344. The Smoky Muse of Malcolm Guite
I am delighted this morning to offer an interview with Malcolm Guite, the prolific author, poet, theologian, folk singer and pipe smoker. With 17 books listed on Amazon, 3 solo albums on iTunes and YouTube, a blog, a YouTube channel with over 18K subscribers and a day job as chaplain for Oxford University, Guite is obviously a man who uses his time wisely and well. Add to that his love of Tolkien, Lewis, good beer (Theakston’s Old Peculiar is one of his favorites—as it is mine) and a regular wee dram, what more could you ask of him? Did you say, Well, it would be rather nice if he smoked a Peterson pipe? That goes without saying. If you’re unacquainted with the World of Guite, you might want to listen to his Dylanesque Dancing Through the Fire while reading this. Then again, better wait until you’ve finished this post or you’ll never read it! By way of introduction read instead this opening paragraph from his recent essay “Smoking My Pipe,” in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God: “I am an inveterate pipe smoker. No, inveterate is not the right word: it sounds pejorative, a concession to a weakness or a vice. On the contrary, the long settled, rich leisure of pipe-smoking, the warm and companionable sessions given over to it, are not a vice or an indulgence, but rather a recovery: a recovery of simple being, from the desert wastes of doing. It is a return to the first and primal gift from God, who is Being itself, and in His love and for His glory, has created us, let us be, shared with us gift of being. Naturally we must occasionally do something, but that’s usually where the trouble starts, as it did in Eden, and has continued since, until we became so foolish as to think we are saved by our own actions, our works, and God has once again to knock us off our latest high horse, as He did with Paul, and teach us to accept everything anew by sheer grace.” (21) How did you first come to the pipe? I first took up a pipe as a direct result of reading The Lord of the Rings, where it seemed to me that Pipe Smoking was, as it should be, deeply associated with friendship, thoughtful conversation, playfulness, and, as in the chapter “Flotsam and Jetsam,” comfort in adversity, all things I have valued and needed throughout my life. Later my pipe smoking was confirmed and enriched by other literary associations: Tennyson was a great pipe smoker, and the statue of him in Trinity College includes a discreet pipe and tobacco leaves, tucked away amongst his flowing robes. Then there was Sherlock Holmes of course, Mark Twain, and, as I came to study the Inklings the realization that Tolkien and Lewis were both pipe smokers and smoked not only as part of their own fellowship, but also, whilst writing! It was in the…