Mystical Paths (52 page)

XIII

‘
You go in first to prepare him,’ said Lewis as we reached the cottage. ‘I’ll wait here.’

I knocked on the door and opened it a few inches. ‘Father?’ ‘Nicholas!’ He sounded faint with relief.

Leaving the door ajar I went in. He was fully dressed, a fact which surprised me, and lying on his bed. Several pillows propped him up high enough to make reading comfortable but the book he had selected was lying face down at his side. I recognised his favourite copy of
The Cloud of Unknowing
.

I took his bandaged hands in mine and sat down on the edge of the bed, but before I could ask him how he was he said in a trembling voice: ‘You’ve been in such danger.’

‘Yes, but that’s over now.’

He closed his eyes for a moment as if he was too relieved to speak. At last he said: ‘I’m so tired. Keeping you safe takes so much energy, and what will happen when I’m no longer here to look after you?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about. Father, it’s going to be all right. I’ve finally found the priest who can help me. He —’

Wait.’ My father was staring across the room at the open door, and as I glanced over my shoulder I saw that Lewis’s shadow had fallen across the threshold.

My father whispered to me: ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

‘It’s this priest. I think Uncle Charles may have mentioned him to you. He runs a healing centre at St Paul’s in Starbridge, but you mustn’t let that prejudice you against him.’

Lewis, hearing his cue, gently opened the door wider and stepped into the room.

My father gazed at him. Lewis paused. Then suddenly my father’s whole expression changed. Utter relief mingled with awe-struck excitement as he sat bolt upright on his bed, but all he said in wonder was:

‘So you finally came.’

TWO

‘The idea of the soul’s centre as the place where God is to

be found is no discovery of Jung. Christian mystical writers

who assume that God is present everywhere affirm that he is most

surely to be found within ...’

CHRISTOPHER BRYANT

Member of the Society of St John the Evangelist 1935-1985

The River Within

‘
No eye has seen the Holy Spirit or ever can. He is likened by the

biblical writers to wind, fire, water: the wind of a mighty gale; the

fire which warms to love, to vision, to enthusiasm; the water which

drenches hard soil and makes it soft and fruitful. These images

describe what the Holy Spirit does in human lives.’

MICHAEL RAMSEY

Archbishop of Canterbury 1961-1974

Canterbury Pilgrim

I

Lewis appeared riveted to the floor. I had never before seen him at a loss for words, and to my amazement I realised he was shy. But then my father was so distinguished, and Lewis was, after all, forty years his junior.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ said my father to him. ‘You’ve been close now for some time, I think.’

‘I’ve just told you, Father,’ I said. (How one has to repeat oneself to the old!) ‘He works in Starbridge.’ And to Lewis Iadded in explanation of my father’s mysterious statement: ‘He’s been praying for years that I’d find a priest who could help me.’

But my father wasn’t listening. ‘We’ll sit at the table,’ he said to Lewis. ‘Nicholas, help me get up.’

‘Please,’ said Lewis, finally finding his tongue and moving forward awkwardly, ‘there’s no need.’ But my father waved these words aside. ‘Important guests must be received in style!’ he said smiling. He was getting younger by the second. I barely had to help him walk to the table.

‘Let me introduce you both,’ I said. ‘Father, this is Lewis Hall. Lewis —’

‘Get the folding chair out of the cupboard, Nicholas,’ said my father, ignoring the introduction, ‘and shut the door. There’s a draught.’

Old people can be very autocratic sometimes. With resignation I closed the door, produced the folding chair and took it to the table where my father and Lewis were already sitting opposite each other. Since my father normally only received one visitor at a time the folding chair was seldom used.

I sat down. Whitby appeared fleetingly around my ankles but was unable to resist the lure of my father’s lap.

‘You remember the cat, of course,’ said my father to Lewis. My blood ran cold. My father did occasionally get confused about the past, but such confusion had always fallen a long way short of senility. I wondered if his extreme exhaustion had affected his brain, and the thought was unbearable. If Lewis should find himself confronted not by the heroic figure of For-dite legend but by a senile old man ... I sat rigid with dread on my chair.

But Lewis seemed untroubled. Reaching into his memory of our recent conversations he said easily to my father: ‘That’s Whitby, isn’t it?’ and the next moment my father was beaming from ear to ear.

‘So you even remember the name!’ he said delighted. ‘I wasn’t sure whether you would. But of course this isn’t the original Whitby, the house-cat up at Ruydale. We’re not in that time now ... Forgive me, that sounds a trifle odd, I know it does, but for me past and present seem so fluid that occasionally I have trouble remembering which time I’m in. But you’re here, aren’t you, Father, you’re in the present, and you’ve come to look after Nicholas at last.’

