Dust of the earth, dust of God (part 1 of 2)

Chapter 21

Dust of the earth, dust of God

Books and poems

Those who want to read more on vital mission issues, mission enterprise, mission history and missionaries will take up the books of Amy Carmichael with two different views. The first one will find in her books things now hard to be understood, and sentences and expressions of bygone days and not relevant for our 21st century. To the careless and the superficial her books will only appeal when they gird up the loins of their minds and hearts. The other will read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest its contents because they challenge mind and conscience, for it focuses on ‘this one thing only’. Amy’s books exhibit a deep, mystical relationship with God and at the same time, they show a great creativity in describing the day-to-day issues of the Dohnavur Fellowship. Her books and poems reflect the depth of her yearning for Christ’s glory in India and a sort of harrow for some who are walking in difficult places.2289 ‘Her work breathes an Indian inspiration’.2290 In reading her books we often seem to hover between heaven and earth. Amy herself declared, and here we join her:

To read and to believe what we read is to be lifted out of the murk of a choking fog into clear air. We can breathe there. It is to have our hope fixed upon nor dream nor vision, but upon solid splendid fact. Amy liked reading, but she had an outspoken preference of what she wanted to read:

It is the eternal in books that makes them our friends and teachers – the paragraphs, the verses, that grip memory and ring down the years like bells, or call like bugles, or sound like trumpets; words of vision that open to us undying things and fix our eyes on them. We are not here, they tell us, for trivial purposes. We are here to prove to angels and to men, that life is not as idle ore, but iron dug from central gloom, and heated hot with

2289. Cf. her intention with Gold by Moonlight.

2290. So Bishop H. Moule in the foreword of Made in the Pans, 12. ‘Come to Me and I will give you rest’, becomes south Indian thought: ‘Come unto Me, and I will cool your weariness’ (p. 14).

How to cite: Kommers, J. (Hans), 2017, ‘Dust of the earth, dust of God’, in Triumphant Love: The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India, pp. 531–550, AOSIS, Cape Town. https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2017.tl41.21 burning fears, And dipped in baths of hissing tears. We are not here to be overcome, but to rise unvanquished after every knock-out, and laugh the laugh of faith, not fear.2291 This can be said of Amy’s books too, the ‘eternal’, the ‘gripping’ of her stories, the clear ‘vision’ spread before us, and the ‘iron’ that keeps us away from trivialities; from her first to her last book the content are all about ‘God’s business’. They whisper the secret of her burning heart, of a love that will never let go, and of a fully surrendered heart. Her deep, mystical relationship with God, together with creative use of the language, makes it worthwhile to read her books even now.

The things that are eternal are manifest in her books. She liked reading, but writing, too. And one wonders that with such a full and occupied life, she had time to write, and to write a lot. Her inkwell did not dry up quickly. Her written efforts did not die with her, and even for 21st century readers her work is readable for most of them. Tastes have changed, some words are not used anymore today and many who are not familiar with Biblical language and thoughts might find them something of another world, yet the contents appeal to us today. The distance in time can be overcome, when one realises that she writes not to be popular but to express things in view of eternity. Old conservative thoughts are often pillars on which our thoughts stand firm.

Because of the things that are eternal, it was not necessary for her to have her own name on the cover of a book that she had written. The children, who should be saved, were more important than she was. ‘We think of them all, and we wish their names could be written on the cover of this book instead of the name least worthy to be there.’2292

In her foreword of The Continuation of a Story she expresses her feelings with regard to writing. Writing should have a purpose. In reading about Florence Nightingale’s life she indicates that Florence’s writing is exactly that, which she also wants with her books: ‘She cared for writing only as a means of action’. Amy wanted to let the readers know and make them aware of the fate of the children in India, who without help would be in great danger. ‘We fear exaggerated language.’2293 Writing is to write about the things as they are, because ‘we have no desire to pile up words into sensational writing’. It is all about ‘the fight, the battles’ which are going on in the saving of the children. She had no desire for praise and approval, nor to be admired. As author, she possessed the truest independence.

Amy loved both writing and reading. In her youth she made a great contribution to the family’s ‘newsmagazine’ Scraps. To her children in Dohnavur she wrote hundreds of letters, to individual members of the family, or to groups, in case anyone had been overlooked, and she kept all the letters in a box, which was not to be opened until she had left them.

