Authors: Lawrence Scott
Aelred's Sin (16 page)
Lectio Divina - holy reading, divine reading - was to be a meditation, a listening of the heart and the mind to voices from the pages. Ancient monks were encouraged to read aloud, to move their lips in reading. The public reading in the refectory, the chapter house and in choir were integral to this Lectio Divina. This was to be listened to in silence. The monks were instructed by their rule to see to each others’ needs and to communicate quietly by signs at these times.
But the heart and core of this reading was here when the monk was alone in his cell, moving his lips silently. He was encouraged to read and to hear:
legere
et
audire.
His entire attitude was a turning of himself towards God, a conversion. He was to hasten in this turning and take flight from here. It was with this desire that the reverberations of what he had read had its lasting effect on the quality of his mind. For Aelred, it was this that worked on the quality of his imagination.
The purity of his mind and actions, the flight of his
desire, was to create something as close as possible to the angelic life, the life of angels, the vita angelica. He sought wings to fly. He was like a bride in anticipation of the heavenly bridegroom. This was his bridal chamber. The monastery was a cloistered paradise.
Here, in Lectio Divina, was a place to rest: busy rest, a waking sleep, upon a bed of flowers. Like bees which sucked the nectar, the most nutritious food. The idealism of all this fired the young Aelred along the path of his beloved Benedict. When would he be able to talk to him?
The habit of reading was formed in the custom of the ancient monks, and the habit of writing too: both together were the tools in the science of salvation. Aelred felt that he was stepping out from the tradition of the ancient scriptorium, where monks deciphered and copied, corrected and illuminated, painted and bound their manuscripts with extraordinary beauty, enhanced by the extravagant flights of their calligraphy and illuminating pens. The monks who did not take up the plough took up the pen. It was the work of the fingers and the mind, an ascetic art. In the almost silence of scratching pens and quietly moving lips, Aelred ruminated, meditated and remembered. He kept his journal. He wrote a letter to Benedict. He had one back in return. He sipped on this nectar, the words he sent to his friend. Aelred wrote in his journal then copied it out for Benedict.
Dear Benedict,
Because we can’t talk I want to drop you a line. I think of you.
And when I do it feels good. I think of your love for
me and mine for you as the love which Christ had for his disciples and the love we must have for him. He is in our love. When I feel frustrated that I can’t talk to you I offer it up and know that that makes our love deeper. It will help me love all my brothers. We can talk with our eyes. I write about you in my journal.
Yours in Christ,
Aelred
Dear Little brother,
Yes, we can talk with our eyes. Yes, our love is that great love we all strive to exist within. I know it’s difficult for you as it is for me.
But this is the boundary we have to set ourselves, a boundary made by the holy rule and the customs of our community. This is our dangerous chastity. There will be moments that we can have.
And they will be more precious because of the waiting. Keep reading Aelred of Rievaulx.
Always in Christ, my bonny lad,
Benedict
Aelred pasted the letter into the pages of his journal.
It was Joe who came to pick me up. I was glad. There were things that I felt I wanted to share with him right away. I know I used to feel more comfortable with Miriam, or when Miriam was there. Not that we didn’t spend time together alone, Joe and me. But I was really glad to see Joe. I’m still amazed at his kindness. He’s part of what I am excavating. He was very excited to visit Ashton Park. I was surprised that he’d not visited before with J. M., or even on his own. It’s not that far away. Quite apart from how it is linked with our lives, it’s such a beautiful spot.
Joe said that he would be arriving at two thirty, but it wasn’t till after three that he arrived. There’d been traffic and he had taken the winding country roads.
I was waiting in the guests’ parlour so that there would be no difficulty in finding me when Joe arrived. The porter came and collected me. Joe was out in the car park.
Where is he? Joe whispered. Immediately, he wanted to see Benedict. I’ve not come all this way just to pick you up, you know. He laughed. I’ve heard about this guy. You know? You’ve read the journals. I’ve heard J. M. talk so much about him. So this is the place where it all happened. God! I can’t imagine it, despite all the evidence. It must’ve been quite a few days for you. Can’t wait to hear about it. Joe was beside himself. Miriam had wanted to come too, he said, but she’d got an important
dig this week down in Devon.
I had said to Benedict that I would come and say goodbye. He said that he thought he would be digging spuds in the walled garden, not in the field where most of the others were at this time of the year. We found him with Brother Stephen.
Oh, there you are. Benedict hailed us, lifting himself up from his work with the potatoes. I thought you’d gone.
This is Joe, I said. He’s a friend of J. M.’s. Benedict rubbed his hands on the side of his work smock to clean off the mud from his hands. He shook hands with Joe.
