The listening weather vane

 

It was another very ordinary day with nothing outwardly obvious to disturb our village as it plodded its way through each unhurried hour. From my observations few of its inhabitants gave much thought to the comforting sounds of humans and nature working in a kind of harmony as they did back then. Machinery with its noisy disruptions and pollution came later. You'll understand I'm going back some years reminiscing on how things used to be.

Oh yes, I'm aware of what goes on in and about the cottages and fields, or in the close at Moor Dale. The farm at Brown's Hill I see and the smithy at Dordale Brook with Grange House just beyond the rise. The vestry meetings too, where many aspects of parish life pass under the scrutiny of the parish council, seemingly as cold and hard grinding as the mill over on Birkdale Steep.

I've witnessed the wretched comings and goings of the workhouse inhabitants and the distribution of what passes for relief to the poor and aged. I've wondered too at the meagre provisions for the children at the orphanage and heard the anguished prayers of some councillors whose hearts were near breaking at the cruel decisions necessity had forced them to make.

It was the memory of young Seth Swarbrick that set me off this time. A short time before he'd left the village, he'd propped his scythe against the headstone of his grandfather and slipped quietly into the empty church. That something was troubling him passed unnoticed by those he'd met so far that day. It's amazing how blind folk are at times. Even his parents and those who'd say with some vehemence how much they loved him, rarely, if ever told this to the lad himself. His grandfather had told him this, a couple of years back now, as they'd sat by the old yew tree opposite the lych gate. Seth had just turned 16 as I remember it. Oh, but his heart was warmed as his grandfather in his own stumbling way expressed his love and affection for him. I tell you, it was as beautiful a thing as I have ever seen or heard. You can understand then how Seth felt when his grandfather, the only one in the village with whom he could confide, died just over two years later.

Seth loved and respected his parents but it was different with them; they'd never been able to comprehend the ideas or grasp the dreams which occupied his inventive and adventurous mind. Neither was it safe to confess his thoughts to the local church minister. In keeping with those times, the minister was suspicious of anyone who showed intelligence combined with the ability to think for themselves.

So it was that I heard Seth's sighs that day. I'd been hearing them for weeks. I knew what he was thinking, you see, from his whispered intercessions as he knelt alone in the pew in that austere, bleak and confining silence. Something deep within his heart cried out against the dead conformity about him. And then he did something no other parishioner had ever done in all the time I'd been there. He took out a piece of paper and offered what he'd written as a prayer and that day I began to understood something of his anguish. His voice was hesitant at first, unsure of whether he had the right to speak but gained confidence as he proceeded:

Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour of all humanity, hear my humble prayer.
I am neither priest nor man of letters.
I own no land or property.
I am Seth Swarbrick,
a peasant in this village
and dare to plead my cause with Thee.
The squire, priest and those who deal with me
do not understand me.
Most times I do not understand myself.
I have such yearnings,
such strivings to know,
to experience things beyond the narrow confines of this place.
I believe my life to be a gift from Thee.
I was born as free as any other
yet I find myself in shackles.
My physical strength is shackled by the constant demands of my master,
a master who takes much and gives little in return.
My tongue is shackled by the dogma that rules in this building.
That I question so much seems to be taken as a threat,
yet I desire only to know the truth,
but no one answers.
I am as...nothing…to those who hear.
My spirit is shackled by the daily grind of blind conformity
binding me where-so-ever I turn.
It's true my mind is free,
but 'tis a cruel kind of freedom
for it mocks the very reason that I breath.
Thus in my ignorance I plead, O Lord,
desiring only that which meets with Thy design.
I pray Your Light to guide me on my way.

And as he knelt there in silent humility for a few moments, I thought of all the ecclesiastically correct prayers I'd heard in that house of prayer. None had ever plumbed the depths of humanity nor ascended up to heaven as assuredly as young Seth Swarbrick's did that day.

Then I watched him slip back into the peasant's smock he'd removed on entering the church, a symbol of the daily rituals which hid his personality and restricted his potential at every turn. To him it was as the shroud which covered their dead.

And there you have it. The whole gamut of happenings that span the human condition I see, hear and discern with no one any the wiser. They think I'm just an inanimate replica of a bird, useful only to indicate the vagaries of shifting winds, which they can easily discern by other means. Yet who knows? When the lion at last lies down with the Lamb, I may be called as witness to give my point of view of all that's passed beneath me.

Dennis Crompton © 1998
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)