These letters, well-guarded in Belfast’s archive, were sometimes written upon very thin paper, but they are still gripping and fresh. In everything she was a writer of distinction. Every little character and situation sketch, all the small stories are fragments of the real. What she once wrote, when she went through Thomas Walker’s letters, we can now say from her letters:

We can see, and hear, and feel, as we read; and we wonder, as we turn the flimsy and slippery pages of those well-worn letters, where all the people are now of whom they tell, and how their contact with that ardent life affected them.2294 Those who once received these letters rejoice with Amy before God’s throne, but the persons and things of which these letters speak still speak to us and encourage us to continue, until ‘the battle’ is over.

2291. Gold Cord, 311.
2292. Lotus Buds, 297.
2293. Lotus Buds, 298.
2294. This One Thing, 59.

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Amy’s books penetrate the conscience, revealing the Gospel truth and its application. She often felt a strong urgency to write. ‘I write this under a sense of the solemnity of being a servant … separated unto the Gospel.’2295 Writing was praying for her; she asked for the sentences she wrote and came from her upward look; every line had to be given to her by her heavenly Father. She herself was fully aware that all her writings without the direction of God were ‘ashes and vanity’,2296 and that she for all her writings was wholly dependent upon him. Therefore, every book written by Amy, after publication, was sent to Dohnavur where it was laid before the Lord with this prayer: ‘Take this book in Thy wounded hand, Jesus, Lord of Calvary. Let it go forth at Thy command, use it as it pleases Thee’.2297 In many of her books, the pictures have a vital place. She herself gives a reason for it:

I hesitated about using these, for many see nothing in metaphor, and some see only prettiness. But you cannot live longer in the East than in the West without becoming a little Easternised, and the East thinks in parable still, just as it used to do. So will the very Western forgive? Some will find refreshment by the way, in these ‘figures of the true’.2298 Amy’s books had a very wide circulation; from all over the world her books could and can be found. Even in the second decade of the 21st century, many reprints find their way to readers. The reason for this success? Her books have a message. Murray quotes her plea to her family: ‘Pray that every book, booklet, letter, that goes out from this Fellowship may have blood and iron in it. Pray that we may never degenerate to the merely interesting’.2299 By 1950 many of her books were translated into about 15 languages. In England 12 of her books were put into Braille, and 8 in the United States. Her books raised the awareness for the Dohnavur Fellowship.

What was it that attracted so many people to these books? Was it not the truth she so openly described and the intimate fellowship with her God? Her readers ‘felt’ the reality of faith while reading and that there is the ‘seed of eternity’ in these books. In the margin of her Bible next to John 8:55 Amy wrote, ‘To hide the truth is no less falsehood than to spread error’. She had a real gift for writing and was able to express and put on paper deep thoughts in a beautiful way. ‘Dowdiness is not acceptable to the Lord of beauty.’ Murray again used her words as she advised young authors: ‘Words should be like colours, each one supplying a dot of colour supplying a need, not one over’.2300

How was it possible, for someone who was so involved in day-to-day work in Dohnavur, that hardly any free time could be found – or must we say ‘it was not desired’ – that at least 35 books appeared from her hand? We cannot talk of her daily schedule, because always unexpected things happened which asked her attention:

Another year lies between the last chapter and this. For we can only write in odd corners of time, and sometimes time does not seem to have any odd corners. Quiet is even rarer. […] Our story is told; how inadequately told no critic will see more clearly than the writer, who has stopped many times, wishing someone else would finish.2301 In many ways, these written endeavours became the channel or vehicle through which she carried forth her missionary work. They were both catalyst and by-product of her efforts. She was a creative

2295. This One Thing, 51.
2296. See Nor Scrap, 3.
2297. In Gold Cord, 28; Wings, 103, A.103.
2298. In a note on the photographs, in Windows, XI.
2299. See Murray, Amy Carmichael, 107.
2300. Murray, Amy Carmichael, 107.
2301. Overweights of Joy, 288 and 291.

writer, and inspiration came through prayer, by being silent before the Lord, and from the treasures of the ‘early fathers’, and the mystics. She used contemporary authors to flavour her own writings. Of all her books and songs, most were written, due to her daily busy schedule, in scattered hours of the day or at midnight.2302 As an author, Amy was as prolific and gifted as she was in her work; many of her books are considered as classics.2303 What she wrote was the transcript of her heart and work. Her books are her life. She wrote to explain what happened in Dohnavur. ‘In a class by herself as an author, she had the gift of making people and events come alive for her readers.’2304

During her more than 50 years in India many things happened and several times facts mentioned were dated. Facts recorded in Amy’s books with time and place are often in themselves meaningful and enrich our understanding of the situation.

