A Sussex Tale

In the shadow of the Downs lays an ancient hedgerow, where bawdy ragwort, yarrow and hogweed, wave oh, so slightly, in late summer’s breeze. The tallest of grasses reach out for your hand, presenting proud heads of seeds to scatter, if you will, where the flinted road ends and the chalk rises steeply. There, there, in the hollow of the hill, where, even at this tardy hour, the smell of dew and gorse mingle and small insects hum, there rest a while and drop your harvest.

The skylark is busy, and doesn’t seem to notice the sun, fleeting westwards behind a windswept blackthorn. She sings quavers and triplets of light itself, as she hovers high and over, against the bronzing skies. Below her drifts a warm, drowsy cloud of dust, rising from the ready wheat, in fields that whisper of home.

Draw in the sweet air, till it fills your blood and blinds all else. Let it dwell in your soul and throw thoughts heavenwards, till, amidst the rush, that breezy rush of shimmering gold, silence comes…    Even the hawthorn scrub and the busy Carder-Bees listen.

Here between the fields and the hills, time skips and jumps and stops. Like the paper-red poppies dancing for a day, life is lived in such a moment. And, all is well.

Yet see how the hour grows late, the air still. Flurries of passers-by hurry back, back to their cars and concrete roads, their feet scrunching the ground. Left, right, left right, no words, no conversation, just the hook of another world, tugging, insistently. You too should join them, along the tufted footpath where forgotten burrows and wizened roots eye hungrily each defiant tread.

Laugh, softly. It is too early to leave this place. The stars are not yet visible. Push past the bramble and climb a little, though the way be steep. A narrow vein cuts into the hill leading tired legs, past small clouds of sheep’s wool, caught on thistle. Burdock and teasel wait patiently drying in the evening wind as you squeeze past, past the crumbling chalk and bleached clumps of cocksfoot.

Sitting now on the ridge, the distant harbour comes alive with roaming ferries and horizon-sped tankers, lit up for oceans deep. Silent graves, like gentle soldiers beside you, keep watch as sea and sky start to merge. Grey begets grey, till the orange streaks and purple haze fade out of existence – as they do every summer’s night, west of the darkling tumuli.

Back in February, it was here, between these frozen bulges, that the last of the snow made a stand. Icicles hung from the barbed wire fence and vast white drifts subsumed the land. That cold void, tinged by an ivory sun, gave way to marching vetch and early cowslips: Winter’s great retreat.

How strange the seasons that encircle us – worlds in flight, that pass through one land. Stranger still, the heart that startles anew, as if each iteration were the first. Yet you shiver, I see. Has autumn invaded our summer’s night by stealth?

Overhead the Pole Star calls out ‘I am here’…   

Our story is beginning.

Below us, in the dark, a small church stirs. A faint sound from the chancel shakes centuries of prayer.

In an instant, the air inside quickens, the walls hold their breath.

Everything waits –

The cry, when it comes again, is stronger. It echoes across the ages, disturbing the peace, shocking the dead. Angry and insistent: it is the summons of a new born child, announcing to the world ‘I Am.’ In his mother’s arms, he rages into life, wrinkled and bloodied. His lungs decry the lowly night, the hard stone floor, the musty welcome. Is this earth in all its glory? She, in pain and exhaustion, just sits and stares.

Outside, the moon rises… and falls quietly through the arch of a narrow window.  Silver clouds pass by in streaks. Yusef glances round and unsteadily finds his feet. When he comes back, he has in his hands the altar cloth, of thick green linen, to wrap around Mari and her child. It is a poor barrier against the cold, but it rouses Mari’s thoughts, bringing her back into the moment.

‘At least, we are not outside,’ she says, gentle and brave. Yusef manages to nod, but her white face fills him with guilt. She is only a child herself, he thinks. How could he have brought her here, so far from home and all those they love? How many desert villages had they wandered through, following his dream? How many fishing ports had they seen before they found a boat? How many days of sickness on the wide ocean blue, before they saw this coast? It was madness, an unthinkable madness. And now they were here, but where here is he does not know. Yusef sits and listens to the baby’s fury.

