Richard Sharpe shares his thoughts from
The Study Window, March 2010
Do you watch any television on a Sunday evening? Is Lark Rise to Candleford in your viewing schedule? The Radio Times described the series like this: “With its apple-cheeked heroine Laura Timmins, lovable locals and perennial sunshine, it's little wonder viewers love Lark Rise to Candleford. The B.B.C.1 drama is a wholesome slice of the 1890s, perfect for a summer evening”.
Perennial sunshine? Not quite. A recent episode was about measles . The children were infected. The harvest was due. There was one death. I noticed that the disease brought people together. With no NHS or BUPA to fall back on, they helped each other and appealed to others, outside their immediate community, to help them , which they did.
More personally, it was the measles at the age of five, which affected my own eyesight, leaving me with the need to wear glasses. I can remember my late parents nursing me until I was better. It's a thing parents do, or have been known to do. It's not perennial sunshine . It's love.
Eyes are important. Eyes tell us so much about people. My Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has over two hundred referring to eyes. I have seen the eyes of those in love. I have seen the eyes of friends when they meet. Eyes express joy. The eyes of a child are a tonic. Eyes tell me about sadder things. Eyes tell me about grief, bitterness, anger, guile, seduction, deceit, sickness; about those who have been made hard and those who are losing the desire to live.
We use our eyes to view the world we live in. You may know on B.B.C. Question of Sport , when they show the team film footage of a sporting event and ask them to say how many balls there were. The Police tell us regularly that we do not always remember accurately what we see. A man in my last parish (who hated my guts) paid me the highest compliment when he said, in a morose manner “You don't miss much!”
In my opinion, comedians' best humour is neither dark nor sick when it is based upon careful observation of others. Good teachers do this. Good parents do this. Good policing does it.
For we use our eyes to form an understanding of the world . This is more than just looking. The good artist can do this to the point that what he or she sees and paints is not always what the sitter recognises, has seen or can bear to behold. The poet does the same.
The stories Jesus told are full of observations of people and what those people said and did. The world He sees is a world which God has created and which God continues to uphold.
I began with a description of Lark Rise to Candleford , which referred to apple cheeks and sunshine and lovable locals ; not with approval but with a sneer. It is easy to see why. If you see a world which is grey, faces which are dull and flat and people around you as those who may just turn out to be predators, cheats and liars, then your face may be tanned with sunshine but your eyes will never sparkle. You may feel warmth on your skin but not in your heart.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good,
your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eyes are bad,
your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light within you is darkness,
how great is that darkness.”
These words of Jesus come from the Sermon on the Mount. They look back to how the Bible begins, with a story about Creation. The first sign of that are the words “ Let there be light .” The light is God-given. We may be able to see it in the lighter nights and the fact that birds will soon begin to sing and to build nests. The grass will begin to grow. The day light will change. God's creation is stirring into life. In the Bible, God's Creation is always essentially good .
The question is Can you see it ? Can you see the promise of it? The cynic sees through everything and it amounts to hollow emptiness. Like the man I met one Christian-Aid Week, he cannot give-not because he is poor but because he doesn't believe in it. His world is no bigger and his hopes no greater than he is. The eyes that see God in the world are full with light and generosity, because He is.
I will end with a verse of a hymn which I often sing to myself.
Dark and cheerless is the morn,
unaccompanied by Thee;
joyless is the day's return,
‘til Thy mercy's beams I see;
‘til they inward light impart,
glad my eyes and warm my heart.