The facts often speak for themselves – very loudly and effectively – without being shut in a special locket of secret meaning to which only Dohnavur has the key. It is a surprise, that in her later books, we have to search for the facts. She had heard and seen much that was not always published. She had her own reasons for not revealing everything. What had to be said was said – see Things As They Are – but very cruel scenes and immoral deeds were not brought into publicity. ‘There is much that we know to be true but either cannot prove, or for other reasons cannot print.’2305

For what purpose did she write her books and poems? One of the main reasons was that her readers would really know what was going on in this far-away mission area. More than once, she wrote that people should know the truth. She felt that many missionaries were needed in a country like India, and yet they were so few compared with the millions who died every year without ever having heard the Gospel. To awaken the mission call among the readers was also one of her motivations to write. By writing about the need she hoped to stir her readers into praying very concretely for the work in Dohnavur and elsewhere, in seeking God’s will and his provision for hearts that have to be moved by God and in donating for the work. In this she trusted that God would provide and just like in the story of Elijah, he would send his ravens; Amy knew that in her time mostly ‘God’s ravens’ came by the postman who delivered the letters with cheques or cash inside.

A singing heart

Amy’s work extended to the printed page; with her extrovert character, she had a heart that was always prepared to express itself. She was ready to talk with others and sing a song. She knew well that much of the treasure of a people’s memory is to be found in their songs. People who cannot read can learn the Gospel by singing songs. The songs are ‘part of our life as a family’, Amy said.2306 Many songs in Indian style and sung to Indian tunes appeared from her hand. Especially for the children she wrote many songs, and with these songs, she had a clear purpose. ‘For spiritual instruction is a thing to be desired, and there is nothing so edifying as music.’2307 After having searched through 200–300 pages of nursery rhymes and

2302. ‘Her songs were given her at night’, according to Nesaruthina Carunia, in an interview with the author, 16 November 2013 in Dohnavur.

2303. How many books Amy did write? The question is confused by the pamphlets. The figure thought most accurate by the Dohnavur Fellowship office is 35, while others include some pamphlets among the list of her books. 2304. Lotus Buds, 297.

2305. In Though The Mountains Shake, 37.

2306. See the foreword of Made in the Pans.

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many proper Kindergarten songs, she found few that belonged to the India babies’ world, ‘and so we had to make them for ourselves’.2308 As a lover of beauty, very sensitive and fluent in her language, she was able to write in an artistic and radiant way, as expressed in her poetry, songs and books. When reading the beauty of her utterances, can we say that she herself was like that? I am inclined to confirm this. She never lost a moment, and with her pencil she drove her thoughts back and forth over lengthy pages or just a little scrap. Sometimes songs came spontaneously or in odd moments. Next to one of her poems, she wrote, ‘Walked down the hill on our way home. I wrote it on a scrap of paper with a stone for table’.2309

An ardent Bible lover, of many versions, she had prayerfully studied the Word of God and the wealth she found in it she scattered all around, mixed with inspiring quotations from ‘friends’ long ago and contemporary fellow pilgrims. She inspired many, and for those the reading of her books, or poems, marked a turning point in their life. The sick were uplifted by her, for she personally knew what it meant to be limited to the sickroom and missionaries were helped with her focus on ‘this one thing only’. From Dohnavur, thousands of letters went across the world, always with that rare qualification of plain human thought and humour combined with deep spirituality. Recipients of her letters felt that she stood next to them, but never was she ‘lecturing’, but she lifted hearts and thoughts up to higher things. Her books and letters gave Amy many friends all over the world, who felt so privileged to share her thoughts, and by her correspondence, many were influenced and touched. The recipients felt that she had wrestled with God’s written Word.

She added to the love of Christ the love of all things beautiful in God’s wide world. The world of nature had always been a holy book for Amy, and the flowers, birds, the jungle, the mountains and the sky taught her lessons well worth reading. She revelled in the poetry of earth, sea, and sky, adoring God, the Father Almighty. Her life’s work can still be seen in Dohnavur and in the previous chapters, we have asked you to come and look at it.

