviour, not the attitude.

‘Tentatively, I want to propose to you, the root attitude in opposition to loving kindness is scorn – contempt.

‘Kindness sees vulnerability, sees someone at a loss or disadvantage, and reaches out to shelter, to help. Kindness sees where someone is hurt or angry, and wants to listen, to understand; if it may be, to heal.

‘Scorn sees the same things and sneers. Scorn turns away where kindness turns towards. Contempt sees someone struggling or out of their depth, and blames them. Contempt sees someone angry, smarting under an injustice perhaps, and punishes them. Above all, kindness draws people together into community, where scornful contempt isolates and divides them, keeps them forever apart.

‘Christ was of no account, once. He was the child of a poor woman, born in shame, homeless. He was a prisoner brought to stand and answer for his words – he who had said “Tear down this temple and in three days I will build it again.” He, the healer, nailed to the cross, attracted derision – “Messiah? Save yourself!”  

‘He died. But when he rose again, he didn’t come back with a list drawn up of his enemies. Even in dying, what he said was “Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they’re doing.” He understood, you see. Even then.

There’s a fair amount about scorn in the gospels. I’m thinking of the older brother of the prodigal, of the Pharisee and the republican, of Simon the Pharisee and the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus, among others. We identify hypocrisy as the sin Jesus spoke out against – but just like cruelty, hypocrisy is a secondary thing. Hypocrisy, like cruelty, proceeds from contempt. The Pharisee held the publican in absolute contempt – as so did the older brother regard the returning prodigal. He scorned him. And Simon the Pharisee looked down on the woman of ill repute; she was beneath him. Or so he thought. He made the mistake of expecting Jesus would look at her in the same way. Contempt belittles people, sees them as nothing, as insignificant, where kindness restores dignity, helps people grow.

‘There’s something going on here about the predilection for always being right that afflicts religious people. Wanting to be right and feeling guilty and ashamed when we get things wrong. Anxious to be in the right, we hold in utter contempt those who fail, who fall below the standards we have set. We make them into a ladder we climb, thinking to elevate ourselves. But, in heaven’s name – doesn’t everybody make mistakes? Isn’t that how we learn? Should we not shelter our fallen brothers with kindness? Should we not overlook their follies and lift them up gently when they stumble? Guilt, shame, contempt – this becomes a morass of rancour feeding off itself. It’s a knot you can untangle only with kindness.

‘Kindness. Such a homely, ordinary thing at first glance. But so majestic, so spacious; the thumbprint of a generous God. “In loving kindness, the Lord shows us the way of life.”’ 


Later in the same book, John gets into deep water himself, and again has to address his community in Chapter:

Tom raised his head and looked across the room at his abbot, concern in his face. This didn’t sound too good. But John, his hands held loosely in his lap within the big sleeves of his habit, sitting quietly straight, did not meet anyone’s gaze. His eyes seemed to see nothing.

‘And I prayed, “Help me, Jesus,” as I so often do. It’s never let me down, you see, that prayer; never once. “Oh, help me, Jesus.”

‘And what came to mind was two thoughts that have threaded through the last few weeks, for one reason and another. I’m sorry; I’m not putting this well, am I? Anyway: the first is, that whatever’s going on in my own life – whether my faith is soaring and I’m overflowing with inspiration, or whether I’m in despair; whether others look up to me or I am disregarded, of no account – whatever – I have the option to be kind. It’s a small thing, you would think, would you not, to be kind? Well, it is in the sense that you don’t have to be rich or important, or very bright, to be kind. Even a little child can be kind. Even a dog. But it’s no small thing to be on the receiving end of kindness. And the withholding of simple kindness is a root of bitterness and the seed of war; it causes the most terrible suffering. To look without compassion on another’s life; to be unkind. Making the choice to be kind prays “Thy kingdom come,” even when you feel past praying and past caring. 

‘Kindness, I have found, for all it is small and ordinary, has a way of leading me out of safe territory. There’s nothing like kindness for compromising righteousness and getting my religion and propriety all in a muddled knot. Kindness makes hay of many plans. But it is, I have come to believe, the currency of Christ’s kingdom, the stuff out of which new hope can be made. Where we push a sprig of it into the earth in whatever place we are, life springs anew. 

‘So when all light is gone and the horrible sense of pointlessness overwhelms me, showing me my own inadequacy, I can at least make the choice to be kind; and that’s my prayer, my creed, my way of anchoring myself to Christ. 

‘And the other thing – it caught my attention when someone said it to me a few days ago – is about offering the gift of happiness. That having the power to make someone happy might be seen almost as a charism. Like working miracles. Like healing. 

‘In once sense, of course, you cannot make anybody happy. Each of us is responsible for developing contentment and gratitude, appreciation, as a state of mind. Happiness – we all know this – is not a destination to be reached or a goal to be achieved; it’s the choice you make, the path you tread, the attitude you embrace. And that’s no small thing, either. Happy people make the world happy, are good to be around, lift others up. Cheerfulness; it’s a kingdom thing: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always.’

‘But a friendly word, reaching out to include someone, knowing their taste in food and offering a nibble of something they enjoy – even leaving them in peace, sometimes; there are so many ways to offer ordinary every gifts of happiness.

