Riddley
A message about the power
of holy places, from a novel set in the future
Sometimes
you read a book, which though it has been hard work, you know it has had a
lasting effect upon you. Not so long ago
I came across one of those, though I will admit I almost gave up half-way
through. "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban was a book I had heard about and I knew that
it was recommended by people as varied as the novelist Will Self and Archbishop
Rowan Williams, so when I saw it on the shelves on Lingham's
I thought I should give it a try.
It was hard
work, describing as it does a post-nuclear holocaust England. It is narrated by
a young man, Riddley Walker, as he journeys through
an increasingly hostile and dangerous south east England. More to the point, it
is written in a curious made-up dialect, an attempt by the author to shew how spelling and grammar decay as civilisation
collapses. But this "coming of age" novel has powerful moments
associated with particular places which touch the narrator (and the reader)
very deeply. At "Fork Stone" (Folkestone) Riddley
stands in the ruins of a power station and cries out in despair: "O, what have we been
! And what have we come to !" - he realises the
loss and destruction of society and identity and community. But at "Cambry" (Canterbury)
something almost redemptive happens. Again he stands amidst ruins, this time of
Canterbury Cathedral, but is not convulsed with despair. Instead, he traces the
carvings on the stones, tries to understand the stories they tell, and says "I opened my mouth and murmured, just
letting my throat make a sound".
What was a holy place still connects him to deep emotions and deep
longings, perhaps what the Old Testament Book Ecclesiastes calls "eternity set in the human heart" (Ecclesiastes
3).
I find that
a very powerful moment in the book. Riddley connects
with something deeper and more profound than he has ever known in his troubled
years. The ruins at "Cambry" become almost a revelation (though our author
hints at this rather than makes it explicit)
Holy places
can and do speak at very deep levels of the human psyche, and we believe that
they can be revelatory of the presence of God, part of that binding back to our
true Centre which is what we are about.
Our God can be and is met in all places, and all moments can be
sacramental of him, but Christians have often had a sense of particular places
and particular moments which reveal God's presence. The Sacraments, the reading
of the Word are obviously those moments of focus and revelation, converting and
renewing in their power, and for many Christians holy places consecrated and
"set apart" are the same - none other than the House of God, the Gate
of Heaven
(Genesis
29)
This year we
have been celebrating the Centenary of Caldy Church - it is both the centenary
of a community of faith and of its place of meeting, space set apart as a sign
of the Kingdom of God by the Bishop of Chester on All Saints' Day 1907. This
holy space, like St Bridget's over a rather longer period of time, has been a
place of meeting for believers, and also for those on the fringes and far
beyond, a place where many have found themselves bound back to Him who is the
Centre.
In Caldy
Church and at St Bridget's people have found that they can bring their stories,
their heights and their depths, their longings and yearnings, and have found
the promise of healing and forgiveness and new meaning, For some it has been at
first, like Riddley at Cambry,
only dimly understood and expressed, for others it has been almost at once a
place where faith is kindled or renewed, but both have met with the living
God. Our celebrations are first and
foremost of God's goodness in this holy place, and how his love declared in
Jesus and individual human lives have touched there.
The best and
truest thanksgiving for an Anniversary of Consecration is to commit ourselves
to allowing our community and both its "holy places" become ever more
places of welcome, of grace, of meeting with God, and to resolve that we will not
close our doors, real or symbolic, to the seeker, to those who come burdened,
and to those who come to us at the turning points of their lives.
Amen. Let it be so
Roger Clarke
November
2007
ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