SEEING THE GOOD IN UNFAMILIAR SPIRITUALITIES
by Gethin Abraham-Williams, Circle Books.
Reviewed by Murdoch MacKenzie
This Review was first published in the Iona Community e-bulletin 5/2012
The wind blows where it wills. You hear the sound of it but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. This is true of the spirituality movement and is certainly or uncertainly true of this book. At its core is a reflection on the life of the prophet Ezekiel. There are wheels within wheels. Now you see it, now you don’t. There is Celtic mysticism laced with the poetic genius of the author. Like Ezekiel’s prophecy it is a prophesying to the wind. Now and then there are glimpses of Welsh valleys and chapel-salted streets reminiscent of Dylan Thomas. Flowing throughout is the theme of Ezekiel’s two rivers, the Jordan and the Tigris, the Hebrews and the Babylonians.
Thus spirituality makes for the middle ground, the land in between the rivers, in a search for understanding of multi-culturalism and diversity and of a Go-between God who exists in the space between religion and atheism, between your faith and mine, between magic and mystery, between heaven and hell, and most fascinating of all between merciless and merciful. Rather like the island of Iona the land between the rivers is a thin place, thin as tissue paper. There is a ‘sacred presence in things’ which makes itself aware to those who know that they are loved and between the merciless and the merciful is the power of love. Love is the dry land between the rivers, between waters that can threaten to drown us.
Reaching the middle ground is a hallowing experience. The journey to the infinite sea is not unending. It is not true that we always travel never to arrive. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones feel the winds come from every quarter and come to life. Ezekiel’s two separate pieces of wood are brought together, Judah and Joseph, and yet even today there is a fault-line between the Jordan and the Tigris, between Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael. Thus this slender book has much to say to the contemporary conflicts in our world in order that ‘hearts of stone’ may be replaced as Ezekiel prayed, with ‘hearts of flesh’ whether in Syria or in Scotland. It also helps doctrinal purists, bigoted believers and extremists of all faiths or none, to let the dry land appear on which to kneel and rediscover the meaning of Brian Wren’s wonderful words:
We strain to glimpse your mercy-seat
and find you kneeling at our feet
And yet, as the author reminds us, it has been said that ‘the truth doesn’t lie in the via media, in the middle way, but in both extremes’. All over the world, not least in Wales and Scotland, there are minority ethnicities intent on safeguarding their cultures and traditions, their languages and beliefs. Their very survival depends on inclusivity and not in the battering ram of an over-confident dogma be it religious or secular. Nor is it good enough, as the author seems to suggest, and as Hindus believe, that the rivers may finally find their resolution as they sink together into the swell of the vast ocean beyond. Surely it must be found on the dry land between the rivers, before they reach the ocean, the dry land of a love which beyond all faith, and even beyond hope, is the one thing which lasts for ever and which alone can enable all of us to see the good in the unfamiliar and become part of the one human family.
Murdoch MacKenzie
by Gethin Abraham-Williams, Circle Books.
Reviewed by Murdoch MacKenzie
This Review was first published in the Iona Community e-bulletin 5/2012
The wind blows where it wills. You hear the sound of it but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. This is true of the spirituality movement and is certainly or uncertainly true of this book. At its core is a reflection on the life of the prophet Ezekiel. There are wheels within wheels. Now you see it, now you don’t. There is Celtic mysticism laced with the poetic genius of the author. Like Ezekiel’s prophecy it is a prophesying to the wind. Now and then there are glimpses of Welsh valleys and chapel-salted streets reminiscent of Dylan Thomas. Flowing throughout is the theme of Ezekiel’s two rivers, the Jordan and the Tigris, the Hebrews and the Babylonians.
Thus spirituality makes for the middle ground, the land in between the rivers, in a search for understanding of multi-culturalism and diversity and of a Go-between God who exists in the space between religion and atheism, between your faith and mine, between magic and mystery, between heaven and hell, and most fascinating of all between merciless and merciful. Rather like the island of Iona the land between the rivers is a thin place, thin as tissue paper. There is a ‘sacred presence in things’ which makes itself aware to those who know that they are loved and between the merciless and the merciful is the power of love. Love is the dry land between the rivers, between waters that can threaten to drown us.
Reaching the middle ground is a hallowing experience. The journey to the infinite sea is not unending. It is not true that we always travel never to arrive. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones feel the winds come from every quarter and come to life. Ezekiel’s two separate pieces of wood are brought together, Judah and Joseph, and yet even today there is a fault-line between the Jordan and the Tigris, between Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael. Thus this slender book has much to say to the contemporary conflicts in our world in order that ‘hearts of stone’ may be replaced as Ezekiel prayed, with ‘hearts of flesh’ whether in Syria or in Scotland. It also helps doctrinal purists, bigoted believers and extremists of all faiths or none, to let the dry land appear on which to kneel and rediscover the meaning of Brian Wren’s wonderful words:
We strain to glimpse your mercy-seat
and find you kneeling at our feet
And yet, as the author reminds us, it has been said that ‘the truth doesn’t lie in the via media, in the middle way, but in both extremes’. All over the world, not least in Wales and Scotland, there are minority ethnicities intent on safeguarding their cultures and traditions, their languages and beliefs. Their very survival depends on inclusivity and not in the battering ram of an over-confident dogma be it religious or secular. Nor is it good enough, as the author seems to suggest, and as Hindus believe, that the rivers may finally find their resolution as they sink together into the swell of the vast ocean beyond. Surely it must be found on the dry land between the rivers, before they reach the ocean, the dry land of a love which beyond all faith, and even beyond hope, is the one thing which lasts for ever and which alone can enable all of us to see the good in the unfamiliar and become part of the one human family.
Murdoch MacKenzie
