A Symphony of Simple Words

John the Evangelist, Shakespeare and TS Eliot

On 27^th December, the Church of England celebrates St John the Evangelist.

Pic by Lawrence OP CC 2.0

I was one of the few in my school year who did not study English at A-Level which is interesting given I went on to be a professional writer. English was an immensely popular subject for reasons I could not fathom. Reading fiction felt like hard work. In my teens, I was not a ‘reader’. As a teenager, I liked libraries. I liked books. I regularly used books, as an avid absorber of information. Back then, books were the main source of knowledge. In fact, they still are. But I did not read fiction for pleasure beyond a few Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell.

For my GSCE English Literature exam, I had to read Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. I’m happy to assume this is a good book. It’s probably a truly great one. But it is not a good book to force a fourteen-year-old boy to read. The prose contains an awful lot of dense and wistful description of the Dorset and Somerset countryside. I now live on the border of Somerset and Dorset – in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex. It is wonderful. But I am still not hungry for lengthy verbal descriptions of the hedgerows and sparrow formations. I wish to experience them for myself, unmediated.

A Problem Play

I was pleased to miss out A-Level English, not least because of the choice of two impenetrable texts they had to study. The first was Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. I’ve not studied this play subsequently, but I remember my friends calling it ‘a problem play’. This is, I believe, partly because the play is hard to categorise, not being a comedy, a tragedy or a history play. But the real problem is the enormous coincidence at the end to resolve the plot. This simply wouldn’t pass muster in any movie these days, let alone a classic story. Why did Shakespeare put it in? He must have realised. Or did he? It struck me that my friends were doomed not to know the answer.

A Problem Poem

The second set text was by another resident of the West Country: TS Eliot. The text that was set was, unfortunately, The Waste Land, originally published in 1922. It is easy to be comic about high art, the equivalent of poring over the light switch in a gallery, only to discover it’s not part of the exhibition. However, it is not doing the poem a great disservice by calling it ‘wilfully obscure’. We’re not even sure that TS Eliot was sure that he knew what this strange collection of words actually meant. We can be generous to artists, especially young ones, and say that they sometimes write more truth than they know from their position of naiveté.

For our purposes, however, I can say that my fellow schoolmates not only felt that they did not understand The Waste Land by TS Eliot, but that they would never understand it – but also that it was not inherently understandable.

Meanwhile, in Bath Abbey

Another thing happened in the Sixth Form at school that is relevant here. In Bath Abbey, I read John 1:1-18 in the school carol service. Here’s the question: are these mysterious verses which begin “In the beginning” as incomprehensible and uncategorisable as a problem play like Measure for Measure or opaque ode like The Waste Land? Were these words written by John in a state of spiritual ecstasy, surpassing his own knowledge and understanding?

On the one hand, I suspect that John was writing beyond himself, inspired to write words that he did not fully appreciate at the time. There’s no way that in 1951, a JD Salinger in his early twenties, could have imagined his book Catcher in the Rye would still have resonance seventy years later. But he captured something in that book which was more significant that he knew.

Likewise, John, inspired by the Spirit of God, was able to write something eternally poetic and prophetic that transcended even his own deep friendship with Jesus himself. John ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ was a kindred and confidant. And yet, John paints a picture of Jesus’s identity, particularly in his prologue, as being so magnificently divine that the idea we could ever know him is almost absurd.

Almost.

In a way, that is what the entire chapter of John 1 is about: the Word of God, co-eternal Son of the Father, is determined to dwell with us. And the Word is not only determined, but has found a way by being the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It is this cosmic truth, not the prologue itself, that is the great mystery.

Like all the best poetry, John’s prologue does not contain any difficult words or strange names. We hear a symphony of simple words like ‘word’, ‘light’, ‘dwell’, ‘grace’ and ‘truth’. We know what all of these words mean. The meaning of John 1, then, feels tantalisingly within reach. John has not written us something cryptic, impenetrable or obscure. He has crafted something beautifully simple. But it is something we need to think about and meditate upon.

That is what I plan to do in 2025: consider this chapter of John further – and help you do the same. I am writing a 40-day devotional centred around these verses. I hope it will be part of a series of devotionals, currently entitled Wondrous Things, to help us reconnect with God’s Word and be enthralled by it – and, in turn, the one of whom it speaks and testifies. That will be my next book.

Meanwhile, I will continue to write Cary’s Almanac for another year, taking stock of different days within the church calendar. My emphasis will be on English saints. I hope you can join me for that. There might even be some YouTube videos too. I sense a hunger for this kind of content, so it feels worth investing in. Please do spread the word.

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