‘So I thought, between choosing kindness and offering happiness, I could find enough to be going on with, a ladder up out of inadequacy and despair. It didn’t matter what I’d been or done, or who I was or who cared, who saw or who knew. I could still do it. The thing is, when I feel really low, vision and inspiration are beyond me. But, you know, even when almost everything seems too much to manage, perhaps I can at least try to be kind. And I thought, that could give some meaning, something worthwhile, even to the most impoverished life. Even to mine. Sort of life compost, kindness and the giving of happiness could be; something in which faith and meaning could potentially thrive. It is only a small thing – I understand that. But sometimes I have to hope it will be enough.’

His friend sounded bleak and enduring, William thought, as he concluded with complete absence of élan: ‘There’s no big scholarship there, no expositions or dissertations or any of that. It just seemed useful to me; and so I thought it might be to you, as well. Anyway, let’s keep silence a moment.’

Abbot John also, in the same book, has to speak at a nuptial Mass:

‘Hannah, Gervase, this mass is celebrated in honour of your nuptials, and really these words are not for everyone else but for you.

‘Not long ago, a friend commented to me that the idea of love baffled him at times. There were days when he felt an upwelling of affection towards his wife – delight in her – and others when, frankly, he wished she’d leave him in peace and he found her profoundly irritating. Here and there he came across fellow human beings whom he esteemed and with whom he felt a sense of fellowship, harmony. But not many. Mostly he preferred to go his own way and let everyone else go theirs. And guilt stirred in his soul, because he loved little, loved few – sometimes stopped loving even the one he had vowed and pledged to love, to have and to hold. And yet, he took seriously the command of Christ – to love and go on loving, to make that the mark of his discipleship and the work of his life.

‘And my friend – humbly, neither cocksure nor evading the issue – put it to me that though he could not always find it within himself to love, he thought he could try to be kind. He said, in the course of his life he had been loved but rarely; and because of this, he valued with real gratitude those who had treated him with kindness. He said, sometimes he found it hard to tell whether someone actually loved him – cared for him with genuine friendship – and when they were merely being kind to him. So, knowing himself to be a shrewd judge of men, he concluded love and kindness must be so extremely similar that the division between them is porous – where one ends and the other begins cannot readily be detected. He said this gave him hope; since, though love felt so often remote and mysterious, he knew how to be kind. Because, he said, everyone knows what kindness is. It means giving the other person the benefit of the doubt; including them, not cold-shouldering them; offering a smile and a cheerful greeting; making them a hot drink when they’re tired and cold at the day’s end; overlooking their shortcomings and their harmless – but intensely annoying – little mannerisms. It means giving them another chance. My friend also mentioned that it means trying not to swear at them too often, and forbearing from actually hitting them, however much you want to. He doesn’t always find it easy to get on with his fellow man, or his wife – as you can tell.

‘I thought – Gervase, Hannah – you might find it useful to hear about that conversation I had with my friend. Though today I hope you feel you are head over heels in love and will never be anything else, well, these vows are for a lifetime. I sincerely hope that means a substantial number of years for both of you. And maybe even today, you may be tired, you may feel somewhat strained; this is a big occasion, and family events always carry many resonances. Not all of them are easy.

‘So I thought I’d put my companion’s musings before you – that even when he runs out of love, forgets what love is, finds love impossibly difficult, he knows what kindness is; love’s humble, less exalted, identical twin.

‘God bless you in your life together. May you be happy, may you know bliss, may you be fruitful and content. And may you always at least try to be kind to one another – remembering that one of the most everyday habits of kindness is the willingness to try to understand, to forgive and begin again.’

In The Beautiful Thread in particular, kindness is explored as a spiritual path, along with the difficulties of its inevitable choices to compromise, as well as the casual cruelty and equally destructive unbending severity with which it contrasts. The story ends with William praying for Abbot John:

‘He asked me if I had a rosary,’ said her husband: ‘and I said no. Well – there’s yours, but I no longer have one of my own. So he took his off and gave it to me, asking me to pray for him; that Our Lady’s faithfulness to the call of God on her life would pass into his heart forever. That the steadfast perseverance of the Lord Jesus would keep his feet in the path of salvation. That the practical soul of St Benedict would keep watch over him. That his fingers would find the thread of life and loving kindness, and never let go. So that’s what I was doing.’

Personas of the imagination 3 – cheerfulness, graciousness and humility — Father Francis

Father Francis eventually succeeded Father Chad as the prior of the abbey — but not until nearly the end of the seventh book in the series, The Breath of Peace.

It was William's idea to ask Francis in the first place: this is the conversation he had with Abbot John:

‘I just don’t know whom to ask.  I must say we do seem to be hard up for leadership material.’

William listened to him thoughtfully. ‘Leadership?’ he said.  ‘There are few natural leaders among men, and those there are can be a confounded nuisance in a community, if you don’t manage to direct their gifts and graces along the right channels.  Men grow into leadership.  It’s only a matter of confidence and familiarity with the job.  Well – provided you pick the right man in the first place, of course.  You have nobody in mind?’

‘Er . . . no.  That is – Germanus was doing nothing in particular, until I sent him to run the school with Brother Josephus.  They seem to be making quite a success of it, but . . . the prior . . . no; short answer is I don’t know.’

