I have mentioned Leonard Cohen many times over the years. There’s no denying he was a gifted writer and an able performer. Neither is there any denying that my knowledge of him barely scratches the outermost point of the surface of his life. He wrote with, and seemingly lived, passion.
One of his songs “COME HEALING” has to be rooted somewhere very deeply in his desire for that healing. He knows the benefits healing can bring and speaks to it wonderfully. Yet, it’s likely, the same healing eluded him for much of his life. He spoke one time about the day his father was buried – he was very young at the time – and was puzzled by this idea of his father going into the ground. Returning home after the funeral, he went to his father’s room and took out one of his bow ties. He cut a piece from it and buried it in the garden of their home. He said that he often felt the rest of his life was trying to remember where he buried it and what exactly he buried.
He speaks too, in the song “Come Healing” about the cross and the pain it brings to life. More than that, he speaks of the cross having been left down but the splinters carried, bring their share of pain.
Ideally it seems, cross and splinters should be left behind.
Lenten thought: what can we do today to leave behind the cross and their splinters? I know it’s not easy and a struggle but surely it’s worth thinking about …..
Next Saturday I’m due to lead a Lenten Retreat at the Galilee Centre, Boyle. I’ve been there before and it’s a very special place – lovely location overlooking the lake.
The nearest landmark to it is the “GAELIC CHIEFTAIN”, that noble horse and horseman overlooking the Curlews. I like that piece of art a lot, not least because I know the man who created it – Maurice Harron. Maurice lived in Cloonloo for a number of years and was a family friend. Though we’ve lost contact in recent years, I still number him in that category and know that were we to meet tomorrow there’d be plenty to speak about.
The Community in Galilee asked me for a theme for the day and one of Leonard Cohen’s songs came to mind. It’s called “COME HEALING” and there’s a powerful line in there that says: “The splinters that you carry, the cross you left behind” and that struck me as a good title for the day.
Now to put something with that title! I wonder would any of you be willing to offer a few suggestions? I won’t publish them if you don’t want me to but maybe they’d help me to focus on what people might want, having taken a day out of their lives, to come to Galilee.
So the thought for today: The “horseman” is a landmark, made all the more real and meaningful because I know the hands behind it. We need landmarks in life and we need to know “The Creator” too.
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These are Cohen’s Lyrics for “COME HEALING”
O gather up the brokenness
And bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vow
The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb
Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace
O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind
O see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heart
O troubled dust concealing
An undivided love
The Heart beneath is teaching
To the broken Heart above
O let the heavens falter
And let the earth proclaim:
Come healing of the Altar
Come healing of the Name
O longing of the branches
To lift the little bud
O longing of the arteries
To purify the blood
And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb
I got Leonard Cohen’s new album “Old Ideas” during the week. The songs, as usual, are thought provoking but one, in particular caught my attention. It’s called “Come Healing” and is, in my opinion, a lovely piece. I’d see it at home in any setting where Reconciliation might be celebrated.
“Come Healing”
O gather up the brokenness And bring it to me now The fragrance of those promises You never dared to vow
The splinters that you carry The cross you left behind Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind
And let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb
Behold the gates of mercy In arbitrary space And none of us deserving The cruelty or the grace
O solitude of longing Where love has been confined Come healing of the body Come healing of the mind
O see the darkness yielding That tore the light apart Come healing of the reason Come healing of the heart
O troubled dust concealing An undivided love The Heart beneath is teaching To the broken Heart above
O let the heavens falter And let the earth proclaim: Come healing of the Altar Come healing of the Name
O longing of the branches To lift the little bud O longing of the arteries To purify the blood
And let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb
O let the heavens hear it The penitential hymn Come healing of the spirit Come healing of the limb
I get interested in things from time to time – some stay with me, others don’t. Some I let go of for a while and then come back to them. Some I never re-visit. Leonard Cohen is one of those interests that stays with me but comes and goes a bit as well. Anyway, following on from the song posted above, I looked a bit at Leonard today and came across the following speech he gave at a presentation ceremony in Spain last year. He speaks of “finding his voice” – “finding his song”. I think it’s worth a few minutes of your time. If you haven’t the time now – come back to it ……
It is a great honour to stand here before you tonight. Perhaps, like the great maestro, Riccardo Muti, I’m not used to standing in front of an audience without an orchestra behind me, but I will do my best as a solo artist tonight.
I stayed up all night last night wondering what I might say to this assembly. After I had eaten all the chocolate bars and peanuts from the minibar, I scribbled a few words. I don’t think I have to refer to them. Obviously, I’m deeply touched to be recognized by the Foundation. But I have come here tonight to express another dimension of gratitude; I think I can do it in three or four minutes.
