Lilies for Gretchen

 Dear Gretchen,

How many years is it since we shared an interest in Kirkegaard? I was working two evenings a week in the library of the university close to where we live. Every now and again I would borrow books myself that jumped, not physically, off the shelves when I was doing my night's shelving. This was how I discovered Barbara Pym, and this was how I came face to face with a name I'd only ever seen quoted in devotional or theological books - Kirkegaard.

So the book that I borrowed at that stage was a biography, because I thought that I would understand his actual works better if I knew his story. I suppose, in retrospect, that was an avoidance tactic, but I certainly didn't expect to find myself still embroiled in avoidance most of ten years later! You however, with the genteel erudition that I adore in you, got straight down to the words themselves. Certainly a lot straighter than my circuitous meandering has been.

I know that we decided to read this one together, relatively recently, and I really did start off with great gusto. But as soon as I met the Poet my reading became slower and slower and that first attempt struggled to get even close to the end of the first section! So this is what I've decided:

Every Sunday (though it's technically Monday here now...) I'll tell you what I've read thus far.

This is the perfect book for Lockdowns, and right now we are into Lockdown: the Sequel in Northern Ireland. Kirkegaard promises that we will learn what we need to be human, and this will be something impossible to learn or be remembered in the throng. We need silence, obedience, and joy. All three of these have already been topics for consideration since March for me, as has the command not to worry about having what we need. So, the opening of the book has been very exciting, twice.

The Poet floored me. On my first reading I began to feel that Lockdown (or perhaps Menopause, or indeed both) had robbed me of all ability to read intelligent prose.This time I have been reading the book out loud to myself, deliberately imagining myself reading a story like a mother to a child. Taking the words slowly has helped, as has the implication to myself that this story is rich and worth following. 

And so I found myself finding myself in the Poet at exactly the same time as I found him deplorable. This self-pitying person who nonetheless took pleasure and attention from their self-pitying. This believer who believed for a glorious moment but not in any way sustainable enough for the belief to be allowed to make a change. This professed seeker who fooled the earnest, but found nothing.

I want very much to be like the child, but I want my wanting not to be the transitory wanting of the Poet. I want honestly to be like the child who wastes no time in doubt or disobedience, but who accepts what is presented to them, and can then move on having all other time "for play, for enjoyment, and the like". There are issues just now that are frightening to me, and I want my faith not to be the self-pitying, attention-seeking, short-lived faith of the Poet, but the trusting, simple faith of the child who accepts, moves on, and enjoys.

So, Gretchen, I've got as far as the urgent exhortation that I should believe this fully and act now. This is earnest. This acceptance of God's imperative to consider the lilies and the birds is earnest. This Gospel is earnest. Our "most irresistible invention does not cause it to smile". Lord, help my unbelief, and teach me to play joyfully and sustainably in your lily field.