EVE OF DESTRUCTION
Anxiety. It’s everywhere. The invasion of Ukraine: the threat posed by China to Taiwan and the South China Seas: the rise of new brands of nationalism: the apparently spiralling conflict in the Middle East as a result of the October 7th atrocity: ‘where will Putin will go next?’: World War 3: ‘conscription’: the ‘Doomsday Clock’ currently set at ninety seconds to midnight. Intelligent parents and children having the sort of discussion we had with our mums and dads in 1962. Single seniors, listening to the radio, watching the telly, reading the papers. Worry, worry, worry… and that’s before you look at your bills.
My own mum, struggling with the cancer which was to kill her at a young middle-age, used to sing the old chorus: ‘Why worry, when you can pray/Trust Jesus: he’ll find a way/Don’t be a doubting Thomas/rest surely on his promise/Why worry, worry, worry, worry, when you can pray’.
Walking is good for the blood pressure. I park up in Harston’s Main Street, and retrace my steps from the previous walk, down into Knipton. Over the last ten days, hurray, look at that first blossom! And a few daffodils too. Up on the hill, the first lambs are gambolling away, testing their vertical take-off capacity. But my, everything’s still very wet. The little stream, the ‘Carrier’, which feeds the lakes on the Belvoir estate, is flowing rapidly and has that certain post-deluge olive-green tinge to it. The little rest-awhile grass area opposite the village shop is sodden. At the foot of the longish slog up beside Windsor Hill, a mass of snowdrops enlivens a back garden. I wonder idly how they propagate. They used not to be as prevalent as they are now – ubiquitous, yes, but still such a welcome prelude to the delights of the spring to come. From childhood memory, there was always an order. First snowdrops, then crocuses, then daffodils and tulips. Primroses too at about that time, and then bluebells. These last winters the chronology has gotten confused. The first clump of shy primroses were happily blooming by South Luffenham’s church gate during the first week of January.
The climb to the top of the hill gives me time to think. I’ve been reading biographies of General Charles Gordon over the last couple of weeks, trying to understand what motivated adventurers of the nineteenth century. He was an unaffiliated evangelical Christian of the most committed sort. He was so convinced of his future in heaven that at times in his younger life he seemed gladly to invite death by recklessly leading his men into battle armed only with his military cane. If someone died in the most tragic and horrible circumstances, then in Gordon’s eyes that was OK if he perished in a state of grace. His youthful enthusiasm to ‘have a bash at the angels’ seems to have moderated with time, but he never saw old age, dying at the hands of the ‘Mad Mahdi’ during the siege of Khartoum.
My grandfather-in-law Sydney, born in 1880, ran away from his family for a life of derring-do in Africa at the age of 19. He seems to have been desperate to know the thrill of being under fire. Only in this way could he prove his manhood to himself. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud has puzzled some commentators because his ideas seemed to vary and become less certain as he aged – although that’s what’s supposed to happen, isn’t it? Maybe it was the stupidity of the tactics during the Great War which led him to set ‘Eros’ (the life-force) beside ‘Thanatos’ (a force within us driving us to destruction). How else does one account for the rush towards violence exhibited by some men? Original sin doesn’t quite cut it on its own. Body chemistry maybe?
Granpa Sydney and General Gordon explained
A giddying
enlightenment;
the body poised and
tense;
nature amplified
and stamped on every
sense.
Peripheral vision,
vividly alive –
it’s what some people
die for –
to cross the line,
and push aside
the instinct to
survive.
I turn northwards on the lane which flanks Carlisle Wood, carrying the walker to the visitors’ car park for Belvoir Castle, the seat of the Duke of Rutland. At first the views through the hedge give a taste of the loveliness the Duke and Duchess enjoy every morning as they look out over the valley. The castle itself is hidden from the north side, turning its back on the wide expanse of the flatter lands to the north west. There are retail opportunities here, and the atmosphere changes perceptibly as I approach the Lincolnshire border. There’s more bustle, even on a February weekday. As I walk away from Belvoir a young biker gratuitously and noisily accelerates past me on the lane, a metre or so from my left foot, doing 50-60 in a restricted zone. The motive is to give me a fright, I suppose, or to signal his complete ownership of the tarmac, as if walkers have no right being there. It’s silly though; the kind of thing which on another, unlucky day could ruin the lives of a couple of families.
Woolsthorpe-by-Belvoir seems a rather untidy place at first sight, a bit straggly, rather uncomfortable architecturally, and the church of St. James is of a piece with that. Sources say that its predecessor was burned down by the Roundheads after it had suffered the kind of routine abuse which churches in places unsympathetic to the cause were allegedly subject – stabling for horses etc. (This is a frequently told story – and it may have been true in each case – or it may have sometimes been true – or just possibly the historical record has been influenced by a degree of disinformation). A benefice website claims for the rebuilt Victorian St. James that it’s the architectural gem of the village, but currently it’s in a sad state. I’ve never entered a church which smells so damp. There are old sofas parked in the narthex. The chancel step has a piece of stone jaggedly missing from its centre. The floor is dirty. Even though this is now purely a ‘Festival Church’, there must be a difficult story behind the chaos. I come away saddened and depressed, not just for this village of 450 people, deprived of a faith centre, but for all of us – because all of our rural churches hang by a thread. Lose a couple of key people at the wrong time, and things will fall apart. What makes St. James especially sad is that a decade ago there seems to have been money to spend, and excitement in the air with great future plans. I trudge the hill back towards Harston with a heavy heart. I’ve not had an experience like this in eight years of walking/blogging to maybe five hundred places of worship. ** (see postscript)
At Harston the peace of the village is interrupted by the harsh buzz of a military (?) drone, apparently beating the bounds of the Belvoir estate.
I had done well in calming my anxieties until Woolsthorpe. NATO is designed precisely to inhibit any Russian leader from trying to restore some imaginary golden era of the new Rome by territorial expansion. ‘Dad’s Army’ will not be re-created in Rutland villages any time soon. Military spending needs to be increased, but not on a conscripted army: the generals don’t favour them, because of the training needs they provoke. But the drone resuscitates my fear – the awareness that low-level war can be waged by anyone with money, in any place and at any time. Asymmetric conflict is still a relatively new concept. We’re now all vulnerable in ways we weren’t twenty years ago. Our own society is showing signs of fracture and impatience. To counter the false narratives of Putin and the Patriarchate, our civic and moral behaviour has to be irreproachable, and of course it isn’t, far from it. Our churches are in disrepair and their people few. We are so far from being the leaven in the lump.
Welcome to Lent 2024.
Harston - Knipton - Belvoir - Woolsthorpe - Harston
12 km: 3.7 hrs: 13 deg: mild and often sunny with a light breeze
‘Eve of Destruction’ was an early sixties hit for Barry McGuire. It’s the epitome of a ‘protest song’, linking
the events unfolding in Vietnam with the push for racial equality in the
US. I saw him perform at a folk club in
Cambridge during my student days. Four
songs took an hour and two of them were ‘Eve of Destruction’. He was a Christian by then, and ‘gospel’
music became his focus thereafter. I was charmed to learn he sang the lead
vocals on the ‘New Christy Minstrels’ hit ‘Three wheels on my wagon’, a song
worth singing when everything seems to be falling round your ears, a triumph of
human hope in a tumultuous world. In
rural churches: ‘One wheel on my wagon, and I’m still rolling along…’
Comments
Post a Comment