The Camino

In 9000 BC, Indian Agriculture began. Initially, this took the form of the collecting of plants with variety on an epic scale. The same would have applied, and still does, to the variety of herbs, spices, fruits and other crops. Once civilization was formed, agricultural industry started to produce staple foods as well as textiles, including cotton.

The Smalling family has a very Indian heritage. Seth Smallings great, great, great grandfather, James, travelled over from India, to the UK, at the start of the Industrial Revolution. At this time, India was very much an outpost of the British Empire. Things changed in around 1857 as a result of mutinies from the Indian people. These were as a result of a desire to rebel against British colonialism. However, India has had a profound influence on Victorian Britain. Curry and cups of tea still unite working class families, rooted in the mining industry and community, with those from the majestic vastness of this part of the orient.

India is a beautiful country, which Seth Smallings grandfather found when he travelled there in 1946 just before India won independence from the British. It was there that he learnt all of his farming trade, as a young lad of 21. It was there that he met his wife, Aanya, with whom he started a family in Britain on his return and her arrival. He travelled to and from India via train, witnessing the spectacle of the change in scenery. On departure, from Southampton, he went from the luscious landscape of Europe, to the desert rocks of the Middle East. Then finally to the world awash with different trees, birds and sights that are unknown to many.

You wouldn’t say that it was a concrete jungle. Perhaps the Asian community in Britain plays a fantastic role. The young white British family is welcomed each time they go to their local corner shop. Perhaps they even feel the presence of God, by a person’s witness. They may realise the importance of family, by the members of staff that work there or the recently hired employee that has been introduced to a new way of life. They see God in the stillness, humility and holiness. Again they contemplate the playfulness of the young, shown to wisdom by the old. They see the daylight reflected off the specks through the shop window that make them quiet, and calm, after the mad rush.

During James Smallings time, working on the rice fields, he lived in Dholavira of Gujarat state. This state borders the Arabian Sea, as well as Pakistan to the North West. This part of India is multi-faith, with Hinduism still by far the dominant religion. His accommodation was an introduction to life below the poverty line. His journey was mostly by train, across Europe then the Middle East before crossing over the border from Pakistan. The Reddy family he was staying with had a circular house made of breeze blocks with a corrugated iron roof. He stayed here, with the mother and father, whilst the young children had to stay with their aunty and uncle nearby. The settlement sat overlooking a vast expanse of rice fields, and interlinked with much poorer accommodation via mostly mud tracks. Every week, he would travel with Nadeem Reddy on a one hour trip to the nearest grocery store. The store kept fruit and vegetables mostly in cardboard; however tins and plastic containers were stored higher up. Wild animals, such as the Ruddy Mongoose, were always something to bear in mind for shop owners. These would sometimes emigrate or travel via the muddy tracks.

James had no religious background from childhood, then adolescence. He had lived through the Second World War, and experienced the air-raids in the heart of Grandoaks city. Having lived through a time of such devastation, but also togetherness and unity, he was someone who always upheld gratitude and humility. What he had, and what so many have today, owes a debt to someone else’s sacrifice. The togetherness and unity, of soldiers and civilians in times such as these, enabled so much modern day freedom as well as liberty. However, as so many have this, many believe that the war time spirit should be reflected in the gratitude for it. Dreadful suffering certainly does exist in the world in 2021. A spirit of love, similar to that shown in dire human trial, might show compassion for all the afflicted from the very essence of a person. This is not unlike a son of God, whose suffering is bore for us out of love. We are to imitate Christ who was joyful, humbled Himself, suffered grievously and died as a ransom for many.

Jesus knew how to laugh, but also to grieve in times of sadness. Many young men, including Seth and Simon, seek to deepen their faith into this aspect of Him. They want to imitate His very human love, and in doing so reflect some of his divinity. Many believe that Jesus was seen as a ‘normal person’, which is part of the mystery as to His real nature. How could ‘normal’ be in essence all divine? He was a normal person, who was completely without blame, yet murdered because of human wickedness.

James was part of a then middle-class family, and his father Joseph was a banker. Joseph and his wife Joyce had been brought up in the Church of England, but then fell away in their teenage years. They lived in a very grand mid-terrace of three floors, with a Victorian feel throughout. It had a piano in the front room, to accompany a round floor mat. Behind this there was a kitchen of very traditional style, not dissimilar from that seen in a stately home. It had a large, jet black, cast iron cooking unit inside an arched brick built hearth that linked with the flue system. When this house was built, there certainly would have been chimney sweeps that used the recesses in each mortar joint to climb up. Some of these workers would have been as young as four years old.