‘Oh.  Well, if I were you I would ask Father Francis.’  

 Surprised and intrigued, John turned this proposition over in his mind. ‘Francis . . . I would never have thought . . . why Francis?’ he said.

‘The mere fact that he’s so thoroughly able but everyone overlooks him is a good start,’ his friend replied.  ‘In a prior you need a man content with second place; someone personable, and capable of making a decision without panicking, but who doesn’t mind being in the background – and you won’t find that combination often.  He’s charming, he’s unfailingly sweet-natured, he upsets nobody – all in addition to being a perceptive, intelligent man who can stand his own ground when the need arises. I’ve noticed he doesn’t always flow with the current or speak with the popular voice.   Besides, he’s an excellent foil to Brother Cormac who is not charming or unfailingly sweet-natured and who manages to upset everybody.  With Francis on your right and Cormac at your left you couldn’t lose.  Francis can disarm your enemies while Cormac watches your back.’

This is how things went when Abbot John invited Francis to take up the obedience of prior:

‘Brother, I have something to ask of you.’

He paused.  He supposed he should call Francis ‘Father’ really.  There was something innately informal and fraternal about Francis that made the suggestion of gravitas in the word ‘Father’ seem inherently unlikely.  He hoped he was about to do the right thing.  Francis looked not at him but into the embers of the fire, waiting with thoughtful attention for his abbot’s request.

John drew breath.  Was he going to do this? It would be a grave thing, to topple his prior from his seat of privilege and power.  Replacing him with someone like Francis might raise some eyebrows.  William de Bulmer, I sincerely hope you’re right, John murmured in his soul.  Francis felt his hesitation, and glanced up at him, curious.

An abbot’s prior works very closely with him.  If Francis were to fill this obedience, John would make him his confessor as well, and no serious decisions would be made without consulting him.  This was part of the problem with Father Chad.  The respect and strength implied in the relationship was, John had to admit, simply lacking. Apart from his esquire, placed to see his weaknesses and vulnerability more clearly than anyone, the abbot’s prior came most nearly privy to his heart.  John thought he might as well therefore take him into his confidence starting now.

‘Father Chad is a good man but a weak prior’ he went straight to the point. ‘He is prayerful and kindly, but he is not decisive, and authority sits ill on his shoulders.  He has served well and faithfully in his obedience, but I think a change would bless him and bless the community.  I have not yet spoken with him about this.  Before I do, I wanted to ask you, Father Francis; are you willing to accept the obedience of prior in this community?’

Francis looked up at him in sheer, naked astonishment; and after one stunned moment of disbelief he began to laugh.

‘Prior?’ he said. ‘Me?  You cannot be serious!’  And John knew then, looking at Francis’s flabbergasted, stupefied, shocked face, that he had asked the right man.   Not a trace could he discern of ambition, or self-congratulation, or elation.  Francis was simply dumbfounded.

‘Well, I am,’ John answered him.

‘But . . . look . . . you know me.  I’m a complete nitwit, always have been.  I talk too much, I laugh too much, I clown around – still, even still.  I’m just a lightweight, I – John, I’m nothing!  And I’m sorry, that was disrespectful to call you just “John”.  You see what I mean?  I’d be useless!  Oh, for goodness sake, ask somebody else!’

John nodded thoughtfully.  ‘Who?’

‘Well . . . er . . . I don’t know.  What about – er – what about . . . er . . .’ Francis saw the problem his abbot faced.  ‘There isn’t really anybody, is there?  To be candid with you, I don’t think there’s really anybody even if you include me. Why . . . whatever made you think I could . . . ?’ He shook his head, amazed.

‘I didn’t want this matter leaking out through the community,’ said his abbot.  ‘So I took counsel with William de Bulmer.’

‘William?  William de Bulmer thought I would make a good prior?  He must be off his head! Truly, Father, I’m just a birdbrain – I’d let you down, I’d be incompetent.’

‘Have you finished? Is that your only objection?’

‘Um . . . yes – well, isn’t that enough?’

‘Will you do it?  I need your help, my brother.  Will you accept this obedience?’

And John saw the incredulity fade from Francis’s face, and sober consideration replace it.  ‘What about Father Chad?  He will be hurt, surely? He will feel humiliated.’

John drew breath in a sigh. ‘I will do my utmost to protect him from that.  I will couch it in the best terms I know how to do.  But yes, he may indeed feel debased.  I will do what I can.’

‘What is . . . can you explain to me what would be required of me?  There isn’t much about it in the Rule, is there?  Unless I haven’t been paying attention.  I mean, I know what being a prior looks like from the outside, but – well, to me it just looks like Father Chad.  I can’t distinguish between the vocation and the man.  If you were away, I know the prior would have to stand in for you, but what about when you’re here?’

‘You would help me with ministering all the temporal matters – help me in making decisions, in receiving guests, in writing letters and overseeing all the different areas of service in our common life.  And as you rightly said, if I were away or fell ill, you would act in my stead.  Unless that happened, the work is not onerous, because the responsibility rests with me.’

‘But if, God forbid, it did happen – if you fell sick as Father Peregrine did – have I the stature and judgment to hold everything together?’

