Bedspreads, Saints and Sinners

I had a friend many years ago who I used to tease about her matching bedspreads, curtains and pillowcases. She laughed along with me and then explained her childhood had been something altogether different. Her mother had died of breast cancer and the four girls were left with an alcoholic father. When he became drunk, he became violent and his favourite activity for my friend, as a young girl, was to make her run the full length of the room and bang her head on the far wall. If she didn’t do it hard enough, he became furious. If she cried, he became even angrier. It seemed a very cruel act towards a very small vulnerable child who was missing her mother. 

They slept on beds with coats no sheets no duvets and somehow it suddenly made sense that as a married woman, she wanted her own child to sleep in clean sheets that matched everything beautifully. I was shocked beyond belief that my remark could have triggered such deep hurtful memories of a childhood cursed with alcoholism. Seeing my expression, she hurried to explain that the thing that gave her hope during those dark days was a book entitled ‘The Lives of the Saints’. My friend said this was her daily reading material and it inspired her. She grew to know about wonderful lives, like Saint Francis of Assisi and his love for animals and people. She read and reread these stories and as she described their effect her face became full of joy. I suddenly saw how, even in the midst of misery and suffering, the lives of the saints had shed a light on a spiritual path that led out of the darkness. 

St Jerome (347 AD - 420 AD) was born in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina but found himself a student in Rome. While young he enjoyed sexual experimentation among the students of that city and yet felt afterwards incredible feelings of guilt. In order to make his conscience feel better, he would visit the dark catacombs. This would remind him of the perils of hell and seeing the gravestones of the martyrs and the apostles reminded him that he should choose a better path.  He wrote of this experience later, quoting Virgil, 

“On all sides round, horror spread wide; the very silence breathed a terror on my soul”.

However hard he endeavoured to become a member of the local Christian community he inevitably fell out with the leaders describing them as blind men leading other blind men into a pit as in the biblical parable. Such disunity was also apparent in his family where he had accused his sister of behaving abominably and this caused a rift with other family members. Another significant personal crisis in his own life emerged and he felt his reputation had been sullied.  No one knows what actually happened, but he had evidently done something so shocking and offensive and completely unforgivable in the eyes of the local community of nuns that they never replied to any of his letters begging forgiveness despite his admission of his wrongdoing and asking for their pardon.

Eventually seized with a desire for spiritual growth and penance he travelled to a desert and there lived with many other hermits on spiritual path in utmost poverty in holes and caves. One hermit was said to have lived for 30 years on a diet of barley bread and muddy water. The idea of all this torment was to subdue their bodies, break their will and eradicate every carnal desire. To that end, eating and drinking were kept to a minimum and they would even take steps to make sleep very difficult. 

Saint Jerome, during this time, wrote many letters to those that he had offended in the past and to beg for forgiveness. Unfortunately, anyone who did not forgive him, was written another letter viciously attacking them. Gradually he learnt that even among the hermits in the surrounding area he was unpopular. He wrote to the Pope explaining the situation. It is interesting that his main complaint was how argumentative everyone around him was! This period in the desert left him with a dislike of monks, hermits and spiritual people who he saw as often being filled with hypocrisy and arrogance. When he left the desert, he chose to live with a dear friend whose hospitality he depended on for an entire year.

During this time, he chose to write a biography of an early Saint, who had lived to the amazing age of 105, in which he strongly disagreed with that already well-written by his friend and host on the same topic. The prolonged visit inevitably ended with his friend falling out with him and requesting him to leave.  A pattern surely emerges of someone who could not get on with his own family, his own religious community, could not get on with those nuns, could not get on with his neighbouring hermits in the desert, and even couldn’t get on with a hospitable friend who had generously accommodated him for a year for free.  

Fortunately, St Jerome won funding from the pope to undertake translation work on the Bible at which he showed real talent.  As a result of this, St Jerome at last found himself fashionable and much sought after, particularly by elderly women of wealth seeking a spiritual path. Some wrote to him for advice and he encouraged them to take the course of rigorous chastity and self-mortification. St Jerome felt that women had dangerous desires and appetites that needed to be repressed and suppressed.  His basic reasoning was as follows, since eating the forbidden apple in Eden (largely Eve’s fault) caused Adam’s fall, then logically fasting must be the path to chastity and salvation for women. He argued this so successfully to one of the daughters of a particular widow the teenager proceeded to starve herself and died within four months.  At her funeral her mother fainted in distress at the loss.  A horrible letter exists from St Jerome to the mother berating the widow for making such a scene at the graveside. He did not even spare the biblical prophets, remarking that the quality of their rhetoric made his skin crawl. 

