“One thing is needful”
Reunions are about companions getting back together, about friendships shaped and formed by common memories and associations that belong to the reason and purpose of institutions. The word, companions, has its roots in the sharing of bread, com panis. I am sure that there has been much in the way of the sharing of bread and, by extension, no doubt, wine, during the time of your reunion!
2016 marks a special year. It is, if I may be so bold to suggest, the Year of Edgehill. It marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Edgehill in June of 1891. That alone is cause for celebration but it is also the 40th anniversary of the amalgamation of King’s and Edgehill to form King’s-Edgehill School; and that, too, is cause for celebration.
Sir Kenneth Clark in his celebrated BBC TV documentary, Civilisation, comments that civilisation greatly declines in the absence of women. It is, he says, “absolutely essential to civilisation that the male and female principles be kept in balance”. In the Year of Edgehill we celebrate the qualities of Edgehill School for Girls. They are the qualities of grace and elegance, a certain class and refinement, a kind of dignity. Those qualities are the gifts which Edgehill brought to King’s and which strengthened and deepened the ideals of gentleness, learning, and manhood, or better humanitas. I would like to suggest that it is captured in a word, sprezzatura. It is Castiglione’s word from The Book of the Courtier, a book about civilised life and behaviour, about a kind of courtliness. Sprezzatura is about doing difficult things with consummate grace and ease; in other words, making the difficult look easy. Such is the grace and charm of Edgehill and what Edgehill brought to King’s.
It is not simply about manners and morals but the deeper principles upon which those qualities depend such as the defining ideals of King’s and Edgehill. They are expressed in their complementary mottoes. Fideliter, ‘faithfulness’, is the Edgehill motto befitting what was originally a Church School for Girls but as joined with King’s motto, Deo Legi Regi Gregi, ‘For God, for the Law, for the King, for the People’, it suggests something of the content of that faithfulness. It has very much to do with character and service, with leadership and sacrifice.
2016 also marks the centenary of the war years, particularly the dark, dark year of 1916, destructive and devastating in such horrors as the Battle of the Somme which began on July 1st, 1916 and only ended on November 18th, 1916, a battle in which over a million lives were lost. While the cenotaph just outside the Chapel commemorates the men from King’s College and School who gave their lives in the defining conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries, it is important to remember and give thanks as well for the remarkable services of many, many Edgehill girls who also went forth from this little town to work in the field hospitals of the war and in other hospitals as nurses and administrators and as teachers and headmistresses of schools throughout the world. Some, like Claire Gass, left diaries of the war years but all left their mark through service and commitment to others.
The love of learning contributes to a culture of service. The Song of Songs is the great love-poem of the Hebrew scriptures; at once erotic and profound, it reminds us of Plato’s Symposium where eros as the passionate desire to know places us in a company of those who seek to know. “O, you who dwell in the gardens, my companions are listening for your voice; let me hear it”.
The argument of Plato’s Symposium is driven, it is worth noting, by an unnamed businessman who simply wants to know what was said about love at an all-male drinking party at the house of dramatic playwright, Agathon, more than a dozen years earlier. He is, we might suggest, passionately listening for the voice of understanding and meaning. It is not by accident that the voice which conveys the real lesson about love in that dialogue is Diotima, the fictional female philosopher whom Plato has Socrates claim taught him all he knows about philosophy and love. She is the precursor to Boethius’ Lady Philosophy in his Consolation of Philosophy whose teachings allow us to persevere and press on in the darkest and most difficult of times, whatever they may be. Times like our own, perhaps, when there are so many uncertainties and anxieties whether it is about Britain and the EU or the America presidential election, whether it is about “fear in a handful of dust” or worries about the future for your children and grandchildren. It is the summer of our discontent, as it were.
Luke in his Gospel presents two stories back to back which illustrate the necessary interrelation of thinking and doing, of doing and thinking, at all times and in all places. They are the stories of the Good Samaritan and of Martha and Mary. They show abundantly how thinking informs our actions and how actions often reveal intentions. They recall us to the purpose and meaning of our educational institutions such as King’s and Edgehill. “How do you read?” is Jesus’ great question which leads to the parable of the Good Samaritan. “One thing is needful”, Jesus says to the distracted Martha, and “Mary hath chosen the better portion”, which is not to say that Martha’s part is wrong or bad. No, Martha’s problem, like so many of us, is that she is distracted, out of focus, un-centered, bent out of shape. Pick your metaphor. The “one thing needful” is the focus on purpose and truth. It is about sitting and listening, listening to the voice of understanding which compels us into lives of service and sacrifice.
I like to think that Edgehill brought to King’s something of that spirit of the “one thing needful” which shapes and informs our thoughts and actions. The qualities of Edgehill are wonderfully complemented, perhaps even anticipated, by the lovely commentary of a charming 12th century Abbot writing in northern England about Martha and Mary. Aelred of Rievaulx captures the radical nature of the interplay of both.
In this wretched and laborious life, brethren, Martha must of necessity be in our house; that is to say, our soul has to be concerned with bodily actions. As long as we need to eat and drink, we shall need to tame our flesh with watching, fasting, and work. This is Martha’s role. But in our souls there ought also to be Mary, that is, spiritual activity. For we should not always give ourselves to bodily efforts, but sometimes be still and see how lovely, how sweet the Lord is, sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing his word. You should in no wise neglect Mary for Martha; or again Martha for Mary. For, if you neglect Martha, who will feed Jesus? If you neglect Mary, what use is it for Jesus to come to your house, when you taste nothing of his sweetness?
Ultimately, the busyness of Martha has to be brought into the restfullness of Mary, sitting and listening.
You have gathered with your companions in these academic gardens of King’s and Edgehill which are so much a part of your lives. There are times, I am sure, when they hardly seemed like gardens. Think February. But at other times, such as now, they seem like wonderful gardens where memories are stirred to truth and love and together we are recalled to the “one thing needful”. May God bless you and our school in our commitment to contemplation and to action. May you indeed taste of the sweetness of Jesus.
“One thing is needful”
Rev’d David Curry
Chaplain, KES
July 3rd, 2016
Edgehill Reunion