The book pages and the letterpress have the same intent – to make each of us take and read. Many things begin with seeing and reading in this world where God is revealing his wonders day by day. Her devotional writings are gems of wisdom, experience and reflection, and when expressing her deepest thoughts, she could describe her heart and mental feelings in vivid Wesleyan imagery. Her poetic nature constantly expressed itself in delightful verse. These factors explain her missionary influence, for one thing is certain – they worked to Amy’s favour. In her, we have an author who takes us to the ultimate foundations and a totality of understanding for which many are searching. Before writing down her thoughts, she would observe the people, the children and nature for a long time, to get the real insight:

Sitting down on the white steps I looked long, looked until the scene was burnt upon my very soul. Would that I could dip my pen in liquid fire, and burn it upon yours. […] Can I make it live for you? Last time I wrote for a firedipped pen, but now it seems as it one could write with one’s own blood, if by any means we could touch some.2310 Amy, as said, was a lover of beauty and very sensitive; however – in her own words – she ‘tried to keep far from that which is only sentiment’. She wrote the truth and ‘banished resolutely all imagination’. In writing about the children too she kept some ‘reserve’ and some things she could not even put on

2308. Lotus Buds, 24.

2309. In Made in the Pans, 45. The quotation is in the margin. Here Amy gives the date: 11 October 1916. On page 39, we read her words: ‘Millisle. Co. Down. On the seashore’. On page 63, she wrote: ‘Nagercoil. 1913. While nursing Ponnamal’. Next to the poem ‘In Acceptance lieth Peace’ (p. 99), she wrote: ‘Beside Ponnamal when she lay dying’, and next to ‘Jesus Redeemer, and my Inspirer’ (page 112), she wrote: ‘While nursing Ponnamal’. The songs on pages 23 and 122 have in the margin, ‘Sengelteri. Sept. 1914. For Preena who was inclined to look at the dark side of life’. The song ‘I have no word’ has next to the first verse: ‘Palm Sunday. March 24, 1907’ and next to the second verse: ‘July 24, 1913. After learning of my mother’s translation’.

2310. From Sunrise Land, 48–49 and 54. paper, because it would be too shocking, and whom would she help with it? ‘We write for the earnesthearted, who are not ashamed to confess they care.’ Mostly she wrote about women, and when she confronted the reader with a temple woman, her own heart spoke: ‘but let us deal gently with the mishandled flower. Let hard words be restrained where the woman is concerned’.2311

Her readings

Amy demonstrated an unexpected strength in her views. Well-read, steeped in the Scriptures and cocooned in God since childhood, she was yet stretched by thoughts of Quaker authors, the mystical nuances of German, English, Dutch and French mystics and by solid Keswick leaders. In her quiet time when she studied the Bible, her Greek New Testament and the Septuagint were always at hand and there were always books to be read. ‘Amma was a ferocious reader’ said Nesaruthina.2312 While living in Manchester, during her work in Ancoats with Miss Crossley, the latter remembered her eating oranges and tomatoes – presumably too busy to cook for herself – and reading incessantly whenever she had a spare minute. Even in Belfast, in College Gardens she would bring a book to the meals, in order to avoid being pressed to eat.2313 She not only read a lot, but what she read, she read with an attentive mind, underlining and making comments in the margins.

We have some titles of the books which in 1898 she took with her in her book box, like Geraldine Guinness’s The Story of the CIM; Stanley Smith’s China from Within; A.T. Pierson’s The Divine Enterprise of Missions, Dr and Mrs Howard Taylor’s Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission (I and II). Especially the old books were her real inspiration sources, while in her eyes modern books contained much ‘sawdust’, ‘skimmed milk and tepid tea’. Going through Amy’s bookcases, I was really astonished which books came into her hands and which she read from cover to cover. Many of them were marked and with comments she wrote in the margin. This missionary, without any academic affix before her name read books many of her fellow contemporaries had never read.2314 In doing so, she modelled herself, especially in Biblical literature and devotionally stimulating books. You will look in vain for magazines she would have read – she neither read fiction nor fairy tales!2315 Her love for nature, flowers, birds and dogs can be seen, for many books on the shelves deal with nature, dogs and birds.

For the well-known CIM missionary Isobel Kuhn (1901–1957), a prolific author who could use her pen so well, and who was so well known in mission circles, Amy Carmichael was her favourite author. She wrote to a friend:

Miss Carmichael could write about anything or anybody and be a blessing. Her words are always so full of the Lord. […] I read everything by her that I can get my hands on.

It is obvious that Amy’s thoughts, poems and style often appear often in Isobel’s correspondence and books. Someone referred to Isobel as ‘the CIM Amy Carmichael’. She wrote to an intimate fellow worker:

2311. See Lotus Buds, 283 and 284.
2312. In an interview with the author, 16 November 2013 in Dohnavur.
2313. See Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 33.
2314. I found Plato’s The Republic quoted in Gold Cord on pages 107 and 157,

2315. Perhaps Thomas Walker may have given her Punch, which he gleaned from time to time. Even Amy would refer to this magazine, however sporadically. See Ponnamal, 22.