At least the boy is strong.

Maybe a minute, maybe an hour passes before a long, pure silence reverberates around them once more. A miracle: the baby is suckling. Mari gasps, half-laughing, and looks to Yusef. He smiles and breaths more deeply. It is good sign.  Yet high above the moon looks down on the family, its wide face tinged blood red. It hears the heavens’ disarray, the disquiet of the lonely hills, and acts: light pours down into the church. Mari and her child are caught in a steady stream of calm; their faces shine. It is a simple gift, but a powerful one.

‘A light for our darkness,’ she whispers. Yusef, seeing the baby clearly for the first time, says nothing. He is transfixed by the tiny hands, the red face, the tightly shut eyes. What in the world could be more beautiful? It is as if this boy, this promised child, has clambered inside his fast-beating heart.

And yet –

He cannot help but remember: this is not his child.

Is this why they came? he asks himself, to escape questions? To hide? To avoid his family’s surprise, when the boy looks nothing like the father? No, they came for a better life – surely – a job, a future, a…

His thoughts echo around his head, to silence. He knows they are untrue against the black of this night, so endless and still. They have run away: fled all that was familiar. Now all is new. His mind is spiraling in a land of unimaginable vastness, where horizons have been swept away and all is possible, and they are at His mercy. It is terrifying. He had only wanted to protect her. Maybe that too was a lie? Maybe he just wanted his own life, to do as he had always done, to live as he chose.

Nine months is a long time; time enough to question, time enough to doubt. Yusef sank back into memory, to a day he should have forgotten. A day when nothing happened – just like tens of hundreds of other ordinary days, spent working. Yet, that evening, as he lay in a half-world somewhere between night and dream, a voice had vibrated through his soul: a deep, warm, bass note, calling his name.  

‘Yusef.’

‘Yusef,’ – a second time, louder now.

He awoke, confused, a blurry jumble of faces and left-over phrases sliding out of existence.

 ‘Who’s there?’ he had asked, looking around the darkened room.

‘Yusef, do not be afraid.’

It was if the voice was right next to him.

‘I have news for you’– gentle words from nowhere.

Yusef studied the shadows, the empty corners of the room.

‘Where are you?’ he asked, not trusting his eyes.

 Light quickly began to fill the room, light on light, more light on more light, till in moments Yusef felt he was staring at the sun itself.

‘Yusef, do you see me now?’ The voice was soft, full of compassion. ‘God has given Mari a child, a child more precious than life itself. A child who will become the man who will save everyone from themselves.’

‘A son?’ he had whispered, his arm across his face.

 ‘The Son, who will show us all the way home to the Father.’

Yusef sat there, unable to think. His skin tingled; the radiating light was warming even the air he breathed.  He knew not what to say.

‘Do not worry, Yusef, all is in hand. You are much loved.’

And that was all.

The light faded, and Yusef was alone.

Just as he feels now.

He watches Mari re-arranging the altar cloth. She pulls up one side to cover her head like a hood and with the rest, wraps it completely over her and the child, trapping in more warmth. She is smiling, faint colour in her cheeks, as she holds out the last corner, inviting him to join them. 

‘When dawn comes, we will know what to do,’ she says.

Yusef, laid bare, replies as he should have many months ago. ‘We will trust in Him.’

With this simple statement of faith, high above the hills, song bursts forth. A clear, shining song of joy. It pierces the midnight blue with turquoise and gold and reaches to the earth, awakening the grassy hills, the vast slumbering flocks of sheep. It is Grace herself, stealing over the low hanging mist, and sending out peace on every breath of wind.

Our family, protected by the thick stone walls of this ancient church, is unaware. Drawing close together, under the one blanket, they start to doze, awaiting the light of a new day. Yet outside, the Pole Star hangs ever brighter in the night sky – calling their visitors onwards.

