To my friends (part 2)

In Elgar's dramatic oratorio The Dream of Gerontius there's a magnificent setting of what we know as the hymn "Praise to the Holiest". In the middle there's a section where the phrase, "O generous love", is echoed by the different voices in counterpoint.

I've been haunted by that phrase since writing the blog post To my friends , because it seems to me that in the two words, generous love, there lies the key to understanding what makes for good love. Although I am writing from within the Christian tradition, I hope that, whether you are of one faith or of none, you'll read through to my conclusion, which if it's right applies universally!

       

"O generous love! that He who smote

 In man for man the foe,

 The double agony in man

 For man should undergo;

 And in the garden secretly,

 And on the cross on high,

 Should teach His brethren and inspire

 To suffer and to die."

John Henry Newman’s poem in which generous love appears is clearly speaking about the self-sacrificial love (agapé) of the cross. "God is crucified - my Friend died - in some way, for me" (Justin Welby in his preface to Graham Tomlin's Looking through the Cross). However it could as well be a test for all other kinds of love, including sexual love (eros). In the often misinterpreted discussion of marital relations, husbands are told, "Love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5.25).                              

Self-giving is the essence of every love. "Love one another as I have loved you." "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his love for his friends." "Love does not insist on its own way."

The Song of Solomon is the Bible's great love poem. It is a passionate dialogue in which the two lovers are totally absorbed in the other. "My beloved is mine, and I am his". "Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits." "Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me". "My dove, my perfect one, is the only one for me". The lovers seek only each other's good and pleasure. They are utterly uninterested in themselves, only their beloved. It's a high ideal of love. It's a world away from the contemporary cultivation of self-gratification, which is an inversion of love. That is, of course, self-love. 

No one is entirely free of self-love, especially in the realm of sexual relationship. It makes no difference; whether heterosexual or homosexual, there is a tendency to seek satisfaction for oneself. I'm reminded of James' vivid analysis of the causes of conflict and violence ("You desire and do not have, so you murder"). Rape is a perverted form of self-gratification which has no regard for the other. It is the extreme negation of love in what was intended as the ultimate expression of love.  Instead of being good, it is evil. Instead of being a creative act, it is a destructive one.

Creation in a sexual act is not confined to procreation. It is also the affirmation of the other as a person, imago Dei, in the image of God. It acknowledges their otherness. It asserts their beauty. As it used to say in the Marriage Service, it is an act of worship ("With my body I thee worship").

The test for everyone in a sexual relationship is, "Is your love generous?" In other words, at heart is it self-giving, not self-seeking? Is your desire not your own satisfaction, but the pleasure and satisfaction of the other? Do you surrender to your partner's wish, or do you insist on your own way?

And the ultimate test is, are you committed enough to give your life for the one you love? Will you stick with them whatever happens and whatever it costs until death separates you?

No one is entirely free of self-love. No one is perfect. However it seems to me that the nature of the love at the heart of our relationships, its generosity, is more important than the nature of our sexual orientation. Generous love is not a temporary madness; it is the greatest of divine gifts.

Rare generosity

Our week began with two contrasting but hugely moving events. The first was the funeral of a fifteen-year old girl with life-limiting disabilities (which I've already written about here "Thank you, Beth"). To one way of looking, this girl had no quality of life herself and impoverished her family's lifestyle. However I would disagree - and if the family were to be believed so would they, vehemently and utterly. Their testimony was simply how much good their daughter had brought into their lives. Not that they minimised the difficulties and heartache, but one simply has to know them to recognise how much love and joy (of a depth and quality few of us ever experience) she brought to them and to others - of whom I was fortunate enough to be one.

I first met her and her parents three summers ago when we were at a churches' convention and they were across the gangway from us. The attentiveness of her parents to her life-sustaining needs was constant and unconditional. It was clearly their way of life - and it lasted up to and beyond her premature death. Her send-off was no ordinary funeral. It plumbed the depths of grief and soared on heights of hope, all enveloped with extraordinary love. I have absolutely no doubt that if you asked the family whether they'd rather not have had the past fifteen years they would be astonished at the very question.

