Tag Archives: Raymond Raynes

Darkness no Darkness

Posted on March 2, 2014 | 3 comments

It has struck me lately how separate we human beings are from other creation. And we are so small. The world was here before I came, and it will be here after I leave. We have little impact upon nature, although we like to think we control it and even harm it. In the end nature shall have the last word, and we can see its random and unfeeling power in hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, drought, fire, tornadoes. But man is proud and self-deceiving.

We anthropomorphize the natural world  giving flora and fauna human qualities. We think of a lion as a big sweet cat, yet he mauls and destroys. Nature gives us joy; we love the mountains and the seas, and we want our love to be returned. But it isn’t, except for, of course, by some domesticated animals, and it is uncertain what sort of love they have for us.

That I find myself in this world, so foreign and so lovely and so dangerous, points to a master of design. That I delight in its beauty and power, its awe-fullness, is not by chance. That I long to walk its forest paths and sleep under its stars and feel the sun on my skin is not by random design. I think we love creation as a reflection of the Creator. We are drawn to him through his works; we yearn, we long for him, and thus his world. The good news is, of course, with the coming of God the Son among us, we know that our Creator loves us in return; he yearns and longs for us.

Sometimes I sense another, an “other,” world alongside ours, as though separated by a sheet of glass. St. Paul writes that he sees God “through a glass darkly,” glass thought to be more a mirror or reflection as well as a window to God – not our kind of glass window. We do see, sense, God around us, if we have eyes to see. We are children, and when we grow up we shall see clearly. But for now, God is here, present, and I know that his spirit, through my Baptism, dwells within me.

But he is not just a God within, an idea that grew into heresy in the last century. He is outside us as well, working in our world. He exists apart from me. He is not conjured by my imagination, my desires, although he has planted such desires in my heart. 

But seeing and knowing isn’t everything, and the Epistle for today, St. Paul’s definition of love, says it perfectly, poetically. I tried to shorten it, but just couldn’t, every word being of immense importance and beauty:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (I Corinthians 13)

St. Paul brings me back to the heart of the matter: love. We long to know, to see, but we are nothing without love.

Today’s Gospel, on this Sunday before Ash Wednesday, Quinquagesima, tells how Christ healed a blind man who was begging on the side of the road. The man had great faith, and he cried out to Jesus to have mercy upon him. Jesus healed him because of his faith.

There is a link between faith and seeing through the glass, seeing the reflection of God in the world around us. In Raymond Raynes’ Darkness no Darkness, hopefully our next American Church Union release, he speaks of giving oneself up to Christ, allowing him to remold and redirect us. It is this kind of free-fall faith that allows us to be healed. We stand with the blind man on the side of the road and we cry, Lord have mercy upon me. Our Lord turns and heals us because of our faith. When our eyes are opened, what do we see? We see love.

The title of Father Raynes’ book of meditations, Darkness no Darkness, comes from Psalm 139, one of my favorite memory passages: 

O Lord, thou hast searched me out, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thoughts long before.
2   Thou art about my path, and about my bed; and art acquainted with all my ways.
3   For lo, there is not a word in my tongue, but thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether.
4   Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
5   Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain unto it.
6   Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit? or whither shall I go then from thy presence?
7   If I climb up into heaven, thou art there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also.
8   If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea;
9   Even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
10 If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me; then shall my night be turned to day.
11 Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day; the darkness and light to thee are both alike.
12 For my reins are thine; thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
13 I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.
14 My bones are not hid from thee, though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the earth.
15 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book were all my members written;
16 Which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
 

Again, I could not condense this, for here the Psalmist so long ago saw that knowing and loving are linked together by God in his love for us, in his intimate knowledge of each of us. He knows and loves us in the womb. He sees our hearts. Darkness is no darkness, for the night is as clear as the day. And we see. We see Love.

We approach the ashes of Lent, the burning of the Palm Sunday palms and the marking of the charred cross upon our foreheads, a cross that will burn our minds and hearts for forty days. We recall that our flesh came from dust and will return to dust.

This Lent 2014 I shall try to memorize Corinthians 13, engrafting the words onto my mind and heart. Hopefully, faithfully, I shall sound less like a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Hopefully, faithfully, I shall see through the glass to Our Lord himself. Hopefully, faithfully, I shall be healed and shall see… God.

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On Life and Death and Flowery Graves

Posted on January 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

My husband and I picked out our grave plots this last week. 