When I was packing in Los Angeles, I had a sense of unease because I’ve always felt some ambiguity about an award for poetry. Poetry comes from a place that no one commands, that no one conquers. So I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command. In other words, if I knew where the good songs came from I would go there more often.
I was compelled in the midst of that ordeal of packing to go and open my guitar. I have a Conde guitar, which was made in Spain in the great workshop at number 7 Gravina Street. I pick up an instrument I acquired over 40 years ago. I took it out of the case, I lifted it, and it seemed to be filled with helium it was so light. And I brought it to my face and I put my face close to the beautifully designed rosette, and I inhaled the fragrance of the living wood. We know that wood never dies. I inhaled the fragrance of the cedar as fresh as the first day that I acquired the guitar. And a voice seemed to say to me, “You are an old man and you have not said thank you, you have not brought your gratitude back to the soil from which this fragrance arose. And so I come here tonight to thank the soil and the soul of this land that has given me so much.
Because I know that just as an identity card is not a man, a credit rating is not a country.
Now, you know of my deep association and confraternity with the poet Frederico Garcia Lorca. I could say that when I was a young man, an adolescent, and I hungered for a voice, I studied the English poets and I knew their work well, and I copied their styles, but I could not find a voice. It was only when I read, even in translation, the works of Lorca that I understood that there was a voice. It is not that I copied his voice; I would not dare. But he gave me permission to find a voice, to locate a voice, that is to locate a self, a self that that is not fixed, a self that struggles for its own existence.
As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions? The instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.
And so I had a voice, but I did not have an instrument. I did not have a song.
And now I’m going to tell you very briefly a story of how I got my song.
Because – I was an indifferent guitar player. I banged the chords. I only knew a few of them. I sat around with my college friends, drinking and singing the folk songs and the popular songs of the day, but I never in a thousand years thought of myself as a musician or as a singer.
One day in the early sixties, I was visiting my mother’s house in Montreal. Her house was beside a park and in the park was a tennis court where many people come to watch the beautiful young tennis players enjoy their sport. I wandered back to this park which I’d known since my childhood, and there was a young man playing a guitar. He was playing a flamenco guitar, and he was surrounded by two or three girls and boys who were listening to him. I loved the way he played. There was something about the way he played that captured me. It was the way that I wanted to play and knew that I would never be able to play.
And, I sat there with the other listeners for a few moments and when there was a silence, an appropriate silence, I asked him if he would give me guitar lessons. He was a young man from Spain, and we could only communicate in my broken French and his broken French. He didn’t speak English. And he agreed to give me guitar lessons. I pointed to my mother’s house which you could see from the tennis court, and we made an appointment and settled a price.
He came to my mother’s house the next day and he said, “Let me hear you play something.” I tried to play something, and he said, “You don’t know how to play, do you?’
I said, “No, I don’t know how to play.” He said “First of all, let me tune your guitar. It’s all out of tune.” So he took the guitar, and he tuned it. He said, “It’s not a bad guitar.” It wasn’t the Conde, but it wasn’t a bad guitar. So, he handed it back to me. He said, “Now play.”
I couldn’t play any better.
He said “Let me show you some chords.” And he took the guitar, and he produced a sound from that guitar I had never heard. And he played a sequence of chords with a tremolo, and he said, “Now you do it.” I said, “It’s out of the question. I can’t possibly do it.” He said, “Let me put your fingers on the frets,” and he put my fingers on the frets. And he said, “Now, now play.”
It was a mess. He said, ” I’ll come back tomorrow.”
He came back tomorrow, he put my hands on the guitar, he placed it on my lap in the way that was appropriate, and I began again with those six chords – a six chord progression. Many, many flamenco songs are based on them.
I was a little better that day. The third day – improved, somewhat improved. But I knew the chords now. And, I knew that although I couldn’t coordinate my fingers with my thumb to produce the correct tremolo pattern, I knew the chords; I knew them very, very well.
The next day, he didn’t come. He didn’t come. I had the number of his, of his boarding house in Montreal. I phoned to find out why he had missed the appointment, and they told me that he had taken his life. That he committed suicide.
I knew nothing about the man. I did not know what part of Spain he came from. I did not know why he came to Montreal. I did not know why he played there. I did not know why he he appeared there at that tennis court. I did not know why he took his life.
I was deeply saddened, of course. But now I disclose something that I’ve never spoken in public. It was those six chords, it was that guitar pattern that has been the basis of all my songs and all my music. So, now you will begin to understand the dimensions of the gratitude I have for this country.
Everything that you have found favourable in my work comes from this place. Everything , everything that you have found favourable in my songs and my poetry are inspired by this soil.
So, I thank you so much for the warm hospitality that you have shown my work because it is really yours, and you have allowed me to affix my signature to the bottom of the page
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