Thropes Ende

As we were entryng at a Thropes Ende;

For which oure Hooste, as he was wont to gye,

As in this caas, oure joly compaignye,

Seyde in this wise: ‘Lordynges everichoon, Now lakketh us no tales mo than oon.

Fulfilled is my sentence and my decree; I trowe that we had herd of ech degree;

Almoost fulfilled is al myn ordinaunce.’

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Parson’s Prologue, lines 12-19

     So like that long ago host of the Canterbury pilgrims, fulfilled as well is my ordinaunce. The pilgrim road is behind us, and the blessed shrine of the Holy Martyr is in sight. Surely the journey has been of some profit to us. Perhaps some of those Big Questions that were raised at the start of this blog have been (at least in part) answered. Do we now know what is the “Meaning of Life”? Do we at least have a better understanding of what the question actually means?  You certainly won’t find the Meaning in where you’ve been along the way (all those places would have still been there without you), or who you’ve met, or what you’ve accomplished. It is certainly not what you know (there will always be infinitely more that you don’t know), or any other experience you may have had. Least of all is it what possessions you may have amassed (in the end, all we that may “own” is really only given to us on loan). It is who you ARE. In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn wrote that life was the process of “becoming a human being”, and frequently noted how difficult that process was. He also pointed out (repeatedly) that we never know at the time what is best for us, and that what we often see as failures or disappointments (in his case, even a Soviet prison camp) are in reality precisely those things necessary for our (dare I say it, although he doesn’t use the word?) salvation. And we cannot accomplish this “Becoming” on our own – in fact, any attempt to do so is self-defeating.

     I cannot stress enough how strongly I believe in God. I agree with novelist Mark Helprin, who wrote that to deny His presence is like a person standing on the beach in a howling gale, lashed by sand, wind, and salt spray, yet all the time denying the existence of the sea. I can’t, in fact, even begin to imagine the world existing without Him. I get dizzy even trying to conceive of there being anything at all, even nothingness, without the Creator.

     So why bring up God? What does He have to do with “becoming human”? Just this. I believe (I really do) that God created the world in order to live in it – to be one of us. The Incarnation IS the Meaning of Life. In the first and last analysis, Becoming Human is why the universe exists, and we personally and corporately are part of that process.

The Parson

     Several years ago, spending Christmas at a friend’s house, a retired priest and friend of the family gave the blessing before dinner, and began his prayer with, “Look around, Lord, because what you see is what you get”. Those words really struck a chord with me, and I never forgot them. At the time, I thought he was just celebrating the company gathered together, and unapologetically acknowledging our humanity. But it wasn’t long afterwards that I read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for the first time.  Reading those stories was an experience in itself, and what especially affected me was the Prologue to “The Parson’s Tale”, near the end of the book. In fact, I can scarcely think of any single passage in all of literature that so overwhelmed me with its depth of meaning as those lines in which the Company arrives at “Thropes Ende”, and the Host unexpectedly declares their pilgrimage achieved. I was stunned by the audacity of the conception. For more than 500 pages, we had been following the fractious pilgrims on their journey to the shrine at Canterbury Cathedral, “The hooly blissful martir for to seke”. In the course of the tale telling, this pilgrimage was gradually revealed to be nothing less than, as in the Parson’s own words, a quest for “Jerusalem Celestial”. Now we are suddenly told that a nameless, nondescript village (Thropes Ende could easily translate into modern English as something like “Anytown”) is nothing less than the Heavenly City itself. What is Chaucer telling us? That we should be complacent? That we should be satisfied with the way things are, and hope for nothing better? I don’t think so. (Especially since the Parson’s Tale itself, which follows immediately, is anything but complacent.)

     So what are we to make of this? I believe that Chaucer is affirming that life’s contradictions and shortcomings are an inseparable part of humanity, and indeed an essential element to our obtaining happiness. He is telling us that mankind’s proper concern is the “emparadising” (to coin a Dantean term) the Here and Now. And Christ’s Incarnation is the central element of that process. For while, as Genesis says, we are created in the image of God - of even greater importance is that God has also assumed our image in Christ. Through His becoming a human being, the most mundane aspects of our lives are inseparably connected to the divine. Our smallest, most insignificant, and utterly normal activities must be seen as leading us to the Heavenly City. As Dorothy Day would so often say:

“All the way to heaven IS heaven, because Jesus said, ‘I am the Way’.”

     And you don’t need a telescope to see that.

Site of Shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury 

(Destroyed in 1538 on orders of King Henry the Eighth)

The endelees blisse of hevene, there joye hath no contrarioustee of wo ne grevaunce; ther alle harmes been passed of this present lyf; ther as is the sikernesse fro the peyne of helle; ther as is the blissful compaignye that rejoysen hem evermo, everich of others joye; ther as the body of man, that whilom was foul and derk, is moore cleer than the sonne, ther as the body, that whilom was syk, freele, and fieble, and mortal, is inmortal, and so strong and so hool that ther may no thing apeyren it; ther as ne is neither hunger, thurst, no coold, but every soule replenyssed with the sight of the parfit knowynge of God.

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Parson’s Tale, lines 3096-3108