Advent 10 – 10 December
Good morning,
Further meditations today on the Annunciation. First a poem set in St Andrews by Douglas Dunn, Emeritus Professor in our School of English. This is part of his “Body Echoes”
A St Andrews Garden
Against the sounds of the sea, a roof-top dove
Performs its throated wooing. Much bird-song,
Chirping courtships, this twenty-fourth of March
By a window where a St Andrews garden
Shows off a bright azalea and a palm
In a Himalayan boast crossed with hot
Tropical green, a girl shaking her hands
At a sink. It has very deep sweetness,
This moment, colossal sugar, brilliant
Ambrosial light, and I almost forget
The woman I saw earlier today
From Innes’s corner, crossing South Street,
When time wrinkled and the cars changed, years
Unwound themselves in a reversed photoflood.
I had no name to call. I saw a sound
And neither eye nor ear could hold it.
What makes me think this touches on the Annunciation? Well, among the clues, there is the date of the birdsong, 24 March, exactly nine months before Christmas Eve. There is the roof-top dove performing its wooing, as so many images have depicted the Holy Spirit as a dove above Gabriel and Mary. There is a girl shaking her hands at a sink, a domestic detail which calls to mind countless paintings showing Mary at her sewing, or reading, or housework. And there is a beautiful sense of meaning lying just out of reach, which could be said of much of whole Christmas story:
I saw a sound
And neither eye nor ear could hold it.
Can we really hold the birth of God in a cow-shed on a single night in any kind of focus?
A depiction in stone of the event from St Andrews is similarly out of reach. We can see this piece of sculpture in the University’s Wardlaw Museum:
(Image courtesy of the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums, ID: HC810/1)
It is a carved piece of sandstone in the gothic style probably depicting the angel Gabriel on the left and Mary on the right. When complete, this sculpture was part of St Salvator’s Chapel, but did not survive the Reformation in situ or intact. Religious division is written in these bodies.
As I write, there are nerves and fears among many of us. Exams for some, travel plans for many, and a sense that constraints have already returned or will be returning to our lives. It is hard to hold in focus what the future will bring. Mary knew at the very least that her life would be hugely disrupted. But, as Dunn puts it, there was very deep sweetness in the moment. I hope that, despite anxiety over the virus and our response, we will know a very deep sweetness this season.
Yours,
Donald.