CALLERS. Expecting a solitary day, I look like the sort of
person one should set the dogs on. Bedraggled in my second-best
gardening clothes, I am about to mow and weed, edge and admire.
First, wise Nigel, to give the boiler some attention; then, a
high-born lady with tributes from Waitrose. After which something
wonderful happens.
The wintry climate disappears, and, although the sky remains the
colour of an old dishcloth, there is the beginning of June warmth.
And never such roses! Gloire de Dijon on the house, standards
everywhere else. And all out at once. The scent of lilacs.
Commotion in the old kitchen. A blackbird beats against an inside
window. The beat of its heart against my hand as I show it the
door. This is an inside-outside day; a disturbed day.
After lunch, I write letters, and continue to devise a Songs of
Praise for the festival of flowers at Mount Bures, from Hymns
Ancient and Modern, New Standard Edition. The "mount" of this
parish is the tree-covered motte of a castle. Or, more likely, an
oaken tower above the River Colne from which to spy on strangers.
We have put some nice steps up it, should you wish to see a fine
view. Nothing to pay. Stone Age folk sleep in round graves
below.
Mount Bures has long been a fine address. For 30 years or more,
I have climbed up to it from the Stour valley to see the
wildflowers in its high churchyard, and to touch the closing ring
on the door.
I would have preached on Evelyn Underhill this week, but she
warrants a preliminary lecture on mysticism. Her book
Mysticism (1911) redirected the Church of England, and to
its astonishment. Her guru was Friedrich von Hügel. They were
near-contemporaries. She conducted mysterious retreats, and was one
of those rescuers of long-forgotten things that, when found, were
seen to be still marvellously bright. What is long unused is often
our loss. It is certainly a mystery to me how tiny places, such as
Mount Bures, remain permanently fascinating, igniting wonder the
minute you step into them.
Rambling about in my books, I discovered, via Izaak Walton, the
text of George Herbert's first sermon. It was "Keep thy heart with
diligence," and he chose it from Proverbs 4.23. The sermon itself
has long vanished, but I see the tall, sick young poet entering his
pulpit, and announcing it in his elegant Cambridge voice to his
rustic congregation at Bemerton, he himself having rung the bell
for service.
He adored proverbs of any kind, and made a great collection of
them. For him, they were concise truths, and things to live by.
They cut through the verbiage of politics and religion, through
class attitudes and downright ignorance, through legal humbug and
sophistry, with their liveliness and deathless wit. He knew, like
Jesus with his parables, that, there was no forgetting them, once
heard.
Once begun on Proverbs, I could read them all day. The Church
has notoriously "skipped" this scripture. Made small use of it -
seen it, maybe, as glib. Proverbs in general cut through lengthy
statements, and make short work of them. Discourse dreads them.
Learning steps back from them. They have been allotted to wiseacres
and common folk generally. But they delighted Herbert, the Church
of England's finest poet.