From Bristol, are you? he asked. Joe nodded, suddenly shy. We talked about the garden. So much going on inside all of us. We had so much in common and we didn’t speak of it. But J. M. was there, standing between us. He was the reason we were all there together. I could see Benedict looking at Joe, sizing him up.
Well, we must go, I said. Leave you to your work and some peace without me bothering you.
You know you’ve never bothered me, he said, smiling. He drew me into his embrace, giving me the monastic kiss on both cheeks. He shook Joe’s hand. You must come some time and stay. We’ve got good Benedictine hospitality. He smiled. And you’ll come back soon. Benedict took my hand again.
I was really sad to leave. But relieved, too. I need some time away. I keep thinking of our parents. So many regrets.
Joe and I didn’t stop talking all the way back to Bristol, even though Joe took a scenic route to show me some of the countryside. Wonderful autumn colours!
I can see something of the young Benedict J. M. talked
about. But he’s a broken man, Joe said. Can’t you see that?
I said, Yes, I could see that in a way, although talking to him had given me another view. But he had been ill once when I was staying.
He’s a broken man. He’s denied himself something fundamental about himself. It’s eaten him away from within.
I was irritated with Joe’s going on.
He’s betrayed himself all his life.
In the end I didn’t argue. But isn’t that the life he’s chosen, a celibate life, chastity? For whatever reason.
Yes, for whatever reason, Joe said.
We don’t understand, I said. But there’s a lot to him. I’ve grown fond of him.
We’ve come a long way, Joe said. He was thinking of the gay movement. I thought about what he said, and wasn’t sure if I agreed. It wouldn’t bring my brother back. I didn’t say that.
I know that Joe still has a story to tell me.
Things are as I left them, what’s left in his room. The red notebooks with the black spines are still there. I hadn’t taken all of them to Ashton Park. It’s good to be here with him, my brother. Joe has gone out to a club. He wanted me to come along. I said I was tired.
Maybe some other time. Not sure I’m up to that. I think he was disappointed. He said that Miriam might phone from Ilfracombe in Devon.
I get post.
St Aelred’s Abbey
Ashton Park
Ashton
Avon
7 October 1984
Dear Robert,
Your visit has brought about a most extraordinary recall of events which I had hitherto put to rest, if that was possible. You may have found me evasive. Yes, I was grateful for your discretion. It has not been easy to hold in balance the conflicting claims on my emotions and on my beliefs, brought about by the relationship I had with your brother. Just before Aelred, J. M., eventually lost touch, his letters came less often, I remember him writing to tell me that he had returned to Les Deux Isles to research some history, the history of the island and the house. I was glad to hear that he had become a history lecturer, or did some lecturing. That seemed purposeful.
Altogether, I don’t know what you will find in those journals. There are the writings of a very young man. Funnily enough, your stay has revived my interest in the earlier events of J. M.’s life. I suspect those must matter to you as well. He was J. M. then, not Aelred. I never got the Ted story in full, as it were. He never told it in one sitting. I always had it in fragments, sometimes the same fragments retold - an indication of his distress. I am now convinced, with your corroborations, that those events are what put a particular pattern upon J. M.’s questing. His directors
had been remiss. The church has to take responsibility for an enormous amount of bad judgement and wrong advice, being far too concerned with possible scandal and not enough with the particular help needed for the individual soul. Nevertheless, we have to judge the events in their time. I wonder if J. M. came to that conclusion. I doubt it somehow. I think his sense of history was more to unearth buried histories, legitimise illegitimate behaviour. Far too ideological, I think.
Your brother was very needy for human affection. The loss of Ted and the particular circumstances of that loss marked him for life. He was bent upon avenging that secret.
As you see, I have not changed, no matter what the journals say. Yes, I was charmed by your brother. I loved him and I tried to keep that within ideals set by St Aelred of Rievaulx. It was something I had to control because of my vows. That in itself was a radical thing to attempt. I invited him to do the same.
My dear Robert, you yourself are charming and remind me greatly of your brother, though you have a lighter personality. He was driven. I respect your endeavour in putting together his story. I hope I can be of more assistance. I hope you will not be disappointed. I hope you’ll look after your faith.
I hope to see you again, God willing. Look forward to your arrival on the Friday. You will stay away from the retreatants, being at the lodge, not the guest house this time.
