Devotions

 

Autumn, the season of cool climate and hibernation, brings the passion of summer and the long infatuation for something unattainable to a standstill. There is a line in Thomas Hardy’s novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes: “Rapture is often cooled by contact with its cause” and that is what I feel in these first autumn days. Caught between action and inaction, suspense and expectancy, in the state of in-between, one recites the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke like a daily devotion.

 

“A life, perhaps, was made too little of, who knows?

a happiness in hand let slip; yet despite this,

for each loss there appeared in its place

this spun-out thing, not lighter than life,

and yet perfect, and so beautiful that all our so-be-its

are no longer premature, smiled at, and held in abeyance.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, The Lace II, Capri, ca. 1907  ~

 

The sun alternates flashes of light and shadow. It takes us on a journey of the unexpected. The miracles of colours – red, orange and gold – are melting away on a fine autumn morning. A light mist hovers above the sea. And yet, the outline where the sea meets the land looks much clearer and sharper. Everything seems to be stripping away to reveal its contour and bare bone. I became an observer of these outlines like a palmist who reads the lines to foretell our destiny.

 

On a nice sunny day, it is still possible to sit outside with a cup of tea, a book and home baked petite Madeleine. It is a perfect time to listen to my favourite Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and The Song of the Earth. They bring that inner peace which only music can give. 

I do not recall the exact name of someone who once said that the difference between Mahler and Schubert is that Mahler’s melodies are very simple, but the poems are very profound. Whereas Schubert’s musical form is more complex and the poems he uses are rather lightweight.   

“I live alone in my heaven,/in my devotion, in my song.”

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (“I am lost to the world” - one of Mahler’s songs after Ruckert - sung by my favourite singer, Wolfgang Holzmair).

 

A charming card from a dear friend with beautiful words from the song (based on Eduard Morike’s poem, September Morning) by the composer, Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) 

The Philokalia (Ancient Greek: φιλοκαλία, 'love of the beautiful')

 

I always love visiting the local art fairs this time of the year. The artists had been working hard during the spring and the summer for their fairs that take place at the beginning of autumn every year. The local art fair gives us a chance to enjoy looking at the fruits of their labour. 

There is truly nowhere better to lose oneself than an art fair, and to make unexpected discoveries. Out of all the stalls that I visited and all the artworks that I looked at; I was particularly drawn to a painting at the gallery that was representing artists from Ukraine.

 

The painting is called “In a Monastery Garden” by an artist who lives in Ukraine. I could not take my eyes off from it. The colours are muted, and the paint is thickly applied. It is an atmospheric painting, evocative of silent melancholy and serenity. It reminded me of Camille Pissarro’s misty landscapes from Eragny.

There are three monks walking in the garden. Looking at the colour of their habit, they might be eastern orthodox Christian monks. The bare tree, indicating the wintertime, on the left and the monk in the centre, are the visual pivots for the whole painting. The rest is much less detailed and minimally suggested. The attention is directed towards the internal, which means the viewer is encouraged to immerse in the painting and experiences the landscape from the inside. The silvery winter light is reflecting off the white building, which might be a monastery, in the background. I think that the painting is about contemplation in the garden of solitude. The monastic life, in essence, is being in the world without being of the world.

I spoke to the gallerist who is from Ukraine, and he moved to Scotland two months ago. He told me that when the war broke out, this is one of the paintings that he brought with him as a reminder of home that he left behind. He would be happy to sell it to me if I would like to have this painting.

 

It put me in a moral dilemma as I did not have the heart to take this painting away from the rightful owner. But I love the painting. It spoke to me as soon as I set my eyes on it. Perhaps, it contains the essence of what the ancient Greek spiritual writers called: Hesychia – which means “stillness, silence, peace and repose” that attracted me. 

Whatever it was, I knew that I had been confronted by a work of art but not with aggression, I hasten to add, but with the strength of gentleness of the artist who painted it. And on my way back home, like the Little Prince of St Exupery, I was reminded that: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” After all, it is not just what we see but how we see it. 

 

I did not buy this painting during my first visit. I came back home, and I could not stop thinking about the painting. So, I went back the following day and spoke to the gallerist. He was very charming, and he would rather like me to have it. When we were chatting, we had a brotherly connection. He wanted me to have it and let me enjoy it. 

He was delighted that I came back. I can tell that it was hard for him to part with this painting. But he was ready to pass it on and reap the benefits for something important. It makes easier for him to focus on the future, he said. While he is here, he wants to serve his country by supporting art and culture of Ukraine. I realise that it is this devotion which overcomes all obstacles. 

So, in the end, I decided to buy this painting from him. Every time I look at this painting, I will be a witness to an act of faith. I will think about people of Ukraine who are giving their lives for a common cause.

 

 “We must find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.” (Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out)

The Returning Prodigal

 

A few weeks ago, Gordon and I went to visit the Benedictine monastery near Elgin in Moray. It is about 2-hour car journey away from home. 

We set off early from home in the morning to go to Pluscarden Abbey. We stopped at Morgan McVeigh's restaurant for a brunch. 

Pluscarden Abbey is the only medieval monastery in Britain, still inhabited by monks and being used for its original purpose. Founded in 1230 by Alexander II, the Abbey lies in a sheltered, south-facing glen against a background of forested hillside and beautiful countryside. 

 

I do not know when it is most beautiful up here in Moray – spring, summer or autumn when the smells of fir needles, resin and just cut hayfields that seem so utterly unlike any other smells I ever had before, and the delicate mists drifting mid-air along the folded mountains, one behind the other, make you feel as if you were floating in a world of timeless detachment. 

Is it possible, so I kept asking myself, that I have stumbled into Paradise while still alive?

