From the Giddings Parish News Letter May 2012
At this time of year, May in 1936, the poet T S Eliot visited Little Gidding one afternoon. There was no Ferrar House in those days; just the same landscape, but with trees, hedges and fields looking slightly different. There was no collection of houses, no car park, and no neat garden with benches for quiet contemplation. There was just the church, the atmosphere and the hedges fringed with white May blossom.
The outcome, some years later, was what some see as his greatest poem – Little Gidding – the last of his “Four Quartets” – a set of poems including Burnt Norton, East Coker, Dry Salvages and concluding with Little Gidding.
There are those who find Eliot’s writing uplifting; others see it as obscure and impenetrable. Yet more might say that he had a good use of language at times whereas he could also be “up himself”. It matters not which of these categories we fall into. We are no better or worse for enjoying Eliot’s words or for finding them obscure. There is, however, a simple point to be learned.
At the edges of our knowledge and understanding we struggle with words. Where the depths and heights of beauty and love engulf us we struggle with words. Where the horrors and disasters of human suffering strike us we struggle with words. We do not know what to say. Poets, artists, photographers, sculptors, writers all strive to say what cannot be said. Theologians and those who write liturgy struggle to put into language the utterly inexpressible truths about God, reaching for the ideas and images, pictures and rhythms which might give us a glimpse of that which is way beyond us. Physical practices also allow us to symbolise that which we cannot say. On May 19th there was the Pilgrimage from Leighton Bromswold to Little Gidding, with prayers along the way, walking together as a symbol of life’s journey with God.
Ultimately, where nothing can be said then nothing should be said. Some people have come to Little Gidding lately and, sitting on a bench or in the church, are silent. In the presence of God we can say nothing meaningful.
It is worth noting that Rowan Williams is a good theologian because he understands prayer as well as poetry – the need to wait quietly on God and then search for patterns and meanings and language to describe the indescribable. He also knows very well how and when to be silent; an admirable quality in an archbishop.
Numbers of visitors have increased at Ferrar House so everything has to be managed carefully so that it does not become a “busy” place, with no spaces for silence, images and poetry in which to be with God. Pray that Ferrar House might succeed in that purpose.
When was Ferrar House Built? I had always thought that this was older than 1931?
The main part of this house (Ferrar House) was a farm house, probably built originally in the 19th century. It has been subject to much alteration, not least in the transition from a farm house to a community house in the 1970s onwards and then, in 1997, to a Retreat Centre. The house the Ferrars lived in would have been a Tudor Manor House, probably burned down by the beginning of the 19th century. When Eliot came in 1936 it would have been a farm house.