“My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” is a Christian hymn written by Edward Mote who drew his inspiration from a wonderful and well-illustrated parable of Jesus in Matthew 7:24-25. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
The refrain of Mote’s hymn – ‘On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand’ resonated with a motto I read recently. The Carthusian, written by a Carthusian monk, is a little book that accompanied me on a journey around Europe in 2019. Each day I delved into the wisdom tucked into the pages of my Carthusian companion. The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for “The Cross is steady while the world is turning.”
What an interesting choice of motto and one that can appear to be easily interpreted. It often feels as though our world is in a spin and rarely gives the sense of steadiness. Raniero Cantalamessa, a preacher and Friar in the Vatican household, reflecting on the Carthusian motto said: it ‘represents Christ and his cross standing firm, not against the world, which is always in flux… but for the world…’ It is as though the cross forms an anchor for a floating sphere on which we all exist -a point of fixed reference.
You and I are in a world which presently and at best can be described as in flux. Nothing seems to be left untouched by the Covid19 virus. No nation or business nor even faith gatherings have been left unscathed. I listen with interest and hope at the current social dialogue of a new kind of world a new kind of working, even a new way of life. Yet I fear we will simply construct a new kind of reliance on an old unsteady concept of the world.
I remember many years ago standing on a merry-go-round holding a metal pole. My knuckles were white and my head transmitted a feeling of sickness to my stomach. Instinctively I knew I had no control over the speed of the revolutions nor when it would, if it would, stop! Yet there was a sense of certainty in me that this pole I held was keeping me steady, safe, even sane!
A great question today, tomorrow and always is – what is it that we are holding to keep us steady whilst all around is spinning?
Rob Wykes 