Reader Writes January 2024
The old king was itching to be up and out; they were safely into the new year, days short but surely brighter. At last the sun was shining; warming rays were reaching into some of the bitterly cold corners around the palace where snow lay resolute. He left his wife to her breakfast, pulled on his longest sheepskin and stepped outside. A black redstart sang musically from the roof before hiding again behind a chimney. A solitary thrush sang determinedly from a large oak below the castle walls; let the sun but shine and birds were staking out their territories. The churring fieldfares and chattering redwings had fled to milder climes weeks ago. Ah ha, a falcon called above him in the pale cold sky; clipping wings powering away on some hunt for pigeons. Then almost at his feet a dunnock sang from the depths of the frosted rose bushes beside his path; how he loved them all! But why, he had been asking himself, did the natural world of marvels and beauty not matter as much to God as miserable humanity with its endless greed. Just look at the barons! If he hadn’t put his foot down, they would have been cutting down the forests without heed for game or foragers. No, this can’t be right! I shall go and see Father Tadde this very morning, and I know where I’ll find him!
And indeed there he was, at work in his apothecary, sorting dried herbs and medicines, putting them in jars. Father Tadde and the old king pulled their seats up to the fire and settled a Turkish coffee pot in the embers. They sat in silence for a while, happy in each other’s company. Father Tadde teased the old King a little; how could he possibly think that God didn’t value the whole of his creation?! Just because strange ideas came up their forested valleys from far off Rome, that didn’t make them right. Just look in scripture; and here of course, the King well knew, Father Tadde was rather proud of his translations from the Hebrew and Greek into the poetic and beautiful language of their countrymen.
No, said Father Tadde emphatically, God cared for the whole of creation, both man and nature. Not only did he create it and make it “very good”, as recorded in Genesis, but the “whole earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein”(Ps24). This means of course that all mankind -monks, bishops, barons, commoners- has a duty to care for God’s world in its glorious entirety. Coffee was poured, the aroma mingling with the sweet tang of wood smoke, and after those first delicious sips, they turned together to Paul’s letter to the Colossians.
Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created”. All things! A small glass of rakija, some bread and sheep’s cheese, and the old king toiled his way slowly and thoughtfully back up the winding paths to the palace. Cold already, sun well behind the mountain. A wren sang with heart-breaking beauty somewhere from the wreckage of winter’s undergrowth. So the whole earth is the Lord’s, he agreed with the wren, and we shall indeed care for it, love it, and restrain our greed.
Robert MacCurrach
