It was the middle of January 2015 when my doctor gave me an ultimatum. Go to the hospital or be dead by tomorrow. Seeing some hesitation, for I had intended to go to work after the visit, she commanded me to go home and call my wife posthaste. My nurse wife was to leave work and drive me directly to the emergency department.
With my referal in my hand, I got into my car and drove home. I made the call and my wife responded immediately. She drove me to the hospital and accompanied me to the emergency department where I showed the staff my letter.
I have been in emergency rooms with friends and family a time or two. However, I don't remember such a short wait. The triage was fast and the paperwork was dealt with expeditiously. I was in and on my way to a room apart. Here the staff quickly got me into my hospital garb and began to prepare me for the explorations to follow.
I remember the doctor asking me a long list of questions while palpating me as my own doctor had. He quickly identified the location of the severe pain in my descending colon. It was a large abcess. I would be put on interveneous antibiotics as soon as they confirmed the preliminary diagnosis with a CT scan.
At one point, the doctor asked me how I felt. I looked at him and said, "Like I am dying." He grunted and left non-commital. I had been seriously ill a time or two before this. Indeed, I had once had dengue fever while living in Asia. I also had faced the very real possibility of death fighting forest fires and a time or two in the Navy. However, I had never felt like this.
It was more than pain. It was more than mere tiredness and lethargy. I had all of this. It was a sense that something vital was slipping away. I had never felt like this before. Even when I was the sickest, I had always felt that there was still a living core to my being. I no longer felt that way. This was different; I seemed to have lost my centre. Ultimately, I had followed my doctor's commands with alacrity because I sensed that I was on a precipice.
The Old Man of the poem felt the same way. This experience was different than those of the past. He now felt a summons. There was a command that must be obeyed. In this first section of The Dream which we find on pages 323-331, we find the dreamer on the doorstep. In this liminal situation, he weaves between a number of intentions or focal points in terms of his consciousness.
For this post, I wish to delay looking at the material relating to prayers for the dying. If you have followed up suggestions in an earlier post, you'll easily recognise the verses. The headings for the Assistants and the Priest mark out their limits. We will deal with this material in another post.
At first glance, it would seem that Gerontius engages in a series of soliloquies. That would be a misapprehension. The essence of a soliloquy is that a speaker speaks aloud or to themself their thoughts or reflections in the absence of others. The Latin literally means to speak alone. This is manifestly not the case in the first dialogue of Gerontius.
I used to say to my students, as they worked through their interview transcripts, "Slow down, take your ease with the material." When we do this, what do we see on pages 323 and 324? We observe addresses to others and short prayer aspirations. The poet has made it easy to spot the aspirations; they are in round brackets such as these (). I see four sets:
- Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!
- Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!
- Lover of souls! great God! I look to thee,
- Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole Refuge, Thou,
Aspirations are short prayers that we are taught to say throughout the day and at times of need. They help to direct our thoughts and hearts to God and His grace in our lives. We recognise the need for the aid and support of others in God's economy. I often say the 'Jesus Prayer' (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.) Two of my favourites are really summaries of the faith of the Old Testament saints (The Lord is my strenghth and my song; He has become my salvation, and Lord let not mine enemies triumph over me).
Such aspirations are communal and become personal through time. Saint Augustine thought highly of them. They create a habit of heart and mind focused on God. They presence a sphere of actions and relations that might otherwise stay somewhat out of our purview.
Is there more evidence of the perceived presence of others in this segment of the first section? Yes, there is. There are three, or four, depending how your divide the text, appeals to friends who are present:
- Pray for me, O my friends; a visitant...
- 'Tis death,--O loving friends, your prayers!--'tis he!...
- Oh, horror! this it is, my dearest, this;
- So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray.
I am dividing the text such that there are four calls to friends. Three are direct requests for prayer. The first two of these report the 'presence' of another reality. The third describes the Dreamer's reaction to this 'presence'; it is a thing of horror. A fuller discription of the horror will come later in the first section. The final appeal is a request based on the loss of capacity to pray in this 'presence' that announces an imminent absence:
Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss,
That utter nothingness, of which I came.
Read those two lines and the one that follows slowly and carefully aloud to yourself. You can hear the steady drum tattoo (from the Dutch, doe den tap toe, google it!) that marches the Dreamer off to his doom. This is the horrible 'presence' of absence. The Dreamer calls to his dearest, his loving friends for their aid in the light of this dread visitor.
I have not forgotten the first two names with which the poem opens, JESU, MARIA. Both of these names are often used as one word aspirations. However, I think they are forms of address here. We have seen that the poet has placed the other aspirations in round brackets. They are missing here. Additionally, there is a statement of acknowledgment and understanding, "I am near to death, and Thou art calling me; I know it now." The Thou may seem strange given the fact that both Jesus and Mary are addressed. However, it would not be so strange to someone who prayed the Angelus three times a day every day:
Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy Word.
The Dreamer knows that these two hearts will the same thing. It is time for Gerontius to lay down to rest in death. [1] As Newman, the former Anglican priest, once wrote on 7 March 1848:
Therefore I will trust Him. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perpelxity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me--still He knows what he is about. [Hope in God--Creator #2, Mediations and Devotions]
In the next post, we'll begin to look at the response of The Dreamer's friends.
| [1] | Please see Newman's Prayer for the faithful departed at the Newman Reader by clicking on this link. Scroll to the end to gain a sense both Newman's address to Jesu and his understanding of the state of the faithful departed. You will also recognise some of the material that Newman will place in the mouths of his friends shortly. |