The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

It was advertised as a garden apartment. An old wooden door with rippled glass window and loose brass knobs opened to a long neglected walled garden filled with its own rendition of grasses, vines, wildflowers, and low-hanging trees; a haven for insects and vermin; a delight for birds and pollinators. Inside, the thick plaster walls rippled with age and seemed quite content nestled against a pre-war tile floor. The interior was beige. 

Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window above a slightly leaking primitive sink and tarnished faucet. It only had two rooms, not counting the loo – this one and a bedroom perpetually dark because it had no window.  The only heat came from a coal-burning free-standing stove. The only water was cold and had to be heated on the stove-top. 

The large unoccupied home above was in worse shape. according to the old fellow hat the country store, it had once been a manse for a country parson. My apartment was for the two servants – a crooked old man and spry old woman. She cooked and cleaned. He tended the garden, mucked the horse stall, and readied the carriage when the parson made his rounds to visit members of his dwindling parish. 

The parson was a bachelor. He was married to his books. His only other joy derived from his long horseback rides through the countryside where I suppose he contemplated great thoughts. 

The Reverend Stronach (for that was his name, according to the old clerk) greatly admired the fine ethical teachings of Christianity. His was an elegant, modern Christianity. When he was reading in his library, which now was a great room with crumbling plaster and ancient stuffed chairs covered with dust and cobwebs, he would often chuckle at those who believed in such nonsense as a virgin birth or walking on water. His laughter was not cruel. He pitied the ignorant masses as a solicitor might pity street urchins. 

On Sundays, Rev. Stronach, dressed in his finest frock, rode his carriage to the small country church, duly greeted the dozen elderly parishioners, regally mounted his pulpit and lectured on the influences of German textual criticism. Those in the congregation who managed to stay awake dutifully thanked him for his insights without having understood a word. Still, just attending, hearing the old organ, singing the old hymns, and reciting the Lord’s prayer made them feel somehow smiled upon by the Divine.

Invariably, the good parson was invited to dine with one of the families. I suspect they communicated among themselves to determine whose turn it was this week. The fare was poor but hearty, the wine homemade. Pleasantries exchanged, the Reverend drove his carriage home, satisfied that he had accomplished the will of God. Sunday afternoons, like most afternoons, he rode his horse through the countryside until dusk, came in, ate his stew and sat by the fire reading Elizabethan and Jacobean literature until he fell asleep. Weekday mornings were given to serious theological study, evenings to fine literature.

The only thing that interrupted this ebbing and flowing routine was an occasional visit from the bishop. When I say “occasional,” I mean very occasionally because the bishop didn’t enjoy these visits any more than the country parson. It was, however, obligatory. Prior to a visit, the old maid was required to polish the silver and prepare something of a feast – roast pork pie, fresh vegetables from the garden, custard for dessert. She and her bent husband wondered what they found to talk about upstairs. Perhaps the politics of far-off London, or the opinions of the fine scholars on the continent. 

This went on for many years. The old man servant was the first to go – keeled over of a heart attack in the garden. He was in his 80s. A stately and reverent funeral was held and the body interned in the church yard. 

Life went on as it had for a few years, except that the horse rarely got groomed and the garden went to seed. Then it was the parson’s turn. She found him dead at his desk, various tomes in Latin, Greek, and English opened in front of his stiff body.

The bishop came and presided over the parson’s funeral. He too was buried in the church yard, albeit with a large, impressive tombstone. Only a small wooden cross marked the servant’s grave. It soon rotted away.

At the conclusion of the funeral, the bishop announced to the four parishioners who remained that the parish was to be closed, and the property sold off. The now elderly maid was taken to live with a great niece. She reportedly died shortly thereafter.

A wealthy landowner acquired the property, which included the chapel, the manse, and some 300 acres of rolling land. He did nothing with it. The chapel crumbled into a heap of rubble after a windstorm caved in the ailing roof. The manse stood on.

Being broke myself, I had been bunking down wherever I could find space. I loved to hike, which is how I discovered the disheveled parsonage. A bit of inquiry at the county records office revealed the legal owner, who, when contacted, was delighted to have a bit more income. Thus, I came to lease the servants’ quarters of a defunct manse in a relatively unspoiled countryside.

Perhaps I was attracted to it because, like the old parson, I loved to read, write, contemplate, and muse. Besides, the long walks (I could not afford a horse) were cathartic after the trauma I had been through in the war. The place was a respite from the nightmares of exploding bodies and burning flesh.

After I had been in residence for perhaps a week, I ventured upstairs. Things had been left pretty much as they were when the reverend was alive, but eremacausis had taken its toll, as did the owls and raccoons that had made themselves at home. I did manage to recover a few of the old fellow’s books, however.

Søren Kierkegaard’s Christian Discourses and his Attack Upon Christendom gripped my imagination. Both looked like they had never been read. The copies, dusty on the outside, were yellowing but pristine on the inside. Rev. Stronach always made notes in his books. There were none in Kierkegaard. I imagined they had been a gift duly received but never opened. 

I had been living there three and a half years filling my days with long walks, fresh air, books, and my writing. When necessary, I made trips into town for supplies. My small savings that came from the estate of my uncle were rapidly depleting, so it was just as well that I came upon Kierkegaard when I did.

Kierkegaard drew sharp distinctions between the teachings of Jesus, which he deemed authentic Christianity and the practices of Christendom as it was practiced in the Danish state churches. He even refused to see his brother when he was on his death bed because his brother was a priest in the state church and therefore obligated to give last rights and communion to the dying. Kierkegaard wanted neither if they came from an official parson like his brother or Rev. Stronach.

After a substantial breakfast of wild goose eggs and ham and a pleasant contemplative hike, I settled in to read Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity. In shock, I jumped to my feet, then fell on my knees when I read, 

“What a dreadful falsehood it is to admire the truth, instead of following it.”

It hit me like a boxer’s blow. I, like the Rev. Stronach, was admiring truth instead of doing truth. Like Pilate, I asked, “What is truth?”

Words from the gospel of my childhood leapt into consciousness. “I am the way, the truth, the life,” Jesus said. How can a person be the truth, I wondered? Weeks of pondering, walking, thinking, contemplating followed. This teaching from Jesus was radical. It demanded surrender. It required forsaking of all worldly goods. 

It insisted on nonviolence. Why, then, had my so-called Christian nation sent me to poison trenches flowing with blood? If Jesus said we were to love our enemies, why were we killing these so-called enemies? What or who made them enemies anyway? Were they not ordinary men like me sent off by royals of some sort? 

If we are to love our neighbors and our neighbor is anyone in need like the victim tended by the Samaritan, why did we only treat our own wounded? 

If we are compelled by divine love to welcome every stranger, why was our “Christian” culture so saturated with xenophobia? 

If indeed no human is beyond redemption and all people are created in the image of God who loves each one, why was my “Christian” state putting people before firing squads? 

If the poor are blessed, why do we not care if they live in squaller? 

Like Jacob of old, I wrestled with angels. 

On my way back to the city, I dropped a note in the post to the landlord with my final rent payment and wished him well. In the most Dickensian part of the city, I knocked on the door of a mission. 

I’d been cooking and serving food to the indigent for about three months when, on a cold grey misty day, he walked in. Bedraggled, worn out clothes, matted hair, holes in his shoes. And yet, joy. He radiated with contentment, exuded peacefulness. He was the last to be served. I filled a plate and sat across from him as was my habit with newcomers. 

I looked into his eyes. I have never been the same.