The Breath of Peace (21 page)

‘Then there's another thing about William, which I imagine you have discovered by now: he has had his demons. I spoke of cruelty visited upon him, just now; he has told me something of what those who had the care of him when he was a child did to him, I have seen with my own eyes the scars on his body, and I have noted his mistrust of the bulk of humankind. The door to his heart has had rusty hinges, and not even those few of us who have been entrusted with his love find him the most uncomplicated of companions.

‘But he has great strength of purpose and a quiet eye for travelling in the direction he's chosen. He is also loyal and – whatever you may think – he has a keen mind, with the wit to find his way out of almost any of the traps he has fallen into.

‘But look, William aside, there are some constant features of living together in peace that I am thinking must be true for a man and wife as well as for a monastic community. Here in the abbey we are only human too, and all human beings argue. We – in community – have two big safeguards against the contention and bickering that afflict every group of people who try to live together. One is silence and the other is obedience.

‘Our blessed father Benedict laid down that we enter silence after Compline and don't come out of it again until the morrow Mass is said. People take that sometimes for a purely religious discipline to encourage private prayer and reflection, and it does hone our spiritual practice, of course. But I think primarily it was put in place as a practical measure to safeguard community, because the two main danger times for antagonism are when we get too tired to be bothered with patience, and when we've just got up in the morning and haven't had breakfast yet. Benedict did away at one stroke with those daily pitfalls by instituting silence from before we were too tired to be rational until after we'd properly woken up and had something to eat. In a family household I guess it can't work in the same way, but you can follow the same principle: when you're tired or hungry – don't be drawn. Keep it sweet, keep it simple, keep it short.

‘Silence supports community peace on the one hand, and obedience supports it on the other. What obedience boils down to under this roof is that I'm the abbot so the brothers have to do what I say. But
because
they have to do what I say, I have to be very, very careful what I ask them to do. They are in my hands. If I become capricious and demanding and fall in love with my own power, the community will rot from the core. Our vowed obedience puts a responsibility on me as well as them. The brothers depend on me to be humble and gentle and understanding because my word is their law; and I depend on them to be loving and patient and forgiving because I often get it wrong. I can be hasty and scornful, I can be impatient and obtuse – and they just have to bear it respectfully, because I'm the abbot. But it's an obedience of love, so they don't just take it with their teeth gritted; they accept it with humility and compassion. They know I'm doing my best. They know when I come out the other side of my bad mood I'll be ashamed of myself. They have to trust me, and I have to trust them, and that's what the obedience means – it's putting ourselves into each other's hands, deliberately making ourselves vulnerable, making our daily life into a gift to one another. It takes a whole community for a man to be an abbot.

‘Let me pause there. Is that making any sense to you so far? Shall I go on? Don't worry, I'm coming to you and William in just a moment.'

He waited for her affirmation. She said nothing for a little while, then: ‘That's what William does,' she said very quietly. ‘What you said – deliberately making himself vulnerable. And times beyond counting he's told me that he's sorry for his shortcomings. I apologize too, but usually after him, and not as often.'

John visibly relaxed on hearing this. If she would receive what he had to say, and not resist it as a lecture or even as impertinence, he thought he had something to offer. He waited. She lifted her gaze from the flames to read his silence, and realized he was still courteously waiting for her permission to continue. ‘Go on, then!' she exclaimed. He smiled.

‘Well, that was the easy bit – where I'm on my own territory. Now this is where I go off the map into
Terra Ignota
, so of your charity I beg you to be patient with me. I can't look to my own experience, for I know nothing of marriage, so I'm going to look to the Scriptures, which I know I can trust.

‘I'm thinking about the fifth chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians. The bridge from our life here in community to your life at home with William is in the verse that tells us to humbly give way to one another – submit to one another – in the fear of Christ.
Subiecti invicem in timore Christi.
Sister, I'm sure you must realize that doesn't mean anything like “knuckle under because you're frightened of Christ”. It means that because we aspire to holiness and want to make our whole lives into a reverential space, cultivate a reverential mind, practising recollection, we maintain an attitude of humility. Are you with me?'

Madeleine understood him perfectly, but she wondered where in the passing of time the teasing urchin she had played with by the streams and on the moors had grown up into this. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘Go on.'

He looked at her, his lips parted in uncertainty.

‘I'm listening, Adam,' she reassured him. ‘You don't need to keep checking.'

He nodded, with a smile at the unintentional asperity. ‘All right. Then this is where the apostle comes to teach about husbands and wives. He takes as the model for marriage the relationship between our Lord and the church – because we think of the church as the Bride of Christ. Gazing on that relationship, he sees that our Lord has suffered and died for the church, stopped at nothing in the self-giving of his love. And he sees that the church is the community of people who call him Lord, who give their lives in his service. So the model is of a relationship in which neither party has held back anything; each has surrendered all they have to the other. Each gives their whole life in order that they might be made one. This is a picture of absolute trust and vulnerability: Christ pinned helpless to the cross in love of his Bride, and the church kneeling in submission to his lordship. Do marriage like that, the apostle says. Wives, love your husbands like the church loves Christ, offering your very
lives
in submission to your menfolk. Husbands, love your wives like Christ loves the church, holding back nothing, suffering everything, laying down all you have because you love her so much.

‘Now then, this is a beautiful picture, we can all see that. As a picture it works wonderfully. Where it all comes unstuck is when real people really try to do it. Then, without fail, the same old problem crops up: who's going first? Human beings are scared of being trampled. When it comes to actual flesh-and-blood mortal beings, not one of us wants to put up our hand to take the risk of doing our part of the bargain until we've satisfied ourselves that the other half is on the table first. So we never begin. Do you see?

