Notes from above the Atlantic
By Anne Perry
As so often, this is not written
from home, but on a plane 35,000 feet above the Atlantic,
on my way from Dublin to New York. I shall be there a day
and a half, to meet with my publishers. I think my body
might well be back home quite a while before my brain catches
up with it. Therefore I will try to make some sense now.
I had a lovely Christmas Day
with family and friends, and saw the New Year in with my
friend Meg, next door. We went out two days after Christmas,
for a party and a visit to the theatre, but other than that
I have had a couple of weeks of extra hard, concentrated
work, planning a new big project to begin in about a year’s
time. Everybody else has the two weeks off, so I have a
good deal of uninterrupted time to think deeply and put
my mind to it without any distractions.
It is wonderful to have such
an opportunity, particularly at the turn of the year, when
deep thought is appropriate and taking stock of which way
life is going, and adjustments that might have to be made.
One particular blessing during
this time was being asked to be the only speaker on New
Year’s Day, just for ten minutes. And I found I could say
all I wanted in that time, as when you believe something
passionately, you so often can. Springing from my thought
on my future project, and study of other churches of the
Christian faith over the years, both pre-reformation and
post reformation, and including the Greek Orthodox church,
I was struck by people’s views of heaven, and of different
commandments for life on earth. I asked the question —
exactly what does God wish us to do in the highest kingdom
of glory in the life to come?
According to the vision of
Brigham Young, and to my own conviction that it is not only
the most sublimely beautiful but the morally best and logically
most sensible, we are to learn and to grow for ever. We
are to learn the nature of worlds, the governing of them,
the nurturing of them, into eternity. I could easily spend
an entire letter just elaborating on that, but far better
I should say simply that this is what I believe, and more
important, it is what Brigham Young saw.
And if this is the truth, then
surely what we need to do here is prepare ourselves for
this marvelous time?
My talk began by speaking of
parenthood, and how intensely any good person, and even
many less good, love their children. Millions in the human
world, and almost all in the animal, will die to protect
their young, if need be. If we, with all our weaknesses
and imperfections, will do that, how much more must our
Heavenly Father love us? Does not every good human parent
wish their children to learn how to achieve, to understand,
to act for themselves because they have grasped the purpose
of things, and found it beautiful?
Think of a man with a wonderful
family business. He raises his sons and daughters to inherit
it, run it, and love all its richness in time, but of course
only when they have mastered the necessary skills. If they
did not master them, then they would drive the business
into the ground and all the rest of the employees will lose
their jobs.
So he teaches them all things
from the beginning: how to make the tea (or whatever),
run errands, or sweep the floor. Next he teaches them packing
and postage, loading and unloading, where to order supplies,
how to keep a check on them so there is always sufficient.
He will have to instruct them how to hire, and if necessary,
to fire, how to organize the payroll, insurances for liability,
vehicles, etc. Finally they will come to the point where
they can design the product, oversee creation and manufacture,
think of new ideas — sell to customers, bargain over prices,
and so on.
Well, we are all in line to
inherit a family business if we are fit for it. Our Father’s
business is the creation and nurturing of worlds — nothing
less. Is that not the most splendid business there could
be? It is the work of Gods and angels, the purpose and
joy of the universe. It is infinitely precious, and cannot
be put into the hands of those who will do it with less
than all the passion, faith, honour, courage, skill and
above all love that there can be.
We are apprenticed now. What
are we learning? To obey is better than to disobey, but
obedience without understanding has no life in it.
If you tell your four-year-old,
“Please close the door,” you add, “because there is a draught
and we will get cold.” After a few times, you do not need
to explain. They will have understood, and will do it before
you need to ask.
In summer — “Please open the
door; it is stuffy in here, and too warm.” And so on.
We are delighted when they do something without being asked,
but because they have seen the need, understood what is
required, and wished to do it. So it should be with us.
We are the heirs of our Heavenly Father, not his junior
employees who will only ever do as they are ordered. We
are trying to become like Him, and no one has to tell Him
what to do.
We are the most blessed of
all people, because we have been told of the great eternity,
which lies ahead of us, and what we may become in it, if
we want it enough. It is not arrogance to aspire to it;
if it were we would not have been shown it, and commanded
to seek it. To work and dream and strive toward it is the
best gratitude and praise we could offer.
What kind of vision is it to
think of spending eternity floating around in a long white
dress playing a harp? I’d be bored witless in a day or
two. The praise God wants of us is not to keep on repeating
that He is wonderful — for 30,000,000 years! The form of
praise He wants is wiser, deeper and infinitely better,
immeasurably and without end. He wants us to strive with
all our strength, all our time, all our desire, to become
like Him!
