Follow this link to the Elizabeth-Ann charity and follow the one below to my food blog!

http://www.thee-acharity.org.uk/

http:www.calcuttascarlet.blogspot.com/ My Mother's Kitchen, my Father's Garden is the name of the blog (and, in two volumes, my books). At this blog you may also see a small selection of my freelance journalism work.

Friday 13 August 2010

Would that it were so


"It is more remarkable for the quality of its doubt than of its faith" (T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood, writing on Tennyson's poem 'In Memoriam')


Oh dear, oh dear. This was not going to be an easy road.Maybe it just wasn't for some. 

Mother was an atheist, father was an ardent member of the Church of England with designs, in retirement, of being a non stipendiary minister. An interesting dichotomy at home, then.

"Because your mother is a good person, she will surely go to Heaven", he said to the concerned young teenager, his daughter. She, however, couldn't find any scriptural authority for this one, although she did think that she might have got it wrong somehow. Typical.

When daddy was dying, he took communion at home; her mother encouraged it, but could not bear to be in the room. Instead, she sat in the sun room sipping a sherry. Rose couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry, so just sat still and mute.

There were memories of a darkened church at Christmas; thoughts of something moving that was good and Holy and which loved her and wanted her for its own. But the feeling faded as the lights went on. Later, experiments with a Fellowship group so that, as a young teenager, she was encouraged to stand alone and be baptised. Consternation again, though. It seemed that everyone in the cavernous room had the gifts of prophecy or of tongues. Occasionally, one would fall on the floor in rapture. Here we go again, was her only thought - although that was not what she said out loud. Desperate to feel what they felt, she let the pastor take her head in his hands. 

"The Holy Spirit is with you. Can you feel it?"

"Yes" she said, almost convinced by the fervent believer, but afterwards realising that it was a relief to leave. Again, not something to be said aloud.

Ah but back to the organised church some time later. All went well for a while. Baptisms of the babies, good wishes - but no. After a while, doubt prevailed. This time, though, it seemed to be more those around her who did not, in some ways, approve of Rose; what seemed to be a move in the right direction -of acceptance and being held within the body of a church-- began to fail. So sad. Was she too radical? Did she appear too full of nervous energy? Someone wanting to make changes and my goodness the children did not always know to be silent during communion? No harm meant, only concern for the future of the single church. The net effect, as before: no spiritual home other than a poetry book. 

And that is where we leave Rose. Hand off the plough; hoping, in her childish way, for an epiphany. And in this, I know she is not alone.

No comments: