Searching

Many years ago I was part of a team delivering a series of theological discussions that some might call ‘Bible Classes.’ This may come as a surprise to some of my readers, but the point is this. The materials we used were from a course called ‘Living the Questions’ – a radical, liberal theological take on interpreting scripture.

 

Unlike the weak, glib answers supplied by evangelical courses such as ‘Alpha,’ besides the non-literal reading of the Bible, this course explored the ability to see that ‘faith’ is about accepting that there are no answers.

 

To ‘live the questions’ that surround our ultimately meaningless existence seemed, to me, the only way of coming to terms with the eternal mysteries. It helped me, ultimately, to accept my loss of belief in God with a greater sense of meaning, while retaining a keen belief in the teachings of Christ – as far as we are told by the Gospels. A secular version of this is summed up in this sketch.

 

Lately, I have used up a lot of emotional energy in exploring aspects of my past, trying to find answers. Part of this has been for a film I was helping to script (shelved for the time-being, sadly) which led to a lot of personal research – for purposes of credibility.

 

Looking at your own life in retrospect is a pretty useless exercise. You cannot change what has happened, and the unresolved questions remain unresolved. Despite the maxim of our judicial system, that one should tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ we can never really know what truth is. Truth is elusive. Our quest to discover ‘truth’ is eternal.

 

Sometimes, there is clarity when, with hindsight, you realise some things that didn’t make sense at the time now seem obvious, or at least, acceptably ambiguous. Again, accepting there are no answers is the same as living the questions. Whatever one has been through in life, the key to survival is ‘moving on.’

 

My ‘motto’ for this year is a quote from Kierkegaard:

 

Life can only be understood backwards,

            but it must be lived forwards.

 

I’ve reached a stage where living forwards is the only option for me, since there is too much looking backward for people of my character type (see other posts) and the understanding that Kierkegaard talks of leads me continually searching for answers. Here’s an amusing song about this, which I heard performed recently in the bar where I reside as the ‘house poet.’

 

 

 

I’m writing this today for a reason. It is the anniversary of the day I was joined (in the eyes of the God I subsequently ceased to believe in) with someone I expected to spend the rest of my life with. The rendering asunder of this union hit me hard, and my life spiralled out of control. I wanted to reclaim the past, to un-spiral the spring, and that was an impossible task.

 

Now I have come to realise that dredging up the past will not change the hurt I felt, or emolliate the pain I was in. I need to remind myself of something I continually say to others who wish to bring up my past pain – a pain that has nothing to do with them.  Don’t bother.

 

 I’ve moved on.

 

And if you haven’t: tough. I’m leaving you behind.

 

Meanwhile, here are two more sestudes from my 26 Doors...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26 Doors Between My House and Yours

 

 

 

The People’s Story, Canongate

 

All my stories focus on

   the negative:

death, divorce, denial

   and betrayal,

while yours are optimistic:

searching, healing, questions

   and connections.

 

Closed, we stand in solidarity.

Opened, we are separate

   yet still connected…

 

My door is open to the fact

   that we are trapped

in some emotional poverty,

while your philosophy

   – and your empathy –

opens the door to a wider,

   Universal Story.

 

 

 

 

White Horse Close, Canongate

 

Walking into this Close is like

walking through a looking glass

or the back of a magical wardrobe:

things are not what they seem.

The crow-stepped gables, forestairs,

pantiled roofs, and diminutive

doors look genuine.

But History cannot be trusted.

These houses were renovated

in Nineteen-Sixty-Two.

Does it matter? No.

For every moment

spent here in the present

reminds me of you.

 

 

 

 

          84, Canongate

 

PAX INTRANTIBUS

SALUS EXEUNTIBUS

 

We enter and we exit.

Sometimes we hide

behind closed doors

for fear of what’s outside;

othertimes, for reasons

much the same,

we venture far too far

beyond the frame,

eager to learn more.

Sometimes the door

is locked within;

othertimes, outwith.

So be it. Amen, I say.

I wish you peace, health,

but above, far, far above,

I wish you love.

Light from Darkness

 

You know that empty feeling you get deep inside when you lose a loved one? Whether through bereavement, estrangement, rejection, or simply because you had to set someone free?
 

You know the old adage: if you love someone, set them free?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out this is not so easily attributable. Was it Sting, was it Jonathon Livingston Seagull; was it two mini-lovebirds? Or some woman with a caged canary?

 

 

Here’s another thing: my recollection is that it concludes with a different line from that which appears on the internet. A friend, many years ago, quoted it as this: “If you love someone, set them free; if they don’t come back, it was never meant to be.” I took this to mean, ‘If they really loved you, they will return some day.’

