Luke Bell OSB - The Meaning of Blue: Recovering a Contemplative Spirit

THE MEANING OF BLUE

Recovering a Contemplative Spirit

Sub Praesidium Sanctae Mariae

Luke Bell, OSB

The Meaning of Blue

Recovering a Contemplative Spirit

Foreword by

the earl of oxford

Sub Praesidium Sanctae Mariae

v

First published

by Second Spring, 2014

www.secondspring.co.uk

an imprint of Angelico Press

Luke Bell 2014

Foreword Raymond Oxford,

The Earl of Oxford, 2014

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, without permission.

For information, address:

Angelico Press

4709 Briar Knoll Dr.

Kettering, OH 45429

angelicopress.com

978-1-62138-082-5

Cover image: The Wilton Diptych

(Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child

by his Patron Saint John the Baptist

and Saints Edward and Edmund),

circa 13951399

Cover design: Michael Schrauzer

c o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments [x]

Foreword by the Earl of Oxford [1]

Introduction: Restoring the Wonder of a Child 7

Some Poetry [7]The Doors of Perception [8]Wonder or Wander

[10]Each and Every Thing [10]Just a Monk [11]Others Have Helped [12]Some More Poetry [13]The Atoms of Democritus

[14]Newtons Particles of Light [15]Galileo, Violence, and Rape

[17]Solid Body Thinking [17]Getting Things Done [19]The Receptive Heart [20]A Fresh Look [21]Reading Nature, Word, and God [22]Tradition [23]

PART ONE: Contemplating Nature

Chapter One: Light and Color 27

God is Light [27]A Glory Passed Away [29]Let There Be Light

[31]God in the Dark [32]The Sun and the Moon [33]The

Mother of All Journeys [35]The Stars Also [36]Children of Light

[36]The Dayspring from on High [37]Color [39]The Meaning of Blue [40]The Red Horse [42]Green Grows the Grass [44]

They Clothed Him with Purple [45]How Colors Relate [45]The Rainbow [46]Unweaving the Rainbow [47]

Chapter Two: Life and Wholeness 50

Life and Light [50]Beyond Time and Space [50]The Pattern He Has Planned [52]Adam, Eve, and Us [53]Looking at Darkness Within [54]Loving Welcome [54]Wholeness of Spirit [56]Seeing the Whole [57]Meaning and Means [58]The Music of Eternity

[59]All is Everywhere [60]Wholeness and Existence [61]The Spiritual Life of a Potato [61]Creatures Great and Small [63]Other Peoples Wholeness [63]Heaven [64]Holiness [65]Family and Community [65]The Catholic Church [66]God [67]Life and

Death [68]Stillness [69]The Present Moment [73]Intensive Living [74]Celestial Living [76]Difference and Hierarchy [77]

Fragmentation in Our Time [80]Fragmented Thought [81]

Entropic Collapse [82]A Binary World [83]Recovery [84]

2 adam and eve: spiritual symbolism

Chapter Three: Man and Cosmos 85

The Great Book of God [85]Water [86]Trees [88]Birds [90]

Contemplating the Cosmos [91]The Centrality of Man [93]All This Is Mine [95]My World, My Body [97]Theurgy [100]The Earth Mourneth [101]Healing and Harmony [103]Working but in Alliance [103]Man as Microcosm [105]Offering It Up [106]In a Sense Everything [107]Heart of Man, Heart of the World [108]

PART TWO: Contemplating the Word

Chapter Four: Symbol and Language 113

Half a Sixpence and the Creed [113]Beyond Being [115]God Knows Best [116]Depth of Being [118]All About God [119]

Missing the Point [121]Eyes to Look; Ears to Hear [123]The Power of Words [124]A Confusion of Languages [126]The Name of the Lord [127]The Word Was Made Flesh [128]Words Give Us Meaning [129]Poetry, Puns, and Paradoxes [131]Numbers [135]

Architecture [138]

Chapter Five: Scripture and Hermeneutics 140

O Book! Infinite Sweetness! [140]Hermeneutist and Hermeneutics

[142]The Whole Thing [143]Eyesalve [145]More About Trees

[147]Not a Closed System [148]Scripture and Symbolism [150]

