When the time came for Bilbo Baggins to set out on his final departure from Bag End, he gave a party for all his friends and relations (and some who weren’t). There he makes a farewell speech, at the end of which he says goodbye and disappears in a puff of smoke with the aid of a magic ring and a wizard. His friends and relatives are all very indignant and take it as a sign that he is as mad as they always suspected. For Bilbo it is the least complicated way of letting go and moving on; it helps him avoid all the personal difficulties of saying goodbye.
Why are partings so difficult to manage well? How do you learn to say the right thing which invests the moment with the right significance? In such circumstances flippancy is always lurking round the corner – the modern equivalent of the stiff upper lip. It both recognises and tries to deny the seriousness of the moment. On the other hand it is also possible to say too much, to try too hard to say what you feel. It is as though the prospect of an ending seems to devalue the time spent together and we need to reassure ourselves of its significance. In parting we are made all too conscious of being transitory creatures with a past we cannot hold onto and a limited future.
Perhaps to get it right, we need properly to recognize the importance of the moment, which must involve thankfulness and also repentance for the past, acceptance of present sadness, and hope and confidence in the possibilities of the future – but how difficult that is.
Clearly these thoughts have been brought on by the fact that this is almost the last letter I shall write for this magazine and that on May 1st we shall be struggling with the problem of saying goodbye. I have been struggling with what it might mean to be retired and what is involved in the inevitable letting go in downsizing from a large vicarage. What will a new life be like in a new place after fifteen years of being in a place which I have grown very fond of? And you, perhaps, will be struggling with having to let go of a period in the life of this parish which has become familiar and stable, and where the future may seem uncertain and full of questions.
The story of Easter which we have just began to ponder again might seem like a story of an unlooked for and not hoped for re-union and yet as the story is told in John’s gospel it is also more like a time of letting go. Mary Magdalene is told not to cling to Jesus and to leave him there in the garden while she goes to tell his disciples the message he has given her. And then in the stories which follow there is a strange sense of disconnection. Jesus appears to the disciples in the Upper Room, but then in the next story they are back fishing in Galilee, as though that appearance had never happened. It is as though Jesus comes and goes and each appearance involves a further letting go. Paul describes a similar letting go when he writes, rather confusingly that, ‘even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view (literally ‘according to the flesh’) we regard him thus no longer.'(2 Corinthians 5:16) This verse has been much discussed. It doesn’t mean that the historical Jesus is unimportant. It does mean that preoccupation with the historical Jesus can distract from the real work of Christ which (as Paul goes on to say) is to bring about in us a new creation, being reconciled to God and becoming agents of reconciliation.
What has this go to do with parting? And what has it got to do with the self-questioning and uncertainty and regret which can emerge in the process of parting? It means I think that letting go is not a process of giving up but, as Jesus promises (Mark 8:34 ff) a letting be. I have always been moved, since I first read them, by the words of a patient who had reached an important stage in therapy at Broadmoor; ‘There’s an undercurrent of something very good and effortless and very… It’s ‘being carried’ sort of feeling by.. I almost want to say benevolence, a feeling that something that was not on my side certainly is. I have a greater capacity to allow it to be. It makes more demands on me at the moment. And that is what I want. I don’t feel left out.’ That is the equivalent of what a theologian will say when describing belief in God as steadfast, reliable, gracious and deserving of our trust. What is most real is on our side.
It is my prayer that you will all always find something like that in this Parish Church, as I will find it in my new setting.
With my love and prayers,
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker