The Garden

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The scripture reading this morning is from the Pentateuch or Torah, from the book we know as Genesis, chapter 1 verses 27-28:

“27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

“28 God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ ”

Next, a commentary on the reading from Rosemary Radford Reuther, a Christian ecological theologian, in her book Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing:

“First, I assume that there is no ready-made ecological spirituality and ethic in past traditions. The ecological crisis is new to human experience. This does not mean that humans have not devastated their environment before. But as long as populations remained small and human technology weak, these devastations were remediable by migration, retreat from to-heavy urban centers, or adaptation of new techniques. Nature appeared a huge inexhaustible source of life, and humans small…. The radical nature of this new face of ecological devastation means that all past human traditions are inadequate in the face of it. Whatever useful elements may exist in, for example, Native American or Taoist thought, must be reinterpreted to make them usable in the face of both scientific knowledge and the destructive power of the technology it has made possible.

“My second assumption is that each tradition is best explored by those who claim community in that tradition. This does not preclude conversions into other traditions or communication between them…. But the plumbing of each tradition, and its reinterpretation for today’s crises, is a profound task that needs to begin in the context of communities of accountability. Those people for whom Taoism or Pueblo Indian spirituality are their native traditions are those best suited to dig those roots and offer their fruits to the rest of us. Those without these roots should be cautious in claiming plants not our own, respectful of those who speak from within.” [p. 206]

SERMON — “The Garden”

We all know that wonderful old story about how God created the heavens and the earth, and all living beings including human beings; and then God tells the human beings that they will have dominion over all over living things; and then God has the human beings live in the Garden of Eden until they get themselves thrown out by eating a piece of fruit. We all know that story; that is, we all think we know that story; because when you really start looking at the actual story as it is written in the book of Genesis, it really isn’t the story you think you know.

For example, you know that God created male human beings in God’s image, right? –and then God took a rib out of the first man to make a woman, right? Well, wrong. That’s the way the story is told in a later part of the book of Genesis, but we get quite a different story in an earlier part of the book of Genesis, which we heard in this morning’s reading:

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

In other words, there are two stories of the creation of human beings in Genesis. In this first story, both male and female human beings were created in God’s image. Take this a step farther: if a God identified as “he” or male can create female beings in “his” image, we are not talking about a living being made into a literal copy of God’s image; this is not a literal statement, but a mythic or poetic statement; and the opinions of our fundamentalist brothers and sisters notwithstanding, none the less true for being poetic and religious truth.

Genesis is a big, sprawling, complex book. It’s really a collection of myths, tales, poetry by several different authors living in several different eras, and eventually collected or redacted together by an anonymous editor or editors. We think we know the wonderful old story told in the book of Genesis, but when you actually read it carefully you find that maybe you don’t know it quite as well as you think you do. Our culture tries to reduce Genesis to a simple linear narrative, but when you do that you wind up with all kinds of things that simply aren’t in the book. “Original sin” is another example: not a phrase that appears in the book of Genesis, it’s an invention of Augustine and Milton. Another example: the belief that Genesis presents one unified story of how human beings came to be, when you can find three different stories of the creation of humans [Gen 1.27; Gen 2.4-7 & 20-23; Gen 6.1-4]. You can’t reduce Genesis to a simple, linear narrative; you have to approach it with mythic poetic thinking. Genesis is a story written by poets, it is not a blueprint written by engineers or a mathematical proof written by physicists.

Which brings us to the second half of this morning’s first reading:

“God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'”

In our second reading this morning, the one by Rosemary Radford Ruether, we heard her say, “there is no ready-made ecological spirituality and ethic in past traditions; the ecological crisis is new to human experience.” She also charges us with the task of reinterpreting our religious tradition in light of the ecological crisis.