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This poor earth misses dear Amy Carmichael so much that they seize her laid-down halo and try to fit it on the first Irish girl they spy. It doesn’t fit!2316

A work of love

Amy’s personality captured me in her books; all written by one who was adverse to cloudiness of language; they carry the fragrance of her life far and wide, and provide a unique glimpse into her spiritual heartbeat. She chose her words carefully, without quenching the enthusiasm that made her stories come alive to readers. She was both accurate and engaging. What Bishop Handley Moule once wrote in his foreword of Ponnamal can be said of all her books. ‘Give God thanks for it; and read it again and often’. ‘It will be a friend and helper to your faith, a kindling fire to your missionary thoughts, prayers, and efforts.’2317 Amy’s thoughts and books are grounded in Scripture and employ a careful exposition to make the mission work in Japan and India clear and compelling. She attributes everything to the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For a variety of reasons her work is unknown to many – among them her use at times of archaic or unfamiliar terms, the difficulty of procuring her works, her style of writing, her deep thoughts – but they have always been read on all the continents by specific loyal souls. She has something of a mystic. Is not every sanctified soul a mystic? But she did not live in that region only, she was body and soul as well as spirit.

What was true in the mystical sphere is true in the moral sphere. Therefore, her books cannot be categorised as ‘popular’. In 1947, she saw in a Christian publication that her books were thus described, and wrote in her private notebook: ‘Popular? Lord, is that what these books written out of the heat of battle are? Popular? O Lord, burn the paper to ashes if that be true’. And in Dust of Gold some years earlier she had written:

Pray that every book, booklet, letter, that goes out from this Fellowship may have blood and iron in it. Pray that we may never degenerate to the merely interesting, the pretty.2318 Especially in her early books, there is the strong determination to tell the truth. The truth about the fate of the temple children, the truth about what it is like to be a worker of God:

The girl in the corner would not speak – could not, perhaps – she only moaned; we passed her and went out. The mother followed us, half sorry for us, – there was something of the woman left in her, – half sullen, with a lowering sullenness. ‘You will never see her again’, she said, and she named the town, one of the Sodom’s of this Province, to which the girl soon was to be sent.2319 Often she was asked to write nice stories for missionary magazines; mostly she refused to do it, but sometimes she gave in and wrote a story. She once wrote, ‘I don’t often write orthodox missionary things in these epistles but for once you shall have the proper diet’.2320

In her personal devotions, she relied on Scripture and poetry. Many poems and songs in her work she wrote herself. Early in her life, she got the smell of printer’s ink, and she has never got away from it. Writing was no labour to her and due to the circumstances of her life – her residence as a missionary abroad, with the inevitable long separations from family and friends – we have the mass of her

2316. In C. Canfield, One Vision Only. The Life Story of Isobel Kuhn (London: CIM, OMF, Lutterworth Press, 1959), 139. 2317. In the foreword of Ponnamal, V.

2318. In Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 329.
2319. Things As They Are, 258–259 and 260.
2320. In an undated letter (PRONI D/4031/24/1A).

correspondence and writings. In her letters, she shared her latest and best thoughts on all manner of things, both in heaven and on earth. In a very light way, she could write about troubles or things that hindered them. Sometimes she could tell facts with a lightness of style, but this is not because she saw and learned them with any lightness of heart. Smiles may come when tears are very near and laughter cover a sob. Thus far, inconsistency is sincerity, for a smile and heartache alternate in the fascinating land of India.

In a place full of mosquitoes she writes:

When first we found it, it was not a rill but noisome, choked-up swamp, a haunt of mosquitoes of whom, alas, a few remain for the discipline of our characters.2321 Talking about the colours of a pool, she continues, ‘and when the angels are in a very kind mood they send a blue kingfisher to fish there’.2322 She could express herself in a very sensitive way:

After a baptism in the open air in fresh water, under evening skies, in India at any rate, is something very good. We almost heard the angels sing as we walked home together.2323 Her eyes penetrated to the inner of the object, ‘and we climbed down the broken, time-worn steps and gazed and gazed till the beauty entered in us’.2324

