 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Previous
article
| Next
article
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in the world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
… But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.T.S.Eliot, Burnt Norton
T. S. Eliot might seem an odd way to begin an article on university life. What relevance is an apparently anti-Semitic, dead American poet to the student world of imminent deadlines, alcohol and Loaded? Yet at the end of my second year in this particular ivory (concrete?) tower, I found myself facing the very same tension he describes, although framed far more prosaically. Put simply it is this: if I stop and think, and give time to the contemplation of anything more perennial than next week’s shopping, do I run the risk of losing out on precisely those experiences we’re supposedly here to go through? At first it seems a silly idea to try and see everything, from your first II:1 to last night’s bar crawl, in its full and proper context … surely that would make life a continual and unendurable cycle of analysis, tears and laughter (not to mention bizarre moments where you’ll have to excuse yourself from conversation to consider how your most eccentric toastie yet fits into the grand matrix of your repressed id and the fact that you were born in the year of the dragon!) Yet, despite this, I concluded that if I ignored the wider picture, I was storing up problems for later, not to mention avoiding an essential aspect of Christian spirituality which, on one level, is all about bizarre moments.
The journey through university is a busy, muddy and ever-changing one, for most people filled with the challenges of a new independent status, changed environment, and the revelation of greater possibilities. We are given nine or so short terms in which the expectation is, for most of us, that we will grow from being the children of our parents, to the people who are to make our way in the big wide world, and as well as that we’ve got to learn to cook for ourselves! It is made a whirlwind experience by the concurrence of so much change: intellectually, we face the challenges of specialisation, self motivation and finding books in the JBM; spiritually, many feel bound to choose a tradition of belief and launch into discipleship; emotionally and socially, it is the time (for most of us, at least) of drawing away from our parental home, childhood, old friends, interests and hairstyles. As well as dealing with the mundanities of money, food, laundry and deadlines, there are higher things to be discovered love and lovers, drugs and hangovers, religion and politics.
The feeling that so much has to be squeezed into three short years is not helped by the stupidity of a system which ensures that for ten weeks we are running around like proverbial headless chickens and then, as suddenly as it started, we find ourselves sitting back at home, contemplating what might have been, in front of Richard and Judy. On such an emotional roller coaster, it is perhaps no wonder so many find solace in the bar, or in a regression to childhood activities, writing articles for Christis, or nocturnal net-surfing; all can be seen as symptoms of our anxieties. As Eliot puts it,
… human kind
Cannot bear much reality.
There is so much going on, both inside and outside, that it takes most of our time and energy to simply comprehend the present day, (in)effectively lurching between work deadlines, friends’ emotional crises, and the mounting pile of washing in the corner of the wardrobe. This makes it difficult to pause, reflect, and deal with all that’s going on underneath these experiences: mourning or celebrating what has passed, observing how far one has come, contemplating one’s changing role, relationships, beliefs, direction. Someone said to me in my first term that I’d blink and my time as a student would all be over … and I guess I’m still a bit scared of closing my eyes, if only because I’m worried about what I might miss seeing.
It’s so easy to put off this reflection, thinking that once the three years are completed, the turmoil will end and one will be able to sit down with a large mug of tea and think it all through, putting it in context. But if you can’t deal with the full pattern of reality now, how is it going to be at an indeterminate future date (which remains unknown and possibly even more confusing)? The belated discovery of a world of passed time and missed opportunities is unlikely to encourage us to be hippy happy people, spreading the joy of God. However many generations of the Protestant ethic we must shed in order to do it, we must learn that the present is all we ever have:
At the still point of the turning world,
… there the dance is.
We are also faced with apprehensions about upsetting the delicate balance which keeps us going; my fear was that, in picking at one thread of the strange collection of woven rags and shreds which make up my life, past, present and future, the whole thing would fall apart. And yes, it can be painful, it can involve suffering, but only in pausing and unravelling are we able to see ourselves in our true present context; within the stories of our lifetimes, of Christianity, of humanity. In continuing to reflect, however difficult or futile that might seem when there is an essay to write and Sainsbury’s is calling, we develop a more vivid perception of ourselves, and are more open for God to weave new patterns into our lives. We should live for the present day, but not recklessly abandon our roots and responsibilities; to be whole people, we also carry within us the memories of our past and the seeds of our future. An impossible tension? Perhaps, but it’s worth trying.
So to stop and reflect every now and then is not to miss out on life, but actually to enhance the present moment; only in drawing back from each individual step can we perceive the beauty and direction of the whole dance.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Previous
article
| Next
article
|
|
|
|
|
Last modified: 25th November 2005