here, now: light, water

it is just-dark, and a bit cold on this march night on a hill in eureka springs. the sun has set cloud-hidden, and the paschal moon will not rise for two hours. in the darkness i strike steel to flint and ignite a new fire, from which i light a candle, holding it high enough for the owls and pine trees and late-homing squirrels to see, and sing:

"christ, as a light, illumine and guide me.
christ, as a shield, overshadow me.
christ under me;
christ over me;
christ beside me on my left and my right.
this day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
be in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
this day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all powerful.
christ as a light; christ as a shield'
christ beside me on my left and my right."

having no deacon, young or old, i chant an ancient hymn claiming this night, this here, this now, to that night, to be that there, that then, when the holy one led his people out of bondage in egypt. i sing in english, using a translation by the northumbrian community of the song patrick knew in latin as exultet:

"leap and spin, you powers of heaven.
burst into explosive songs of joy,
all you companies of angels.
let the throne of god be surrounded
with the praise of all that has life.

"the earth glories in her maker.
now mountains and valley glow in splendour;
the sea on the shore whispers the praises of jesus.
rivers stream through thirsty soil,
bringing news of gladness--
the redeemer is risen.
his glory fills the earth.
the trees thunder their praises,
and loudly clap their hands.

"sound a trumpet through all the earth.
our morning star is alive!
risen in splendour, he is among us;
the darkness is driven back.
we, his people, join in the dance of all creation.
. . .
"jesus is the true lamb that was slain,
whose blood is on the door of our hearts,
whose blood is the protection of the homes
of all believers.

"this is now the night
when first you freed your people,
and led israel's children
out of slavery in egypt.
dry-shoed, they walked through the sea.

"this is now the night when the pillar of fire
destroyed the darkness of sin!

"this night, christians everywhere,
washed clean, and free from any blemish,
are renewed in hope,
and learn to grow together as one.

"this night, jesus our mighty lord
broke the chains of death,
and returned to us, undefeated.
he is become our champion.
. . .
"in the joy of this night,
father, receive our offering:
this holy fire, this easter light.
let its flame ever-burning
break through the darkness of our times.
let it be a pillar of fire,
leading us forward in your truth.
may the sun of justice which never sets
find this flame still burning;
may christ the morning star
who came again from the dead
find his light brightly burning in our hearts."

then i read on pivot rock road in eureka springs, in a.d. 2008, the same story patrick had read on slane hill in ireland, in a. d. 433. the story is much older than patrick, indeed than any of the stories previously known to the celtic bards who would embrace it as their own.

"in the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth.
and the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters.
and god said, let there be light: and there was light.
and god saw the light, that it was good:
and god divided the light from the darkness.
and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night,
and the evening and the morning were the first day." (genesis 1:1-5 av)

in the beginning, and in the now: god; darkness, water, light, evening and morning, the model of creation.

i begin my essay with me and patrick and god because i want to show how the song works. it begins with god, and it brings us into god's presence, and because god is, as our french brothers and sisters so eloquently remind us, the eternal, it brings our times into the now of god's eternity.

we sing the story, not about then, but about now. the startling light that divides the darkness on pivot rock road is the same light that celtic bards agreed with god was good on the irish hill top; it is the same light god said, "let there be," "in the beginning."

i read on:

"and god said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters.
and god made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
and god called the firmament heaven.
and the evening and the morning were the second day." (genesis 1:6-8)

i pen these words on the ninth day of easter, a spring monday afternoon. the wind has been moving in rambunctious play over the deep ozark valleys as i have sat and pondered these simple words from the beginning of time. i wonder what to write about this melodic theme of divided waters. of course there is a continuity to the waters like the continuity of the light. the water in the earthenware bowl on my table is the same water in which patrick baptized the celtic bards, burying them in christ jesus; it is the water god divided on the second day. but the waters god treated differently from the light, not dividing it from something else, like the light from darkness, but dividing water from water, prophetic of dividing the waters of the red sea and the jordan river.

but there is more. the light remains transcendant, always slightly other. it is understood that the light reveals god's glory, so that we say in the creed that the son is "light from light, true god from true god," a light that shines "begotten not made."

