Reader Writes - February 2020
It was still the dark time of winter and biting winds tormented everyone in the palace; none of this helped the old king’s mood. But nevertheless, he mused, there were always signs of hope. Tiny wrens were busy hunting for spiders under the wreckage of last summer’s flowers, and he could even hear the faint drumming of a woodpecker in the naked winter woods below the walls. The dear Creator ordained such wondrous things, but why did he leave man to cause so much chaos and disgrace?
He was of course thinking about alarms and scandals at home and abroad. He felt strongly about democracy and had not been backward in allowing it to put out new experimental buds like the hellebores in his sheltered garden. But what’s the point, he muttered to himself, if you hand power from The King to just another king who is not entirely to be trusted to care for the Kingdom’s deepest values? Fair enough if the barons are allowed to cut down forests, which he regretted, but he was concerned about honesty and integrity; people seemed to prefer the comfort of false promises over the less palatable truth. Their eyes grew wide and their mouths fell open before the conjuror’s hands.
He was also very worried about shameless behaviour by the president of a large republic who had nakedly used his office for his own enrichment. But this man didn’t think he had done anything wrong! Bribery in high office and endangering the peace were bad enough, but this “princeling” fed his lust for power by ranting hate and spinning lies in rowdy beer halls. The King knew well where to go to discuss such issues, and disturbing his chaplain from his book by the fire, they descended the many steps down to the bishop’s palace.
Does truth matter? the King had demanded. After much parrying and thoughtful sipping of late harvest wine, the Bishop rose and fiercely took hold of a handy lectern declaring that the Church would indeed always love and defend ‘the bright countenance of truth’. Didn’t Saint John faithfully pass on to us the words of our Lord Jesus, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’? And didn’t Jesus say to the worldly Pilate ‘I came into the world to testify to the truth’? Of course truth matters, repeated the old friends. The duty of the Church is to speak truth to a people who live in illusion, and to live out hope where people are bowed in despair.
Fortified in heart and clear in his mind the old King mounted the ancient stone steps back up to his home, his chaplain panting some way behind. Truth, we shall speak it and defend it. Hope, we shall live it, day by day. He paused and asked the clear mountain air, How, Lord, how?! At that moment a tiny wren flicked its tail and disappeared into a hole in the wall before reappearing in another place. So tiny, yet somehow indomitable. Thank you Lord for the gift of wrens, he murmured. Thank you that you do indeed care about truth and you have promised us hope. As he passed on, the brilliant cascading song of the wren came tumbling from the ancient stonework; God is with us and he is ever speaking to us, declared the wren.
Robert MacCurrach