Today is the Epiphany, and Christmas draws to a close. I hope all readers have had a thoroughly merry feast!
All the same, while it is still in mind… does anyone else feel that Advent in general was diminished or even close to being ruined this time around? Uglier than ever was the headlong stampede from Hallowe’en to Black Friday to Christmas-gorged-on-too-early, and, worse than this, seemingly inescapable and practically compulsory.
How wearing it all feels sometimes, the post-modern existence that is supposed to be so great, and wearing not least because so many good things are under siege, and the odds stacked so highly against their defenders. The Church, the family, the garden of childhood, the peace of mind of the elderly, beauty in music and language, kindness in word and deed: all these are under a consistent threat. To the castle of the mind founded on the old principles, or flying a God-fearing flag, or furnished with gentleness, is laid not a physical or explicit siege, as in other ages, but a moral siege, waged sometimes by proxy or indirectly but waged nonetheless: a war of words, a campaign of noise and the self against the old ways and manners, and laid pell-mell and piecemeal to eyes and ears and hearts. Down it rains onto millions of houses, battering the roof-tiles, pelting at the windows, hammering at the door. In it seeps by television and radio and smart-phone. Every single household must now also be a self-contained stronghold if it is not to succumb to the contempt for all things old and the gormless glee in the new which surrounds it from without, or even to false allies offering short-cuts — or other threats from within, the unwonted doubt, the habit of suspicion which might easily become indiscriminate, or the ambush of envy, perceive the comfort of those for whom the twenty-first century is a warm bath.
And to those who hold her dear it is plainer than ever that England, always fragile, is indeed mortal. Modern Britain is becoming more and more an unpleasant place, in which islands of goodness remain but are coming adrift from their moorings. People of goodwill remain in their millions, but they are divided and conquered: the high places are not for them, the roads are hostile to them, the airwaves are closed to them. Trivial evils compound great evils. All looks prosperous and healthy at first glance, but by intangible signs and details it becomes clear that the mainstream lives by a different, new moral language which deliberately renders the everlasting one foreign. We have known this for a while, but sometimes it flashes out with a new clarity and confidence.
Does this sound gloomy? Yes, I know it does! Sometimes it is necessary to look squarely at the gloom, and its particular composition in our time. The consolations, though, are the same as ever: that human nature never changes; that evil has often before foundered on the verge of triumph, and that people are as hungry as ever for the good, the true and the beautiful. Ordinary people do in many ways seem to be bearing up quite well against all the vanities and inanities that assail them. I am still regularly surprised by kindnesses even in London’s sullen smugness. There are genuine smiles and unfakeable goodnesses, and children, at least, are still children.
What is the answer to a mass campaign of noise? The same answer that once appeared in a stable no less vulnerable to its surroundings than a modern suburban terraced house is now. For England, which in any case has been an unpleasant place before, is no more hostile now than first-century Galilee might have been. Where all power was wielded by a bureaucratic bean-counting emperor and a power-crazed, infanticidal tyrant there appeared not armed insurrection or military force but, with shocking gentleness, the child who
All the same, while it is still in mind… does anyone else feel that Advent in general was diminished or even close to being ruined this time around? Uglier than ever was the headlong stampede from Hallowe’en to Black Friday to Christmas-gorged-on-too-early, and, worse than this, seemingly inescapable and practically compulsory.
How wearing it all feels sometimes, the post-modern existence that is supposed to be so great, and wearing not least because so many good things are under siege, and the odds stacked so highly against their defenders. The Church, the family, the garden of childhood, the peace of mind of the elderly, beauty in music and language, kindness in word and deed: all these are under a consistent threat. To the castle of the mind founded on the old principles, or flying a God-fearing flag, or furnished with gentleness, is laid not a physical or explicit siege, as in other ages, but a moral siege, waged sometimes by proxy or indirectly but waged nonetheless: a war of words, a campaign of noise and the self against the old ways and manners, and laid pell-mell and piecemeal to eyes and ears and hearts. Down it rains onto millions of houses, battering the roof-tiles, pelting at the windows, hammering at the door. In it seeps by television and radio and smart-phone. Every single household must now also be a self-contained stronghold if it is not to succumb to the contempt for all things old and the gormless glee in the new which surrounds it from without, or even to false allies offering short-cuts — or other threats from within, the unwonted doubt, the habit of suspicion which might easily become indiscriminate, or the ambush of envy, perceive the comfort of those for whom the twenty-first century is a warm bath.
And to those who hold her dear it is plainer than ever that England, always fragile, is indeed mortal. Modern Britain is becoming more and more an unpleasant place, in which islands of goodness remain but are coming adrift from their moorings. People of goodwill remain in their millions, but they are divided and conquered: the high places are not for them, the roads are hostile to them, the airwaves are closed to them. Trivial evils compound great evils. All looks prosperous and healthy at first glance, but by intangible signs and details it becomes clear that the mainstream lives by a different, new moral language which deliberately renders the everlasting one foreign. We have known this for a while, but sometimes it flashes out with a new clarity and confidence.
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| Down rains the campaign of noise onto millions of houses, battering the roof-tiles, pelting at the windows, hammering at the door. |
Does this sound gloomy? Yes, I know it does! Sometimes it is necessary to look squarely at the gloom, and its particular composition in our time. The consolations, though, are the same as ever: that human nature never changes; that evil has often before foundered on the verge of triumph, and that people are as hungry as ever for the good, the true and the beautiful. Ordinary people do in many ways seem to be bearing up quite well against all the vanities and inanities that assail them. I am still regularly surprised by kindnesses even in London’s sullen smugness. There are genuine smiles and unfakeable goodnesses, and children, at least, are still children.
What is the answer to a mass campaign of noise? The same answer that once appeared in a stable no less vulnerable to its surroundings than a modern suburban terraced house is now. For England, which in any case has been an unpleasant place before, is no more hostile now than first-century Galilee might have been. Where all power was wielded by a bureaucratic bean-counting emperor and a power-crazed, infanticidal tyrant there appeared not armed insurrection or military force but, with shocking gentleness, the child who
[…] cam also stille
To his modres bowr
As dew in Aprylle,
That falleth on the flowr […]
and by whom the promise was made that no good or gentle thing would be lost or in vain, and indeed that to the good and the gentle would, in the end, be victory.
A carol written by Herbert Howells, the 125th anniversary of whose birth fell on the 17th October 2017.
"...envy of those for whom the twenty-first century is a warm bath in which to wallow."
ReplyDeleteWell, this is one thing I don't suffer from! God forbid...
Good, sobering post. We need to stop these things from becoming normalised, even in our own minds! Where did you get the drawing? Is it yours?
Well, I don't usually but sometimes I - even I! - sense, however fleetingly, how comfortable it must be in there, to be content with the basic way of things. The comfort must be only so deep, though.
DeleteYes, I did draw the illustration - it seemed the clearest way to express what I meant, a kind of invisible aerial bombardment that seldom relents.
Thanks for the comment!
It's a very fine picture...you are evidently a man of many talents!
DeleteWell, that is kind of you to say so... I just enjoy scribbling in any form!
Delete