Queen Elizabeth as Model

Queen Elizabeth as Model

“That shall be to you better than light, and safer than any known way.” – M.L. Haskins.

Minnie Louise Haskins wrote the poem in 1908 as a Wesleyan missionary to India. Another girl, though, made Haskins famous, Queen Elizabeth. As a young girl, worried about her father doing a major speech, in December 1939, Elizabeth slipped the poem into view for King George VI to include in his address. Only 13 years old, she inspired her father and the nation as they prepared to enter the worst nightmare of their history; here is the beginning of the poem with my own corrections:

“I said to the person who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” The person replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you, better than light, and safer than any known way.”

Since then, for ninety years, Queen Elizabeth has put her ‘hand into the hand of God’. Like Gandhi, Elizabeth is a model for life for all of us. The answer is both simple and daunting. While the Queen emphasises her Christian faith, she readily accepts that other forms of faith have the same opportunity. I know I am putting words into her mouth but, in reading her tribute1 authored by the Bible Society and the LICC (the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity), I am convinced that the above quote was the driver of her faith, something Muslims, Hindus and Jews would enjoy too, ‘putting their hands into the hand of God’! Even though the authors push Jesus all the time and the Queen is, of course, a practising Christian as we approach a new paradigm, let me assume that proselytising is no longer needed and that the whole world is approaching huge problems as radicalised religion, both Christian and Muslim, should rather follow both the Queen and Gandhi by taking Minnie Haskins’ poem as a practical way forward to bring about just change.

The poem does not come up with trite sayings to make us feel better. The poem knows that good or bad, being in the hand of God is better than light! Being with God is safer than any ‘known way’. As we look back at a long servanthood of the Queen, the result is justice, but not determined by human politics, economics or the nation but by prayer-action and being a little aloof, apart like a monk! Or Mahatma!

If we were to ignore or reject all politics, economics, the nation and religion, we would come very close to the Queen’s position for over ninety years! Here we have, literally, “that shall be to you, better than light, and safer than any known way.” By restricting her to only ‘putting her hand into the hand of God’, the Queen brought justice into the world way beyond any politician did.

IF YOU DO MY COURSE, ROOTED, YOU WILL SEE THE QUEEN’S WAY, RELYING CONFIDENTLY ON GOD TO SHOW THE WAY THROUGH BOTH THE GOOD AND BAD TIMES.

1 The Servant Queen and the King she serves. A tribute for Her Majesty’s 90th Birthday. 2016: Bible Society, HOPE and LICC.

We can all follow the Queen’s life by living beyond all ideologies and walk with God and acting in God with all forms of faith for justice. In this new paradigm, church or mosque are irrelevant, being with God with other people regularly looking for God’s hand for a safer than any known way. We will not ‘know’ but we will be in God’s hand. For me, being with God is joy. Helping others see the futility of ideologies will bring them to joy too. Haskins again:

So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And God led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.