The darkest hour of the night is approaching. All is quiet, all is calm. Now and then, the child murmurs, safe in its mother’s arms, but mostly nothing is heard, just the hush of sleep. Seeking relief from the hard floor, Yusef shifts his weight and gradually settles. Comfort has come from nowhere and he falls into a soundless chasm that quells both past and present, a place of rest. Mari too, with her head on his shoulder, leaves our shores.

Let us leave them be.

A couple of hours later, so deep is their sleep, that young voices outside fail to stir them. The flashes of torches and crunching of boots go unremarked. It is only as an iron latch lifts and the first of the strangers enters, that Yusef jerks into life.

 ‘Hello,’ said one. ‘We came.’

‘Came as fast as we could’ – huffing away.

‘We weren’t sure if it was the right place. We–

‘–Is he here?’

 ‘–Are you him…?’

Their questions spring out and ricochet off each wall, with the energy of youth.

With relief, Yusef realizes it is a just a group of boys: eight eyes staring back at his.

‘Hello,’ he replies, slowly. He cannot quite understand what they are saying or why they are here. Sleep has left him light-headed and dim. He searches for a few sure words of English.

‘My name is Yusef – Please, come.’

He waves to the worn floor beside him and sits back down, a tessellation of terracotta diamonds at his feet.

Not waiting for the others, one of the boys, his coat undone, darts forward. He is holding out his hand to Yusef in greeting. James, Mark and Matthew, for those are their names, come fast behind in a fanfare of torches zipping criss-cross over the walls.

‘We were walking up on the top – over the hills from Lewes – when we heard singing. On the wind.’

Excitement carries his words. ‘We stopped and it got closer,’ he continued, ‘until it was all around us. It was just us in the field – us and the stars and this, this music. It came from nowhere. It was dancing in front of our faces, running in between us… singing.’

‘Singing?’ 

‘Yes,’ he smiles, ‘like a thousand soft voices.’ His voice slows, as if he can still hear the high notes soaring in the distance. He looks carefully at Yusef’s face to check he is being believed, but there is no need. Yusef is nodding, understanding in his eyes.

 ‘It told us to come here. It said we would find the love of God here in the church.’

‘It said—

The baby chooses this moment to wake up, squalling.

A tingle of surprise, mixed with awe, runs down our speaker’s spine. This night is becoming stranger still: a child, just hours old, lies before him; a child, with yellow, wrinkled skin and an intense, shocking stare.

As Mari comforts the infant, one by one, the young men fall still. They know that what they heard sung on the hills is what they see now before them – a truth of such magnitude that it fills the very blood rushing through their ears and they feel fear. Yusef recognizes their thoughts for his own, for he too is lost in wonder and dread. Can it be? This tiny baby, this child in Mari’s arms, the Son of God?

Mari’s words break through the silence.

‘Would you like to hold him?’ she asks, tentatively.

Normality returns.

Looking in a while later, our family is more comfortable. A murmur of conversation carries a flask of tea to and fro amidst the sleeping bags and sandwiches. Above, on the window ledge, a row of candles has been lit; the mellow light seems to draw in the walls, making the church smaller, warmer. Below, the baby, wrapped tightly in a lamb’s wool jumper, is gazing up at Yusef’s face. He smiles back and all is well.

Yet outside an opaque sky is clearing; like grey glass the first light of dawn arrives. Our young friends must carry on their journey, over the hills to the cliffs and morning. Our family too must find a new home –

They leave our story here.

Off they go, into the half-light; to years of waiting, grief and hope.

And the little church just sits alone, moss and lichen crowning the roof, as the sun comes up.

Did you see it on your climb? The yew tree and the graves? Perhaps you even waited a moment, in front of the old oak door, laden with the passing centuries? Or reached for its twisted iron handle?

Few souls lift the latch. Yet, if you enter in the morning, sunlight adorns the plain interior, bright white walls luminesce with gold. And, there in the still, stone cold air, silence can be found. Not a void – but a presence. A living silence that speaks deeply; rare, startling and holy.

Come, come, and listen.