Listen for the spirit

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer reflects on the unexpected quality of the Spirit.

PROFESSOR Hugh Anderson was one of our teachers at New College, the School of Divinity at Edinburgh University where I studied in the early 1980s.

I do not remember much about the detail of his lectures but I do remember a kind and generous man. He makes me think of a comment by Maya Angelou, who suggested that we often don’t remember much about what people said or did, but ‘we remember how they made us feel’. Hugh Anderson had a demeanour of someone who made you feel good about yourself, even if you felt you had no great intellect with which to shine or impress a fine teacher.

I remember something else about him. It is the words of a song. In our last year at New College he was about to retire and some students sang his favourite song for him. A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. It is a romantic song about two lovers. They feel the enchantment of their growing affection. Amid the bustling, forgetfulness of daily life, angels dine at the Ritz close by and a Nightingale sings in Berkeley Square. Of course, it is highly unlikely that a nightingale, a bird that can be elusive and prefers the countryside, would make its way to central London, but the nightingale has the most beautiful, enchanting song. The moment when we celebrated

Professor Anderson all those years ago has stayed with me over the years. I have often wondered if there is something about that song, which he clearly loved, that summed up his theological approach, his faith, if you like. We can package up knowledge of the mysteries in coherent and convincing propositions, but the life of the Spirit is always elusive and surprising, defying our attempts to sum her up. There is always the risk that by intellectual rigour and dogmatic conviction we blot out those moments of enchantment when the Spirit moves us. Is that why this accomplished scholar loved that song?

The life of the Spirit can take us by surprise, can arrive unsummoned and unexpectedly, like a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square. Maybe, for all our reason and rationality, for all our certainties and assumptions, in science as much as in theology, the life of the Spirit will defy our texts and our clever summaries of what it all means. It will take us by surprise. Somewhere I read this; “the most reliable guide to the truth is the tingling of the spine”. Over the years, I have come more and more to trust that.

There is so much more than mere reason and rationality at work in the world and we must embrace it if we are to learn how to live a spiritual life. We must be open to conscience, to compassion, to inspiration and the surprising, numinous quality of the creation that, as the manifestation of God’s holy hidden being, nods to us if only we open ourselves to the song of the Nightingale.

“ The moment when we celebrated Professor Anderson all those years ago has stayed with me over the years.

Professor Anderson taught us about the New Testament. It was, of course, a vital subject for a young person preparing for a lifetime in ministry. I often feel, however, that the stories of Jesus’s ministry have come most truly alive in the course of practical ministry and human encounters. Insights come as a gift of grace more than as an intellectual accomplishment. I like to think that is why Hugh Anderson loved that song. The Spirit sings and enchants our life if only we have ears to hear and hearts to listen for her elusive, surprising and captivating song. ¤