By now like me perhaps you are disliking this saint a little?  It is fairly common now to attack people alive and dead and to use all information available, real or made up as ammunition.  In St Jerome’s case, a very real character emerges that while missing on social skills had a dedication and devotion that left a lasting legacy. There can be no doubt that he was a prolific biblical scholar, who wrote wide-ranging commentaries on numerous books of the Bible and strengthened the quality of his translation by referencing both the original Hebrew and Greek texts. I suspect all of us have our flaws and strengths and too often we learn to distract ourselves from our own failings by focusing on the vices of others. Part of the beauty in examining the lives of the saints is that they not only painfully remind us of our own weaknesses, but also inspire a powerful urge to choose a better and more noble path forward.

Beatrice a hundred year old mystery

My grandmother died aged 25 when my father was only 14 months old. One of the few photos we have is her sitting with him, a baby on her lap. She looks so lovely, but it feels strangely heartbreaking knowing that in a matter of months, she would be dead. What caused her death or even any details of her death seems still shrouded in mystery. It was 1925 and attitudes to death were different in those times. The general approach then could be summarised as ‘least said soonest mended’!

A friend, even in the 1960s, said her mother had died when she was just 13 and her sister 11. They were sent to school the day of their mother’s funeral and no one ever mentioned her mother again. Such a reaction was fairly common in those earlier years of the 1920s, and to be fair, there were so many deaths from diseases and other causes that perhaps not talking about such losses was a practical way of coping. What is there to say about the death toll of World War I when 40 million died between the years 1914 and 1918? My grandfather fought in that war. The Spanish flu which followed from 1918 to 1919, killed another 50 million. In the face of such a scale of loss, possibly people opted to just accept death as an ever-present feature of their lives. 

My grandfather was born in 1898 and entered the army aged only 16. It is hard to imagine him going through World War I as a teenager and facing the brutal horror of those days including the battle of the Somme. During that time he was shot in the upper arm and once recovered was sent right back into battle. By the time World War I was over he was in his early 20s. He returned to Northern Ireland fell in love with Beatrice Magee and married in 1923, aged 25. They had a baby boy but after just two years, his young wife suddenly died.

Because her death was seldom discussed my father knew little of his mother’s death. He was fortunate that his mother was one of many siblings and during his childhood, he had many loving aunts lavish attention on him. But that void where a mother should have been was ever-present. He had questions that were never answered. One gossipy villager whispered that she had been sent to an asylum and died there. In the absence of real knowledge, toxic gossip often takes its place. Also in today's world, not knowing your family’s health details leaves you uninformed about important things like any inherited diseases there may be. When a relative examined one side of our family tree, he was horrified at the number of male relatives who had died quite young from heart disease.

Last week, my brother found an old tray in the attic of our garage and brought it down for us to see.  It had been there for decades but we read its inscription as we examined it.  Given to Beatrice Magee on the occasion of her marriage in 1923.  My brother took it home and cleaned, polished and fixed the tray and my Mum placed it in the living room behind the photograph of Beatrice holding her baby.  It triggered renewed memories of this lady that none of us had ever met.  Several family members had failed to find Beatrice’s death certificate while carrying out their research and there seemed to be a mystery in its absence.  

This week I applied online and bought a copy of her death certificate using a different birth date than the one commonly used.  This morning the death certificate arrived and I felt that at last the mystery of almost a century would be solved.  However, the death certificate was written in such poor handwriting I could not make out the cause of death!  In frustration, I sent it to relatives, medical and otherwise hoping they could help decipher the words.  It took a day but the answer eventually came, she suffered from “mitral regurgitation 2 years cardiac failure certified”.  So there in back and white at last was the answer.  

In examining the names on her grave there are signs of the scale of loss of life in those days.  Of her 10 siblings a five-year-old Violet died of scarlet fever in 1914 (the scarlet fever epidemic would peak in 1914).  The Spanish flu in 1919 took two of her brothers 24-year-old William and 19-year-old Charles.  They had to carry out the coffin of one brother through the family front door in November and then the second brother in December.  The scale of such loss was repeated through homes throughout this country.  It hurts the heart to think of it all.  There are no words.  How that generation weathered so much in such a short time should remind us all of the preciousness of life that we too often take for granted.  War and disease rip families apart. Each loss leaves a void that lingers in the hearts of all those who loved them.  

PS The Spanish Flu originated in the US on March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley a military camp in Kansas.  When those soldiers went to fight in World War 1 they took the disease to Europe and the rest of the world. It feels odd that the war my grandfather fought resulted in a disease that killed his wife's two brothers. However, pestilence and warfare were often fellow bedfellows over the millennium and no doubt recent wars will continue to contribute to the re-emergence of infectious diseases.  Already diseases such as cholera, polio, measles, tuberculosis and malaria are rising in the conflict areas of Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen. The sad truth is that adequate prevention and treatment of communicable diseases are often impossible in times of conflict. In fact, war itself provides perfect vectors for disease such as refuge camps, mass movements of populations, poor sanitation, and a lack of access to either proper medical assistance, water or a healthy diet.

