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From
the
Rector
You may be familiar with the hymn “Dear Lord and
Father of Mankind”, with its lovely, lilting tune –
but what you may not know is that it’s taken from
a longer poem by the American poet John
Greenleaf Whittier. The first half of “The Brewing
of Soma” is in stark contrast with the later, betterknown
verses. It evokes the powerful image of a
group of Vedic priests taking part in a primeval ritual.
Gathered around a blazing fire and smoking
cauldron, they concoct and knock back a potent
hallucinogenic drink, which is extracted from plant
stalks. As the potion takes hold they become rejuvenated
and revived until they’re in a state of
“drunken joy”, wildly praising the gods, believing
they’re experiencing divinity.
As a Quaker, Whittier believed in simple worship,
and wrote his poem to show how drinking soma
produced “fever of the blood and brain”, rather
than a real experience of God. His point was that
some Christians had become intoxicated by a
heady mix of euphoria and rapture in worship, and
that “music, incense, vigils drear, and trance”, created
a false sense of divinity, as soma did for the
priests.
It’s ironic that Whittier’s poem is nowadays often
sung in hymn form at the kinds of services he
might not entirely approve of. But whether we go
for reflection, ritual or rapture, what really matters
is that our worship enables us to speak and listen
to God. Because however, wherever and whenever
we worship, and even if we don’t worship at all, our
fundamental human yearning is to be in communication
with God.
So how on earth, in the hurly-burly of daily life, do
we find the space and the time? Well, the first step
is to accept that God speaks to us all the time. The
second step is to soften our souls so we’re receptive.
And that’s the tricky part, because in the
growing-up process we become hardened. As children
we race headlong into adventure, only to suffer
scraped knees. As teenagers, we rush headstrong
into romance, only to suffer broken hearts.
So through life we become more cautious, and in
the process most of us lose the adventurer and
romantic within us – but it takes elements of both
to listen to the voice of God.
– that tree was dangerous to climb, and that
teenage romance was downright foolish. So how to
reverse the hardening process without getting carried
away by every crazy delusion or wild hallucination?
For myself the answer is to make time for
worship and devotion. That doesn’t mean we have
to make the church our home, or even that we necessarily
have to give up more time. But it does
mean that, when we’re praying, we’re totally
focused on prayer, and when we’re worshipping,
that’s all we’re doing.
Nobody can tell anybody what God’s voice sounds
like, or how God speaks to people. But the last
verse of Whittier’s poem, based on that extraordinary
passage in 1 Kings 19:11-13, where Elijah is
searching for God, is a wonderful image.
David Howell
Rector
The Parish of Greater Whitbourne
Readings for February
6 Feb – Epiphany 5
Isaiah 58:1-9. Psalm 112: 1-9.
1 Corinthians 2: 1-12.
13 Feb – Epiphany 6
Deuteronomy 30: 15-end.
Psalm 119: 1-8.
1Corinthians 3: 1-9
20 Feb – 3rd before Lent
Leviticus 19: 1-2, 9-18.
Psalm 119: 33-40.1
Corinthians 3: 10-11, 16-end.
27 Feb – 2nd before Lent
Genesis 1: 1-2.3. Psalm 136.
Romans 8:18-25.
Of course we learn from our mistakes for a reason