by CCW | 31 January 2020 04:45
“This is a country/where a man can die/ simply from being/caught outside,” Alden Nowlan observes, “the forgotten poet of Stanley,” Nova Scotia, as I once styled him. He was making an observation about January here in the Maritimes. There are, to be sure, the challenges of winter, of darkness and light, of cold and thaw, of ice and snow. There are also the anxieties and worries of our culture of fearful uncertainty in the great litany of fears that threaten to paralyze us, from viruses to wars.
This week in Chapel the story of the Transfiguration of Christ was read following upon the story of the Baptism of Christ. Both stories speak to the Epiphany theme of the manifestation of the things of God revealed and made known in various ways: through nature, and, more specifically, through the humanity of Christ as shown in the Scriptures. Things are made known through what is sometimes called God’s Book of Nature as well as through the Book of Scripture, through Revelation. The emphasis is on what we come to know and in what way. Such things speak profoundly to the fears and anxieties of our day.
Epiphany season emphasizes what is made known through what is seen and heard. In the story of Christ’s Baptism and his Transfiguration there is something seen and heard: the Father’s voice, the Son seen coming out of the water of Jordan or transfigured on the mountain, the Holy Spirit coming down upon Christ, like a dove. “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased,” God the Father says in both stories. These are important images that arrest our attention. Guarda e escolta, as Dante says. Look and listen. To what? To what is seen and heard. Such is education. These stories speak to the Christian understanding of Christ as the Son of God – something which Islam and Judaism completely deny – and to the idea of God in his infinite self-relation as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, God as Trinity, something which they also deny. Yet something is made known about the infinite power, wisdom and goodness of God, insights and ideas which are more universal and belong to the world’s cultures.
Such things speak importantly to us as learners and students, on the one hand, and to our humanity more generally, on the other hand. They provide a counter to the fearful uncertainties of our world but only if we take to heart the Father’s word at the Transfiguration: “listen to him.” In the story of the Transfiguration, Peter makes an intriguing response to the vision of Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the Law and the Prophets, a gathering up of wisdom from the past into the present of Christ. “It is food to be here,” Peter says. It is good to be, we might say, in the face of our fears and worries.
Alden Nowlan’s poem, “It’s good to be here,” draws upon this biblical story and suggests something of its power and truth.
I’m in trouble, she said
to him. That was the first
time in history that anyone
had ever spoken of me ….
… as I lay curled up
my heart beating
in the darkness inside her.
A powerful poem, the narrative voice is that of a child in the womb imagined as overhearing his parents speaking about his very existence. The title makes the profound point in relation to the contingency, the uncertainty, and the fragility of human existence that “It’s good to be here”; in short, it is good to be.
I would like to think that it is good to be, to affirm the essential goodness of creation, and that it is good for you to be here where things are made known, where you can take a hold of ideas and learn from what is taught to you here at King’s-Edgehill. The point is that the things that are made known to you have the power to change you. Christ’s transfiguration complements the Epiphany idea that we can be transformed by what we see and hear, by what is made known to us.
Seeing and hearing are the most ‘intellectual’ of the senses. We often use them in a metaphorical way. ‘I see what you mean,’ we say, meaning I understand what you are saying. ‘I hear you,’ we say, about the meaning, again, of what is literally heard. Such is a large part of teaching and learning, of education which is about the transition from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. In that process there is the idea that it is good to be and, indeed, good to be here in a place of learning. My hope is that it counters some of the fears and anxieties of our times and makes us less fragile and more resilient. It is about reclaiming the things that belong to the truth and dignity of our humanity, a counter to fear and despair. It’s good to be.
(Rev’d) David Curry,
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
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