as i sit the rain begins, gently at first, and then more insistently. water is more intimate than light. the intimacy can be seen as a caring act of god:

"thou visitest the earth, and blessest it;
thou makest it very plentous.
the river of god is full of water:
thou preparest their corn, for so thou preparest for the earth.
thou waterest her furrows;
thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof;
thou makest it soft with the drops of rain, and blessest the increase of it.
thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy clouds drop fatness."
(psalm 65:9-12, coverdale)

but i am getting ahead of the story.

beginning to hear the song

it is dark, and a bit cold this march-going-into-april saturday night on a hill called slane, on the banks of the river boyne. in the darknesss patrick strikes the steel to flint and ignites the new fire, from which he lights a large candle. holding it high enough to be seen on all the irish hills around, he sings, "the light of christ." walking into the crowd, some of whom have gathered to see if he would really challenge the high king of tara with claims of a higher king, he sings "the light of christ" again, a note higher. once more he will sing "the light of christ," another note higher, and share the fire with all the candles brought by the crowd. a young deacon at his side starts the lessons of the vigil, singing, "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. and the earth was without form, and void, and the spirit of the lord hovered on the face of the water. and god separated the darkness from the light, and god saw that the light was good, and the evening and the morning were the first day."

in the creed we sing, "we believe in one god, . . . creator of heaven and earth." the greek word we english as creator is poeton, poet, and of course greek poems are sung. so we believe that god the father almighty sang the heaven and the earth into being. and in most times and places the story of god that we call the bible has been sung as well. before there were printed texts, the melodies made the words more easily memorable. still today in the orthodox church there simple tones to which to sing the words; for the major feasts there are special tones.

after hearing scripture sung, any other way of hearing it is literally prosaic. most of the church sings the holy story, whether in coptic or syriac or greek or latin, and even in english. can you read the fortieth chapter of isaiah, "comfort ye my people," without hearing handle's melody?

if scripture is a song, what kind of song is it? a look at the huge red volume with which i introduced this essay would suggest it is not a simple song. rather it is more like a great wagnerian opera whose many themes weave together or sing against each other to make the magnum opus. the whole work may look complicated, but there are simple melodies within it, melodies that repeat and vary throughout. we have already heard one of the melodies, the melody of light. if we are going to think of the bible as a huge ring of operatic music, it will be especially important to pay attention to the overture, in which we may expect to hear all of the important melodies introduced. the overture is the first eleven chapters of genesis.

introduction

i am sitting in a small room with the book. it is large, 14x10x4 inches,closed. it is bound in red heifer hide, and the edges of the pages glow with gold leaf. it weights about 20 pounds. both hands are needed to pick it up and open it, and then it covers most of my little desk, leaving only room for a candlestick, which i move from side to side because the book is wider than the taper's pool of light.

northrup frey claims that there are two kinds of writing, text and commentary. this is the text on which what we call western civilization has been a commentary. sometimes the commentary has been joyous, sometimes sad. some parts of that commentary have tried to stay close to the text, other parts have repudiated it. but even the repudiation has been of the text my candle lights in yellow pools for me to read.

the text is, of course, the holy bible, the authorized version, printed at the oxford university press by geoffrey cumberledge in letters that stand out on the paper, and appointed to be read in churches.

the older way of reading it in churches was to finish a reading with "thus endeth the lesson," to which the people would respond, "thanks be to god." more recently the lessons are often ended, "the word of the lord." this is not, however, the real teaching of the church. for muslims the koran is really the word of god. for christians the word is the second person of the trinity, "through whom all things were made," "who by the power of the holy spirit became incarnate from the virgin mary." but the books of the bible, it is taught, "containeth all things necessary to salvation."

that it is a book, one huge volume, also available in volumes of many other sizes, is itself a recent phenomenon, a product of the printing press that heralded the beginning of the modern age. we of my generation--i was born in 1946--are so accustomed to books and to the one we call "the good book" that we sometimes act as if the holy one can only be revealed by a book. for many of my friends born after 1980, that revelation is called up by a left-click on an icon on their laptop. at least the post-modern age is regaining the iconic nature of this revelation in words.

there was a time before there was a book, not only printed books but even hand-written books. then the words were a song. it is to encourage the recovery of the song that this essay is undertaken.