She wrote in English; however, for preaching she wanted to know the local language, because ‘translations are withered leaves’.2325 To her helpers and to the children, she spoke Tamil in which she was rather fluent; also in papers for internal use, she often wrote in Tamil. Her published work has a language steeped in the older versions of the Bible. The 56 years in India shaped her thoughts in an Indian mode and we meet her close personal walk with the Lord and total devotion to him between the lines. Many chapters yield some wise direction, some searching or some bracing thought. Her meditations are characterised by fine exposition, and saturated with beautiful spirit of devotion. Her books reflect a solid Biblical, Reformed Presbyterian stance, with a flavour of evangelical, mystic piety. Often her allegorical method of Biblical interpretation, the method by which the sense means one thing and also has a moral, mystical or analogical interpretation, was for her a valuable way to proceed with much of the Bible text. Like in prayer, the true aim is the interior conviction.

Under Amy’s leadership, music and singing have been a most important characteristic of the community in Dohnavur. Wilkinson says that the songs of Amy are pure songs of love and adoration. ‘For me’, she says, ‘it expresses her sensitivity to the beauty of God’s world around her and her humility, both things so characteristic of Amma as we know her’.2326

To the love of Christ the Lord she added a love of all things beautiful in God’s world. The children in the Fellowship grew up in a European type of Christianity, and therefore Amy selected the song carefully to allow the Gospel to meet their needs. Her hymns were made in the first instance for the children of the Fellowship. English hymns were not always culturally appropriate for the Indian children. English songs used in the Fellowship were carefully selected. Amy gives the reason for this. Songs need to be practical and she refers to Charles Kingsley who objected that in a new hymnody songs were used in which, for instance,

2321. From The Forest, 61.
2322. From the Forest, 32.
2323. From the Forest, 67.
2324. Lotus Buds, 3.
2325. Ploughed Under, 138.
2326. In At BBC Corner, 51.

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is a direct invocation of ‘angels singing over the fields and seas’. People in the church do not hear angels singing over fields and seas or ‘congregations do not lie awake or weep thinking of Heaven’:

So did we who in the early days had to choose the songs and hymns that the children would learn; we dreaded also the insincere and what John Wesley called the namby-pambical. Tamil came first, naturally, but they were learning English alongside Tamil. There were many pleasant songs to be found, though most were a little too English; and there were some perfect hymns for children; but it is curious how questioning the mind becomes when it is thinking of the Indian child carefully considering the meaning of every word: ‘Pity my simplicity’, what did that mean? ‘Fain I would to Thee be brought, gracious Lord, forbid it not’. Did he, who said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me’, wish that a child should be taught to say such words to Him? As for a hymn translated into definite Tamil in their hymnbook, ‘Earthly friends may fail or leave thee, one day kind, the next day grieve thee’ – was it necessary to teach the very young that depressing fact?2327 Amy never tried to force Indians to be an exact copy of European Christianity, neither in the way of living, nor in clothing and singing. The Gospel should meet their needs, and by her hymns, she got the opportunity to open doors to a new kind of India enculturation. Songs the children could understand gave them ‘more solid steps for their feet’. In another hymn we see many familiar ideas for the children:

Once I heard Sun and rain, Then the bird
A little bird Ripening grain, That is heard
Singing very clearly; Food and water given Said it very clearly
And the bird Leafy trees ‘God loves you’

That I heard All one sees Off it flew- Sang, ‘God loves me dearly’. Under the blue heaven. ‘Loves you very dearly’.2328 Amy clarified spiritual concepts through parallels in the natural world. All the ideas and pictures here employed – the magnificent Indian sunsets, a rose dropping its petals, the tired feet, the colour of twilight, the stars so clear in the night – were all familiar for the children and they could imagine that all this was God’s creation and that it said a lot about his love for them.

The song as given above is just one example of so many of these children’s songs. The daily reality in the songs teaches the children. It is a way of meditation. God initiated the supernatural concerning the mysteries of faith. This is a kind of positive mysticism, in which contemplation goes through the mysteries of faith to the reality beyond them. God’s eternal love is the greatest comfort possible in the Dohnavur Fellowship, and here in the abovementioned poem, Amy uses a beautiful metaphor. She contrasts the setting of the sun, the stars and moon with God’s love which does not diminish or fade. In many of Amy’s hymns God is seen in his creation. She used the creation around Dohnavur often in her poems. In many of them, she puts her work in the landscape of a wood, like the forest that surrounded Dohnavur. Amy’s artistic temperament is combined with her eye for colour and the beauties of nature by means of her pen. As she explains in the foreword of Toward Jerusalem:

But the Healer does not speak to us from a distance, He comes under our roof and sometimes we hear songs or fragments of a song. The songs in this book came in that way. Perhaps some may seem to have little to do with the business of life, but who so understands will understand.2329 The words in many of her poems convey a feeling that Dohnavur is a place permeated with God’s music, guidance and presence. One is reminded of the words of Zephaniah 3:17: ‘The Lord thy God in the midst of

2327. Though the Mountains Shake, 209–210.
2328. Dohnavur Songs, no. 50, 42.
2329. In the foreword of Toward Jerusalem, VI.

thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing’. Her songs grow from a contemplation where meditation with images go together. Some music came from Mabel Wade, but there were also others, like Kenneth Proctor, from outside Dohnavur:

Then, if the ear be open to ‘strains from Elsewhere’, perhaps music is given and sent to us. This happened lately; a book of prayer-music for some of our prayer-songs came from an unknown friend, an organist in South India. […] From time to time for many years he has sent us beautiful music. Because of all this generous help, our children are growing up to care very much for singing. It is part of the substance of their life.2330 One of the prime means by which Amy sought to teach the children the goodness of God in her hymns was the application of nature as the universal sign of his grace.2331 Amy interpreted beauty in nature as visible indicators of God’s invisible grace. Even in a world so imperfect with sin and so full of brokenness God creates startling beauty as can be seen in the next quotation. It is a picture of God’s redemptive powers and a foretaste of how he will restore the world to wholeness and health:

One day our Forest men brought down a log of rotten wood. It was not covered with the fairy cups and saucers of golden-brown satin so often found on such wood; it was a mass of fungi like little arum lilies […] From many a place of pain today beautiful things are growing like this lily fungus on the log.2332 In Homecall Amy mentions ‘Calvary’, a word which acts as a metonym for the saving work of Christ upon the cross:

For the pure powers of Calvary
Battle little souls in innocency.
Tender, tender Thy love words be:
‘Dear little child, come home to me’.2333

Here we see an adult’s response to an infant’s death, and Amy often felt the pain of the loss of a little one she had to let go. In all her questions she knows the child is blessed with innocence and has access now to full audience with God. Calvary, mentioned here by Amy, is connected with her theology in which the cross is so central as it is in Amy’s Irish Calvinistic Presbyterian and evangelical background. It privileges the doctrine of the cross theologically and displays the belief that innocent little children also need to be washed clean by the blood of Christ. Christ’s blood only makes a soul eligible to enter heaven.

Probably no missionary has ever written better, in point of style. One feels that she never committed to paper a word she had not instinctively weighed and measured; her style, while obviously a gift of God, was also a craft to be worked on. ‘Words should be like colours’, she once wrote, ‘each one a dot of colour supplying a need, not one over’.2334 The words of C.A. Fox mark the essence of all her books:

These simple and unstudied utterances of everyday life in the mission field seem to me to be full of spontaneous fire and fragrance quite their own. The vivid touches of external nature scattered everywhere do but accentuate and make visible the novel environment and native setting of the all- important soul-scenery; indeed these pages throughout are marked by a holy vivacity and a happy glow and sparkle of colour. There is, as we all know, a modesty of outspokenness as well as a modesty of reserve, if only the glory of God be manifestly the absorbing motive, and the absence of self be felt.2335

2330. Though the Mountains Shake, 209.
2331. Cf. Elliot, A Change to Die, 214.
2332. Windows, 35.
2333. Toward Jerusalem, 48.
2334. In Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 333.
2335. In introductory note of From Sunrise Land, XI.

Chapter 21

Already in her teenage years her gifts to express herself in writing were noticed. She was the one who started to write the family letters Scraps. Later on, while she was in Broughton Grange, some of her short articles and poems appeared in the Keswick magazine. In Dohnavur several verses were written and put together, like Toward Jerusalem, Pools, Made in the Pans and the Valley of Vision. Her imaginative gift is clearly seen in her verses, several of which were put to music and sung in several situations where Christians come together.2336 Her writing about the beauty of nature is unsurpassed. She loved flowers, ‘those beautiful smiles of God’.2337

Meanwhile, she read books of travel, theology, and general literature. Many times we see quotations from various authors in her books, and her ardent practical temperament disposed her for niceties. The Bible was her first study object, but very earnestly and closely did she study nature and people.2338 What Amy saw she could put on paper and write vividly about Dohnavur’s children and about some of the men and women she worked with. Very demurely she knew to describe a scene and the reader ‘sees’ the whole picture and ‘feels’ what the person described must have gone through at that moment. Describing Jasmine’s search for God, she is able to touch someone’s deepest thoughts:

Books have been written about the temples of South India, photographs of their marvellous towers and carven stone courts and corridors can be bought for a few rupees, but no books, no pictures, can give even a breath of the air of those mighty monuments of a people’s faith, nor can descriptions show them to one who has never stood alone in the night in the silent space before the sacred symbol far within. […]And yet God has not said a word. But the day will come when He will speak. […] And He heard. Footsore and worn, and with a grief and patience on her face which still haunt us who saw it, a Brahman widow with shaven, polished head, and the white cloth of the widow wrapped round her, stood waiting in the Dohnavur compound. That was what was seen. What was unseen? The blue air looked as usual, not thronged with shining presences, but thin and clear and blue. And yet, if ever angels walk on earth and lead wayfarers by the hand, surely they were there that day. For now the search was over, the pilgrim had found rest.[…] Down on the floor she fell with outstretched hands as she held Him and would not let Him go. Nor that He wish to go.2339 The same we see in her capacity of writing in an intimate way about child life.2340

We are not anxious that our babies should know too much ancient history. Enough for them that they are in the fold. I am Jesus’ little lamb, all day long I am. He will keep me safe from harm, for I am His lamb.2341 Her writings are especially responsive to the brokenness of the world. In For Our Children she asks for the children to be protected from the dangers in a fallen world. ‘Father, hear us, we are praying, Hear the words our hearts are saying, We are praying for our children.’

2336. In recent times Amy’s poetical work has been put to music. Cf. Spencer, ‘His Faithfulness’; Dohnavur Fellowship, ‘Beauty of Dawn’, The Dohnavur Heritage Series, Songs by Amy Carmichael, vol. I (Dohnavur: The Dohnavur Fellowship, n.d.). 2337. From Sunrise Land, 151.

2338. ‘To them, a hillside white with cherry-bloom, a flower shower, with the sunlight falling through, touched here and there with crimson, where peach or plum still lingers, is a deep and quiet delight. They come in little companies, and wander among the trees, staying where the view is fairest, to lovingly admire’ (From Sunrise Land, 124). ‘But moonlight, though lovely to look at, is cold to sit in, and we were not sorry when at last we were put ashore, and set off for our walk to Matsuye, over roads which seemed rough to our tired feet, through lanes, among woods, and by paddy-fields lighted by pale flitting fireflies and thick with talkative frogs’ (p. 129).

2339. The Widow of the Jewels, 28 and 30.

2340. Cf. chapter XIII of Lotus Buds, 107–114.

Within the Dohnavur Fellowship context, we see that she touches, implicitly and euphemistically, on the horrifying subject of sexual abuse. It is as if Amy is invoking a protective spell to bind the children to safety. It was not meant for children’s ears; it is a prayer for adults to make supplication to God. Although she knew exactly what was happening with the children in the temples, she was very reticent to mention these sexual abuses in words. The same abuses, the adult exploitation of vulnerable children is alluded to in Come Lord Jesus:

Because our little children soiled, and disinherited, despoiled,
Because of hurt things, feathered, furred, tormented beast, imprisoned bird,
Because of many-folded grief, Beyond redress, beyond belief,
Because the word is true that says, the whole world creation travails…2342
Of all our prayer, this is the sum: ‘O come. Lord Jesus, come’.

Here we see the idea that little children are ‘soiled’, ‘disinherited’, and ‘despoiled’ not only refers to them being abandoned and neglected, but also to the more alarming danger of abuse by adults who should protect them. Here, too, she is lamenting the abuse of girls and boys dedicated to temples, who have to live there as devadasis and as actors in evil plays. But she knew how to articulate her thoughts so that those who sing or hear this hymn are not exposed to the horrors of all that she wanted to say. When Christ will come back everything will come to an end.

The style is the author. Amy’s style is in harmony with the woman and reveals her particularities and her heart is revealed in her writings as in a clear mirror. In it, she supplies – not systematically – her mission opinion, an abundant array of missionary facts, from which we can draw our own inferences. She opened the eyes of many to what really was going on in India; also, fair-minded critics of missionary work will be softened by her beautiful style and honesty. During her voyage to Japan she wrote long letters. Regarding writing Amy saw her written work ‘as a means of action’.2343 Her second book From the Fight consists of some small articles, bits from home letters and bits written for the book itself. ‘Pen patchwork of a truth’, she called it and this explains its ‘broken and fragmentary character’.2344