Conversations with a Soul (27 page)

When a great wind comes

and the robberies of the rain

you stand in the corner shivering.

The people who go by-

you wonder at their calm.

They miss the whisper that runs

any day in your mind,

‘
Who are you really, wanderer?’-

and the answer you have to give

no matter how dark and cold

the world around you is:

‘
Maybe I’m a king.’
⁷⁵

In dramatic form William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
lays bare an ancient paradigm, and dares to ask what happens to us when social restrictions are lifted. Are we naturally moral people or are we merely creatures saved from debauchery by being imprisoned in communal restraints?

One answer, championed by the book, invites us to witness the slow but inexorable descent of the human spirit into anarchy and nihilism initiated by the absence of behavioural restrictions and social taboos. The situation is made all the more vivid and frightening, by having the protagonists well educated school boys, many of whom are members of a boys’ choir.

Marooned on an island, thereby removed from parental or adult controls, the group of boys is free to live as they wish. Almost immediately there’s a confrontation between the boys who work to establish a democratic system of order and respect and those who scorn the traditional values under which, presumably, they were raised.

The latter group soon form themselves into a gang, happily discarding whatever restraints their exposure to civilization had laid upon them. They abandon themselves to wild excesses and rapidly degenerate into behaviour which is savage and uncontrollable.

When two of the boys try to attract the attention of a passing ship in the hope of being rescued and returned to civilization, the larger group rejects any ideas of rescue in favour of continued license to live and do as they wish, primarily, hunting wild pigs; the killing of which soon became a ritualized slaughter.

Finally the marauding band’s blood lust escalates from merely killing wild pigs and they turn against the most guileless of the boys and murder him.

Echoes of the story appear in almost every history book leading one to feel that the presumed innocence of children is easily swept aside when they are subject to life without enforced virtue. The story reminds us that the central characters in the Salem Witch trials were the innocent  'afflicted children' who wielded the power to accuse innocent women of witchcraft and skilfully whipped up the populace of Salem into a frenzy of persecution.

Fear of inborn evil led our ancestors to regularly beat children so as to drive out the evil deeply rooted in their natures, which if unchecked, would result in all manner of savagery. Tragically, today’s culture of gang warfare is writing a new chapter in this ancient conflict.

By extension, what we see happening to children is equally true of the adult world. Story, myth and lore combine to assure us that human beings need strong controls to keep them from yielding to evil as well as to protect the innocent.

As the boys in Golding’s tale make their choices and face the consequences, the story manages to summon an ancient fear that resonates in all of us. We are afraid that somewhere in the dark unrestrained human soul, individually or communally, unlearned but inherent, there lurk, powerful instincts which, if left to their own devices, will succumb to evil.

It seems that we are, after all, irrational creatures driven by a blood lust. So we set out to banish the primitive and the unpredictable, the evil that lurks within, ever ready to break out. Of course we seldom, if ever, speak like that, we simply don’t speak at all and in the silence the human psyche becomes a fearsome thing.

Christianity, as many observers have noticed, has acted historically to polarize the ‘dark personality' and the ‘light personality.’ Christian ethics usually involves the suppression of the dark one. As the consequences of this suppression became more severe, century after century, we reach at last the state in which the psyche is split, and the two sides cannot find each other. We have the strange story of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ The dominant personality in the West tends to be idealistic, compassionate, civilized orderly, as Dr. Jekyll who is so caring with his patients; the shadow side is deformed, it moves fast, ‘like a monkey,’ is younger than the major personality, has vast sources of energy near it, and no morality at all. It feels rage from centuries of repression.
⁷⁶

The medieval Church was familiar with the “dark personality.” They recognized that it was a rascally kind of thing, especially when aided and abetted by imagination. Given half a chance the dark personality was ever ready to break out of the confines of saintly living, particularly when the temptation to do so was of a sexual nature.

For the lesser manifestations of the dark personality a simple and contrite confession followed by prayer usually did the trick. However for more serious delinquencies, the sinner was required to participate in a formal confession followed by whatever act of penance was imposed by the priest.