‘Actually… in your marriage to William – dear sister, don't be hurt or take offence, bear with me – I can see him struggling to do his part, but I can't see you doing yours as well as you might. He's a proud man, and used not only to absolute governance but also to admirable competence. To set that aside and let himself look foolish and inept will be completely crucifying to a man like William de Bulmer; but he thinks you're worth it.

‘What he needs from you is what the brothers here in their charity and humility give me: obedience. Not to him, I mean, but to Christ; just as in their vow of obedience to the abbot, the way the brothers here are taking is not obedience to
me
, John Hazell, but to Christ. Sister, William needs you to trust him enough to submit to him, even when he isn't doing all that well. Even – indeed especially – when he's said or done something stupid, he needs you to submit to him for the sake of divine order, out of reverence for Christ.'

John looked anxiously at his sister. He could not imagine this going down well. Madeleine could not have been described as meek in any imaginable circumstance.

‘So… what does that mean in practical terms, in daily life?' She frowned. Her tone of voice expressed the suspicious end of caution. ‘It hasn't got to be all “Yes, William” and “No, William”, “Of course, William”, and waiting on him hand and foot, has it? Give me a few instances.'

John thought about that.

‘Well…' he said slowly, ‘let's say you were out at the market all day and when you got home it turned out he forgot to shut the hens in and as a result a fox had caused mayhem and you'd lost half the flock. Might that happen?'

Astonished, his sister searched his face. ‘Has he spoken to you about that?'

John grinned. ‘Oh. I see. It did happen. No, he never told me so. Still, it makes a good example then! Well, “in the flesh” as the apostle would say, if a man did such a thing his wife would go beserk and think she had every good reason to do so. She'd call him every name she could think of and pour indignation on his head until boiling pitch began to look like a merciful alternative. She'd scold him until he felt completely humiliated, and he'd go to bed scowled at and unkissed and lie awake in the moonlight trying in vain to think of some way of making amends.

‘But the apostle is saying that's not how we do it under Christ. That's because Christ really sees us, with the insight of love. Christ is quick to compassion, and knows full well the man is more ashamed of himself than he can bear already. In marriage as the apostle imagines it, the wife offers not a word or look of reproach. She accepts that accidents happen. Her love is magnanimous and generous. She hooks up the dead birds quietly, out of sight. As she spins at the fireside that night, maybe she seems a wee bit quieter than usual – that would be because through gritted teeth she is silently praying: “O Fountain of Wisdom, thou hast saddled me with this dolt, this nincompoop, this addle-brain: right then, give me the grace not to kill him!” But she takes it to God and she leaves it with God. She offers her husband no reproach, because she is submitted to him.

‘But then let's suppose this is all too much for the wife. She comes home, she finds the hens dead and dying, and she lets rip like thunder and lightning. What's her husband to do? Well, “in the flesh” as St Paul has it, he might go on the defensive. Where was she all day anyway? What did she mean by coming home so late? Aren't they her dratted poultry in the first place? How much is it going to cost to replace them? This will be the last time she goes to market if that's where it's all going to end up. He might even hit her, if her scolding winds him up past what he can bear.

‘But the Scripture teaching says no, don't do it like that. Submit to one another. Love her like Christ loves the church. If she wants to hammer nails in, lie there and take it. If she's minded to jam a cap of thorns on your head, bite your lip and wipe the blood out of your eyes. Keep your eyes fixed on one thing and one thing only: letting nothing – but nothing – sour the sweetness of love. Let it hurt you, let it shame you, let it lacerate you; but don't let it stop you loving her.

‘Have I exhausted your patience? Have I said enough for now?'

Madeleine was sitting very still, her face brooding. ‘Go on,' she answered him.

‘Well, then: this thing has to be mutual, it has to be reciprocal to work properly, to get the result it's meant to achieve. If in our community here the brothers are humble and submissive and the abbot is arrogant and self-serving and demanding, it all starts to unravel. If the abbot is gentle and humble but the monks are proud and lazy and insubordinate, the whole thing collapses in an instant. Same in a marriage. If the woman serves her husband humbly and he thinks “Oh, good!” and sits back self-satisfied, “Wife, get me this, get me that!” then it isn't what the apostle envisaged. If the man is forbearing and gentle and the woman takes it as her opportunity to get away with being a nag and a shrew, then it's just hell on earth. It takes two.

‘How do you keep your hens from roaming too far afield and roosting in the trees, Madeleine?'

‘What?' Surprised by the sudden question, she turned her face to him. ‘You know what I do. I clip their wings.'

‘Oh. And how do you do that?'

‘What are you talking about? You know perfectly well how to clip a hen's wings.'

‘Pretend I don't. What do I have to do?'

‘You just trim the tips of the flight feathers on one wing. It unbalances them, so they can't fly.'

‘Exactly so. That's why the apostle urges that in marriage a man and a woman be not unequally yoked, but be both submitted to Christ; because it takes two to make this work. Unbalanced, it can't take off, it can't fly. One of you can start the ball rolling maybe, but in the end the thing takes two. The man must be as humble and vulnerable as Christ stripped naked with his arms opened wide on the cross. The woman must be as gentle and submissive as the faithful people of God kneeling in simple humility before their Lord. Madeleine, am I describing your marriage?'

No sound followed this question but the settling of slow-burning logs on the hearth as the smoke drifted peacefully up the chimney above their red glow.

‘What do you think?' she asked at last, her voice low.

‘I think it's a hard lesson to learn and it asks a lot of anyone. I think even when we've practised for years it takes more than most of us have, to get it right. Again and again in community here, I have to ask my brothers' forgiveness when I forget myself and say something cutting or contemptuous or intolerant. And I imagine it must be exactly the same in a marriage. Except, in the night, where we have our holy silence to help us, you married folk are also blessed with an extra way to put things right.'