30. A Life Without Fences
Chapter 30
A Life Without Fences
What Amy Carmichael called “a new thread” was added to the “gold cord” of their life in 1916.
The world was still at war. Its depression lay heavy even in so far-off a place as South India. Dohnavur had twelve nurseries now, full of babies and toddlers to look after. There were dozens of children inexorably growing, seeking guidance, demanding more and more of those responsible for them. Arulai, the most responsible of the Indians, had nephritis. In the midst of all this, God seemed to be calling for a new decision of faith.
“I could not rise to it, the deadly truth had me in its grip: I was afraid.” Amy’s mind, filled with the military history she loved to read, was shaped by battle language. Of what use, she thought now, is a frightened soldier?
Strength of my heart, I need not fail,
Not mine to fear but to obey,
With such a Leader, who could quail?
Thou art as Thou wert yesterday.
Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee,
Fulfil Thy purposes through me.
We are not told what the fearsome decision was, only that discipline was needed, for God had not given a spirit of fear (that spirit has another source altogether), but of power and love and discipline. She longed for comrades-in-arms who would share the disciplined life she knew she had been called to, who would gladly pay the price, forsake all, and live “a life without fences.” She thought of the Lord, standing on the waves in the storm, with hand outstretched to Peter. “Lord, bid me come to Thee, from any boat, on any water, only teach me how to walk on the sea.”
There were seven young Indian women, including Preena, the first temple child, Purripuranam, Ponnammal’s daughter, and Arulai, in whom the same spirit was found. Today some would say that Amy Carmichael was their “role model,” a cold and sterile term which implies the mere assumption of a part or duty. Their Amma was far more to them than that. She was mother. They were mothered in every way a child can be conscious of being mothered—physically, emotionally, spiritually. She was a loving and powerful presence in their everyday lives, an older woman who did what the apostle Paul told his protege Titus to instruct all older women to do: teach younger women by example what godliness looks like.
“We shaped ourselves into a group,” Amy wrote. They took the name Sisters of the Common Life, borrowing from Gerard Grote of Holland who in 1380 had formed the Brotherhood of Common Life, a group of men who worked with their hands and trained “such as sought, apart from the evil about them, a pure and godly life.” Because in India, as everywhere else, a distinction was usually made between the sacred and the secular, the Sisters of the Common Life wanted to erase that line, remembering Him who took a towel. “Put on the apron of humility to serve one another,”1 and “Come unto me and rest—take my yoke upon you”2—these were among their watchwords.
Amy wanted to share with these women the spiritual riches of books that had put iron into her own soul, so it was essential that they learn English. She gave them Richard Rolle, Raymond Lull, Suso and Tersteegen, Bishop Moule, Josephine Butler, Thomas à Kempis, Samuel Rutherford, Père Didon, Bishop Bardsley, “and the brave and burning souls of every age who had left torches.” Such torches lighted the way of discipleship for these women. They were the ones ready to do whatever needed to be done. “Ask her,” it could be said, “she is a Sister of the Common Life. She will do it.” For them promotion meant not more honor but more work, harder work.
The Sisters took no vows, it being understood that their orders were “whatsoever Thou sayest unto me.” Marriage might be among the whatsoever, and several did marry, as Amy tells in Gold Cord. What she did not mention, Frank Houghton has told in his biography3: that if one of the Sisters married she ceased to be a Sister of the Common Life. During the early years all European women who joined the work automatically joined the Sisterhood, but later it seemed that not all were ready on arrival for that kind of commitment.
“There is nothing dreary or doubtful about (the life). It is meant to be continually joyful. . . . We are called to a settled happiness in the Lord whose joy is our strength.”
When they had read together the books Amy gave them, “we” wrote what Amy called “a confession of love.” Her customary use of the editorial “we” made it seem that all decisions were made in a body, all poetry received by simultaneous inspiration, all feelings harmoniously orchestrated. That, of course, was how she earnestly wanted things to be. She had no desire to be the chief. She saw herself as under orders, along with all the rest. But the confession of love was her work, given to the Sisters, and heartily accepted by every woman who wanted to be one of them:
My vow.
Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it.
My constraint.
Thy love, O Christ, my Lord.
My Confidence.
Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee.
My Joy.
To do Thy will, O God.
My Discipline.
That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints.
My Prayer.
Conform my will to Thine.
My Motto.
Love to live, live to love.
My Portion.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.
Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that we do Thy will, O Lord our God.
1. 1 Peter 5:5.
2. Matthew 11:28, 29.
3. Frank Houghton, Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur (London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1953).