Connecting and dividing, by Eve Lockett

‘I wish you would make up your mind, Mr Dickens.
Was it the best of times or was it the worst of times?
It could scarcely have been both.’    

It was Virginia Woolf (not in person) who taught me that poets see connections and scientists see divisions. In other words, scientists classify things by their separation from other things: poets discern links and mergers.

Well, that itself should begin a debate! But let me follow it up a little. In our church, we have a strong mix of ‘arts and sciences’. In a recent Bible study, someone with a science background asked me why I had chosen two separate readings which, in her view, had simply nothing in common. The poet in the room began listing all the connections, which was exactly why I had chosen them.

I’ve noticed some people have trouble understanding, and therefore believing, a passage in the Bible because they want the words to mean only one thing, and that thing to be clearly stated. Writers know that words don’t work like that. You try to pin one down and it wriggles away, joins up with its friends, then teasingly waves at you as you pursue it down a winding track till you end up where you started, only deeper in.

I have met strong Christians who tell me that paradox and mystery have no place in Christian faith – Jesus spoke with clear meaning, and all mystery is revealed in him; mystery and paradox are for those who worship saints and follow superstitions.

I suspect some of you may already be remembering bruising encounters with people who have read your own work, and dismissed it as obscure or dodgy. They wonder why you can’t state the Christian gospel clearly, or why your characters are flawed, or why you leave some threads hanging in the air. If you say, ‘because life, or truth, is like that,’ it only makes things worse.

This isn’t meant to be an exercise in the superiority of art over science. However, I think it’s helpful to understand how some people process what they read, so that we are careful whose criticism we accept and whose discouragement we disallow. It also gives us as writers a genuine task to counter literalism by continuing to be nuanced and suggestive in our work. And, of course, I’m overstating the division between scientists and poets. We need both approaches to achieve a balance, and a world without systematic thinking would be terrifyingly nebulous.  Nor are all scientists literalists. Many are also poets and artists, like Trevor Thorn.

We see the perfect balance in Genesis 1, where we have the great artist/scientist/creator God, speaking and separating at the same time, making and defining, setting boundaries and giving freedom, brooding lovingly over his work and casting a critical eye over its quality. In the same way, in Jesus we have the one who unites and separates, whose words are allusive, visionary, and yet dangerously direct! How do you describe the kingdom of God? ‘A man found a pearl in a field, sold all he had and bought the field.’ ‘Unless I wash you, you will have no part in me.’ ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ ‘Before Abraham was, I am!’