I’se still climin’

Lent Book Club: 31st March 2022

Bishop Richard gives us a brief biography of Langston Hughes (1901-1967). I was struck by the family history going back to great-grandparents, for example, and how previous generations as well as present concerns shaped him and his poetry.

Which sets my thoughts wandering off into my family history. The vast majority of ancestors are white, working class labourers or servants. There are a couple of artisans, a hugenot line and a connection with travellers. Refugees and wanderers are important strands in my genealogy with people migrating from Devon, Dorset, and Suffolk to find a home in Middlesex (now mostly part of Greater London). My father always used to insist that we were working class, with maybe an “Oxbridge” accent, but I think I’m more (lower) middle-class now.

The general trend for my ancestors has been to become less rural, and more urban, to be better educated so that some of the last two generations have been able to attend university. We are mostly better off materially than our ancestors and mostly healthier too. So I suppose we have been climbing – not social climbers in the perjorative sense – climbing in the sense of growing, moving, and progressing. As Hughes’ mother says to son: “I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climin’.”

That is not something I want to throw away. However, there are a couple of caveats to consider. Are we climbing away to or climbing away from? Not all movement is progress and there have been wars and disasters where the suffering outweighs any progress a generation or family may have made previously. And where is God in all this who has no need to progress, to change or to improve?

In the end I think it part of human nature to yearn and reach upward, whether out of a hole or towards the stars. Maybe we should think of it less like travelling up a ladder, or “crystal stair”, but rather climbing like a plant reaching towards the light. Yet, we shall never reach the light we stretch towards till the Light lifts us up to the top of the stairs.

This year #LentBookClub are reading “Hearing God in Poetry. Fifty poems for Lent and Easter” by Richard Harries published by SPCK. In this book Bishop Harries introduces us to a number of poets and poems. Some may be familiar, some are old and some are new. You may follow the # on Twitter or find us on Facebook.