It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. I have come to the sobering realisation this week that, despite the weather, it is now only three weeks to Midsummer, when the balance changes and starts to tip us down the slope towards shorter days, cold weather, winter and darkness. At the moment, the thought is no larger than the proverbial cloud on the horizon, the size of a man’s hand, but I have acknowledged it, nevertheless.
The thought of a forthcoming winter would be much better borne of course, if there had been anything approaching a summer. It’s been warm occasionally this week, but still dull. I want to see and feel the sunshine that I pined for all last winter. Where is it?
To take my mind off these potentially depressing topics, I have – truly – been busy this week. Busy trying to get some momentum going for the press, since theoretically we are launching a new book (Revudeville, by Deborah Tyler-Bennett, which I laid out while incarcerated in “Broadmoor”) at the Lowdham Festival in 25 days’ time and I’ve been struggling to catch up since the laptop disaster was resolved. Busy trying to come to terms with the formal letter of redundancy from my other directorship, and drafting and subsequently tearing up replies ranging from the bitter to the angry to the wistfully sad. Busy scanning job applications. Busy filling in forms and supplying additional information for the application for the grant for the still-non-existent ramp, and busy waiting for the council to reply to my letter of last week telling them not to be so bloody silly about moving the old camper van. Busy waiting for the community physiotherapists to get their arse in gear and contact me, since I am now sitting here wasting muscle tone day after day, apart from what little exercises I can do myself. We’ve also been starting to think about a possible trip to Arran this summer, and what would actually be involved, logistically, in getting me there. Just don’t send me by Parcelforce, or I might end up in Truro.
In the face of such busy-ness, the animals have been keeping out of the way and getting on with their little lives. Kitty loves her new cat blanket (which is crocheted, I have discovered) and is rarely off it except to eat, drink, or be merry in the garden doing her necessaries. Spidey, the cat from next door seems to be exercising his squatters’ rights, because Debbie found him nonchalantly curled up on one of my shirts in the little bedroom, the other morning. Apparently he acknowledged her presence in the doorway by opening one sleepy, bleary eye, then settling down for a renewed snooze. She didn’t have the heart to turf him off, so for all I know, he’s up there still. Of the Interloper, there has been no sign.
Tig doesn’t like the heat so much and lies around panting when it’s really hot, so a cool, cloudy summer would suit her just fine, whatever the rest of us think about it. She’s not been doing much this week, just wandering around, sitting out in the garden with Debbie, snoozing, and generally mooching like the pooch she is. The other night she had an elderly and confused moment and tried to put herself to bed in my downstairs bedroom instead of following Debbie aloft, as normal. I said later that it was just like being back in hospital, where elderly and confused people trying to get in your bed was often the norm rather than the exception.
Even though it has been half term, Debbie still had teaching stuff to do, but rather than do a little bit every day she chose to give herself some days completely off and then work right through on others. So it was that on Wednesday evening we were able for the first time (for me) since last year, to eat our evening meal out on the decking beside the chiminea. Getting me over the threshold from the conservatory proved an interesting struggle for her, because I only just fitted through the door, and could do nothing to aid proceedings except sit still, and keep my arms in. Still, the parcel was duly delivered, and very glad I was too.
Wednesday evening was the closest I have come for a long time to forgetting I was in a wheelchair. Partly of course it was the two bottles of wine we consumed between us that helped, partly it was the fun of keeping the chiminea going with conti-board offcuts from the plumber’s efforts, twigs, and a few barbecue charcoal briquettes, and partly it was the feeling of reclaiming an experience I had thought was going to be denied me, sitting out there, watching the purple twilight steal over the garden, looking up between the interlacing branches into the still-bright sky, the afterglow of sunset, in the hope of catching the flitting silhouette of an early-evening bat. A good time was had by all, as it used to say in newspaper reports of Sunday School picnics, and we laid plans to hold a repeat performance the following night, but of course, as so often in the English summer, the weather let us down.
In an idle moment, I was scanning the local Freecycle group’s email round-robin newsletter for items of interest, and I noted that someone was offering Ferret Kits, ready at the end of August. So I asked Deb if she thought she would like a Ferret Kit. A wonderful cross-porpoises conversation then ensued, whereby it became plain that she thought that a Ferret Kit was some kind of self-assembly job that came flat-packed in a box complete with a tube of glue and an Allen key. I was able to assure her that Mr and Mrs Ferret had already done all the necessary preparatory work, and no further assembly was necessary. But she still said no. I said I supposed that the trouble with things like Kits is they are young and cute when you first get them, but they change as they get older and may develop nasty habits and unpleasant personality traits. She gave me a funny look, and agreed.
Once again, in all this welter of activity and Ferret-discussions, the contemplative life has had to take rather a back seat. As discussed, last week I wasn’t even sure what liturgical week it was, the Common Prayer equivalent of Tiggy trying to get in the wrong bedroom, I guess. I think this week is the 7th Sunday of Easter, nothing special, winding up towards Pentecost or “real” Whitsun, next week. Since I did Whitsun last week, simply because it felt like it, I now find myself painted into a corner. Oh well, press on regardless, it’ll all come right in the end.