Now if you ask me — not that you did ask me, but anyway — if you ask me, this passage in Genesis where the God of the Israelites says to the two freshly-made human beings, “Subdue the earth, and have dominion over it” — this passage is one of the roots of the current ecological crisis. If it’s not the taproot, it’s definitely one of the big, main roots. Because this passage, my friends, has been interpreted over and over again as giving human beings license to “subdue” the non-human world by any means at all; it has been interpreted over and over again as giving human beings the right of dominion, or domination, over all other living beings and over the inanimate world, too. This passage from Genesis has been interpreted to mean we get to do whatever we want with the world, no matter what the consequences. I’d say this attitude towards the world lies at the root of our current ecological crisis; this attitude towards the world is why New Bedford harbor is a Superfund site, it’s why the Bald Eagle is an endangered species, it’s why Georges Bank fishing stock continues to be threatened.

It is my belief that one of the deepest roots of the current ecological crisis is, in fact, a matter of religion. A certain narrow interpretation of Genesis from our Western Christian tradition has legitimated actions that cause ecological problems. Obviously, as Rosemary Radford Ruether would say, we need to do some reinterpretation here. And we Unitarian Universalists are perfectly placed to do exactly that kind of reinterpretation: because we are a non-creedal faith, we’ve gotten pretty good at questioning and reinterpreting religion; and because we have our roots within the Western Christian tradition, we are perfectly placed to reinterpret this particular tradition.

So let’s see if we can do some reinterpretation of this passage from Genesis. In a twenty minute sermon, we’re not going to finish the task, not by any stretch of the imagination. But we can make a start at it, see what it feels like, and see if we want to go on and do more of this.

Back to the passage from Genesis. The first question that occurs to me is this: what does it mean, in a poetical-mythic-non-linear sense, when the God of the Israelites tells the first man and the first woman that they have “dominion” over other living beings?

First part of the answer: clearly human beings are somehow different from other living beings. We are told explicitly in this passage one way in which human beings are different from other living beings. God tells the human beings to “be fruitful and multiply,” but God has already said that to every winged bird and every creature that lives in the sea; so here again, the human beings are not unique. But then God says to the human beings that they will “fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion” over every other living being. Human beings are to be different from other living beings: they will fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over every other living being. This in fact tallies with our own observations of the world: we human beings certainly have been fruitful, we have multiplied, and we do indeed have dominion over other living beings. Right away, this passage is beginning to make a kind of poetical sense.

A second part of the answer seems to lie in the word “dominion.” For those of us who speak English, the word “dominion” has some specific connotations. Were these connotations part of the original Hebrew text? For the Western Christian tradition, it almost doesn’t matter one way or the other, because in the Western tradition we trace our understanding of the Bible back to Jerome’s translation of the Greek text into Latin, and his translation uses “dominamini” in this passage, to rule over, to govern, to be master of. No matter what the original sense was, we wind up understanding that God gives human beings dominion over other living beings in the sense of mastery, domination, non-democratic rule. And as we look at the place of human beings in the world today, we see that in fact is true; we have dominion over the rest of the world; we have dominated all other living beings to the point where we find it quite easy to drive them to extinction. And in the old interpretation of this passage, that’s fine and dandy — God put it there for us to do with what we want.

In our new interpretation of this passage, however, we like to point out a poetical, mythic truth that was ignored in the old passage. We like to point out that God does not say: use everything up, and destroy it too if you want. We like to point out that God does not say: all this used to be mine, but now I’m giving it to you humans to use any way you want. Nor does God say, now that you’re rulers over every other living thing, be sure to act like the worst kind of tyrant, torturing and abusing all those other living things.

In our new interpretation of this old passage, we readily admit that human beings have subdued other living things, and we do indeed have dominion over other living things; we’re pretty much rulers of this planet. But we also like to point out that we can be good rulers, or we can be bad rulers; we can be benevolent tyrants or we can be malicious dictators.

Then there’s the third part of our answer to the question: “when the God of the Israelites tells the first man and the first woman that they have “dominion” over other living beings?” For this third part of the answer, I’d like you to suspend your own personal beliefs about God for just a moment: if you don’t believe in God, forget about that for a moment; and if you do believe in God forget about whether you believe in the God of the book of Genesis or not. Remember that we are reinterpreting this influential passage from an influential book; and to reinterpret the mythic poetry of this book, we have to suspend whatever disbelief we might have. At this stage of reinterpretation, we have to take the book on its own terms. Once you’ve suspended whatever disbelief you might have, we’re ready to take the next step.