By this time I was in agony. ‘Father,’ I said, so embarrassed I could hardly speak, ‘I’m afraid you’re a little confused. This is
Lewis Hall.
He —’

‘It’s all right, Nicholas,’ said Lewis suddenly. ‘I understand.’ And to my father he added: ‘The walls of time are very thin sometimes, aren’t they?’

‘As paper,’ said my father, setting Whitby down on the floor. ‘That’s why I was so sure that one day you’d tear them apart. Father, I’m so worried about Nicholas — I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been about him —’

‘I know.’ Reaching across the table he turned my father’s bandaged hands upwards and laid his fingers across the damaged palms.

There was a long, long silence.

Eventually my father whispered: ‘You understand, don’t you?’ and Lewis said: ‘Of course.’

My father sighed, closing his eyes briefly in relief, and I felt the tension begin to seep out of him.

‘I told you about the eczema, didn’t I?’ I felt compelled to say to Lewis. ‘If you can now convince him to see a doctor and get the right ointment —’

‘Oh, do be quiet, Nicholas!’ said my father irritably. ‘It’s got nothing to do with eczema.’

I stared at him. ‘But you always said —’

‘Well, I had to say something, didn’t I? I had to explain the need for bandages.’ He turned back to Lewis. ‘Do you need to see the wounds?’

‘No, the bandages are no barrier to the healing.’

‘What wounds?’ I demanded, my scalp prickling with fright. I could remember reading about self-mutilation during one of my bouts of psychiatric research.

‘It’s all right, Nicholas,’ said Lewis again, and added to myfather: ‘Do you regard the wounds as a gift from God?’

‘No,’ said my father without hesitation. ‘It was a mere reflection by my body of what was going on in my mind.’ The reflection of very powerful psychic activity?’

‘I knew you’d understand,’ said my father, and as he spoke I saw his hands were now fully relaxed as they lay limply beneath Lewis’s fingers. ‘I knew you would.’

‘Tell me how it happened.’

My father said very willingly as if he could hardly wait to confide in someone who would display neither revulsion nor incredulity nor — worst of all — hysterical wonder: ‘I knew that only Our Lord could keep Nicholas safe. I knew that only by holding Nicholas and Our Lord constantly together in my mind could I ensure my son’s survival. For hours and hours I’d pray by focusing my entire psyche on the crucifix as I begged Our Lord to protect Nicholas ... and of course it was a very great strain on my body as my mind reverberated day and night with images of the crucifixion. I was hardly surprised in the end when the blood started to well up in the palms of my hands and burst through the skin. The wounds don’t bleed all the time, I hasten to add, but the marks of the nails go right through the palms — I can hold up my hands and see the light through the membranes ... Father, say something to that boy, say something before he passes out —’

‘Your father’s been suffering from a rare but well-documented phenomenon, Nicholas,’ said Lewis crisply. ‘In some past cases the stigmata have been regarded as a gift from God and indicative of great holiness: St Francis is the most famous example. But your father’s being very honest and saying that in his case the manifestation was caused not by God but by his own psyche, straining to accomplish such a difficult form of prayer.’

‘It’s wonderful how well you understand!’ said my father simply, and as he relaxed still further he added: ‘What a healer you are, Father! I see you haven’t lost your touch.’

‘My touch at present is just easing the symptoms, as I’m sure you realise. The real cure will only take place when you no longer have to endure this crippling anxiety about Nicholas.’

‘But you’ll cure that, won’t you, Father? You know that despite all our difficulties I always had absolute faith in you when it came to healing. Do you remember —’

‘Father,’ I said in a loud voice, ‘perhaps we should take a break now and resume this conversation later when you’re better. Perhaps you should lie down and rest again. Perhaps —’

‘Take no notice of him,’ said my father to Lewis. ‘He’s still such a child that he doesn’t understand anything, and no matter how hard I try to explain he doesn’t listen because he thinks he knows everything already. Oh, what a relief it is to open my heart at last to someone who’ll understand the situation in all its many dimensions — and particularly the psychic dimension, which is so baffling and so apparently intractable. None of my remaining friends — and I’m thinking in particular of Charles Ashworth who’s so very kind to me — none of them can grasp the scope of this problem and help me to solve it.’

‘It’s been very hard for both you and Nicholas.’

‘Poor Nicholas,’ said my father, ‘he’s such a good boy at heart, and if he’s gone wrong, it’s all my fault. I’ve tried to bring him up properly, but I’m so old and God never designed me to be a parent and I’ve made such a mess of everything.’

‘Oh, stop talking such rubbish!’ I exclaimed horrified, and swung round on Lewis. ‘I can’t have this,’ I announced. ‘He’s getting upset. The conversation must end at once.’

‘Oh, I think not, Nicholas,’ said Lewis. ‘I think this is where the conversation really begins.’