From his family home, James moved to rural Grandoaks in 1947 with his wife. This was after 18 months out in India, which broadened his mind. The experience was the becoming of the pillar he was to be in the Western world.

On departure, from Southampton, his father Joseph said in a very joking manner ‘Don’t have too much fun with the women out there!’ Joseph had paid for his son’s working holiday, as he believed that it would help James in society. He was right, because it did. Although he was a very shy lad, eventually he met his wife Aanya and was confident enough to ask her out on a date. This was during the spectacle of an Indian wedding. The colours of dresses, and garments, were memorable for the rest of their lives. The wedding lasted four days, with the main ceremony on the third day, and then the reception. This was a ceremony they will never forget; even though they had cocktails that are still yet to reach the other side of the British bar!

The wedding was set in a town that lay in the heart of the Gujurat, and a Haldi ceremony was performed. For the wedding rituals, the bride wore a cream and red saree. In 1947, such celebrations were very rare however they always brought many families together.

James and Aanya met during the cocktail reception. The first thing that Aanya asked James was ‘Are you a religious man?’

James replied ‘I guess so. Just depends what you class as religious really!’ During his time in India, he had studied the bible as well as the Quran and other religious texts. Like many, on his return to England he eventually saw the person of Jesus to be like the ultimate voice within his soul. The God shaped being that was the fork that sought to gather the nations, not unlike that which tilled the soil in the rice paddies. It is also the joy at the end of the wedding feast.

Simon and Seth, many years later, were very learned about the faith. They knew that the name Son of Man was very controversial. Many believe that Jesus gave Himself this title when he said ‘The Son of Man has no place to rest his head’. Others, further to this, believe the reason for this was to create a covenant with the Eastern traditions, such as Hinduism.

They believe that He is a transcendent God. The word ‘transcendent’ describes something about the He. But the ‘He’ and the ‘transcendent’ are still words. In the same way this applies to ‘Son’ and ‘Man’. The actual name of God, given to Moses, is impossible to pronounce. Maybe it is the origin of all words, as it was the word from the beginning.

Nobody can put himself on any kind of level with God. Nobody can depict a transcendent being, and give it any characteristics in the slightest. They also cannot position the word within their soul. This must be done by God himself. So therefore man must become small. They must humble themselves, and ask for His intercession from the depths of their nothingness. From the pews of the cancelled wedding, they can dare to plead that the dull water in their souls be made pure. This is like the algae that were removed from Simon’s soul at his home parish. Perhaps even the specks of goodness illuminated by the light from heaven, as St John of the Cross described.

The Hindu tradition has a unique way of describing God in relation to the individual. The Brahman is the spirit of consciousness within each person, although it is a universal consciousness at the same time. The Atman is the essence of the individual, and different schools of thought put the Brahman and Atman together or as the same thing. Then this knowledge allows the individual to experience ‘absolute bliss’ as described in the term ‘saccidananda’. One theologian wrote that knowledge of self, according to the Hindu tradition, is the highest form of knowledge.

In the heart of this theologian, he then does something that he reflects as almost having an element of futility. He actually likens the Hindu teaching to the Catholic. That this knowledge, of self, may be seen as the relationship between the Holy Spirit, indwelling in the Virgin Mary, as revealed to the prophet considered to be the seer St John the Evangelist, in the book of revelation. So therefore both prophets, Mary and John, could both easily be construed as being the Beloved Disciple. This is known as an ‘imponderable’, and could also easily be attributed to St John the Baptist and St Mary Magdalene. Simon and Seth are aware that we are simply not supposed to understand this theology, related to the Catholic teaching of the ‘Trinity’, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is God, in three persons, not necessarily unmanifested in the saccidananda. However, the fundamental truth that is manifested with Simon and Seths souls is that the Spirit is love. The love that is named, yet paradoxically is nameless. The same love between the bride and groom at the Indian wedding, and between Craig and Jessica Longstand in Salestown.

James left India, with his fiancé Aanya, in 1948. He became a Father, to Seth’s father, in 1950. He was then baptized a Catholic, and they attended Sunday mass at St Jude’s in Maybury. This became the family tradition, eventually followed by Seth and his sister Sonia.