I felt slightly fraudulent, as well, for not spending my time on more important things than work or frivolity this week. I don't seem to be much use to anybody in any other way, not in any way that really matters, and I know I have let people down who may reply on me. A family member has been in hospital (I did manage to send off a card) and a dear friend of mine is still grieving over the loss of her Dad, two years ago, and I managed scarcely a word of comfort. I still need to get past this preoccupation with my own predicament, I guess, one way or another. Either stand up and walk, or shut up about it. Stand up, and be counted, I guess. Anyway. The Bible. Yes...
I think the texts for this week are supposed to be Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; and John 17:1-11. Blimey, that is a serious chunk of Bible to read there, I thought, better get down to it. We’ve had the wine and music, joy and laughter, now it’s time for the “sermons and soda-water, the day after”.
So I turned first to Acts 1:6-14 in the King James Version and found to my surprise (approaching as I did from a standpoint of pure ignorance) that it was an account of the Ascension. This sent me back to the Holy Google, and after much ferreting in the marsh, I found that Thursday was apparently Ascension Day, but by tradition it is usually celebrated on the following Sunday, today, which is a Holy Day of Obligation, no less, when you are supposed to attend Mass (difficult, with no ramp, this will have to do) and refrain from servile work, so the washing up will have to wait until tomorrow. Sadly, I had already vacc-ed the rug before I read it, otherwise I could have skived off that, as well.
When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
I never think of the Ascension (when I think of it at all) without picturing the painting of it by the Cavalier D’Arpino in the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. Painted on a wood panel in the early 17th Century, its colours never cease to amaze me with their brightness and freshness, especially when you think it is half a millennium old. D’Arpino’s real name was Giuseppe Cesari, and he apparently taught Caravaggio. I wish I could find a full size, high-res image of it to share with you, but sadly, the whole internet seems to contain one tiny thumbnail of it. It is a few years now since I stood in front of the original and tried to copy, in a faithful pencil sketch, every fold and pleat of the Apostles’ robes. It is an interesting mental exercise in concentration, you should try it next time you have a day to spare, it is the nearest thing to meditation I have done in a long while. And God bless old Ferens, for endowing the Gallery in the first place, so that a kid like me from the slums of Hull can look upon the fine work of an Italian craftsman from five hundred years ago.
Another shock awaited me – albeit a pleasant one – when I turned to Psalm 68:
Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him. A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah:
So, that’s where Handel got his lyrics from! Two favourites in two hits, the Cesari Ascension and Handel’s Chandos Anthem. I don’t know whether the Duke of Chandos particularly liked this Psalm, or he just got what he was given. I rather get the impression that you didn’t argue with Handel. I recommend the whole Psalm actually, it is full of wonderful Old Testament loopiness, especially in the King James version, talking about God splitting “the hairy scalp of he that still trespasses”, and it’s liberally sprinkled with Selahs as well. I also recommend the music. The way in which Handel syncopates the word "scattered" is two hundred years ahead of its time. But then the man was a genius.
This was turning out to be one of the more pleasant Biblical excursions of recent times, albeit I still have no idea whether Big G is trying to tell me something, or what his purpose is for me in the long term. It’s comforting to touch old touchstones, though, and the next verses contained another: 1 Peter 5:6-11, King James Version contains the lines about:
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Which I am pretty sure also crops up in the Service of Compline – and a quick check online also confirmed my suspicions. I spent a long time (I don’t really know why) reading the whole of the Order of Service for Compline, and letting the words of the Authorised Version roll round and round in all their sonorous beauty.
I did, however, find the reading of John 17 more problematic. I suppose it would have been too much to hope for, finding four bits of the Bible on the trot which I could relate to and which carried resonances for me. I guess it will turn out to be something to do with fulfilling ancient prophecy, it usually does, but the bit that stumped me was the verse about:
I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
I don’t know where Jesus got the idea that he was finished, because presumably there’s still the trifling matter of the Second Coming, and all that tedious judging of the quick and the dead, and stuff like that. Presumably when he appeared at God's right hand, Big G turned round and said "How come you are back so early?" This is starting to get into territory of advanced theology that I don’t understand. Even thinking about the concept of the Holy Trinity makes my head hurt. I know more about Wakefield Trinity than the Holy Trinity, and it’s apparently Trinity Sunday next Sunday.
Anyway, I daresay I will go back and re-read John, and try and tease out the knotted threads of interpretation. I could always try one of the online Bible commentaries, I guess, but who’s to say they have any more idea than me?
So, at the end, I remained slightly foxed by it all. Not a bad week, if you discount being in a wheelchair. The Titanic wasn’t a bad ship, really, discounting the iceberg. Summer’s slipping through my fingers, like the precious silver sands of Kildonan Beach, though. I am still not resigned to my fate, either. Nevertheless, bits and bats, here and there, mutatis mutandis, and savour it while you can, I guess. Joy in small things, like rediscovering a lost painting or listening to a Handel track you haven’t heard for a while. And there’s still three weeks of “summer” left. Oh well.
No comments:
Post a Comment