BEDFORD I was visiting Bedford yesterday and I hope as I relate to you what I saw there you will feel at the end of it you have visited it too. I was on a quest, to meet a man who had begun something there, and tap into the power and the spirit of that man that lives on still through his words and the book he left us that we read still today. Yes, history is an ancient scroll, but it is never more alive as when you walk the earth like those men walked, and walk where they walked. And history is not history any longer, and neither is time time, but all is one, a beginning and an end, and an ever present eternity. For many long years I have thought about it, walking in circles, and thinking in circles. And like this old world I have come back again upon myself and observed it is all true, that beginnings and endings are relative and there is no such thing as a straight line, only a strait lie. And if the road is narrow, and the gate strait, and the road is straight, and the way narrow, well, forgive a man and his metaphor, it was only a straightness in his thinking, and a narrowness, that nevertheless leads to life. For broad is the way, and wide, that leads to Destruction. But narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it. So I walked along that road and came there finally, where a pilgrimage started, and you must ask, if a man had to write what he wrote in prison, it must be worth something. For the authorities of that day were religious, while he was free. And the state, and the church, and the politics of that time were not as free, or as open. So you ask yourself then who was narrow-minded. And who had authority. But it was not to preach that I came here, or to waffle. Rather, to absorb, and observe. And here an artist is king, and a poet, for he needs no proof or evidence, it is all before him, and before his heart. Let him but see, and bear witness, to confirm what his heart already knows. The just shall live by faith it is written, not by sight, and men will go to the stake on that premise, as did a man around this time, in Saffron Waldon, as it says upon that plaque they have set up there in the stone to bear record, and be a witness. Yes, in these times your faith was a burning matter, and depending upon what faith it was, what fire. So today you cannot blame us for wanting to steer clear from it, and take rather a boat along the river, and watch the swans as I did from the bench, as many an artist before me must have done, and many a poet. And what water was this passing by, and what white swan? And what youth among the youth? And among the young pages of history? Writing them afresh again, as I write them now, for others to read later again, perhaps, when I am gone again, and returned upon my circle. But it is enough, John Bunyan, you have done your work, and England, you have done yours, and the Anglo Saxons, and the Normans, and the Romans, you have done yours too. You have left us a heritage, and a witness. And your life blood beats still, as does your life breath breathe. And the world is a sunny place where you are, and where I must go. Yes it is a pilgrimage, and a celestial city that I must find. And a hope founded in glory, and what I cannot see, only what is around me. And come with me, take my hand, pass with me through that door, that narrow gate, and start the journey with me. And step lightly please, upon the flagstones there, for they are not flagstones at all, but gravestones.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:31:28 +0000
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