God gives the human beings in this story dominion over all other living beings, over the fish in the seas, the birds in the air, every growing thing on earth, and all the animals of the earth. God gives the human beings dominion over all other living beings, but God does not give total possession to the human beings. In other words, it is quite clear that God still owns all living beings Godself. I’m sure you see the logical conclusion of this. If we human beings cause some living being to go extinct, God is not going to be happy. God created that living being that we caused to go extinct. God looked at all those living beings at the end of one of those days of creation and said, “It is good.” What do you think is going to happen if you cause one of God’s creatures to go extinct? Trust me, it won’t be pretty. You read the rest of the Torah, and you’ll see what I mean. Remember what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah? When the God of the Israelites gets angry, you’re going to want to run and hide.

Good thing I’m a Universalist, because we Universalists believe in universal salvation, where everybody gets to go to heaven. What with all the extinctions going on right now, if I believed in God, but I didn’t believe in universal salvation, I’d be seriously worried about facing the consequences of God’s wrath. To quote the old bumper sticker: “God is coming, and boy is she teed off.”

So you see, we have begun to reinterpret that old passage from our Western religious tradition, just in the way Rosemary Radford Ruether said we could. We could go much further than this, too, and I’ll quickly sketch out one direction in which we could go much further.

One of the great things about the Christian tradition is that, at its core, it is specifically designed to resist and overcome domination; this in spite of the fact that Christianity got coopted by Roman imperialism, and became a tool of oppression. Most of what we dislike most about Christianity today has to do, not with the teachings of Jesus, but with the later appropriations of Christianity by imperialists.

Indeed, we find that over the centuries some Christians have used Christianity, not as a tool of domination, but as a way to understand that if you’re in power, if you in fact do have dominion over other beings, you had better understand how to use that dominion wisely. Jimmy Carter comes to mind as one such Christian leader, although perhaps he became better at this after he was President. Martin Luther King is a wonderful example of someone who gained power and influence, understood that he was a steward of that power, and used that power to effect good in the world.

We do have dominion over other living things, and we have started asking if we are using that dominion wisely. The Christian tradition places a moral and ethical burden on having dominion: we haven’t taken dominion by ourselves, bootstrapping ourselves into power; rather we are given dominion over other beings by God, and ultimately we are going to be answerable to God. Even if you personally don’t believe in God, you’re still within the Western tradition, and you can put the same concepts into different words: dominion is as a gift that has been given us as a result of the quirks and chances of evolution that happened to give us opposable thumbs and a big brain and great social skills including language; ultimately we are answerable to ourselves, and our children, as to how we use the dominion that chance has thrown in our way. We know that ultimately we are answerable for our actions — and that, my friends, lies at the root of our reinterpretation of the Christian tradition.

This kind of ecological theology, or ecotheology, is going on all around us. Many liberal Christians, like John Cobb and Wnedell Berry, are already doing ecological theology, and some evangelical Christians are also starting to do ecological theology. Then, too, many neo-pagans are doing ecological theology from yet another Western religious perspective. Our Unitarian Universalist congregations — this Unitarian Universalist congregation — should be at the center of the ecotheological movement. We are really good at reinterpreting old mythic texts. we have already done pagan/Christian dialogue, and we also know how to have productive theist/non-theist conversations. It fits into our commitment to social justice, because ecotheology has the potential to really change how people behave; and it also ties in to our historic commitments to feminism and anti-racism work.

I’m offering this as a possibility for you, for this congregation. I’d say we’re looking for a new theological direction, a new direction for this community. Ecotheology could be that new direction, it could be an important contribution this congregation makes to the greater New Bedford community, and to the wider world.

The Maccabbees

The worship service for January 1, 2006, was informal. The homily for the day, given by Rev. Dan Harper, was improvised to a greater extent than usual. Thus the text below is fairly rough. Homily copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

HOMILY — “The Maccabees”

When we gather here in the Green Room in the middle of winter, it feels to me like we’re gathering in the living room of the church. Maybe by next year, we’ll have the fireplace cleaned and working so we can have a real fire. And what better thing to do on a winter day in your living room, than to listen to stories….