We have not been diagnosed with terminal illness, nor do we expect to die suddenly. Either of course might happen, but so far God has blessed us with many years of life on this earth and our ailments are part of natural aging, my sixty-six years, and my husband’s seventy-eight. 

But I wanted to know where my body would be lying. I did not want cremation, although many do and I respect their choice. It’s cheaper, to be sure. But I wanted “full body burial” as the Family Service Counselor described it at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Lafayette, California. I wanted to give witness, after I was gone, to the sanctity of life, even my little life; I wanted to join the many other believers who lay under this flowery field in the East Bay hills. Their graves lay neatly in rows, some with flat headstones, some with upright blocks of granite or marble that caught the light from the morning sun. 

It is curious how long I have put off this trip to the cemetery. It was always something I could do another day, another week, another year. But I didn’t want to leave these decisions to my sons and daughters; I wanted to personalize my sacred journey from earthly life to heavenly life. The word “cemetery” comes from the Greek, “sleeping place,” and I would give witness to eternal life and the immense love of God as I lay sleeping, awaiting the final resurrection. 

We followed our counselor, a young, endearing, and informative guide, across the broad lawns that were browning slightly from California’s drought and the wintry air, up the paths that parted the graves. As I stepped carefully, meditatively, I was reminded of other graves I have visited, in particular that of Raymond Raynes in the Mirfield Monastery in northern England. The monks’ graves in the garden of the Community of the Resurrection had been marked with simple wooden crosses bearing first names. We found Father Raynes’ grave and said a prayer of thanksgiving for his saintly life. Now, walking through the Queen of Heaven garden, I recalled other cemetery gardens: one beloved collection of graves on a hilltop on the Island of Lanai, where Cook pines rustled in the breeze high above, the sea far below; English headstones in the yard of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford, untended, with high grass obscuring the stone slabs; the many churches we visited in Europe surrounded by their living dead, who waited for that last resurrection.

Here, today, in this country, it seems that churches do not sit amidst their dead, sheltered and sheltering their own past, but send the bodies to be buried elsewhere. There is a fear of morbidity, of corruption, of dying. Gravestones identify our birth-day and our death-day, with our lifetime equaling a long dash. We must admit, in a cemetery, that we are mortal. We must admit that the young and the good die and leave us far too soon. We must admit that cancer ravages and war maims and we mistreat one another. We must admit that we do not love enough. These are hard admissions in a world that values self-esteem, self-obsession. 

Queen of Heaven Cemetery sits in a gentle valley. I looked up to the low January sun and to the hills holding us so sweetly in the cool breeze. We needed to choose our gravesites, and I prayed for guidance even in this simple choice. We had seen the gravesites available and had weighed this and that – the sun, the hills, the trees, accessibility to the path. Should we face north, south, east, west? Do we want a bench? I gazed over the flowery field, the reds and pinks and yellows dotting the grass, the headstones seeming a comfortable and welcoming congregation of hosts.

Where should we be? Which plots? My eye rested finally on a statue with raised arms commanding the heavens and blessing the flowery graves. It was the Risen Christ. I bounded across the grass and stood before it, looking up to the powerful face that looked further up to the blue skies. Yes, I thought. I want to be under the arms of the Risen Christ. If anyone should visit my grave, they would see the Risen Christ alongside and over me and raising me to heaven with him.

And so it was that we found two plots a few feet from Christ’s right arm. And when visitors, if any should come, sit on the bench nearby they will see the Christ silhouetted against the blue sky and the golden hills.

I’m glad I didn’t put this cemetery visit off any longer. A curious peace and delight has settled over me since we drove away, having made the arrangements. For me, my own death makes my life even more meaningful, for the numbered days are just that – numbered. It is tempting to live as though this will never happen and many of us do this, acting as if today will last forever. But this is not reality. This is not the true way of things for humankind. So I am glad to have bracketed my days with this visit to Queen of Heaven so that each moment given me between now and my final visit is not wasted, so that each moment counts, just as it is counted. 

The field of flowers and their stones, winter’s grass waiting for spring’s greening, and finally the Risen Christ, his arms at once embracing heaven and earth, has entered my mind, unbidden, from time to time since then. The scene is a reassuring visitor, a happy moment that colors my days. It is a sudden, surprising burst of grace. For because I am a believing Christian, trying to be faithful, those arms, as they embrace heaven and earth, also embrace little me, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, forever.

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