II

‘
What’s wrong with speaking the truth?’ said my father truculently to me. ‘Why aren’t I allowed to say I’ve made an awful hash of bringing you up, almost as bad as the hash I made of bringing up Martin and Ruth?’

‘Because it’s not true! You’re perfect, the best father in the world, and I absolutely forbid you to get upset like this!’ Iturned on Lewis again. ‘He’s not to be upset,’ I said fiercely. ‘It’s very bad for him, very dangerous.
I refuse to let him be
upset.
’

‘
But Nicholas,’ said Lewis, ‘can’t you see? It’s the lie that’s upsetting him, the lie that he’s perfect, the lie that he’s satisfied with the way things are, the lie that he’s well and happy because you’ve chosen to be his replica —’

‘REPLICA!’ cried my father. ‘Oh, don’t mention that word to me! I hate the very sound of it!’

Instantly I dredged up my most soothing voice. ‘I know you do, Father, I know you do. Don’t take any notice of him, don’t let yourself be upset —’

‘
Be
upset!’ said Lewis to my father. ‘Be very, very upset! Go on — you’ve got the right, you’ve earned it after suffering in silence for so long!’

‘Shut up!’ I shouted in panic to Lewis. ‘He doesn’t talk about anything upsetting, he never does, never —’

‘Then now’s your chance!’ said Lewis to my father. ‘Talk about what’s upsetting you — shout it from the rooftops! Yell out that truth that’ll set you free!’

‘You see?’ said my father to me. ‘He understands.’ ‘But Father —’

‘I want to talk, Nicholas.’

‘No, you can’t — you mustn’t —’

‘But I shall. In fact if I can’t talk now about how upset and unhappy I am,’ said my father, somehow managing to inject a shred of humour into such a desperate situation, ‘I swear I shall burst a blood vessel and die in a fit of pique.’

I was finally rendered speechless with horror.

III

‘
I see Nicholas has told you all about this replica business,’ said my father confidentially to Lewis. ‘How appalled you must have been! What a monster of pride and selfishness you must have thought me, demanding that my son should be a mere replica of myself! But Father, the situation’s far more complex than you might imagine, and in fact it’s so complex that I hardly know now where to begin in my àttempt to describe it. I suppose I must start with my wife’s death when Nicholas was fourteen. After she died I felt my life was so diminished, so damaged, that I hardly knew how to go on. Of course now I can see I was merely suffering from an acute form of bereavement, but at the time I was in darkness and Nicholas was my only ray of light. It was then that I began to dwell again on a vision which I had had well over a year before he was born: I’d seen him in the garden of the Manor when he was three or four years old. There he was, looking just as I’d looked at that age, and when I saw him I thought God was promising me a replica to compensate me for ... well, I’d had a tough time since leaving the Order and at that moment I felt very estranged from both my children, and ... dear me, how spiritually immature this sounds, but I thought I could do with a little present from God to cheer me up. But Francis Ingram, who was by then my confessor, always said the vision was a delusion and I came to accept he was right.

‘But in 1946 that vision was actually replayed in reality, and I started to wonder about it all over again. "All this proves," said Francis, "is that your excessively peculiar brain occasionally glimpses the future. It doesn’t prove the vision came from God." And of course I saw he was right. We also discussed (not for the first time) how very wrong it was for fathers to expect their sons to be replicas. "Never tell Nicholas about this vision," said Francis. "It might give him all manner of false ideas about who he’s supposed to be." You’d be surprised, I think, Father, by how able Francis proved as my spiritual director — that worldly scepticism combined with the shrewd common sense certainly stripped down my psychic illusions and kept me on the rails ... If only Francis had lived a little longer! But he died before Anne back in the ‘fifties.

‘Well, I made up my mind never to tell Nicholas about the vision, but one day when I was so unbalanced by my bereavement — one day when Nicholas was being such a comfort tome — one day when I was quite overpowered by the need to cheer myself up —’

‘You told him.’

‘Yes. Of course I shouldn’t have done it — I knew I shouldn’t have done it — but I saw him there, just like me, and I remembered my vision, and I thought: how I’d love to share it with him! And the next moment I was thinking: how wonderful it would be if he could live my life for me all over again but without making my mistakes! Guilt played a large part in my bereavement, I’m afraid, and I see now I had a great psychological need to redeem my errors by rewriting my life, reshaping it, editing out all the pain and mess and unhappiness, and offering the revised product to God with the message: "I got so much wrong the first time, but at least, thanks to you giving me a replica, I’ll get everything right now." Absurd, wasn’t it? Absurd and disgraceful. All I can say in my defence is that I was very sick then, very depressed. Anyway, I told Nicholas about the vision and I couldn’t help getting excited when I spoke about it, and of course as soon as he saw that the idea of a replica cheered me up and gave me a much-needed interest in life —’

‘— he realised what he had to do. When did you eventually come to your senses?’