‘Well, and if you have not, at least you don’t annoy everybody.  Don’t underestimate yourself, Father Francis – and don’t underestimate the grace of God to allow you to rise to your calling.  Now; enough of this shilly-shallying – will you do it?’

Francis took a deep breath.  ‘For you and in service of Christ, yes I will,’ he answered his abbot: ‘if you will promise to be patient with me, Father, and if you will guide me.’

He spoke with such unpretentious humility and looked John in the eye with such sincerity that for a moment John felt incapable of framing any kind of reply; he just thought how blessed he was to have his life shaped by a community in which the gospel had forged the lives of men on Christ’s own anvil.

And Francis turned out to be a good prior. In the very last book of the series, A Day and a Life, Abbot John considers the wisdom of the choice:

Surprisingly often, Abbot John has cause to reflect on how excellent an appointment is Father Francis as prior. Why didn’t I see it myself? He often asks himself, Why did it take William to notice that Francis would be the man?  

For in any Rule of any religious order you care to dip into, every detail of the character needed to make a good prior reads like a description of Father Francis. Patient and courteous and diligent? Why, yes he is. Kind and friendly, a peacemaker? Yes, that’s Francis. Adaptable, sociable, humble, intelligent, gentle? All of that. Ready with his smile, tactful, pleasant, a good example as a Christian man? Indeed, he is. He can even speak French and is as much at ease with the aristocracy as with the common man. At first when you read the outline of what’s expected in a prior, you begin to laugh and think good luck with that – were you looking for an angel? And then when you read through a second time, you can’t help but notice: wait – but that’s our Francis. That is what he’s like.

In the same book, Tom has these thoughts about Francis:

Tom reflects with interest on the ready smile and irrepressible wit that were forever getting Francis into trouble – too jaunty, too blithe, too chatty and too charming by half – right up to the point he was made prior. And suddenly, overnight, he began to look like a Godsend – so cheerful, so hospitable, so relaxed in conversation, so likeable. Find the right work for the right man, and suddenly it all makes sense.

Francis has his struggles and sensitivities like anybody, and these are explored here and there in the course of this fiction series — he's not a shallow man, and like all of us he has a back story.

But in the repertoire of my imagination, Father Francis is a very useful reference point, because of his cheerfulness and graciousness — and his humility. It blesses any community, any family, to have someone with a ready smile and a sanguine spirit, a person you can rely on to be cheerful and polite.

In our family, our household, that person is not me; but I'm glad I can hold Francis in view from time to time; he re-aligns my feet in the path of the Gospel.

Actually, cheerfulness, graciousness and humility aren't virtues that get you noticed. They're often taken for granted — as they were in the case of Father Francis — and people don't always recognise how valuable and how costly are such attributes.

Personas of the imagination 2 — transforming the legacy of pain — Peregrine, Tom and William

In the sixth story of The Hawk and the Dove series, The Hardest Thing To Do, Brother Tom says this to Father Theodore:

‘I hate the way I feel about him, Theo.’ Tom blurted out his distress.  ‘And I hate myself for feeling as I do.  When he first came here – well, you know; you heard what I had to say – all I knew was that I hated him.  But it made everything different, did something to me, seeing him choking and throttling, hanging from that rope.  Sancta Maria, it scared the life out of me!  And of course I had to save him.  How could I not?  I didn’t even think about it.  After that, I stopped hating him, just suddenly: snap! Stopped.

‘But I’m left with this awful bitter residue… this kind of toxic sludge.  It still rankles so badly, what he did to Father Peregrine; how he made him suffer, on purpose like that.  And I don’t know what to do with it: that resentment I mean, and the sore it’s left inside me.  I can see well enough what Christ is asking of me: to get over it, basically.  I’m meant to let go of what’s gone by and move on.

‘But I need him to see that what he did was so wrong, and that it mattered.  And if he won’t – then what?   Where does that leave me?  How can I be a monk when I feel like this?  What can I do with all this old bitterness?  I can’t see how to turn it into something different.  And inside a man, the living soul, it’s like a cistern, a kind of closed reservoir with no outlet.  What way is there for it to drain away?  It just seems to stay in there, stewing and fermenting and not getting any less.  How can I get rid of it?  What am I to do?’

Theo waited, not speaking, watching the fall of ash and the red glow of the burning wood; but that seemed to be all Tom wanted to tell him.

One of the thematic threads running through the series is the transformation of legacies of pain. It's considered in differing ways in the lives of Father Peregrine, Brother Tom, Father Francis (lets look at Francis in the next post) and Father William. 

The first three books in the series explore Father Peregrine's response to personal suffering in disability, chronic sickness and dying, by identification with the sufferings of Jesus. He draws down strength and steadiness by maintaining focus on the present reality of Christ who is with us in the circumstances of our own lives, their limitation and adversity. Peregrine returns again and again to choosing simplicity, humility and compassion, as a means of passing his own life and spirituality through the refiner's fire of Holy Spirit.

He also offers the template of willingness to listen as a means of transforming legacies of pain. Particularly in the second book of the series, The Wounds of God, the reader is taken through one instance after another of Peregrine, as abbot of the community, having responsibility to help his brethren with their struggles and crises, but having no idea how to steer them through to peace. His strategy is simply to offer them his complete attention, to be a witness to the reality that belongs to them, and sit with them while allowing Christ who is always with us and part of our every dialogue, to interact directly with their souls.

