holy has its comic side, and the comic its holy side: the connection’s built-in from the start. The Creator’s marvellously lacking in gravitas. He’s Light - Light fantastic. P. G. Wodehouse is unlikely to be canonized just yet; but, as the future St Plum might put it, the shot’s on the board.
It’s not only the banana-skin type of humour which up-ends things. ‘The whole of human life,’ as Plato observed, ‘is turned upside-down.’ This is where the divine comes in. ‘In the way of search for God,’ Rumi tells us, ‘everything is reversed.’
Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, I call the great Robert Browning, who will both sum up and light up (if not clean up) my response to the Crown Prosecutor and his somewhat tacky Witness:
I but open my eyes, - and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
The submission of man’s nothing-perfect to God’s all-complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.
Prosecution Witness No. 5
THE PASSENGER
Counsel begins by reminding the Witness that, though she is in court sub poena, she is on oath. The Prosecution requires her to outline the circumstance and the extent of her knowledge of me.
She replies that we first met two years ago. She and I were members of a party of four who toured Europe by car for a month, so we got to know each other pretty well. Since then we have met occasionally and more or less by accident.
COUNSEL: Is it a fact that the Accused did most of the driving, about which he made strange claims? If so, what were those claims? And did you find that his performance at the wheel of the car justified them?
WITNESS: We went about four hundred miles, and he did all the driving. This was because he liked driving, and it was his car – a Rover – which he handled very well. Yes, he was a smooth driver, who knew instinctively how much faster than the speed limit he could drive and get away with it. Also, just when to overtake, and so on. As for his claims to be a very special sort of driver, one with an extraordinary secret, I never quite understood them or took them too seriously. If they help him to improve his performance, so much the better, say I. They’re his business, not mine or anybody else’s, and I think it’s outrageous that this court –
His Honour and Counsel simultaneously intervene to warn the Witness of the consequence of questioning the authority of the court. She is advised to continue her evidence more circumspectly, confining it to what’s called for.
In response to Counsel’s further questioning, Witness agrees, reluctantly, there was nothing special about my driving; and further, that nothing happened during the trip to suggest that one of the foursome was unique, or wielded superhuman powers of any kind, at the wheel or away from it. The car did, in fact, break down once, and the party lost its way more than once, and these difficulties were overcome by quite normal means.
WITNESS adds: All the same, my impression is that Jack’s efficiency at the wheel, and his liveliness and sense of humour, had something to do with his strange views about himself. So, I say good luck to him and them. What works that well can’t be altogether off-beam.
COUNSEL: That’s enough of your opinions. To come back to the facts: is it true that nothing happened during that tour, or has happened since, to convince you that the Accused exercises divine powers, let alone that he is himself a divine Being? Is that right?
WITNESS: Yes, but surely it’s his -
COUNSEL: No buts. Yes, or no?
WITNESS: Yes and no.
JUDGE: The court requires a straight answer.
WITNESS: All right then. Yes.
MYSELF, to the Witness: I have no questions for you at the moment, so please leave the box. But stay in
It’s not only the banana-skin type of humour which up-ends things. ‘The whole of human life,’ as Plato observed, ‘is turned upside-down.’ This is where the divine comes in. ‘In the way of search for God,’ Rumi tells us, ‘everything is reversed.’
Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, I call the great Robert Browning, who will both sum up and light up (if not clean up) my response to the Crown Prosecutor and his somewhat tacky Witness:
I but open my eyes, - and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
The submission of man’s nothing-perfect to God’s all-complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.
Prosecution Witness No. 5
THE PASSENGER
Counsel begins by reminding the Witness that, though she is in court sub poena, she is on oath. The Prosecution requires her to outline the circumstance and the extent of her knowledge of me.
She replies that we first met two years ago. She and I were members of a party of four who toured Europe by car for a month, so we got to know each other pretty well. Since then we have met occasionally and more or less by accident.
COUNSEL: Is it a fact that the Accused did most of the driving, about which he made strange claims? If so, what were those claims? And did you find that his performance at the wheel of the car justified them?
WITNESS: We went about four hundred miles, and he did all the driving. This was because he liked driving, and it was his car – a Rover – which he handled very well. Yes, he was a smooth driver, who knew instinctively how much faster than the speed limit he could drive and get away with it. Also, just when to overtake, and so on. As for his claims to be a very special sort of driver, one with an extraordinary secret, I never quite understood them or took them too seriously. If they help him to improve his performance, so much the better, say I. They’re his business, not mine or anybody else’s, and I think it’s outrageous that this court –
His Honour and Counsel simultaneously intervene to warn the Witness of the consequence of questioning the authority of the court. She is advised to continue her evidence more circumspectly, confining it to what’s called for.
In response to Counsel’s further questioning, Witness agrees, reluctantly, there was nothing special about my driving; and further, that nothing happened during the trip to suggest that one of the foursome was unique, or wielded superhuman powers of any kind, at the wheel or away from it. The car did, in fact, break down once, and the party lost its way more than once, and these difficulties were overcome by quite normal means.
WITNESS adds: All the same, my impression is that Jack’s efficiency at the wheel, and his liveliness and sense of humour, had something to do with his strange views about himself. So, I say good luck to him and them. What works that well can’t be altogether off-beam.
COUNSEL: That’s enough of your opinions. To come back to the facts: is it true that nothing happened during that tour, or has happened since, to convince you that the Accused exercises divine powers, let alone that he is himself a divine Being? Is that right?
WITNESS: Yes, but surely it’s his -
COUNSEL: No buts. Yes, or no?
WITNESS: Yes and no.
JUDGE: The court requires a straight answer.
WITNESS: All right then. Yes.
MYSELF, to the Witness: I have no questions for you at the moment, so please leave the box. But stay in
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