‘There is a happy land, far, far away, where saints in glory dwell…’
Ask the author of Psalm 144 what heaven is like and you will get a rhapsody about crops, animal husbandry and family members with green fingers. Not surprisingly that is all a land-owner or land-worker of his generation could imagine.
We who are children of an industrial revolution (more than just one perhaps) might well stretch the boundaries. We should like a heaven with air-conditioning, a beach (preferably not too crowded), novel cuisine, entertainment. For every driver a Porsche, perhaps. What should we do with sons growing up as young plants, daughters like the polished corners of the temple, sheep bringing forth thousands and tens of thousands in the streets., no strikes, no dissatisfaction in the work force.
A rustic view of our destination as humans does not quicken the pulse. Nor does a more protracted version in arboreal terms. Trees take decades or centuries to come to maturity. We humans are in too much of a hurry to wait for that. As for membership of a curry-comb society or a narrow boat system, why go back when you can go forward. How many would join those heroic narrow-boatswains who have crossed the English Channel in their craft?
Willy-nilly we have to give our imagination some play with the documents. We have a hard job to do. We cannot ignore the fresh meaning we have given to words like efficiency and luxury over the generations. To strip away the green clothes of the promised land and find an equivalent that has our pulses racing is the sort of thing a painter of a new school has to do. It means seeing in a new way. It may mean playing with perspective or investigating colour. We may be required to see with new eyes. ‘Monet is only an eye but my God, what an eye!’ said Cézanne. There must be something of that about it.
PHOENIX LAND
The Anglo-Saxons exercised their imagination on a land of bliss where the phoenix dwelled. Rain and snow, fire and frost, hail or storm (common enough in their new home Britannia) would pose no threat there. One of their poets described heaven as a land, far in the east, the noblest of lands that men had ever heard of. Blame the English weather.
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