I’ve been having a clear out. Amongst the rubbish I seem to have accumulated, I found some beautiful memories. A card my Dad wrote to my Mum on their Ruby Wedding Anniversary, an invitation to my daughter’s wedding and photographs from my partner’s father’s 80th birthday celebrations. All of these make me think of some song lyrics: ‘How do people so dissimilar, turn into something so familiar?’
The Gospel today is John’s account of the wedding at Cana. I remembered we had studied this Gospel a few years ago, as a Lent course and found Stephen Verney’s book, Water into Wine, which helped us. You may remember that Verney uses the words ano and kato as an overarching means of understanding John’s gospel. Verney tells us that these two words are different orders, where order is the pattern and the governing principle behind the pattern. In the order of kato the ruling principle is ME and the pattern is people competing, manipulating and trying to control each other. The order of ano has love as a governing principle and the pattern is one of compassion. The most urgent question, writes Verney, confronting each of us, and humankind as a whole, is how these two orders can be reconciled.
We all know how much hard work is involved in living with others and how life is a constant to and fro of compromise, merging differences, knowing when it is important to assert your own needs and when they can be eased to fit the needs of others. Jean Piaget, a famous psychologist theorised that children’s learning development is a move away from egocentricity. It has always seemed to me that we don’t seem to get very far away as we mature! How then, do we “turn into something so familiar?” Perhaps I will keep the physical evidence of my precious memories to help me merge the ano and kato.
Wendy Quill
