Singing in a Strange Land

Paul Fisher

Description

My late brother, Anthony, suffered lifelong disabilities of mind, body and emotion, spending most of his adult life in land-based working communities for people with learning difficulties. This narrative of his life in its ''minute particulars'' is punctuated by social and theological reflections on the times through which we have both lived and the lessons we can learn from his communities that are so urgently needed in today''s deeply endangered world.
The fundamental unity of our shared human and planetary community, flowing from and finding its fulfilment in God who is a community of relationships, is being torn apart by our selfish, greedy and destructive behaviour. Our only option for countering this, so as to create a sustainable future for our world, lies in a radical reversal of the self-centred values which so dominate life today. We need to renew a commitment to living together and with our Earth simply, humbly, and for sufficiency, not excess. With sustained attention to the signs of the times, we strive once more to grow creative communities of moral value, civility and thoughtfulness. It is no accident that this worldly imperative coincides with our responsibilities under God''s covenant.

Sujets

• Mind
• Body
• Spirit

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 31 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528980678
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Singing in a Strange Land
Creating Community in a Time of Crisis
Paul Fisher
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-03-31
Singing in a Strange Land About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgment Creating Community in a Time of Crisis Author’s Note of Introduction Words Remembrance and Community Music Prelude In the Minute Particulars The Song The Unique Person The Impact of Loss Beginning Again Movement I The Beginning Birth Two Men First Years Breakdown Towards Breakthrough Steam Dark Moments A Strange Passion Intermezzo I On Music Movement II The Gift of Community: Anthony’s First Years of Working Life Turning Point Centres and Crises The Camphill Vision Botton Village Stillness A Communion of Differences One-Ness Intermezzo II From Home to Home Movement III Moving to Three Counties Country Moving South A River and a Forest Roots VISITS Movement IV Family Times Travel Cat Protocol At Play A Step Too Far Routine Food and Drink A Typical Day Holidays Away Times: Celebrations, Reunions and Anniversaries Movement V Final Years in Community At Oaklands Keeping Abreast The Beginnings of Decline Movement VI Reflections on Community and Covenant What Camphill Can Teach Us Humanity in Community Humility in Relationship Humour and Insight Intermezzo III On Moral Community Movement VII Twilight Time Anthony’s Final Years in Cheltenham The Move Windermere Bungalows Cheltenham Visits Keeping in Touch Downhill Movement VIII Journey’s End: Death and Transfiguration An End in Sight Preparation Waiting Taking Leave Departure A ‘Saturday Time’ Rite of Passage Intermezzo IV As if for the First Time Movement IX Closure The Fire and the Rose Coda Final Words Anthony
About the Author

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‘Anthony Fisher’
Paul Fisher is a retired Anglican clergyman living in the Yorkshire Dales after working for thirty years in the Church of England as a parish priest, adult educator and trainer. Paul is also a professional classical musician: composer, pianist and organist. He is currently involved in a range of voluntary community work, which includes working locally in Action for Climate Emergency, and organ accompaniment of church services. He is married with a son and daughter.
Dedication
In loving memory of my brother, Anthony, and with deep gratitude to the communities of the Camphill Village Trust and Windermere Bungalows care home, Cheltenham.
Copyright Information ©
Paul Fisher (2020)
The right of Paul Fisher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528980654 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528980678 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgment
For their support and help during the writing of this book, I have many people to thank. I am particularly grateful to my wife, Sue, and our son and daughter, Michael and Helen, for their patient loving support and critical observations; Paul Underhill, Ron Thatcher, Jan Michael; and other friends for helpful stimulating conversations and encouragement; Peter Selby for critically constructive comment on my work, particularly his reminding me of my insights as a musician, and for his writing; the playwright, William Shakespeare; poet, T. S. Eliot; naturalist, David George Haskell; and many other writers for numerous images, analogies and connections suggested by their work; and finally, but by no means least, the many friends, supporters and carers who made such a difference for the good to Anthony’s life.


