Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker

Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker:

'via Blog this'

This is quite an interesting New Yorker article.

Dilemma

This is Shak's story. It begins in Saltcoats, a Scottish seaside town, in the middle of a great war.

Shak knows little of the war. He is two and a bit years old. He knows that life is interesting, though. He has a Mum, a Dad and a baby brother, Rok, who is one.

Shak's Mum is good fun. She shows him curious things and tries to answer all his questions. One day she shows him two special, very red, apples, which she calls blood apples. Shak is amazed at the redness of the apples. He knows what blood is, for he has sometimes fallen and grazed his knee, but these apples are even redder than the blood. Shak asks if he rubs the apples, will he get blood on his hands? Mum says, try it and see. Shak rubs the apple and looks at his hands. There is no blood on them. The apple is still just as red. Shak asks, why are the apples called blood apples if the blood won't rub off? Mum just laughs.

Shak lives in a house in Hamilton Street, above the Cafe Collette. Eddie and his Dad work in the Cafe, and sometimes Eddie's Mum works there too. They are friendly people. They live in a house above the Cafe but not as high up as Shak's house. Shak's house is right at the top of the stairs. Eddie's Dad is quite old, but Eddie is young and tall. Eddy and his Dad both have interesting moustaches and big smiles. They are Italians, which is very good.The sea is just around the corner from Shak's house in Hamilton Street, and there are many big and little shops all up and down the street. At the bottom end of Hamilton Street there are two big cinemas, the Regal on the right and La Scala on the left. Past the cinemas there is a little street with all the main shops. This street is narrow and always busy, with plenty people walking about. Sometimes there are so many people walking in the street, the cars and lorries get stuck and can't pass. It is called Dockhead Street.

At the top of Hamilton Street there is the road round to the sea, and the memorial, and the Doctor's house with the big gates, and the Chapel, and the hill which goes up to Gran Millar's, and the road to Ardrossan and Gran Torney's.

Shak's Mum is called Margaret and his Dad is called Shak, same as Grandpa Millar. That means there are three Shaks. Shak's Mum has a friend Betty who lives away past the end of Dockhead Street, up Hill Street. Betty has a tiny girl called Patricia, about the same age as Rok. Patricia has a great wooden horse for sitting in and rocking. Her Dad is called Pat.

One day Shak's Mum decides to visit Betty, so she gets the big pram ready. Rok sits at the front of the pram, under the hood. Shak sits at the back of the pram, closer to Mum. The pram trundles all the way down Hamilton Street, along Dockhead Street, up Hill Street, until it gets to Betty's house.

Shak and Rok have fun in Betty's house. They play with Patricia, and have shots in the rocking horse. Then Shak notices his Mum and Betty are talking. He stops playing, to sit between them by the fire listening to what they are saying. It is good fun to listen to grown-ups talking. Sometimes they say things they never say when they talk to children. Shak loves finding things out in this way.

While he listens he looks at the fire, burning brightly behind its glass door. The door handle is heavy and can swing out and up. It is made of shiny metal, with little square holes all over. Suddenly, Shak recognises the handle. He exclaims: this is our house! I remember! Mum and Betty both laugh. Not any longer, Mum says. Yes, you're right, we did live here. But we moved to Hamilton Street when you were small.

On the way back Mum loads up the pram in the same way, Rok at the front, Shak at the back. This time the rain comes on. Shak doesn't like the raindrops on his face, so he cries a bit. Mum moves the boys round, but then Rok cries and she has to move them back. She walks more quickly, and soon they are home, just in time for dinner.

While Mum is getting dinner ready Shak thinks about the rain falling on Rok and himself in the pram. He wonders: should I really have made such a fuss, so I would be dry while Rok would get wet? He didn't know the answer to that question.

Shak's Hope

The unexamined life is not worth living -

Rotorua, New Zealand, early July 1997. Woke up in bed with a start, c. 2.45 am, fully alert, seized with the idea and first lines of the poem and with a missionary drive to get on with it because it referenced such a key character in my childhood formation. No possibility of getting back to sleep. Completing the poem filled my thoughts for the rest of the night and, obsessively, over the two weeks we went on to spend in NSW, Australia. Thank goodness wife Sheila and sister Margaret had each other to talk to! The first stanza and a truncated second stanza were completed before leaving Australia. The second stanza was elaborated in November 2004.

The day before we began our journey back from Australia, Margaret indicated she wanted to make a telephone call to a friend P I’d never heard tell of. Turned out P had done a teacher placement in Scotland in her youth, and was now head teacher in a primary school in Sydney. She invited us to lunch at her flat en route to the airport.

At lunch P reminisced about her experiences in Scotland. She recalled how she’d had the good fortune to work in Saltcoats with a Scottish lady teacher of unforgettable personality. I sensed what was coming, and I struggled to retain composure. P was describing K, the person who had been filling my own thoughts for more than two weeks, and who is, of course, ‘Nemesis, Adored’.

K is alive and well, still living in Saltcoats in her early eighties. She later became a friend – step son H was a good comrade in my youth, while late husband, old H, was a likeable if controversial religious polemicist, always up for a lively discussion.

Very occasionally I drop in to spend an hour with K going over old times. She held her teaching post in 1950 for only a few months before abruptly leaving the nine year olds she had taught to love, to begin a new life of marriage and child-rearing. The poem actually seeks to expose a legacy of early bereavement.

Incredibly, I only just realised.

Shak

Teach Me …

Lochgelly, c.1950

Crossed palms reached out,

Tingling

In childhood joust on learning’s stage,

Where crack and sear made gallant sacrifice

For bright-hued, sparkling Nemesis,

Adored.

She, finding mettle equal to his play,

Smiled ‘Yes’!

Then, picking up the gauntlet he had cast,

Cut channels in his heart for hourly stream

Of warming reverie,

Lifelong.