Tonight is the last night of Hannukah, so we’re going to tell the story of Hannukah. You might be wondering why a post-Protestant-Christian tradition like Unitarian Universalism would tell the story of a minor traditional Jewish holiday like Hannukah. Well, I have three reasons. First of all, Hannukah is a chance to dive into two books, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, that were removed from the Bible during the Protestant Reformation — 2nd Maccabees is a book of history that includes the origin of Hannukah — and I always like to read books that I’m not supposed to read. Second of all, the period from 164 BCE, the date when Hannukah originated, to 200 CE, by which time the Mishnah and much of the Christian scriptures were written, was a period of intense religious ferment within Judaism — it led on the one hand to the establishment of a sect of Judaism now called Christianity, and on the other hand to rabbincal Judaism.

The third reason is the most important: the story of Judah Maccabee’s recapture of the great Temple of Jerusalem is one of the great stories of liberation. It’s a great story, and it’s not an easy story. It’s one of those rich, difficult, complex stories, and like all good stories it does not allow us to feel comfortable but pushes us to wonder who we are and what we should do with our lives.

I’ll partly read from 2nd Maccabees, but it’s a long story so I’ll have paraphrase here and there. Now let the story begin…

The Jews have been taken over by the Syrian empire, and they are now ruled by King Antiochus; who has put greedy, cruel Menelaus in charge of the great and sacred Temple at Jerusalem. When King Antiochus goes off to invade Egypt, some of the Jews lead an unsuccessful revolt against Menelaus, The King returns, and, angered by the revolt, desecrates the Temple. In second Maccabees, it says:

“Antiochus dared to enter the most holy temple in all the world, guided by Menelaus, who had become a traitor both to the laws and to his country. He took the holy vessels with his polluted hands, and swept away with profane hands the votive offerings that other kings had made to enhance the glory and honor of the place. Antiochus was elated in spirit, and did not perceive that the Lord was angered for a little while because of the sins of those who lived in the city, and that this was the reason he was disregarding the holy place.” [2 Maccabees 5.15-17, New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV)]

There is worse to come. On the holy sabbath day, Antiochus’s forces kill great numbers of people in Jerusalem; but Judah Maccabee and a handful of his compatriots escape and hide in the hills. The story continues in 2nd Maccabees:

“Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer to live by the laws of God; also to pollute the temple in Jerusalem and to call it the temple of Olympian Zeus, and to call the one in Gerizim the temple of Zeus-the-Friend-of-Strangers, as did the people who lived in that place. Harsh and utterly grievous was the onslaught of evil. For the temple was filled with debauchery and reveling by the Gentiles, who dallied with prostitutes and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and besides brought in things for sacrifice that were unfit. The altar was covered with abominable offerings that were forbidden by the laws. People could neither keep the sabbath, nor observe the festivals of their ancestors, nor so much as confess themselves to be Jews.” [2 Maccabees 6.1-6 NRSV]

And it gets worse. Jews are forced to participate in sacrifices, and many choose martyrdom rather than participate in acts they considered vile and debasing; they resist being forced into giving up their religion and culture, to assimilate into the religion and culture of their conquerors.

At last, Judah Maccabee is able to organize resistance fighters. They attack the Greek and Syrian soldiers in lightning raids, gradually increasing the intensity of their attacks. King Antiochus sickens and dies, and the resistance fighters see this as a sign that their God is helping them in their time of need. They continue their insurrection until at last they are able to drive the foreign conquerors out of Jerusalem. At last came the moment when they could purify the great Temple. Here is how the story is told in 2 Maccabees:

“Now Maccabeus and his followers, the Lord leading them on, recovered the temple and the city; they tore down the altars that had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts. They purified the sanctuary, and made another altar of sacrifice; then, striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years, and they offered incense and lighted lamps and set out the bread of the Presence…. It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Chislev. They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the festival of booths, remembering how not long before, during the festival of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals…. They decreed by public edict, ratified by vote, that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.” [2 Maccabees 10.1-4, 6, 8, NRSV]