My proposal through the medium of these stories, from the point of view of Father Peregrine's character, is that if we start with reality rather than imposing an ideal aspirational construct we cannot reach, and bring to that reality simplicity, humility, compassion and complete attention, then we can rely upon the presence of Christ as we invite it into the fabric of our daily circumstances, to work transformation. This is a Eucharistic principle — we open our souls to the healing and renewing power of the Spirit of God by ourselves becoming the host of Christ's broken body, saying 'yes' to the one who stands at the door and knocks.

The same issue of transforming legacies of pain is also explored in Brother Tom's character, in particular in the stories of The Long Fall and The Hardest Thing to Do.

In The Long Fall, Tom struggles with, and in the course of the narrative surrenders to, the costly pilgrimage of beholding someone else's pain, and being willing to travel alongside them through the bitter valley of suffering and dying. 

As he sits with his abbot, and helps him express the legacy of internal pain belonging to the experience of deepening disability, the following dialogue takes place:

So that was it. It shook Tom to the core to see the power that had been in his hands.

‘Let me be sure of what you’re saying. Do you mean… my coming to see you has made the difference between wanting to die… and wanting to live?’

A long, long pause. Even now it was terrifying to reveal his need of Tom’s friendship, how he had ached for his company, wept at his absence. Like a man confessing a secret, shameful guilt, hanging his head he whispered, ‘Y-es.’

Brother Tom sat in silence, looking down at the hand he held between his own.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘it hurts, loving you. You turn me inside out.’

As the series unfolds, on a number of occasions (with Peregrine, and later with William) Tom without speaking takes someone into his arms and hugs them, holds them, as a self-offering with the purpose of healing. The first occasion is in the first book, The Hawk and the Dove, when Tom is still a novice, and Father Peregrine has suffered the devastating injuries that have crippled his hands:

Without giving himself time to think better of it, he followed his impulse, and leaping to his feet dragged the heavy table askew so that he could approach his abbot—who watched him, wide-eyed, white-faced and, Tom realised with a stab of pity, scared. Brother Tom seized the stool, placed it emphatically beside his superior’s chair, and sitting on it, took the man in his arms and held him close. ‘It’s all right,’ he said gently, ‘you can let it go.’ He cursed himself for a fool as he felt the awful rigidity of him, like a man of wood; but he persisted, holding him, not speaking, his thoughts racing. ‘Oh well, might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. Faith, I wish I’d shut the door. I hope to God nobody walks in on this. Maybe I should go now. …’

But as Brother Tom held him and the fortress of his iron self-control was replaced at last, at last, by the fortress of the arms of someone who loved him more than he went in awe of him, Peregrine began to weep, and wept until he lost all self-control and abandoned himself to sobbing grief. ‘My hands …’ he wept, the words barely intelligible, ‘Oh, God, how shall I bear the loss of my hands? To have died would have been nothing … oh, but my hands … oh … oh God. …’ and the words were lost in uncontrollable tears.

What comfort could Brother Tom bring but his presence and his silence and his holding him?

Then there is the occasion in The Long Fall, when Tom pushes Peregrine towards practising speech again after his stroke:

It was a moment not like any other in Tom’s life. Without warning he was in the howling place of storm, the fearful meeting ground of the tortured and the torturer, the betrayer and the betrayed, the powerful and the powerless, those who have and those who have nothing; the still place of knowledge in the eye of the storm. The look on Peregrine’s face filled that hateful, howling desert, assaulted Tom with the violence of a blow. In unendurable, stabbing accusation, Peregrine’s eyes helplessly filled with tears. He bent his head, in a futile effort to hide his face, dismayed that Tom should see him so childishly upset over such a little thing.

But Tom was across the room in two quick strides, and dumping the fruit and cream on the table he fell on his knees by the chair and hugged Peregrine to him, his heart torn open in an agony of pity and shame.

‘No, no, no,’ he moaned. ‘What was I thinking of? Oh, what was I thinking of? Father, forgive my cruelty…’

In that moment, Tom detested himself beyond bearing. He had never dreamed that he might play a part in driving home the nails, hoisting the cross, in this particular crucifixion.

He pressed his lips against Peregrine’s face, tasting the salt of his tears as he drew back to look at him, his hands holding his shoulders, his eyes beseeching his forgiveness. ‘Oh, my God, I’m sorry.’

Tom had known the blissful security of a mother’s arms and the intoxication of being in love; but here, in the anguish of wounding and forgiveness, was a steep, austere intimacy; knowledge beyond ordinary loves. Such unconditional encounter demanded no lesser honesty than the humble, painful disclosure of his naked soul. He bent his head and closed his eyes, suffering the pain of it to sear through him and through him, a merciless, costly compassion.

‘I haven’t been much of a friend to you, have I?’ he mumbled.

In the tenderest gentleness, he felt Peregrine’s finger trace lightly across his cheek.

‘Y-es. Oh y-es. Thank you, T-om.’

