The following is the text of a sermon given at the Chapel of the College of St Hild and St Bede, Durham in mid-2009:
Davey Moore was a boxer. On March 25th 1963 he was killed in a boxing match from a punch from his opponent, Sugar Ramos. Bob Dylan wrote a song about the death of Davey Moore in style of the nursery rhyme ‘Who Killed Cock Robin?’, which asks the repeating question of the chorus: ‘Who killed Davey Moore? Why? And what’s the reason for?’
Dylan’s verses call upon five possible answers to the question from different candidates: the referee, the boxing writer, the angry crowd, his manager and ‘the man whose fist laid him low in a cloud of mist’. Each verse starts with the line “Not I!”, and finishes with “It wasn’t me that made him fall. You can’t blame me at all.” So we have the first witness – the referee:
"Not I," said the referee,
"Don't point your finger at me.
I could've stopped it in the eighth
An' maybe kept him from his fate,
But the crowd would've booed, I'm sure,
At not gettin' their money's worth.
It's too bad he had to go,
But there was a pressure on me too, you know.
It wasn't me that made him fall.
No, you can't blame me at all."
The recurring theme of the song is, quite obviously, that the question of ‘Who killed Davey Moore?’ is a complex one, and one in which all parties protest their innocence – ‘it wasn’t me that made him fall, you can’t blame me at all.’
The world is facing rather uncertain times, not least on the back of the global financial meltdown that has entered our collective bloodstream so dramatically over recent months. The immense disparity in earnings between RBS’s executives and its sales clerks is only confounded when your and my tax dollars now pay these wages.
I live and work in London – not in banking, i might add! – and get off the tube every morning at Moorgate station. As i leave the station, i walk past a deep etching in one of the stairwells that reads ‘burn the bankers’, and i don’t know about you, but i didn’t shed a tear when Fred Goodwin’s car was vandalised earlier this year. Largely as a form of masochism i read The Guardian’s comment section most days, which always contains the next piece of vitriolic, tired drivel about how awful everyone else is. This anger is understandable, and i hope not to argue against it. Instead, i hope to offer some insights into the responses to the financial crisis from 60s folk singers, and also from the Easter story – suggesting that both may have something profound to say in our conversations and reflection in this area.
Dylan’s song charts two responses to a terrible situation: firstly, ‘it wasn’t me that made him fall’ – a denial of responsibility for oneself; and secondly, an affirmation of someone else’s guilt. ‘It wasn’t me that made him fall, but it was them’. There seems to be to be a certain amount of this going on in the recession also: the media blame the greed of the banks, who blame the lazy eye of the regulators, who blame the poor financial planning of the government, who blame rich people’s greed, who blame the aspirational who borrow more than they can afford, who blame the media for instilling consumerism in them..... And we’re back where we started. It is always somebody else’s fault.
Two pieces of work by Leonard Cohen will now be mingled with Easter themes in trying to comment on and fill out some of my comments above.
Leonard Cohen – a secular Jew – wrote a poem entitled ‘Everything There is to Know about Adolph Eichmann’, Eichmann being the member of Hitler’s cabinet responsible for engineering and delivering the final solution.
"EYES:..................................................Medium
HAIR:..................................................Medium
WEIGHT:................................................Medium
HEIGHT:................................................Medium
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:.................................None
NUMBER OF FINGERS:........................................Ten
NUMBER OF TOES:...........................................Ten
INTELLIGENCE:..........................................Medium
What did you expect?
Talons?
Oversize incisors?
Green saliva?
Madness?"
Eichmann is surely one of the easiest people to scapegoat in the history of planet earth. Nobody denies his appalling acts, the wicked genocide of ‘the other’ in the Third Reich’s warped understanding of the world. But to scapegoat Eichmann is perhaps to miss the point – the fact that we neither have talons, oversize incisors or green saliva, but we too can be capable of great evil. I wonder if when we think that Fred Goodwin and his cohort of overpaid bankers as the root cause of the world’s financial problem we distance ourselves from our own greed and our own arrogance. One cannot help but feel that most people in the world would regard you and I as wealthy beyond belief on the grounds of sheer luck, with apparently no deserving reason. Scapegoating places distance between ourselves and those that we do not like – we assert that they are not like us.