The celebration of Hannukah arose from this historical event. The rabbis recorded the beginning of the holiday in the Talmud Bavli, tractate Shabbat 21b:

“When the Greeks entered the Temple, the defiled all the oil in the Temple. When the Hasmonean Kingdom [that is, the kingdom eventually founded by Judah Maccabee and his followers] became strong and was victorious, they checked and found only one jug of oil that had the seal of the High Priest and had only enough to light for one day. A miracle was done for them and they lit from it for eight days. The next year, they established them as festive days of praise and thanksgiving.” [Link to this online translation of the Mishnah.]

So this is a story of a small, weak country that has been invaded by a strong foreign military force; it is a story of how the foreign conquerors tried to force the Jews to give up their Jewishness, to give up their religion and their way of life. It is a story of how the Jews resisted as best they could, until finally, a miracle, they managed to beat back the conquerors and clean out their Temple, they were able once again to practice their religion as they saw fit.

More than just a military history, this is a story that tells how sometimes people have to fight for liberation. Indeed, some of us are already fighting for liberation from oppression: women who are still fighting to be paid the same wage as men for the same work; people of color who are still fighting for justice and equality in a culture dominated by white folks; gays and lesbians who are still fighting for such basic rights as legal marriages.

Not only does this story tell us that we might have to fight for liberation, it says that the fight may get to the point where blood is spilled. This is a hard thing for a peacenik like me to hear; but I also understand that a lot depends on how bad the oppression is. When the Temple is desecrated and the Jews are forced to participate in unclean rituals, I can understand that some of them choose death rather than assimilation and accommodation; and I can understand why Judah Maccabee rises in armed revolt. This raises a hard question: What is so central to you that, if someone tried to force you to give it up, you would rather die first? Would you die for your religion? Would you die for justice? These are questions I would prefer not to have to answer!

So let’s ask a question that is not quite so harsh. Let’s ask: Which fight for liberation are you willing to give the most to right now? Think about that question for a moment: Which fight for liberation are you willing to give the most to right now? Perhaps for you it is a personal fight that means most to you right now, a fight to liberate yourself from illness or personal troubles. Or it might be a fight against some form of injustice that you have witnessed; so for me, what means most to me right now is the fight for fair wages and worker safety and meaningful work; this is because I spent years in working class and service industry jobs.

Which fight for liberation are you willing to give the most to right now?

I’m going to ask you to take an index card and a pencil, and (if you wish) to write down your answer to this question: Which fight for liberation are you willing to give the most to right now? Then I’m going to ask you to give the card back to Emma and to me, and we will read the answers, anonymously, to the question: Which fight for liberation are you willing to give the most to right now?

READ CARDS

By reading these answers out loud, we have heard what people in this community feel is worth fighting for. These are matters for our religion: for as Unitarian Universalists we are not content to wait for some heaven after death, we want to build a heaven here on earth. These are matters for our religious community: our religion requires us to tell our children what is most important in life, what they should be willing to fight for. These are matters for our inner spiritual life: as much as we believe in the power of love, we know that love is an active force that requires us to go out into the world and do something about it.

May the power of love prevail in the end. So may we bring about a heaven on earth. May we make the world a better place for our children, and our children’s children.

Dulce Domum

This “sermon,” based on a chapter from the book The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, was read by Rev. Dan Harper and Emma Mitchell.

SERMON — “Dulce Domum”

Somehow, in our culture, this December season has become associated with the pleasurable side of being home. When we dream of white, snowy Christmasses, we dream of the ones we used to have back home. This association — of home and the darkest time of year — has nothing to do with Christmas. I believe it comes from another one of the roots of our culture, the ancient Northern European pagan celebration of solstice and Yule. In ancient times in northern Europe, of course you wanted to be at home at this time of year — better to be at home, even with any family squabbles you might have to endure, than to be outdoors in the bitter cold with the hungry wolves howling.

