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Reflection for the week of May 9th

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The city had no need of sun or moon . . .
for the glory of God have it light.

Under British rule back in the 1920's, India reflected a clash of cultures. The British as modern Westerners were primarily interested in profit and therefore absolute control of the subcontinent of Asia. The Muslims, resentful of British domination, harbored nostalgia for their own once glorious age of empire. Between them festered the old rivalry of the Crusades. Nor were the British reluctant to assert their superiority. At token social events, the clubhouse tennis courts kept the British at a suitable distance from their native guests, with random formal crossovers allowed.

But according to E. M. Forster's story A Passage to India it was the Hindus who seemed least aggravated by the presence of Western imperialism. For example, Professor Godbole, the elusive Hindu of the novel, exhibits a sublime indifference to the pros and cons of this world. Distinctions between you and me, us and them, true and false, bird and monkey, earth and sky were of little concern to him. He therefore possessed a peace of mind - which even the English Mrs. Moore began to envy after her visit to Hinduism's mysterious Marabar Caves.

These caves had been carved into what looked like huge lumps of lava. The interior of each was profoundly dark and, as the novel puts it: "Whatever is said, the same monotonous noise replies and quivers up and down the walls until it is absorbed in the roof. 'Boum' is the sound . . . or 'bou-oum' or "ou-boum'." In other words all human speech echoes back into a primeval hollowness that seems ever ready to swallow up all our petty polarizations and illusions of self-importance. Sensitive to this "boum" or boundless void as the fundamental source of our universe, Professor Godbole couldn't care less about who ruled India. Why worry, why be on time, why fret if the band plays out of tune? Like sparks, all distinction, all pain, pleasure, error and truth will eventually expire as they fall back into that indiscriminate "boum" whence they came.

Needless to say, this indifference of Godbole was enough to drive both Britisher and Muslim crazy since they both were heirs to our biblical tradition that claims the variety of our world to be no illusion or echo out of some inarticulate abyss but the solid and precious product of a pro-active and personal Source - distant, yes; infinitely beyond the control of our minds and imaginations, yes; - but by no means remote! It is rather a Source vitally interested in all that it has made and especially in humanity as the potential extension of its own creativity and love. True, humanity has tended to disconnect itself from this divine Source and the Bible narrates the consequences of this tragedy. But the whole of our biblical tradition keeps calling us back to our fundamental unity in God, the unity of that divine womb out of which we have all been born: women, men, trees, stars, parakeets and roses - as nothing less than brothers and sisters, individually precious children of God.

Nor are we Christians without something akin to Professor Godbole's Marabar Caves. For what we have is the church building we enter every Sunday wherein we hear not some meaningless echo but the clear voice of a personal Creator saying: "Whoever loves me . . . my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." In other words, we have a chamber wherein we hear an outgoing rather than receding sound that creates real people instead of phantoms. In other words, we have a church that's no empty cave but a womb to which we return at every Eucharist to experience again God's Word made flesh - and to be reborn and sent forth into the world as ever more divinely real and solid human beings.

-- Geoff Wood