Dakota

In the place of which you say,"It is a waste....there shall be heard again the voice of mirth
and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices
of those who sing

Jeremiah 33:10-11


I am now back from my Easter break in Cornwall and am happy to report that I feel refreshed, rested and full of spiritual vigour. I was staying with friends in the most spectacular holiday cottage in Polzeath and spent the week golfing, boating, walking and reading. We were blessed with glorious weather that seemed to be more August than an Easter bank holiday weekend.

One of our debates was where to go to church and we settled upon St Enedoc at 9.15. This is a truly beautiful church set on the seashore and was the burial place of John Betjeman and the subjest of one of his poems. We walked to church along the cliff tops and it warmed my heart to see streams of people coming from all directions to gather for Easter worship. We had to queue to get in and even then many were unable to find a seat. I would guess we must have numbered 250 in this tiniest of worship spaces and it had the feel of the early church. The service was wonderfully led and the sermon stirring and we ended with a rousing chorus of 'Thine be the glory'. This was Anglican worship at it finest.

Something I believe is rising in this land. I have sensed it for some time and the praises from St Enedoc only served to strengthen my convictions on this. There seems to be unmet hunger for God and the church is being prepared to welcome in the harvest. The word that came to me was 'spring rains'. As Hosea writes:

'Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth' (6:3)

The land always needs more rain.

I had less chance to read than I had expected. The golf, mackeral fishing and board games gladly took up much of my time ( my friend's neice Georgie caught caught a pollock which was a first). The book I did read was a joy and combined three things for me. First, my love of geography which many moons ago I remarkably was awarded a degree in, second my love of America and finally my recent experiences of the Benedictine tradition and the ways of the monastic at Burford Priory. It is called Dakota by Kathleen Norris and was one of those books you savour and put crosses next to numerous paragraphs because you know you will return to them.

She has a term she calls 'spiritual geography'. At its Greek root, geography means "writing about a place" and so spiritual geography describes the way a place shapes peoples attitudes, beliefs and myths. When asked how city people can make connections to spiritual geography she helpfully comments " Any place has a spiritual geography. People can love London or Oxford ( she uses U.S cities) as passionately as a Dakota rancher loves the land, and there is much in literature that attests to this. People tend to create small towns whereever they are. We don't live in big cities so much as communities of friends, colleagues and relatives". How true.

There are many crosses next to things in Dakota but one cross seems to fit my Easter memory of St Enedoc. What she does best is to tell the stories of her home and the people who inhabit her world and surrounding. Mary Pellauner remarks, 'If there is anthing worth calling theology, it is listening to people's stories, listening to them and cherishing them'. In Dakota this story-telling and observing is done very well. Midway through the book Norris tells of her reluctant return to church having been scarred by her childhood experiences. She returns through both pain and confusion and so she writes:

" When some ten years later I began going to church again because I felt I need to, I wasn't prepared for the pain. The services felt like word bombardment-agony for a poet-and often exhausted me so much I'd sleep for three or more hours afterward. Doctrinal language slammed many a door in my face, and I became frustrated when I couldn't glimpse the Word behind the words. Ironically, it was the language of Jesus Christ meant to be most inviting, that made me feel most left out. This elicited an interesting comment from a pastor friend who said, "I don't know too many people who are so serious about religion they can't even go to church.

Even as I exemplified the pain and the anger of a feminist looking warily at a religion that has so often used a male savior to keep women in place, I was drawn to the strong old women in the congregation. Their well-worn Bibles said to me, "there is more here than you know," and made me take more seriously the religion that had caused my granmother Totten's bible to be so well used that it's spine broke. I also began, slowly, to make sense of our gathering together on a Sunday morning, recognizing, however dimly, that church is to be participated in and not consumed. The point is not what one gets out of it, but the worship of God;the service takes place both because of and despite the needs of the frailties of the people present. How else could it be? Now, on the occassions when I am able actually to worship in church I am deeply grateful." (p 94-95)

Returning is hard and I know what she means in that lovely phrase 'the Word behind the words', so often lost, but she got there in the end. As Flannery O'Connor remarked 'most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow'. As I witnessed the young and old of St Enedoc gather and sing, I heard the faintest whisper of Jeremiah's promise that mirth and gladness is coming and that people are being prepared for a return.

I hope it comes soon.