But I’d like to believe that you can leave home and make a new home; if for no other reason than that children need to be able to grow up and move out and make their own homes. I have a story about Yuletide, and leaving home, which is from the book The Wind in the Willows. In this book, the Mole left his home one spring, and he wound up living on the River bank with a new friend, the Water Rat. Our story commences half a year later, on a cold December day:

[The Mole and the Water Rat] were returning across country after a long day’s outing with [their friend] Otter, hunting and exploring on the wide uplands where certain streams tributary to their own River had their first small beginnings; and the shades of the short winter day were closing in on them, and they had still some distance to go….

They plodded along steadily and silently, each of them thinking his own thoughts. The Mole’s ran a good deal on supper, as it was pitch-dark…. As for the Rat, he was walking a little way ahead, as his habit was, his shoulders humped, his eyes fixed on the straight grey road in front of him. [Suddenly, the Mole smelled something that reminded him of home — his old home, that he had abandoned so long ago. But the unsuspecting Water Rat urged him to be a good fellow and come along before the snow started…. [When much later, they stopped to rest,] poor Mole at last…cried freely and helplessly and openly, now that he knew it was all over and he had lost what he could hardly be said to have found.

The Rat, astonished and dismayed at the violence of Mole’s paroxysm of grief, did not dare to speak for a while. At last he said, very quietly and sympathetically, ‘What is it, old fellow? Whatever can be the matter? Tell us your trouble, and let me see what I can do.’

Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals of his chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech and choked it as it came. ‘I know it’s a — shabby, dingy little place,’ he sobbed forth at last, brokenly: ‘not like — your cosy quarters… but it was my own little home — and I was fond of it — and I went away and forgot all about it — and then I smelt it suddenly — on the road, when I called and you wouldn’t listen, Rat –… We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty — … it was close by — but you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty, you wouldn’t turn back! O dear, O dear!’….

The Rat stared straight in front of him, saying nothing, only patting Mole gently on the shoulder. After a time he muttered gloomily, ‘I see it all now! what a pig I’ve been!’ …Then he rose from his seat, and, remarking carelessly, ‘Well, now we’d really better be getting on, old chap!’ set off up the road again, over the toilsome way they had come.

‘Wherever are you (hic) going to (hic), Ratty?’ cried the tearful Mole, looking up in alarm.

‘We’re going to find that home of yours, old fellow,’ replied the Rat pleasantly; ‘so you had better come along, for it will take some finding, and we shall want your nose.’…

They moved on in silence for some little way, when suddenly the Rat was conscious, through his arm that was linked in Mole’s, of a faint sort of electric thrill that was passing down that animal’s body…. Mole stood a moment rigid, while his uplifted nose, quivering slightly, felt the air. Then a short, quick run forward — a fault — a check — a try back; and then a slow, steady, confident advance.

The Rat, much excited, kept close to his heels as the Mole… nosed his way over a field open and trackless and bare in the faint starlight. Suddenly, without giving warning, he dived; but the Rat was on the alert, and promptly followed him down the tunnel to which his unerring nose had faithfully led him.

It was close and airless, and the earthy smell was strong, and it seemed a long time to Rat ere the passage ended and he could stand erect and stretch and shake himself. The Mole struck a match, and by its light the Rat saw that they were standing in an open space, neatly swept and sanded underfoot, and directly facing them was Mole’s little front door, with ‘Mole End’ painted, in Gothic lettering, over the bell-pull at the side.

Mole reached down a lantern from a nail on the wail and lit it, and the Rat, looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A garden-seat stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller; for the Mole… was a tidy animal…. Down on one side of the forecourt ran a skittle-alley, with benches along it and little wooden tables marked with rings that hinted at beer-mugs. In the middle was a small round pond containing gold-fish and surrounded by a cockle-shell border. Out of the centre of the pond rose a fanciful erection clothed in more cockle-shells and topped by a large silvered glass ball that reflected everything all wrong and had a very pleasing effect.