During the pandemic, Gregorian chants from the virtual live stream daily worship at Pluscarden gave me a great deal of consolation. Now it is my turn to go back to Pluscarden and say thank you to the monks in person for their prayers.  

 

From the moment of our arrival at the car park, I knew that I was entering into the silent, immobile, solitary world that is simultaneously uplifting and isolating. Here, one is wholly alone. 

Silence is deeply felt here. It seems to take away the wounds that each of us carries so that all is left is a state of the most exquisite thankfulness, tenderness and a kind of homecoming feeling, expressed in Rembrandt’s painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son (ca. 1661-9).  

 

What is the purpose of art if it is not, what Northrop Frye (1912-1991) called, “transmission of shaped illumination from one intelligence to another…”?

Image credit: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Return of the Prodigal Son, c. 1661–1669. Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.

 

Homecoming is the word used by Henri Nouwen in his fiercely confessional masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, which he dedicated to his father. It was a life-altering experience to read this book. 

I thought about my own father while reading this book many years ago. He and I had a challenging relationship ever since I was young. He is a chasm in infinite space that is impossible for me to reach. Nouwen, who also had a difficult relationship with his own father, read Rembrandt’s painting from spiritual and psychological perspective instead of art historical perspective. 

Nouwen shows us that it is not enough to identify ourselves only with the prodigal son and the elder son in the painting; our journey is not complete without seeing the Father in ourselves. Nouwen’s idea of “becoming the father” was a turning point for me when I first read his book. It was his profound insight that he has to be the father to himself and accept himself first before he can be the father to anyone else and it struck a chord with me.  

Nouwen wrote: “As long as the Father evokes fear, he remains an outsider and cannot dwell within me. But Rembrandt, who showed me the Father in utmost vulnerability, made me come to the awareness that my final vocation is indeed to become like the Father and to live out his divine compassion in my daily life.”

As I walked into the monastery’s gate, I thought about Nouwen’s interpretations of Rembrandt’s painting and the words that came to my ears were: “I’m so glad you’re back.” They are the words of the father who decides to let bygones be bygones and welcomes the returning prodigal.

 

There were no other visitors and retreatants on that day except the two of us. It was incredibly beautiful and peaceful to witness wide sun-flooded spaces and the mountains behind which appear to shield one away from the outside world, and it is truly a place of refuge, which Joris-Karl Huysmans referred to as: ‘refuge from the incessant deluge of human stupidity’.

 

Gordon sat outside on the bench, under the tree, and he fell asleep. I saw a young monk picking golden, delicious looking apples, the forbidden fruits from the Garden of Eden, on the hillside in the distance. But he is not an ordinary son of Adam. He can sing his Gregorian chant like an angel that delights hearts and ears of the listeners.

 

A life of prayers, devotions and service is visibly marked in everything they do here. We do not necessarily need to be religious or confirmed in any organised religion, in particular, to have the humility to acknowledge that level of dedication that is put into practice (they pray eight times a day) every single day of their lives. I seem to be seeing it now for the first time, with new eyes.

 

In a world where even the closest human relationships all too often seem to have become more or less disposable, maintaining an unwavering commitment to God, whose presence is harder for most of us to grasp, must require extraordinary effort. After all, a wise person once wrote: “Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying.”      

 

These people, holding in

past agonies, have learned

to build their own happiness

little by little. […]

No one can laugh like them.

They know they’ve lived on.

And now listen to me well

hear what I say:

they are the only people

who know the path to Paradise.

 

~ Maria Eugenia Bravo Calderara, The People of Orpheus ~

 

I bought handmade cards which have a Latin phrase: “In loco isto dabo pacem” (translates in English: “In this place I shall give peace”). When I came out of the shop, I spoke to a monk who was on his way to Vesper, and I was able to thank him quickly in person without explaining how much the live stream service had helped me during the pandemic. 

I regretted afterwards for adhering to the rule of increment when I should have fully confessed. Far from being unaware of what is going on in the world, I found his knowledge wide-ranging, and he was benevolent, erudite and kind.

 

I was reminded by a passage that Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote in his book, Time to keep silence (1957), when he went to stay in a retreat at The Abbey of St Wandrille de Fontanelle: 

“I found no trace of the Dark Ages here, no hint of necropolitan gloom or bigotry, still less of the ghastly breeziness that is such an embarrassing characteristic of many English clerics. There was no doubt of the respect in which they held the cause to which their lives were devoted; but their company was like that of any civilised well-educated Frenchman, with all the balance, erudition and wit that one expected, the only difference being a gentleness, a lack of haste, and a calmness which is common to the whole community.”

 

Gordon was still asleep on the bench and even the prayer bells did not disturb him the slightest. So, I went to the church alone and sat on the pew and there was a sense of calm expectation while I waited for the service to begin. 

I was leaving behind me a state of despair and agitation. Slowly, the procession of the monks began, and they arrived and kneeled in front of the altar with such sober dignity and piety that for a moment, I was almost ready to believe in “the reality of the Unseen”. 

 

Vesper (from Latin, the Evening Star. It is also the sixth of the seven canonical hours, or the service for it, occurring in the late afternoon or the evening.) is the loveliest and most soothing hour of the prayer. 

It is a way of rejoicing and praising God once more by bringing the day to a closure as the sun starts to set. The monks started to chant and pray the psalms, and its melody was hypnotic and compelling at the same time. 

The notes from the prayer travelled in a circular motion from the choir to the altar with exquisite echoes, saturating the medieval walls with sacred words and returning continuously back to its creators.     

 

In the middle of the prayer, a pool of light came down from the rosette stained-glass window. It was dazzling, bright and unclouded luminosity like a search light used on the lifeboats to find a stranded traveller across the sea. 

So, I turned my face to the light and said: “I’m so glad to be back”.