THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK - Haunted or helped
ADMIRERS of Rabbie Burns have been celebrating the 250th anniversary of his birth.
You might find it strange for a minister of religion to note the fact, for Burns's lifestyle and his devastating attacks on religious hypocrisy have made some look on him with suspicion.
In his hatred of hypocrisy, of course, he had the best of models, the Man of Nazareth himself. But his life is worth our memory because of his profound respect for the common man.
The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of God, and few took that truth more seriously than Burns. A failed farmer, he admired the labour of ordinary folk.
Unlike others, he did not romanticise about scenery, never mentioning the mountains of Arran, visible from the Ayrshire coast. Landscape for him, was always landscape with figures.
The common speech of Scottish workers was thought too vulgar for use in literary endeavours, but Burns was not ashamed to use it. In the vernacular, he expressed his profound belief that "the rank is but the guinea's stamp, the man's the gold, for a' that."
Questions about the poet's faith I leave to others, but that he was a great human being is beyond dispute. His contemporary, Sir Walter Scott, noticed the warm human qualities of the man from Ayr.
"The eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a cast which glowed, (I say literally GLOWED) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human being, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time."
Burns was a man of feeling. His love affairs are legendary, and he knew that pain is the price of love.
There is biography in the line, "Never met and never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted". His many falls taught him something else, namely the dangers of a dissolute life.
Speaking of sexual immorality, he noted, "I waive the quantum of the sin./ the hazard of concealing,/ but ,Oh, it hardens all within,/ and petrifies the feeling."
One writer on Burns remarked that he was haunted rather than helped by his religion. In one sense, true religion will challenge the seeker, producing a sense of discomfort and uneasiness in the presence of the holy.
Isaiah experienced that in the Temple, protesting "I am a man of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6: 5)
But religion must do more. It must seek to provide answers for life's perplexing problems, and provide strength for the daily round, rather than a list of strict 'do's' and 'don'ts'.
Christians believe that in Jesus Christ such things are to be found. When the life is opened to the Spirit of Christ, qualities of love, joy and peace are born ( Galatians 5:22).
May each reader discover a religion which helps rather than haunts.
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Weather for Coleraine
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Heavy rain
Temperature: 5 C to 7 C
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