St Hubert

Tuesday 3rd November, 2020

I think it is the feast of St Hubert. If my memory serves me well he is associated with a swan. My own thoughts re Hubert are of two people I have known. One the son of a friend. A brilliant young man who has worked hard and developed a powerful mind gaining a first class degree at Oxford. I think he may have been bullied a little at school but his character and the love of his parents and family gave him the strength to plough on and not lose heart. So often the bullies destroy our self confidence. My own recollection is of being teased for being heavily overweight. I have been ever conscious of my body shape since. I can recall the means and methods I used to hide my stomach  and fat legs. I am still very sensitive to it all but have learned to laugh. Yet I am still touchy when tired and can react massively. I do not think I am the ugly duckling that became the swan!! How do we learn to believe in and accept ourselves whatever our shape or looks. Why are we so prone to taking note of fashion or public attitudes or personal remarks?

The other Hubert was a Benedictine monk, Dom Huber van Zeller. He was a writer, sculptor and a man of incredible prayer, fasting and self denial. I think he wrote over a hundred books including highly amusing ones called 'Cracks in the Cloister'. In these he drew cartoons of religious types, haughty Abbesses, indulgent monastic eaters, pious and scrupulous church characters. He was superb at getting the shape, style, visage and look of his cartoon characters. He also had a sense of self ridicule. I recall walking in to his room and finding him dead. I had not realised he had died and had arrived at his monastery to see him. I simply walked in. It was a shock yet also there was an air of calm and peace. He had, as it were, gone home. He had run the race to the end. A good man, an example, an inspiration for me, for my life and journey. Perhaps most of all I recall his sculpted Crucifiction which stands as the altar piece at Downside Abbey in Somerset. He sculpted the Stations of the Cross for nuns in Wyoming. They have an angular, drawn look and emphasise the pain and suffering of life.

As I walked this afternoon catching a period of sunshine I recalled Dom Hubert. I am not sure that he would have approved of my popping in to the local Co-op shop to purchase extra thick cream. It is the 'cherry on the cake' for my baked apples with raisins, demerara sugar and butter. An indulgence indeed. I spotted a 'reduced' packet of pork pies, scotch eggs and a carton of yogurt. Oh dear, that was lunch. I walked on hoping that my body would not put on too much weight from the luncheon and become obese. As I walked so I came across more ' help yourself ' apples outside houses. Wonderful for my thickened cream!

I suppose I need to become more self disciplined and take Dom Hubert's example of fasting ( occasionally ) seriously, then self respect would come and body shape control. I write this 'tongue in cheek' and am chuckling as I do so. No, I have friends who love me, I have a faith and a hope which guides me and I have a sense of humour which jollies me along. Also I have a sense of beauty and the sunset I have just watched for twenty minutes has been yet another display of the divine nature of the heavens. Also the stars are coming out for it is a clear night: more majesty on show. All I need now is for a couple of swans to fly past.