This is the practise of entering intimate space in allowing healing to take place. Tom does it again in The Hardest Thing To Do,  this time with William in the aftermath of William's attempted suicide:

The moment the last strands gave proved spectacular.  The body of the choking monk dropped fully into Tom’s arms, knocking him completely off balance; as the cart also tipped and Stephen tried to keep his footing, but fell.   All three of them, crashing amid the cart and the stool, collapsed in a tumbled heap on the stone floor of the barn.   Stephen’s knife fell from his hand and clattered at a distance onto the floor. Both men hastened to straighten their brother’s body, and loosen the rope about his neck, which mercifully proved not difficult to do.  Still gagging and coughing, still with the rope loose about his neck, the man gasped and groaned, rolled over on the hay-strewn floor, and began to vomit.  Tom knelt beside him, holding him up in his arms, lest he choke again.

‘I’ll go and fetch Brother John,’ said Stephen, almost incoherent, scrambling to his feet and limping crazily for the door; leaving Tom clasping the man snatched from death, as if he dared not let him go.   Stephen’s running feet beat away into silence down the stony track.  Bright sunbeams streamed from the cold, clear morning through the open door.  The brightness seemed surreal as Brother Tom knelt there, trying to process what he felt.

‘William de Bulmer,’ he whispered, suddenly dizzy and cold and shaking like a leaf, as he brought his brow to rest on the prostrated Augustinian’s shoulder; ‘you are nothing but trouble’.

And then, in Remember Me, an exploration in fiction of the theology of the Eucharist, Tom comes to find William when William is at his lowest ebb:

Eventually, when he judged that everyone had gone, William rose to his feet and walked slowly to the door.  He did not know what he felt.  He felt nothing.  It was as though shame and failure had engulfed him and broken him, and left him nothing.  He felt his body moving of its own accord as though it no longer had a soul.  He was lost now.  He was nothing.

As he went through the doorway, he caught sight of a pair of sandalled feet.  Startled, he looked up, to see Brother Thomas leaning against the wall, waiting for him.  Tom moved to block his path, and for a moment William’s vision blurred and his throat closed in terror.  He did not take in the expression on Tom’s face, only the size and bulk of him standing there.

“Oh, you prize idiot!” said Tom, and enveloped him in a hug.  “For mercy’s sake, what did you think I was going to do to you?”   Shaking and faint, William gratefully allowed Tom’s strength to hold him.  “Oh God, I’m so sorry, Brother Thomas,” he whispered: “I’m so sorry.”  And Tom just held him, thinking nothing but that this seemed to be his own principal contribution to the life of the community.   

Through these interactions, the character of Brother Tom proposes the concept that pain can be transformed through human closeness — wordless intimacy, the impulse to reach out and comfort, the perception and acceptance of someone else's suffering, seeing how it is for them and responding with simple and natural empathy, understanding and kindness. 

The third strand of exploration about transforming legacies of pain is in the unfolding story of William in the last six books. It follows the theme of learning to love, proposed in this scene with Tom and William in The Hardest Thing To Do:

‘I confess my fault, to you my passionate brother, of many mistakes: hard-heartedness, wilful ignorance, unfaithfulness in my call as Christ’s disciple. I have permitted compassion to grow cold and die in my soul.  I did not care, and I do not care, and I wish I did.  I ask your mercy, passionate brother.  If I am permitted to stay with this community, if there is time – I ask you to help me learn how to love.  Please.  Help me find my way in. I ask forgiveness, of God and of you.’

Soft and light, slowly, deliberately, he kissed Tom’s feet.

Why do these things happen to me? Tom asked himself, incredulously. I’ll wager nobody ever did this to Father Chad!

He leaned forward and, mindful of flesh still sore and bruised, carefully put his hands to William’s shoulders and raised him up.

William's story begins in the second book of the series (The Wounds of God), where the reader encounters him at his most objectionable and obnoxious. He re-enters the narrative in the sixth book, The Hardest Thing To Do — in which is proposed that the hardest thing to do is see life from someone else's point of view rather than one's own.

As we follow William's character through its trail of disasters, antagonisms, relational struggles and catastrophes, we become aware that what he's trying to do is transform the legacy of massive embedded pain.

Peregrine grew up with wealth, privilege and power, but engaged with the severe demands of extreme simplicity through vocation, disability and illness, struggling to find the humility to embrace Christ in His poverty and suffering. Tom grew up in an ordinary, happy home, close to the earth, shaped by natural and loving family relationships, and learns to offer his emotionally robust health for others to lean on in moments of fragility.

William grew up with the unremitting torture of isolation in extreme and relentless abuse, and as a consequence lacks the tools to transform the legacy of pain. His efforts to restore order and create peace in his fractured and chaotic world take the form of constructing a material fortress to shut out physical adversity. Only as he encounters and is embraced by love does he learn to love, to open himself to risk and discover for himself the Christ whose nature is love. In saying 'yes' to Jesus he says 'yes' to love, and the consequences of that are neither simple nor straightforward. The character of William represents the person whose legacy of pain is so deep-rooted that it permanently disfigures his ability to relate with others. His way of transforming the legacy of pain is by sheer persistent courage, trying again and again to find his way back to the light.