“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Psalm 137, verse 4).
Creating Community in a Time of Crisis
A biographical narrative with reflections.
A priest-musician reflects on the life of his late brother, and its significance for a renewed understanding of community at a time when human and planetary crises have reached a point of critical mass.
Author’s Note of Introduction
Unheard Words (A Theme Present in the Waste Land by
TS Eliot)

Words
In ‘Singing in a Strange Land’, I invite you to accompany me on a journey through the life of my late brother, Anthony, from birth and infancy, through three-quarters of a century, into deep old age. You will read of the different ways in which his life came to influence me along with many others. For the structure and style of this book, I draw on my experience as a musician and the insights which music has given me into the nature of our world and the human condition. I also owe a considerable debt to poetry, especially that of the American-British poet, Thomas Stearns Eliot. Here is a writer who constantly resisted the facile cliché, the sound bite, half-truth and falsehood which pervade today’s politics and culture – the barbaric voices assaulting us on all sides, words over-heard. Footprints from his Four Quartets, a continual blending of the abstract and concrete, the philosophical and experiential, the rhetorical and the lyrical, run through my narrative. As it develops, you will discover connections: connections between particular lives, between the history of now and then, between present reality and future hope, between the individual and community. They all raise important questions about where we belong in this world. And the four elements of the Quartets – air, earth, water and fire – appear in various contexts: the open air where Anthony spent much time and which he greatly enjoyed, the breath and fire of the Spirit, the fire of suffering, the earth which we walk and which Anthony worked, and the waters of the River Severn alongside which he was born and lived the greater part of his life.
You will read of many different times, places and persons. Specifics are often spelt out at some length. You will gather the details of this year and that month, of weather, mood and scene, of routine and schedule, of contrast and character, of dark places and open light. Such things signify because, as we shall see, each, in some way, contributes to those ‘minute particulars’ of the landscape through which we move on our lifelong pilgrimage. It is here and now that we travel . We undertake this as a personal journey, one which may often feel lonely but is always tending towards communion with others. Such local journeys, though, are part of a worldwide enterprise. Of this, too, you will read. Each is a very small but invaluable part of a collective whole as we set out to learn the tough business of what it means to love one another.

Remembrance and Community
The slow and detailed process of remembering the shape and particulars of my brother’s story has turned out to be a ‘re-membering’ – a putting back together again – of his life, the better to see its growing significance. I have also become conscious of a solidarity over time with so many people, family, friends, carers and countless others who played a positive part in Anthony’s life: a widely dispersed community of persons who came and went in all kinds of circumstance over a period of close on eighty years. You will find, in what follows, numerous words beginning re — and com— . The first group of words, such as reflect, represent, remember, repent, expresses the idea of doing something once more, making a fresh start. The second, for example community, covenant, collaborate and connect, signifies doing this together. The importance and urgency of beginning again together , as all people of goodwill seek ‘to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God,’ (Micah 6:8), will I hope become ever more clear as the narrative and reflections progress.

Music
Eliot’s poetry indicates that words alone never do sufficient justice to the living reality of a human person, or to our innermost thoughts and feelings. Words ‘strain, crack and break’ 1 . They take us so far, which can be quite some way, but never do they tell the whole story. So, here you will find pictures, and you will read about – perhaps, even hear as you read – music. This, for Anthony and for me, was a lifelong activity and an abiding love.
Again, in that connection, I think of the Four Quartets, where Eliot uses music, specifically the Opus 132 string quartet of Beethoven, for inspiration and for the construction of form. So here, as you move forward (to use the image of a poetic or musical journey), you will come across figures and hints, hearing many echoes which connect one with another until, in due course, the themes become clear.
But perhaps, not fully clear, or rightly understood, until you reach the end. Even with music, however, words by themselves cannot do justice to the reality, nor can they adequately describe the myriad, wonderful ways through which this creative art opens windows onto the treasures and mysteries of inner life. The line between inner and outer is gossamer-thin.
For Anthony, and for me, music has always mattered. It has been a key centre of our lives. To underline that, I use musical terms for the headings of each section of the book. These explanatory Notes are followed by a Prelude, Movements (chapters), Intermezzi (‘in between’ passages), and a Coda (tail or end-piece). Intermezzo II can, if the reader wishes, be omitted in order to maintain the narrative flow without compromising the main thread of my argument.

‘Burnt Norton’ by T.S. Eliot, pub. Faber and Faber, 1959 ↩︎
Prelude

In the Minute Particulars
“No man is