Mole’s face-beamed at the sight of all these objects so dear to him, and he hurried Rat through the door, lit a lamp in the hall, and took one glance round his old home. He saw the dust lying thick on everything, saw the cheerless, deserted look of the long-neglected house, and its narrow, meagre dimensions, its worn and shabby contents — and collapsed again on a hall-chair, his nose to his paws. ‘O Ratty!’ he cried dismally, ‘why ever did I do it? Why did I bring you to this poor, cold little place, on a night like this…!’

The Rat paid no heed to his doleful self-reproaches. He was running here and there, opening doors, inspecting rooms and cupboards, and lighting lamps and candles and sticking them, up everywhere. ‘What a capital little house this is!’ he called out cheerily. ‘So compact! So well planned! Everything here and everything in its place! We’ll make a jolly night of it. The first thing we want is a good fire; I’ll see to that — I always know where to find things…. Now, I’ll fetch the wood and the coals, and you get a duster, Mole — you’ll find one in the drawer of the kitchen table — and try and smarten things up a bit. Bustle about, old chap!’

Encouraged by his inspiriting companion, the Mole roused himself and dusted and polished with energy and heartiness, while the Rat, running to and fro with armfuls of fuel, soon had a cheerful blaze roaring up the chimney. He hailed the Mole to come and warm himself; but Mole promptly had another fit of the blues… ‘Rat,’ he moaned, ‘how about your supper, you poor, cold, hungry, weary animal? I’ve nothing to give you — nothing — not a crumb!’

‘What a fellow you are for giving in!’ said the Rat reproachfully. ‘Why, only just now I saw a sardine-opener on the kitchen dresser, quite distinctly; and everybody knows that means there are sardines about somewhere in the neighbourhood…. Pull yourself together, and come with me and forage.’

They went and foraged accordingly…. The result was not so very depressing after all, though of course it might have been better; a tin of sardines — a box of captain’s biscuits, nearly full — and a German sausage encased in silver paper.

‘There’s a banquet for you!’ observed the Rat, as he arranged the table….

‘No bread!’ groaned the Mole dolorously; ‘no butter, no –‘

‘No paté de foie gras, no champagne!’ continued the Rat, grinning. ‘And that reminds me — what’s that little door at the end of the passage? Your cellar, of course! Every luxury in this house! Just you wait a minute.’

He made for the cellar-door, and presently reappeared, somewhat dusty, with a bottle of beer in each paw and another under each arm…. ‘This is really the jolliest little place I ever was in,’ [ he said.] ‘Now, wherever did you pick up those prints? Make the place look so home-like, they do. No wonder you’re so fond of it, Mole. Tell us all about it, and how you came to make it what it is.’

Then, while the Rat busied himself fetching plates, and knives and forks, and mustard which he mixed in an egg-cup, the Mole, his bosom still heaving with the stress of his recent emotion, related — somewhat shyly at first, but with more freedom as he warmed to his subject — how this was planned, and how that was thought out, and how this was got through a windfall from an aunt, and that was a wonderful find and a bargain, and this other thing was bought out of laborious savings and a certain amount of ‘going without.’ His spirits finally quite restored, he must needs go and caress his possessions, and take a lamp and show off their points to his visitor….

At last the Rat succeeded in decoying him to the table, and had just got seriously to work with the sardine-opener when sounds were heard from the fore-court without — sounds like the scuffling of small feet in the gravel and a confused murmur of tiny voices, while broken sentences reached them — ‘Now, all in a line — hold the lantern up a bit, Tommy — clear your throats first — no coughing after I say one, two, three. — Where’s young Bill? — Here, come on, do, we’re all a-waiting –‘

‘What’s up?’ inquired the Rat, pausing in his labours.

‘I think it must be the field-mice,’ replied the Mole, with a touch of pride in his manner. ‘They go round carol-singing regularly at this time of the year. They’re quite an institution in these parts. And they never pass me over — they come to Mole End last of all; and I used to give them hot drinks, and supper too sometimes, when I could afford it. It will be like old times to hear them again.’

‘Let’s have a look at them!’ cried the Rat, jumping up and running to the door.

