Yea though I walk … vallis lacrimarum

I have encountered an increasing number of people who are enduring unimaginable tragedy as a result of COVID and other diseases this week. I am touched both by how frail and robust we humans are.

These stories of loss and guilt were on my mind as I rode my bicycle to the Slanghoek lighthouse and watched the calm ocean lap onto the rocks as a fine mist rose from the water, drifted up towards me and kissed the salt caked on my skin from hours of hard riding.

I risked a coffee at The Hub in Scarborough and Psalm 23 popped into my head.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

I’m not a religious person but I began my education at a christian school and many of the words and rituals of this tradition have stayed with me. I am grateful for this. Extraordinary that stopping for a coffee on a 140km bike ride, a tradition of pleasure, should bring to mind “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death“

This led me to reflect on the story of the English composer Herbert Howell’s requiem which is part of a body of choral and orchestral music that he wrote after the death of his 9 year old son, Michael. Michael contracted polio on a family holiday in 1935 and died after 3 days of illness. Howells was profoundly affected by this loss and turned to music as a way to be with his pain.

He forbade the performance of this deeply beautiful piece of music for decades. He regarded it as an intensely personal document. Eventually he was persuaded by his friend and fellow composer Benjamin Britten to allow it’s performance in 1980, only three years before his own death.

I can’t help but admire how turning towards so unthinkable a tragedy as the sudden death of a child with grace and faith creates something as poignantas the setting of Psalm 23 that is the second movement of Howell’s requiem.

Here it is

So often it seems to me that beauty and pain are linked. Perhaps this is because the alternative is to allow pain to overcome us and ferment into bitterness or rage or defeat.

Because surely this is a vale of tears. We are born and face all manner of trials and losses and horrors, some of our own creation, some perpetrated against us and many just in the nature of life and disease and accident and ageing and death. Music and art and the kind of faith that Howells somehow finds and shares, show us the way through the Vallis lacrimarum.