‘Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.’ We can but acknowledge the truth of Samuel Johnson’s verdict when we ponder the scale and majesty of ‘Paradise Lost’. This is blank verse on a level with rocket-science. This is the human mind stretched to the limit as it captures the ineffable.
But we must take a balanced view. At the other end of the scale is the achievement of those who work on the intricacies, the grains of sand, to achieve impressive results. Those who create tatting (and if you don’t know what this is, your grandmother will probably be able to tell you), those who track down the mutations of a virus, those who set themselves to explore the mysteries of Minoan script: these are campaigners who take the human mind into regions never before trodden, who create beauty never before imagined.
Great or small, wonders abound. But within the compass of these achievements are the talents and wonders of lesser men and women. And here is a call to discriminate, to exercise judgment, to make an assessment, to put things in their proper place. And at this point we turn to 1 Thessalonians 5.21. We find that the Latin Vulgate, which was the Bible of the West for centuries, has a happy rendering: ‘Omnia probate, quod bonum est tenete.’ In the REB this becomes: ‘But test them all [i.e. prophetic utterances]; keep hold of what is good.’
Great revolutions, great progress, great causes often start small. ‘What mighty contests rise +from trivial things,’ wrote Alexander Pope in his clever mock-epic poem. A lock of hair led to an exploration of human nature. It was mould in a forgotten, uncovered petri dish on a bench in his laboratory that set Alexander Fleming thinking and led to the discovery of penicillin. Fleming had not been looking for this but he found something better than he had in mind. Saul went looking for lost donkeys and found a kingdom (1 Samuel 9 and 10).
If we are watchful and discerning, we may find something better than that which we are looking for.
LEEK CHURCHES
Nigel Irons, Team Rector of Leek and Meerbrook, Staffordshire, has among the churches in his purview St Edward the Confessor’s. There is something mysterious about the churchyard; people claim to have seen a double sunset from there. Not all that many parish churches are named after the Confessor. Westminster Abbey has some remains of the monastery that King Edward rebuilt in 1065. This eventually became the Westminster Abbey we know as the Coronation venue of the Kings of England. Edward has a place in the church calendar on 13 October.
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