It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern, some eight or ten little fieldmice stood in a semicircle, red worsted comforters round their throats, their fore-paws thrust deep into their pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With bright beady eyes they glanced shyly at each other, sniggering a little, sniffing and applying coat-sleeves a good deal. As the door opened, one of the elder ones that carried the lantern was just saying, ‘Now then, one, two, three!’ and forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air, singing one of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed in fields that were fallow and held by frost, or when snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed down to be sung in the miry street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.

Here the congregation sang the Yuletide song “Here We Come A-Wassailing.”

The voices ceased, the singers, bashful but smiling, exchanged sidelong glances, and silence succeeded — but for a moment only. Then, from up above and far away, down the tunnel they had so lately travelled was borne to their ears in a faint musical hum the sound of distant bells ringing a joyful and clangorous peal.

‘Very well sung, boys!’ cried the Rat heartily. ‘And now come along in, all of you, and warm yourselves by the fire, and have something hot!’

‘Yes, come along, field-mice,’ cried the Mole eagerly. ‘This is quite like old times! Shut the door after you. Pull up that settle to the fire. Now, you just wait a minute, while we — O, Ratty!’ he cried in despair, plumping down on a seat… ‘Whatever are we doing? We’ve nothing to give them!’

‘You leave all that to me,’ said the masterful Rat. ‘Here, you with the lantern! Come over this way…. Now, tell me, are there any shops open at this hour of the night?’

‘Why, certainly, sir,’ replied the field-mouse respectfully.

‘Then look here!’ said the Rat. ‘You go off at once, you and your lantern, and you get me –‘ Here much muttered conversation ensued, and…finally, there was a chink of coin passing from paw to paw, the field-mouse was provided with an ample basket for his purchases, and off he hurried, he and his lantern.

The rest of the field-mice, perched in a row on the settle, their small legs swinging, gave themselves up to enjoyment of the fire, and toasted their chilblains till they tingled; while the Mole, failing to draw them into easy conversation, plunged into family history and made each of them recite the names of his numerous brothers, who were too young, it appeared, to be allowed to go out a-carolling this year, but looked forward very shortly to winning the parental consent.

The Rat, meanwhile, [began to] to mull some ale…. It did not take long to prepare the brew and thrust the tin heater well into the red heart of the fire; and soon every field- mouse was sipping and coughing and choking (for a little mulled ale goes a long way) and wiping his eyes and laughing and forgetting he had ever been cold in all his life…. [At last] the latch clicked, the door opened, and the field-mouse with the lantern reappeared, staggering under the weight of his basket…[and the] contents of the basket had been tumbled out on the table.

Under the generalship of Rat, everybody was set to do something or to fetch something. In a very few minutes supper was ready, and Mole, as he took the head of the table in a sort of a dream, saw a lately barren board set thick with savoury comforts; saw his little friends’ faces brighten and beam as they fell to without delay; and then let himself loose — for he was famished indeed — on the provender so magically provided, thinking what a happy home-coming this had turned out, after all. As they ate, they talked of old times, and the field-mice gave him the local gossip up to date, and answered as well as they could the hundred questions he had to ask them. The Rat said little or nothing, only taking care that each guest had what he wanted, and plenty of it, and that Mole had no trouble or anxiety about anything.

They clattered off at last, very grateful and showering wishes of the season, with their jacket pockets stuffed with remembrances for the small brothers and sisters at home. When the door had closed on the last of them and the chink of the lanterns had died away, Mole and Rat kicked the fire up, drew their chairs in, brewed themselves a last nightcap of mulled ale, and discussed the events of the long day. At last the Rat, with a tremendous yawn, said, ‘Mole, old chap, I’m ready to drop. Sleepy is simply not the word. That your own bunk over on that side? Very well, then, I’ll take this. What a ripping little house this is! Everything so handy!’…

The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour…. He saw clearly how plain and simple — how narrow, even — it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life,… to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to; this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

So ends the Yuletide story of Mole and Rat. May you, like the Mole, have a core of something that you can go back to when the year is dark and cold. May you always have somewhere, or something, that feels like home to you, something that reflects the core of who you are. And may you always find your way back to the sun and the warmth and all that they promise; may you always have a place on the larger stage of life.