Then on Tuesday we visited an old friend who'd lived in the next village to us and in whose farmhouse I always received a warm welcome. She is now in a care home for dementia sufferers. We think she recognised us, but it wasn't easy to be certain. What was clear is that she was the same person we always knew, with the same sweet and cheerful nature, the same lady who used to sing a capella after communion in the small country church where she worshipped month by month. We were particularly glad to have spent an hour with her in that eccentric lounge, with disorientated women and men, with all their fluctuating emotions. It's hard to pin down why it wasn't depressing, but it wasn't. I dare say it might feel that way after a while. In fact it was rather the reverse. I think an important factor was the care of the staff. They were an international group, from at least three continents I'd guess. But they were all patient and quiet. It was impressive. We commented to one of them as we were leaving how patient they seemed and she said, "You have to be to work here."

I'm glad neither our young friend nor our old friend was thrown on the scrap-heap, but both have been valued and cared for, whatever the cost. Their lives were and are infinitely precious, as are all lives, however "useless". May we never set foot on the road which denies that value.

Simone Weil

I was listening to Melvyn Bragg's admirable programme In Our Time this morning and learned about the remarkable Simone Weil, about whom I was woefully ignorant. Born in France, she died in England in 1943 aged 34, and is buried in Ashford. Her understanding of pain was unusually vivid. One thing she said has really struck me, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” That, it seems to me, is what both my friends received. One could use other cognate words, such as attentiveness and attending to, or being totally aware of, or focusing on. It's the sort of care that gives itself to the other at the expense of the self - that is "the rarest and purest form of generosity". And I'm grateful to have seen it in the unpromising milieu of a dementia care home and particularly in one family's devotion to their helpless dependent child. I have had a privileged couple of days.

Little things...

Before I vent my spleen on Michael Gove (if I ever get round to it) or Ed (aka Cain) Miliband, let me dwell on more cheerful things. I can't say it does much good to get too upset about politicians, as the most ambitious of them seem very similar to each other. So instead I'll post about some of the jollier aspects of my week - trivial perhaps, but actually such things are the stuff of life.

For example, Lynne gave Jane a bird-feeder earlier this year and she stuck it on the kitchen window. "That'll never work," I told her. "They'll never come that near the house, especially to the kitchen window with you and the dog in there." How wrong I was! As I sat in my chair in the conservatory, I had a grandstand view of a sparrow mother feeding her rather demanding, rather obese fledgling brood. My own Springwatch! They've grown and flown away now - but they weren't bad substitutes for chickens (to watch, not eat, I hasten to add).

Then there was planning for an MNDA Bake History coffee morning we thought we'd hold at home a week today. I have a Facebook friend in Kelso whose husband has a similar degenerative disease. Susan saw my entry about it. Clearly she can't come but she did offer to send a few "sock monkeys" for selling or raffling. I was intrigued. They arrived yesterday. I must say they are rather wonderful works of craftsmanship. The sewing is incredibly neat to the point of being invisible. They are quite appealing. Not surprisingly demand looks set to exceed supply. The best thing about them, though, is Susan's generosity in donating and sending them. Another bright thing to enjoy.

 Talking of bright things, life isn't all light. It's light and dark. Yet I was thinking as I looked out at my usual breakfast view, there's beauty in the darkness as well. Without the dark, of course, there'd be no light. But I love the mysterious shadow beneath the dark crimson leaves of the Cotinus, the "Smoke Tree". It's like a warm cave framed by the bright green leaves of the apple and hazel. Without it my view would be much duller. And of course the view is constantly changing in different seasons and conditions. 

For me it is sad that there are folk like Tony Nicklinson who has chosen not to enjoy the small joys of his dreadfully limited life but rather to campaign for euthanasia both for himself and also for others. No one would wish Locked-in syndrome on anyone, but it need not be the death sentence he takes it to be, if people like Jean-Dominique Bauby (author of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and Michelle Wheatley, Bram Harrison and Martin Pistorius are to be believed (Bram Harrison's story). 

June is the MND Association's Month of Optimism. That's not a month of whistling in the dark. No one's pretending ALS/MND is any fun, though some of my MND friends have, or had, great senses of humour. However it is a month where we focus on hope - the hope to be found in the developments of research, the hope we find in being cared about and the hope to be found in the small joys of life, which somehow seem to show up all the more brightly because of the mysterious darkness against which they're set.