THINKING ABOUT SALVATION (In Loving Memory of Simon)

 

Sometimes I have to haul myself up out of the pit of my body – with great effort – in order to keep going and do what must be done.

It was like that at Mass on Sunday and my voice felt raw, deep, and oddly too strong. Too loud.

This morning it seems like I have no voice at all. And I need it. But sorrow seems to have sucked it out of me.

In the end it was all right, as it often is, though it still demanded that I dig deep. But it was all right. The funeral was remarkably tranquil. Dignified and heartfelt. Perhaps we all felt that his time had come. His time for rest.

Many years ago, someone told me that animals have an instinct for good people, even for what is Godly in them. It must have been like that to a near perfect degree with St. Francis. Simon had a way with dogs – the wounded and the strong. They were safe with him and, perhaps, he with them.

The first time we met, about thirty-five years ago, there opened up in my heart a special place for him. His mother asked me to bless him. He might have been reluctant like any seventeen-year-old, but she would not be refused, and she knew the need of it. In that moment it was as if I had an instinct for the Godly in him and, though our encounters over the years were brief, the bond between us remained. He was a child of my soul, and he was very kind to me.

His visit to me a few years ago was special in that we had days in each other’s company, and he loved Hastings. He even thought he might move here one day but that would not be. We would never have thought that he would be gone at the age of fifty-two.

I found myself saying that fifty-two is too young and that he suffered too much but what do I know of the deeper ways of God? Do I think that God was less concerned about him than his family or even me? Of course not.

And so, I have to come back to the truth that is written in God’s Word – the truth that Simon was first and foremost God’s child. “Think of the love that God has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children, and that is what we are.” A lavish love that sometimes, even often, remains hidden but like the sun behind clouds, it is always there. Perhaps such love can only be fully known in its absence and hiddenness.

It is this love that called out, “come to me you who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest.” Come to me. I will give you rest. In coming to the Lord from our burdened life – and we are all burdened to some degree - we discover that vision in which we are made perfect. What we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed. All we know is that we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is. Then we shall know just as fully as we are known. All shadows past.

This is what we pray for at the funeral, that all of this will come to fulfilment for him and every tear be wiped away.

The cemetery is in an astonishing location. On a hillside overlooking the Clyde and on this bright frosty morning it was magnificent. Its beauty is for the bereaved, for the deceased have no longer any need of such beauty but how consoling it must be to go there in solitude and gaze on the wonder of the place.

Simon is laid to rest with his Mum, his beautiful, generous, and self-giving Mum and there is a sense of completion for me in this. Good for me too to have the opportunity to honour her passing.

At the wake in the club, I feel part of this family in a way that I hadn’t felt before. I have of course been part of their lives for years but this time it felt new. And they all treat me with such kindness and love.

Before going back to the airport I take a walk along the banks of the Clyde where I have walked many many time over the years and for a moment, as if in a time warp, I think those whom I used to visit in the home place are still there, that I would be going back to them after the walk and I’m startled for a moment to think they have gone.

As I walk I’m thinking about salvation when I become distracted by a crying baby. Two mums are wheeling their babies one of whom wails in great distress and over the course of twenty minutes the crying becomes more and more hoarse while its mum continues chatting and laughing with her friend. Ignoring her child. The wailing cuts through me. It’s as if I know what the child is feeling, as if it’s happening to me.

And I wonder about the kind of mothering that leaves the child to cry until the crying stops of its own accord. And of course, thinking that motherhood is a reflection of God, I wonder is this how God is with us. Is there some wisdom in allowing us to cry to the nth degree? And is this how salvation is complete in us – when we become so exhausted that all that is left is to give up? To give up, surrender and not even expect anything? To become utterly nothing? For our prayer to become a nothingness that has no words or desires or expectancy. And just to be! And not even wait! Just be until salvation comes to us and lifts us up?

Maybe this state of surrender is where war is ripe for peace, wounds ripe for healing, despair ripe for hope, death ripe for life.

It is of course what Jesus experienced on behalf of us all - the cry that went unanswered, the giving up of His spirit, silence of the tomb and then...

That’s what the crying baby stirred in me and the child’s laughing, chatting mother. 

And I find myself praying like this:

Oh my Lord,
I feel so fake and false
Full of vanity and pride.

In Your Mercy, 

Your tender, loving Mercy

Take me to the silence
Of my soul

Where Truth is pure
Without pretence or performance

With no thought to please
And no interpretation necessary

Take me out of my self
And deeper into You

To that nothingness
In which You are

Everything
Amen!

And then creation speaks – in the distance I see two white shapes moving low over the waters, coming in my direction. Two magnificent white swans coming close, passing by and on to another horizon. Blessed be God. Forever!