Oxford Street blues

Springtime, 1945 - I am standing on a footbridge over the river Ouse at Bedford. I am nearly 14 years old and I am having a Wordsworthian experience. Beneath me willows trail their fresh green leaves in the river’s dark placid waters. A slender church spire emerges from distant trees. It is still and quiet. (No traffic). I too am utterly still; one with all that fresh growth and promise. Having just discovered Wordsworth, the opening lines of the Ode Intimations of Immortality are floating through my mind.

“There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,”

Being a teenager the mild regret of the poem moves me too as I realise that the intense ‘nowness’ of my experience soon passes.

London 60 years later. I am walking along Oxford Street. People hurry by. Or they dawdle when I want to walk faster. Faces are strained or vacant or both. I have to avoid the younger ones talking on their mobiles, oblivious to the social niceties. I notice my 74 year old’s increasing irritability and querulousness about thoughtless public behaviour. I feel isolated and tense. Not a willow tree in sight. No placid waters here.


Then, fortunately, as I said in my first post, I stumbled upon Eckhart Tolle's books and they transformed the way I live. I am excited and delighted that I have been granted such experience 'at my time of life' (as they say). My Oxford Street blues are largely dispelled. Now I can make worldly sense of what used to be called 'the practice of the presence of God' - except that I am extremely reluctant to use the word 'God' any more. 'He' causes so much trouble! The question is not, how can I find a gracious God? but how can I find a gracious neighbour? Answer - "Your life is with your neighbour" says Rowan Williams in 'Silence and Honey Cakes'. Yes but how?