History as Symbol [153]Get Thee Out of Thy Country [154]The Journey to the Promised Land [155]The Greatest Journey of Them All [158]Prayer [159]A Loving Letter [161]Spiritual Reading

[163]Seven Wonderful Promises [164]Hearing [165]

Chapter Six: Liturgy and Sacrament 167

The Beginning and the End [167]Emphasizing Meaning [168]A Great Ring [169]The Day, a Life, and Eternity [170]After the Pattern of Christ [171]Soaring Above [173]The Value of Uselessness

[175]Daily Fare [177]Poor and Needy [178]The Mother of Us All [180]Praying Twice [182]Sacraments and Symbolism [183]

Baptism [185]Oil [186]Healing [188]The Ultimate Bonding

[189]Sex as Symbol [194]More About the Greatest Journey [195]

contents

PART THREE: Contemplating God

Chapter Seven: The Father of Mercies 201

Beginning Again[201]God in Ordinary Life [203]The Father

[205]Touching the Truth of God [206]One Thing Needful

[207]Purity of Heart [211]Joy and Woe [213]Gods Work

[214]Forgetting [217]Unknowing [221]Being a Stinking Lump

[222]Being Made One with God [224]The Connection with Earlier Chapters [226]

Chapter Eight: Christ the Word Incarnate 229

Recapitulation [229]The Word of God [232]A Most Excellent Book [234]More About Prayer [235]Being Made Conformable

[239]Twin Sisters [240]More About Paradox [241]More Twins

[242]Astonishing Doctrine [245]Giving God Permission [247]

Aspects of Receptivity [249]We Are Invited [251]

Chapter Nine: The Spirit 252

Being Childlike [252]Wonder [254]Community and Gratitude

[256]Pleasure and Pain [257]Gold [260]Seeing the Big Picture

[261]Without Partiality [264]Gods Mother [266]Ultramarine

[271]Sapphire [274]The Final Word on Prayer [275]

Notes [277]

Acknowledgments

I am most grateful to the following for help with writing this book: Clare Asquith, Countess of Oxford; Mark Asquith; Deborah Bell; Jonathan Bell; Spike Bucklow; Stratford Caldecott; Sam Davidson; Blake Everitt; Nick Gooch; David Hayes; Alice Kitcatt; Raymond, Earl of Oxford; Duncan Smith, OSB; Julia Trahair; Andrew Tulloch; Katherine Tulloch; Laurie Venters; James Wetmore; Andrew Wye.

And I am most grateful to you, for reading the book.

Luke Bell, OSB

meaningofblue@gmail.com

x

Foreword

by the Earl of Oxford

his book is a meditation on what speaks most clearly

and deeply to the very eye of the heart, mans intellec

tive apprehension and intuition of reality. It is quite

Tsimply a guide to seeing on all the many levels of

human sensibility, thought, and delight; and it demonstrates how human nature and knowledge, through the love of natural beauty, literature, art, and philosophy (the inclination toward sophia), are happiestand healthiestmixing the corporeal with the metaphysical. Father Luke Bell draws the reader from the start into an examination of the symbols that surround us in nature and existence. Since all symbols point beyond themselves to a source or presence that transcends them, it is they that give reality its meaning, not the other way round. Just as the essence of information lies in its capacity to signify, so the power of words, the mystery of language, the willingness to look, to grasp significance, to be captured rather than to capture, lead thought beyond closed systems and toward the point of understanding that all our awareness is a sort of sharing of Gods thought.

The exposition of the book is designed to illustrate how depth and clarity of knowledge is in a literal sense a choice, an election,

one that leads naturally from wonder toward faith and prayer.

Indeed faith itself is essentially a decision of the heart (the intellect, that is) because being is being known by Godand that decision of faith is like the self-yielding of a plants seed to root and flower in its home soil. The author uses literary texts with precise effect, and through his familiarity with and love of poetry, in particular, the reader is supplied with keys to unlocking meaning or, more accurately, pointers on the journey toward celestial living. For a Tear is an Intellectual Thing, a line in Blakes poem on the futility 1