Change and decay ...

The London soccer team Arsenal won its 14th FA Cup on Saturday, beating London rivals Chelsea 2-1. Since 1927, by the request of the then King, the Christian hymn "Abide With Me" has been sung with gusto by the crowds of tens of thousands. Knowing that the game would be played at an empty Wembley I wondered if, as no fans would be singing along, that the tradition would be broken in 2020.  It was not. Bizarrely, standing on the very apex of the stadium roof (and pre-recorded) Scottish R&B singer Emile Sande produced a fine rendition. The hymn was broadcast on the giant screen in the cavernous stadium to the two teams, coaches and referees, and to the watching TV audience of millions. Fittingly, the hymn this year was dedicated to those who have lost their lives in the pandemic. The whole spectacle was an attempt to make us feel normal in a time of unprecedented abnormality. It partly worked. If you could concentrate on the gameplay, and the piped crowd noise, you could forget the Covid world and imagine something different—that was until the camera panned to the empty seats.

The King's choice of hymn in 1927 was a strange one. Rather than a hymn with some triumph befitting a game of challenge and athleticism—Queen's anthem "We will Rock you" comes to mind—he chose a hymn written by a dying clergyman expressing his deep desire for God's comfort in his final days. 

At the FA Cup final, traditionally, only the first and last verse of the hymn are sung. Pondering the hymn again (as you do) I was drawn to the second verse:

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day

Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away

Change and decay in all around I see

O Thou who changest not, abide with me

 

And especially the third line: "Change and decay in all round I see." Though perhaps a dismal thought, the hymn writer was on to something. All is change. Nothing remains the same. All is movement. We live and we die. That is inescapably true. Hence the writer's longing for a sense of God as the unchangeable something in the midst of the changeable everything. 

And that seems reasonable. It is the natural cry of the human heart.

"If you are there, if you are unchangeable, be with me in the changes of life and all shall be well." 

For the little child the loving parent is the unchanging and dependable rock. As we mature, we discover the parent, though still loving, to be changeable too—subject, too, to decay. And the heart still cries for the unchangeable in the midst of change, for everything changes.

Perhaps that which is unchanging is change itself, and to come to terms with change is to find changelessness. If you will, the divine is found in the process and not in separation from it. The divine is in the budding shoot—the divine is in the falling leaf. The divine is in life—the divine is in death. The divine is in the pre-Covid world—the divine is in the Covid world. 

Still, the heart cry is for comfort, and the hymn Abide With Me expresses well that desire.

Choose to be loving today,

+Ab. Andy