'Penance', from the Latin paenitentia (from which we get our word,
penitentiary
) was clearly thought of as a punishment. For the more severe cases of moral failure a whole range of physical and emotional afflictions presented themselves as options. Public flogging and humiliation were high on the list, such as that imposed on Jane Shore, mistress of King Edward IV, by the Bishop of London: that she be paraded barefoot and unkempt through the streets of London dressed only in her ‘kirtle’ (petticoat) carrying a taper and followed by a cross and choir singing psalms. A portrait of Jane’s penance painted by William Blake today hangs in the Tate Gallery. An amusing unintended consequence of Jane’s story is that 'Blake probably chose the subject as a protest against orthodox sexual morality!'
⁷⁷

Wearing a celice, floggings and other instruments designed to deliver bodily discomfort, were originally constructed to fit as a part of the penitent’s sentence. However, it became fashionable for the truly pious to voluntarily prescribe the wearing of such instruments of penance to themselves!

Then there were those who saw the temptation to control their dark side, too powerful for them to manage in their daily lives and relationships. There was only one answer - to withdraw from the world and flee to a life of self-denial within which it would be possible to escape temptation, and live a life that pleased God. One such was Christine Carpenter.

A weathered brass plaque on the exterior wall of an ancient medieval Church in the tiny village of Shere proclaims:

'
Site of the cell of

Christine Carpenter

Anchoress of Shere

1329'

The strange story of Christine Carpenter is told in a series of letters written between the Bishop of Winchester and the Office of the Archdeacon of Surrey.
⁷⁸

'
Christine, daughter of William called the Carpenter of Shire in our diocese, has besought us by her humble petition, that whereas, desiring not feignedly, but of truth to remove herself to the fulfilment of a better life, she wishes to vow herself solemnly to continuance and perpetual chastity and to let herself be shut up in a narrow place in the churchyard adjoining the parish church of Shire, that therein she may be enabled to serve Almighty God the more worthily, we should consider her worthy to be granted our favourable assent and consent.'

To Which the Bishop replied,

'. . you shall apply yourself to seeking out the truth as to whether the aforesaid Christine is of such good life and conversation that she is likely to make a success of this proposal for a more saintly life . . .'

Sir Matthew, Rector of the Church, and the parishioners seem to have done due diligence and forwarded to the Bishop a favourable report, which led him to conclude:

'
. . . that she may be enclosed there in the manner and for the reasons aforesaid, that thus laid aside from public and worldly sights, she may be enabled to serve God more freely in every way, and having resisted all opportunity for wantonness may keep her heart undefiled by this world.'

Christine was, accordingly, interred in a tiny cell in the church wall.

We not told what she did for food and water and what sanitation arrangements were made for her but there she sat, cut off from the world, most of the time in darkness. She was not the first person who decided that the only way to find contentment was to completely withdraw from the world.

However, Christine apparently had a change of mind and was seen sneaking out of her cell. I suspect that she had discovered that to be truly alive she had to forsake the confinement and embrace life with all its temptations, joys and sorrows. Maybe, just maybe, there was a certain young man whose image she could not expunge from her memory.

Unfortunately failure to continue with her vow to be a hermit was punishable by excommunication, so the caring Rector wrote to his Bishop:

'
Christine of Shire having approached us on the eighth day of October last, to whom as is elsewhere set forth, having the consent of the Rector and parishioners there, and being moved by certain legitimate causes in this matter we had granted a license for her enclosure, she having by solemn act and observance taken herself into a certain enclosure adjoining the church there, now however having as we have been informed withdrew herself from such enclosure . . . whereas at one time, as is known to you, choosing enclosure in the life of an anchoress, she made a solemn vow of continuance, promising to remain in that place; now foreswearing this life and conduct that she assumed, she has left her cell inconstantly and returned to the world. Now, with God’s help changed in heart, wishing to return to her former abode and calling, she has humbly petitioned us that she may be treated mercifully by the Apostolic See in this matter . . . she has brought us the below-written letters . . . .'

'
. . . whereas at one time, as is known to you, choosing enclosure in the in the life of an anchoress, (I) she made a solemn vow of continence, promising to remain in that place; now foreswearing this life and conduct that (I) she assumed, she has left her cell inconstantly and returned to the world.'

The Rector sent a letter to his bishop in which he pleaded for absolution for Christine’s behaviour and went on to suggest that Christine should be re-confined to her cell for a period and if she behaved herself she should be allowed to go free without the prescribed penalty of excommunication for having broken her vow.

The Bishop responded:

'
. . . . we order and command you that the said Christine shall be thrust back into the said re-enclosure, and that with suitable solicitude and competent vigilance you shall take care to guard her, thus enclosed, in due form, that she may learn at your discretion how nefarious was her committed sin, and that thereafter dedicating herself worthily to God, having first offered to God that which is inflicted on her by us, she may be enabled to achieve her salvation . . .'