Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmastide, has
traditionally been for Christians a season of anticipation: We anticipate the
celebration of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem and also the promise of his ultimate
return. Several weeks ago I began, as I do each year, to ponder how I could best
use this observance to prepare my own heart to hear God speak in this
particular time. While walking with my dog in the reclaimed wilderness of an
abandoned golf course, I was struck to see a snowy heron stalking through the
shallows of what had been a water hazard. The adjective "heraldic"
came to mind and started me thinking about the subject of medieval heraldry, on
which I was - and remain - almost totally ignorant. A little research, however,
revealed that many of the birds I see regularly here in the Coastal Bend of
Texas had deep symbolic meaning for the knightly culture of the middle ages. I
began to wonder if that antique language might not enable God's creation to
speak to me in new ways.
In what follows I have sought to combine some images from my
own observations of these animals with medieval traditions and the biblical
associations of Advent. I have chosen the form of the Elizabethan sonnet, the
sonnet of Shakespeare, which seemed appropriate for talking about heraldry,
knights errant, and romance. I have borrowed much of the technical terminology
of heraldry, which will probably be as indecipherable to the reader as it was
to me when I began. I will preface each poem with a brief glossary of terms
that I hope will help with this.
In a day when the "holiday" (as opposed to Holy
Day) that C. S. Lewis sneeringly dubbed "X-mas" (as opposed to
Christmas) begins just after "Halloween" (not, as it long was, All
Hallows Eve), I need a good deal of help to open myself to God's work. I intend
these sonnets to function in the same way that my solitary rambles with my dog
in the wilderness of an overgrown golf course function for me: as a shield
that buys life-preserving space and a chance to breathe between me and the
relentless sword-blows of modernity's assault on silence and slowness. I hope
that they will prove helpful to others in this effort.
Introduction: A Non-Combatant's
Apology for Taking Up Arms
"As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings are
three cuttle-fish, sable, and a commentator rampant." - Middlemarch by George Eliot
This remark by Mrs. Cadwallader, the rector's wife, passes
judgment on both the heritage (blood in the sense of ancestry) and spirit
(blood in the sense of "red-blooded") of the Reverend Cassauban. Elsewhere, when
Sir James says of the reverend gentleman, "He has got no good red-blood in
his body," the clerical lady replies, "No. Somebody put a drop under
a magnifying-glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses." Medieval
crusaders were quick to notice the similar shapes of a cross and a sword, but
perhaps it is also worth noting that the only reason we now know the stories of
cradle or cross is because someone knew about black marks on white surfaces.
Ermine: in its original form is
the winter pelt of the stoat, an animal which turns all white except for the
tip of its tail. An ermine fur consists of black "tails," or figures,
on a white field.
The pen, men say, is mightier than the sword;
They're right, for all I know, and yet it seems
Fair maidens rank brave deeds above apt words,
And more prize righting wrongs than writing reams.
My heraldry boasts but an ermine field,
Inky invertebrates ramp on my arms.
The man of bookish theoric on my shield
No quarter yields but does no body harm.
Black tracks backtrack through time and never cease:
Old thoughts that give fresh wounds are our sure peace.