Yours affectionately,
Benedict
Yes, I thought he had been evasive. I do not reprimand him for that. I’m grateful that he has agreed to talk to me at all. Now that I’ve had a chance to go to Ashton Park, to think and read, I think I know what my brother was doing in his journals. I think he was trying to redeem acts that were in Aelred of Rievaulx’s writings, described quite luridly as evil. He wanted to redeem them with the quality of his love, the genuineness of his passion. That could be called ideological. I think I can weigh up what was youthful about my brother’s journals, that’s not to say untrue, and what can stand the test of time. I can genuinely feel that I think this way now which I didn’t six months ago. No, I don’t expect Benedict to talk to me in detail. My God, how many years has it been? It says something that he wants to continue talking. He must feel very compromised that I have the journals. He’s not helping with accounts of Ted. That’s something I have got to face up to on my own. Benedict’s been perceptive recognising those events as important to me. I think I know more than he does. I will have to trust my boyhood perceptions and the journals. I agree: the church and his directors at the time were at fault. I’m not sure whether time excuses, but then what difference does it make to say it doesn’t excuse? It should not happen again.
I reply. Receive my own words back again.
19 St John’s Way
Bristol 8
Avon
12 October 1984
Dear Benedict,
Thanks again so much for having me down for the week. Thanks for your letter. The visit meant more than I can describe, too. I should’ve written first. It has brought up so much, so much more than I at first thought was the point of my visit with you when I planned it. I say planned, but you know it was much more haphazard than that, and it was really an idea which had been taking root for some time and growing more interesting each time it came up. As I said to you, yes, I had kept putting it off. It seemed presumptuous. But having embarked on the reading of the journals, skipping and dipping, making my own chronologies, my own story as it were, it began to seem right, appropriate that I should meet you, for J. M.’s sake. To think that I have been so near, here at St John’s Way.
I’m sure you did stay here, the evening you went to the Mozart concert in the Pump Room in Bath - his very favourite Horn Concerto too, the music you taught him to love. I play it in the flat now, where I am alone with his things. New to me. I’m a calypso man. I must play my cuatro for you some time.
Do you remember that you climbed up the hill with the folly outside the city when it was still quite light, that brilliant summer of ’67? I paid a visit yesterday.
How reckless it sounded then! As I read, I snoop. This is why I had to meet you and say I know. Give you a chance to change the account. Or to say yes.
And now, here at night, writing you in the room at 19 St John’s Way, everything comes back.
I must stop rambling. But you see how grateful I am to you for bringing it all back. This is to thank you again for that, and to say yes to the ‘retreat’. Well, yes, I do qualify it, because as you said I needn’t think of it as a retreat proper, but as a quiet time to think out things.
At one time I thought you might not still be there. No, I didn’t just think you had left. Well, yes, I thought you might’ve died. When I thought that, I really panicked. I felt then it would be impossible to put it all together without meeting you.
You meet someone, talk lots, and then afterwards you wonder what the hell you’ve said and what they’ve made of you.
I agree that the old lodge would be a better place to stay rather than in the main house. Then I’ll be away from the real retreatants.
Expect me about four o’clock. I’ll probably come by car. I might want to take some drives. Joe will lend me his car. I’ll certainly want to take some long walks. What was that place with the lakes? You took a dip. He found it cold.
Have you been to the quarry yet? I was surprised you hadn’t taken that walk, right there on your doorstep, recently. Do you know I crept out on my last night and went back to it? The excavation!
I remember, you’ll leave the key for the lodge under
the grate where the milk bottles are left.
Look forward to seeing you again.
Long ago, he was worried about your letters being read.
All my love, dear friend - that’s what I think you have become to me,
Love,
Robert.
P.S. Come on a Friday, isn’t it? Drop me a line if I’ve got it wrong.
I write more than I might speak, if he were there in front of me.
More post.
St Aelred’s Abbey
Ashton Park
Avon
20 October 1984
Dear Mr de la Borde,
I am the bearer of sad news. Father Benedict died yesterday afternoon during None. I thought you should know. Your address was among his things near his bed. And I knew that he had arranged for you to return.
I must say that I feel that we must express our sympathy to you who have obviously lost a dear, though recent friend, and someone to whom your brother Jean Marc was close. God’s ways are
mysterious, and we must wait for that mystery to be revealed in His time.
I hope that you will still keep to your plan to visit and stay for the little retreat you were planning with Father Benedict. We would welcome you.
I enclose the letters from your brother you had asked Father Benedict to make copies of. They were in a collection all ready to send off. I also enclose your last letter to Father Benedict, which he did receive and read before his sudden death. This is not something we normally do, but in the circumstances, and Father Benedict having promised, I will agree to send them.
I look forward to meeting you.
The arrangements you made with Father Benedict to stay in the lodge can still stand. Everything will be made ready if you confirm your visit. Just phone and Father Dominic can make the arrangements.
Father Benedict’s funeral is on the day before you planned to come. We’ve decided to keep it a bit later than usual to coincide with All Souls’ Day on 1 November. If you would like to come down earlier for the funeral that would be quite convenient for us. Please confirm with the guestmaster, Father Dominic.
I hope to see you soon.
Yours in Christ,
John Plowden
Abbot.
