So it's Christmas. For some reason this year I've been thinking of this wicked little poem by TS Eliot.
The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.
At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the ’potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
You know, of course, that Eliot was deeply devout. He was not taking a pot-shot at Jesus. He was taking a shot at the Church, sleeping away in the midst of vast riches.
A hippo is not beautiful, or elegant. It does not sing a sweet song. It spends its days wallowing in cool water, letting its ungainly bulk float. At night it drags itself up the bank and waddles off to graze. Yet the hippo is alive!
So often we let our faith die. We preserve it, perhaps, in a set of rituals, or some beautiful words, music and architecture. Perhaps it is preserved in some fossilised set of doctrines which we defend against all comers, or a set of rules we try to force one another to live by even though we know them to be impossible.
Recently I read a meditation in which someone claimed that the three magi, the 'wise men' of Matthew's gospel, were converted from the false pagan religion of Persia to the true religion of the Old Testament which Jesus fulfilled. But that is not it at all! They did not give their gold, frankincense and myrrh to a theological system. They gave them to a living, breathing child.
The hippopotamus may be clumsy, he may bellow instead of singing, his great bulk may betray a deep vulnerability. Yet he is alive! This life has endless possibilities, the same possibilities that the magi saw in that frail child, laid in a stone feeding trough among the livestock, his parents exhausted and far from home.
This is who we are called to follow. All our systems, rules and institutions count for nothing without this spark of life, this tiny feeble incarnation, this promise of growth.
Yet with this spark we can one day become what we are meant to be. Even the hippo can eventually wash off the river mud, learn to fly and sing the most glorious song. So can we, if we just are willing to begin.
Happy Christmas all you hippos!
The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.
At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the ’potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
You know, of course, that Eliot was deeply devout. He was not taking a pot-shot at Jesus. He was taking a shot at the Church, sleeping away in the midst of vast riches.
A hippo is not beautiful, or elegant. It does not sing a sweet song. It spends its days wallowing in cool water, letting its ungainly bulk float. At night it drags itself up the bank and waddles off to graze. Yet the hippo is alive!
So often we let our faith die. We preserve it, perhaps, in a set of rituals, or some beautiful words, music and architecture. Perhaps it is preserved in some fossilised set of doctrines which we defend against all comers, or a set of rules we try to force one another to live by even though we know them to be impossible.
Recently I read a meditation in which someone claimed that the three magi, the 'wise men' of Matthew's gospel, were converted from the false pagan religion of Persia to the true religion of the Old Testament which Jesus fulfilled. But that is not it at all! They did not give their gold, frankincense and myrrh to a theological system. They gave them to a living, breathing child.
The hippopotamus may be clumsy, he may bellow instead of singing, his great bulk may betray a deep vulnerability. Yet he is alive! This life has endless possibilities, the same possibilities that the magi saw in that frail child, laid in a stone feeding trough among the livestock, his parents exhausted and far from home.
This is who we are called to follow. All our systems, rules and institutions count for nothing without this spark of life, this tiny feeble incarnation, this promise of growth.
Yet with this spark we can one day become what we are meant to be. Even the hippo can eventually wash off the river mud, learn to fly and sing the most glorious song. So can we, if we just are willing to begin.
Happy Christmas all you hippos!
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