In writing this series of novels I've tried to portray both what I have observed in others (initially in contexts of palliative care) and what I've experienced myself, as useful methods of transforming personal pain. These would summarise as: the willingness to start with reality, sitting with others who are suffering, beholding and acknowledging their struggle; the importance of loving-kindness and simple friendship; the necessity for courage in persistently overcoming setbacks, disappointments and failures as we find our way towards healing and the establishment of love; holding fast to Christ in his incarnation of redemptive suffering.

Going back to the first passage quoted above (from The Hardest Thing To Do) in which Tom asks, "What can I do with all this old bitterness?" and "How can I get rid of it?", I would say that the process of healing is long, costly and arduous, that it requires the patient and reliable help of others we trust, that it begins with openness — having space to tell our story to people who are willing to listen, and being able to bear the costly exposure that brings — and it is at the heart of our formation as disciples. It is, perhaps above all else we do, the most worthwhile and spiritually valuable endeavour. It is how we bring the Eucharist out of its enclosure in the rites of the church into the ordinary fabric of our everyday lives.

Personas of the imagination 1 — perseverance in context — Father Chad

I've found imagined personas helpful, going into difficult places.

For me, that might be interacting with people who see life very differently from me, or taking on a task for which I feel inadequate, or continuing with an undertaking when I am very tired, or simply staying when I want to go. As an easily discouraged, low energy individual, I have to find wellsprings — founts of energy nourishing me through times when my inner resources feel markedly insufficient.

In writing my Hawk & Dove series of novels, I explored ways to hold oneself together, and how to hold together with others in relationship, and how to hold together with Christ especially when inspiration runs dry.

By nature I tend towards extremism and absolutism — I'm a black-and-white, hundred per cent type of being. I embrace, I give all, I walk away; it's hard for me to simply plod on, or to compromise, or to settle for half, or to do the best job I can while knowing the results are mediocre.

And that's when I need to find my inner Father Chad. 

For most of the series, he was prior of the abbey. In a priory, the prior is the superior, the overall leader; in an abbey, he's second in command, the deputy head, tasked with ensuring the smooth running of the place and seeing to it that the vision of the leader is carried out and the wellbeing of the community is robustly undergirded. 

The prior has to get on well with people, needing a certain geniality and ability to forge relationships. He shouldn't be hot-headed, he must be able to grasp the bigger picture but also take in the details. The sort of man who can keep an eye on the time, see things are put away and locked up, bear responsibility for smooth running, remember what needs to be done. Cautious, forbearing, temperate, diffident, restrained.

Just at the moment in my present circumstances, I am leaning heavily on Father Chad. I'm trying not to make hasty decisions or express my thoughts too freely. In this stretch of the journey I'm going cautiously, conscious of walking on thin ice, unsure of my chances of making it across to the other side.

Father Chad is helping me, in that through the leadership crises of his community he didn't give up. He wasn't admired and he didn't have the makings of a great leader himself; he was more of a background person who relied on the leadership of others. He didn't question his faith, and he prayed deeply, and he did his best.

The thing about Father Chad was that he was just there. He could be boring, his attempts to step up to the plate merely irritated everyone, his pastoral efforts were unappreciated. Father Chad helps me to hold in place at times when I am neither celebrated nor especially welcome but I still must persevere with making a contribution; because if I don't and you don't and we all leave everything to somebody else, what will be left?

Alongside Father Chad in my imagination, I have a mental video on loop of a nun walking. Not the sort of nun who gets to wear a medieval-style habit and wimple, but the post-Vatican-II intensely boring and self-effacing modern kit sort of nun. She has a simple black polyester veil over her short, dark hair. She has a mid-calf A-line grey skirt in some easy-care fabric that goes through the wash with good results. She has a blouse so boring I can't even visualise it, buttoned right up to the neck. She's wearing a navy blue acrylic cardigan. She has tights in Natural Tan and on her feet flat sandals that buckle up securely. Erm . . . what colour are her sandals? They might be black, or navy blue, or plain brown. She doesn't really mind; they're basically the same as the rest of the community wears. But they have crepe rubber soles that allow her to pass through the world without making a single sound and that includes not squeaking on the linoleum. The way she walks facilitates the preservation of silence. Her glance is mild, never bold, and if you approach her she looks up with a pleasant and helpful expression. She doesn't often laugh. Her name is Sister Kathleen, and her family came from Ireland. 

And this nun is tired, and often discouraged; she shares with Father Chad the deepest sense of not really doing a good job, but this is her calling — which means life, at the deepest spiritual level, offers nowhere else to go.

Sister Kathleen does the ironing and she sweeps the floor and takes the mail in and chauffeurs the sisters around. Father Chad dusts the books and takes his turn ringing the bell to call the brethren to prayer and is never late when he's on the kitchen servers' rota. 

And are these things not part of the fabric of Christian faithfulness? After all, it's not entirely cloth of gold, is it? There are also the grey threads, the forgettable browns, the indeterminate mauves, and the judicious use of synthetics that stop the end product shrinking when it needs laundering every now and then.

Father Chad. Nobody aspires to be him (why would you?) and most people only notice him when he's getting on their nerves; but he does his best to understand and to follow faithfully; he's realistic about his own shortcomings, and he's perennially willing to keep trying and when necessary to start over and give things another try.

As things are right now, I walk beside him and Sister Kathleen, profoundly glad of their company.

Youheum. What a sweetheart.