Practising Calligraphy and seeking illumination

The Báb, who was born almost 200 years ago in Iran, rose stellar-like with brilliance above the darkness of a corrupt world. His followers exhibited a fearless detachment from materialistic pursuits.  The address of the Báb (part of which is shown below) instructed his followers to set forth and proclaim a new revelation from God,  resonate with that eternal call to walk a spiritual path.

Despite atrocious persecution the mild-mannered Báb exhibited such warm loving gentleness that more and more fell under his spell.  Even his hardened prison guards could not but recognise his spiritual greatness and warm to his radiance. In his 20’s this young man proclaimed words which resonate still across the globe.

Despite imprisonment in more and more remote prisons, the Báb penned words of such simplicity and beauty they illuminate the heart to this day. Perhaps, it is only when sacrificing and suffering are the edges of the path we walk does the inner truth of nobility emerge. Certainly, the Báb’s short but moving cry out to God, "O God, my God, my Beloved, my heart's Desire" reminds us all that love for God that should ever animate our words and deeds.

In the face of imprisonment and torture, he did not withhold his call to urge others on this spiritual quest unlike any other.  In this prayer of the Báb, he speaks of how God is the remover of every anguish and the dispeller of every affliction and that only God can banish every sorrow.

Despite the brutality of his death, the vitality of this young man and his words fuelled the flames of a new world order.   This prayer of the Báb, below, calls for protection in times of tests and ends with the observation that nothing can withstand or thwart God's Will or purpose.

The Baha'i Faith has risen phoenix-like from the ashes of many thousands of his followers,  put to death, who would not nor could not recant the truth they knew he embodied.  Their pain and that of those who still to this day face death, imprisonment, exile, lack of education or jobs, or face discrimination is remembered in this piece.

On no subject was the Báb more vehement than on the coming of one even greater than he, “Him Whom God shall make Manifest”. Much of his writings urged his followers not to fail, like past generations, to recognise the Promised One. When Bahá'u'lláh declared his station on April 21, 1863 in a garden outside Baghdad, before being again exiled and imprisoned for much of his life, the Báb’s promise for humanity’s rejuvenation was fulfilled.

As this period marks the Bicentennial celebrations of the birth of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh it felt like the perfect time to take their powerful exhortations and try and use calligraphy to proclaim their eternal call to turn to God, obey His laws and to treat others with love and consideration. To recognise the essential oneness of humanity and its need for divine illumination in order to find its way in a dark, confused and divided world.  These words of Bahá’u’lláh remind us we are all broken-winged birds in need of a guiding light to bring illumination.

Often when we think of a spiritual path, great pilgrimages come to mind. Long distances travelled to spots blessed by the spiritual mirrors that effectively reflect the glory of God. The journey is meant to be both a physical and spiritual odyssey. Malta lay on the ancient pilgrim route to Jerusalem and much of its fortifications were to provide protection and shelter for pilgrims on the danger-ridden passage in homage to Christ. This prayer by Baha'ullah reminds us that, wherever we live from cave to mountain or from land to sea, praise of God has ever been the state that should be saught. 

Our journey in life both in place and time needs to be built on the recognition that we are all pilgrims on the path of nearness to God. Our words and deeds merely reflect that progress.

On the gravestone of my father-in-law, in Cornwall, is inscribed the quote below from Bahá’u’lláh. My father-in-law's name was Ridvan, and during these days of the Ridvan Celebrations, he comes easy to the mind.  A gentle loving soul who made unity his watchword.  Unity of family, of village, of country, of nation,  of religion and of humanity.  

The Baha'i Writings constantly reminds one of the need for spiritual progress and that the purer the heart the closer to God we become and as a result of this the greater the illumination revealed to us.  A Russian friend sent me this lovely arrangement of dried flowers whose simplicity and beauty is an echo of the words within.

Over thirty-five years ago at my wedding, a dear friend of mine, the doctor at the local hospice in Ireland read these writings (below), of Bahá’u’lláh during the service.  Afterwards, one of my relatives, a huge farmer of few words, came up and commented, "That's a very high standard -  generous, trustworthy, a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge... and be humble!"

It's important to realise what real wealth has always been about.  It has never been about possessions or riches of this life but always about attainment to the next world where the only things that will matter in your life here will be the steps that take you closer to God.

It is said that every least pebble can resound with praise of God and so this next piece tries to capture that with stones and flowers interspersed with Baha'i writings.

If there is one principle that the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh stressed more than any other it is that of unity.  That it is a reality not an aspirational goal.  The world is united. It faces challenges and difficulties that can only be addressed if this unity is accepted and implemented.  "..each and every thing manifesteth the sign of His Unity, testifieth to the reality of Him Who is the Eternal Truth, proclaimeth His sovereignty, His oneness, and His power."