‘About a year after Anne died. By that time I’d organised the Community to take care of the house and grounds, and my cottage here had been built. I hardly need add that as soon as I was on my own in absolute silence with no distractions I was able to realign my mind with God and see clearly just how far I d gone astray.’

‘And then I’m sure you tried to put things right.’

‘Yes, but by then it was too late! I said very firmly to Nicholas on several occasions: "I don’t want you to be my replica. I want you to be your true self," but he didn’t believe me. "Yes, yes!" he would say. "Don’t worry about it — don’t get upset!" — and he went right on trying to be my replica. But I tried so hard to communicate the truth to him, Father! I explained all about the personality and the concept of the self — how clever it was of Carl Gustav Jung to put those ancient religious truths into modem scientific language! — and finally I said: "God’s given you a unique blueprint which you have to uncover and fulfil." But all he said was: "Yes, but don’t worry, it’s identical to yours, so I’ll be following in your footsteps and living your life for you all over again." He was deaf to all reason, Father, utterly irrational! "Nicholas," I said, "you can’t be identical to me. It’s biologically impossible." And do you know what he said? He said: "The vision was God’s assurance that He intended to override the laws of biology. No need for you to get worried or upset, no need at all." And then, Father,
then —
oh, I hardly know how to find the words to make such a terrible confession, but —’

‘You began to believe him.’

‘Yes. Well ... no. I mean, half of me knew I mustn’t believe him, but the other half ... oh, what shameful ambivalence! I must have started sending out confused signals to him again, but I was in such a muddle, Father, that I couldn’t work out where the truth lay. In fact I’m still in a muddle. Is it possible, do you think, that Nicholas has more spiritual insight on this point than I do and that he really is my replica after all?’

‘I think it’s more likely that Nicholas’s behaviour stems not from spiritual insight but from psychological difficulties. But there’s one thing I do know for sure: in 1942, when he was born, it was scientifically impossible to produce a clone of a human being. In fact I believe it’s still impossible. So that means we must relegate all ideas about replicas to the pages of science fiction.’

‘But if the vision was a sign from God that He intended to override the laws of biology —’

‘Why on earth should He? What’s so special about you that you have to be exactly reproduced?’

‘Lewis!’ I shouted in fury, but my father was much too interested in these questions to pay me any attention.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said to Lewis. ‘There’s no reason why I have to be exactly reproduced, and only sheer pride andarrogance could have made me entertain the idea in the first place. But nevertheless, if God sent the vision —’

‘I thought you agreed with Francis that He didn’t? With all due respect I think you’ve allowed yourself to become so mesmerised by this vision of yours that you’ve been seduced into building psychic castles in the air.’

‘You believe Francis’s view of the vision was right?’

To be honest, I have to say that I do. All the vision proves is that you’re capable of an extraordinary degree of clairvoyance — and let me go further than Francis could when he was discussing the vision with you all those years ago; let me say that in my opinion it’s now patently obvious that the vision couldn’t have come from God.’

I said sharply: ‘You can’t be sure of that!’ but even as I spoke my father was saying: ‘Go on.’

‘The gifts of the Spirit,’ said Lewis, repeating the famous Christian maxim, ‘can be recognised by their fruits, but isn’t it obvious that the fruits of this vision have been disastrous? The vision wrapped you in the sentimental delusion that a replica of yourself was possible, pampered your ego by encouraging you to believe you were special enough for God to override the laws of science on your behalf, and finally laid the foundations for a lot of trouble between you and Nicholas. I’d forget that vision, if I were you. Take it firmly between your thumb and forefinger and drop it in the nearest psychic waste-paper basket. Then your mind will at last be sufficiently uncluttered to see Nicholas as he truly is.’

‘I can’t tell you how utterly I disapprove of that advice!’ I said outraged. ‘My father needs this vision, it’s one of his favourites, he loves it, it’s cheered him up so often, given him strength and hope when he’s upset — and
I won
’
t have my father deprived of a source of strength and hope when he
’
s upset!
’

‘
You see?’ said my father to Lewis. ‘You see how he’s quite beyond rational argument when I’m under discussion?’

‘You continue to believe your vision was from God, Father!’ I said strongly, overriding this comment. ‘Don’t let yourself be upset by any talk of psychic waste-paper baskets!’

‘I want to be upset!’ bawled my father. Back he turned again to Lewis. ‘Father, what do I do?’ he said in despair. ‘How can I stop him clinging to this notion — which I now see is utterly false — that the vision was from God and that he has to be my replica?’

Try talking to him of his mother,’ said Lewis.