Wonderful

Holistic land management bringing hope and renewal in an Australian farm.






See also here and here and here.

Half Tuck

This look — 

— shirt half tucked in, half hanging loose, is all the rage. 

Everywhere. 

It has become the way to wear any top you can think of, even sweaters.

You even get instructions online telling you how to go about tucking part of your shirt into your waistband. If the current population needs to have that explained to them, that's surely all the proof we need of cognitive decline.

For heaven's sake. Whatever half-wit half-tuck notion will they come up with next?

I do know this. You wouldn't catch Miss Marple with her shirt half-tucked, nor her Majesty the Queen. I'm sure of that.

Nutrifying

Look — I have all these things to eat in a drawer in our room.

They have enigmatic names that are hard to get right, like DNA and CPR and properotters and Vitamin Why and diefoxyboxyribbonnuclear acid. I can't remember what they are all for now, which I gather is an Ominous Sign and Not To Be Taken Lightly. I think they will stop my joints getting creaky and my vision getting blurry and my brain packing up completely, or something. The brain part worries me a bit, if possibly not as much as it should do; but I feel I should make an effort. So all these bottles of capsules cost a lot of money but the things make me feel sick if I consume a whole bunch of them at one time. I haven't eaten any of them for days. 

If I'm honest I prefer the ones like these

and these

and these 

and these

that came out of the garden.

Oh look, there's a cat under that bench.

Beth

Waving to Beth of Living a Simple Life in this Interconnected World. 

I so enjoyed reading your post about the places you'd lived, but though I tried to comment, my words just fall off your blog like raindrops down a window-pane.

I wanted you to know I'd seen your post — I think the place you are living now is just perfect for you and Matt, but I also love the thought of living in the college dorm. I well remember those days from my own life, and the simplicity and anonymity strongly appeals to me now — plus being part of a campus community which is like a village but hardly anybody knows you. Fab. Only there'd have to be rainwater butts and compost heaps and at least a windowsill to grow some veggies.

xx

Sartorial starting points

When you are shopping for clothes, where do you begin? What's your starting point?

I have a few important factors to take into consideration, but leading the fray by a country mile are my feet.

I have feet like Jeremy Fisher's —

— soft and bendy like all the rest of me, unresisting, easily blistered and immensely long and shallow.

It's no good buying footwear from regular retailers for people with big feet, because those shoes are about an inch deeper than my feet and have stiffening in the toecaps that bruises me. They rub my feet into sores and the back of the heel comes up well past where the corresponding bit on my foot runs out. Useless.

There are two firms I can rely on for shoes that fit me: Gabor and Vivobarefoot. 

Of the Gabors, I can only have the slides, and boots with no heels and a spatulate toe shape. If I wear heels — even 3cm — my foot just slides down and forms a squashed heap in the toe box. If I have a closed toe in a shoe I get bruises (wearing boots holds my feet in place provided there's no heel). If there are straps and buckles, I get blisters. Even the slides, in the softest of leathers, give me blisters, but at least that's only on the sides of my toes so I can stick plasters on.

Of the Vivos, I have to wear the men's — none of the ladies' come up long enough. I can't wear Vivo boots because my ankles aren't strong enough to fight back against the enclosing fabric of the boot. So I wear their lightest mesh running shoes, which are flexible enough to work with my feet. These —

That has to be my starting point.

So if I wear a dress, it must look believable with these shoes —  

(I know, I know, I shouldn't put outdoor shoes on the bed like that, but hey). 

A dress looks okay with slides — these are my Gabor slides —

— but if I do that, either the dress has to be very long or look credible with leggings under it; because the same Jeremy Fisher oddities that determined my feet affect my whole vascular system, with the result that fluid pools in my ankles and I have a splendid network of varicose veins. In my childhood, no self-respecting woman stepped out of her front door with bare legs. Now it's the other way round, and wearing tights with sandals is utterly scorned. Awkward for me.

There's a certain Agatha Christie look one can achieve with a rather old-fashioned, retro-style summer dress or a tweed skirt ending just below the knee. 

One can go for an Amish style, but I can't face the incorporation of the inexorable southerly slide of the torsal appendages into this look, and I won't tolerate the kind of foundation wear that hurts your liver and alters your breathing. 

You surely see the problem. The disconcerting bolster effect, proving that it's possible to make an Empire line out of anything with a waist.

There's a flowing, arty look that used to be my stock-in-trade, but I've found that the more my own actual body becomes increasingly deconstructed with the passing years, the less becomingly a deconstructed dress droops from the concave chest and rounded shoulders. Like Auntie Vera of the 1960s Giles cartoons, for those of you with long memories.

So I mainly stick to trousers. I love dresses, so I do keep valiantly trying. I probably need Muriel Whitchurch and Miss Gossage from St Trinians as role models (that would be Margaret Rutherford and Joyce Grenfell). 

Or else that other, inimitable Vera (Stanhope) —

One of the lessons I have unfortunately taken all too much to heart from my religion, is that one should never, ever give up hope. Which, when it comes to dresses, can be expensive. Still, you never know do you?

I kept the disastrous beautiful dresses that were taken for dressing gowns btw. They make good nighties in the very hot weather, after all. And what's wrong with looking beautiful in the night?