 

Either way: to lose someone you love – whether they were taken from you, turned against you, or they simply fled the nest – can leave you with sense of profound emptiness. This is what grief is.

To say that I felt this same empty feeling about a building might seem weird, or melodramatic.

 

And yet for the second time in four years seeing the inferno lapping the innards of the Mackintosh Building in Glasgow, my sense of grief skipped quickly through Kübler-Ross from ‘denial’ to ‘anger.’ When I heard that this great Work of Art might have to be demolished, my stomach turned. The third stage, ‘depression,’ soon turned to ‘bargaining’ as I learned that The Mack was going to rise, once again, from the ashes; finally ‘acceptance’ set in.

 

I was reminded of a quote which I scribbled once in a card to a friend (a quote which came back to me recently, in my own handwriting, from 1992!)  

 

“Every day won from such

 darkness is a celebration”

 

ELAINE FEINSTEIN

 

So it seems, perhaps, that Glasgow School of Art’s iconic building will celebrate new light again, one day. If only some of the art spaces in Edinburgh had the same enduring longevity. If any of the Scottish National Galleries were to be razed to the ground, you can guarantee funds would be found to re-build them. Then again, it would be more like Edinburgh Council to let their bedfellows in The Drum Group build a hotel, or yet another block of ugly student accommodation in its place.

 

This may not be relevant to those living outwith Edinburgh, but throughout this wonderful city doors are closing on art establishments and, in their place, money-making ventures are springing up, screaming “Buy!” and “Sell!” A few weeks ago I reviewed the last ever films to be screened in the derelict State Cinema down in Leith, as part of the Hidden Doors Festival. The following day, the demolition team were in, reducing an icon to the impoverished status of luxury flats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in Spring, in another review, I spoke about an arts complex on London Road that is home to a vast range of creative and charity organisations and individuals. It’s an ugly building, right enough, but the Council is going to turf out the community and turn it into something uglier: mammon. By no small chance, the event I reviewed was called Doors That Open, and the optimism of the artist in question was admirable and enlightening.

 

 

When One Door Closes...

 

Regular readers of this blog will know that doors have featured in my work over the last year or so. My sequence of 26 Doors Between My House and Yours charts a journey and a friendship, as well as the symbolism of doors. One of the doors I photographed and wrote about was on the front of the Queen’s Gallery of Holyrood Palace.

 

Imagine if that got burned down like The Mack in Glasgow: people would care far less, but it would be re-built without question. I don’t really care for royalty, or chivalry, nor for the petty politics between neighbouring countries. The wall dividing England and Scotland fell to ruin years ago – I’ve no time for those who want it re-built. So I ignored the doors with the proud chivalric figures of rampant lion and unicorn, choosing to picture and write about the less-glamourous door beside it:

 

 

 

The Queen’s Gallery, Abbey Strand

 

“My next-door-neighbour’s door

is adorned in the rampantly proud

heraldic symbols of neighbouring

nations formerly at war,

now, locked in endless argument.

They’ll never see eye-to-eye,

for the Lion represents English Pride,

while the Unicorn is Scotch Myth:

a fictitious creature never born.

Every day those separated gates

let the tourists in, yet I remain secure.

I stand for Art. Nothing more.”

 

 

Further along my random route, another arts venue featured: The Number Shop. Run by Edinburgh Contemporary Art Directory, and home to studio, gallery, and shop space, this quirky building has also had to close its doors to the artistic community who made their home there. I dropped in on its closing day, and learned that the Council had given the people who use it the chance to bid for a renewed lease, but they rejected their bid in favour of a more lucrative tenant.

 

I wonder how many other ‘doors’ in my sequence will be closed to creativity?

 

 

Project Space, Pleasance

 

Someone has left

a bright red chair

outside a brightly-

coloured door.

(In point of fact,

the door is black:

the window-frames

seem to proclaim

this is a space for

artists’ studios.)

Is it the windows

and mouldings

drawing my eyes;

declaring the

creativity that lies

behind the door?

I sit on the chair

pontificating how

windows, not doors,

reveal much more…

 

 

As it is, this blog is also about keeping a window open. Even if I stop posting here (which I may do when I reach a decade of posts next year) I will leave the curtains un-drawn. After all, every day won from such darkness is a celebration. I used to wait on death’s yawn. Now I embrace the dawn.

 

You know the old adage: if you love something, set it free?

 

 

POST-SCRIPT:

 

Happy Birthday to my friend, the dedicatee of this poetry;

my light and inspiration, who makes every day a celebration.