“I must be about my Father’s
work!” The words of Christ. “My Father and your Father.”
His words again. “Our Father which art in heaven.” We
may inherit all He has, if we want it enough to seek it
with all our hearts.
Is that issue not sublime,
compared with the relatively meaningless eternity of “rest,”
doing nothing, learning nothing, creating nothing?
What do we know of God — actually
know? That He created all of this world and other worlds
like it, and everything that is in them, and that above
all, He loves it all, and everyone, regardless of whether
He can like or approve of us. His love never fails.
Work and love. Creating and
nurturing. That we know for certain. So is that not what
we should come to practise, to learn, and eventually to
inherit?
What better can we do here
than try to begin that task, at our own level? Little by
little to understand the world, and person by person, creature
by creature, to love it, sustain it and help it to grow,
to become strong and happy and wise? To feed the hungry
of heart or mind or body, and above all of soul? To tend
the wounded and seek the lost?
If I could be like my Father,
then I must be always anxiously engaged in a good cause,
and never give up faith and hope, and even more than that,
not abandon charity in all its forms, kindness, encouragement,
forgiveness, the effort to help others believe in themselves,
uplift, never destroy.
I am guilty of so often taking
a short view, thinking of what happens in this life and
not beyond it, wanting my rewards, my needs met this side
of the veil. There are untold people for whom this will
not happen. I may be one of them, so may any of us. The
road is far longer than the little bit we can see.
On this anniversary of the
Asian Tsunami I have heard several people ask how God could
allow such a thing to happen. All the time there are people
dying! Is one more important than another? How many people
does it take for it to matter? Twenty? Half a million?
The short view again, twisted by the little that we can
see. It is a tremendous effort of the spiritual will to
look beyond, especially when we are frightened, bereaved
and confused.
But people who ask such questions
are supposing an all powerful and all loving God. God has
always said He loves, endlessly. He has never said He was
all-powerful. He is not. He has to obey the law, as does
everyone, and everything. If He were to cease to, then
He would cease to be God, and creation would implode into
chaos, without order, purpose or life in its fullness.
Even God cannot make wrong
into right, evil into goodness, or stagnation and cowardice
into growth. He cannot take from us our agency, and if
He did, then He would take from us both hell and heaven.
Without choice, and the possibility of failure, there is
no glory, no joy. And we all need to remember now and then
whose plan that was! Sometimes when we are tired and discouraged,
and find it easier not to think and not to take risks or
be hurt, we need to think of that, say to ourselves aloud
what is to be won or lost — forever, depending upon whose
plan we follow.
How little we can see ahead.
We have been told many times by the weather-forecaster that
this would be the worst winter for twenty years or more.
Well it is now January 9th, and in my part of
Scotland we have not had a single flake of snow lying!
There have been one or two frosts, just below freezing,
not far, and day after day after day of sunshine! Often
there has been no wind, a cloudless sky and temperatures
up to 45degrees F, or even 50.
Of course it can change, and
no doubt will, but so far there has hardly been anything
you could call winter! Let alone a bad one. And yet in
other places it is a nightmare. I heard just two days ago
that in China 100,000 people have had to evacuate their
homes because they are collapsing and caving in under the
weight of snow! And here we are in the far north of Scotland
in sunshine, and are dry as a bone! Maybe February will
be “fill dyke,” as its name suggests, and everything will
be flooded then? Meanwhile the world is so beautiful it
takes one’s breath away.
Click
to Enlarge
The photographs I have included
this time are of the beach at the Port (Portmahomack), and
Meg’s new, very new puppy. Seven weeks old. Pudding, she
is called. I want to stop all work and just play with her.
She is full of energy, until she falls over asleep on the
spot, and as sharp as a tack, and frightened of nothing.
She hardly has to be told anything more than once or twice.
She already knows grey cats are rather nice, although quite
a lot bigger than she is, and black cats should very definitely
be given a wide berth! They have claws and lots of teeth.
Click to Enlarge
Incidentally my black and white
cat, Pansy, has just had her twenty-eighth birthday — I
do mean 28. If she were human, on the 7 to 1 scale, she
would be 196. She is very fit now, and still boss cat,
but can she possibly make 200?
These photographs are taken
by Meg, and she kindly gave me copies to share with you.
Please don’t give me credit for them. But if anything I
have written, now or in the past, has meaning or value for
you, please let me know, then I don’t feel as if I am tossing
a message in a bottle into an endless ocean, with nobody
at the other side.
Email address tyrnvawr@aol.com
I wish you all a happy 2006,
full of laughter and kindness, and great steps upward in
that stairway to the stars.