The Easter story also has something to say about scapegoating. The sense of Christ becoming the one at whom anger is directed seems clear, and as a result of this Christ’s death exposes a vicious system of religious oppression, exclusive social ordering, and violent responses to quell the radical desires of life’s subversives. Christ’s resurrection transforms, rather than supplants, this experience – violence doesn’t triumph over goodness, women are still to be liberated as the first witnesses of the resurrection, and the prophets’ vision of a just and peaceful society continues to be fulfilled on the road to Emmaus.
Another of the great Easter paradoxes concerns the binding of immense pain and great joy into a single continuum. I can’t help but feel that any simplistic explanations of the financial crisis, in which blame is clearly laid at the doors of an easily distinguishable and clearly guilty party, is surely a crude and unproductive move, for life is just not that simple. If any answer can be provided to the question of who killed Davey Moore, it must surely be that all of the parties in the verses bear some responsibility. Further to this, it is all too easy to pretend that we don’t have huge power to change things – i wonder if what would happen if we all stopped blaming everyone else for the financial crisis and became the change that we wanted to see – whatever it was – that would restore justice to the system. In so doing we affirm both our complicity in the problem itself, rather than palming that off onto someone else; and also empower ourselves to change the things that we find unacceptable, rather than regarding everyone else as the core agents of better world.
In summary, i feel that the ambiguity of the current financial crisis resists easy answers, and that one easy answer – scapegoating – has rather unhelpful consequences, not least in that it pretends that we have nothing to do with causing the world’s problems, and that it disempowers us from changing the things we find unacceptable. On this note, the final verse of Leonard Cohen’s most famous song, ‘Hallelujah’ – which is tragically omitted in the Jeff Buckley version – captures some of the response the life’s ambiguity: the broken hallelujah of Good Friday and Easter Sunday; the broken hallelujah of global inequality, brought to the boil by the financial crisis; and the response of Christ in giving of himself, rather than blaming everyone else – of being the change that he wanted to see in the world, and showing the way of self-giving rather than shifting the blame. Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ finished with this verse:
"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah."
Christ, the giver, became the world’s scapegoat, and showed a new way of responding to the pain and ambiguity of life through selfless giving. I wonder if this sense of giving, rather than ‘it wasn’t me that made him fall’, might be a better response to the global recession that most of those that i have seen so far – to transform the ambiguity, rather than explain it away through scapegoating.
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Putting faces to names
I have spent the last few days in hospital recovering from an operation. This has offered some time for reflection that, i am sorry to say, is all too rare these days. I thought that a celebratory blog would be worthwhile in response, noting a few observations.
Firstly, i reiterate how proud i am to live in a country as diverse as the UK. Far from Nick Griffin’s suggestion that the white race that i am a part of has been the victim of a ‘holocaust’ at the hands of multiculturalism and immigration, i feel that our country is enriched and sustained by our welcoming of those from different cultures to our own. I wrote some time ago about the pride that i felt when i saw Monty Panesar (England’s first Sikh cricketer) take a wicket and explode in rapturous celebration. Even cricket, the most white, middle-class of British sports, was not beyond the liberating energy of those different to ourselves.
In further response to Griffin, the role that immigrants play in staffing the NHS is both vital and enormous. The NHS and the BBC are the two British institutions that most of us are most proud of: they are the envy of the world. To a great extent, both, but particularly the NHS, embodies and enacts that central tenet of Britishness, diversity and multiculturalism, that give me immense pride as a quietly patriotic, proud Englishman.
Secondly, the notion of diversity, especially in relation to Britain’s relation to the rest of the world in general, and Africa (where the majority of the nurses that care for me are from) in particular, was extended to discussions of faith and the current state of the Anglican Communion.
We often speak of how nice it is to “put a face to the name”. That is, to recognise in person someone that we have hitherto known about only in words, and particularly by the chief words that bear their identity: their name.
I have been rather good in recent times of expressing my dissatisfaction and disagreement with people by writing them off, homogenising the group from which they come, and then labelling this homogenous as a convenient and negatively-construed ‘other’, who expresses in a neat fashion some particularly facet of who i am not. The best examples of this occur, as usual, with religion, and with the African church’s apparent unwillingness to accept the West’s moves towards the incorporation of homosexuality into its cultural mainstream, and willingness to sanction the mistreatment (in some cases, to the point of death) of gay people living in their proximity. My attitude towards those operating with similar beliefs in the UK has often been to suggest that they “fuck off to Africa”, or something similar – at least that way they would only spoil the churches of a single continent, and leave the West to bask in its social and theological liberalism. The implicit process of writing people off, homogenising them, and then labelling them has certainly occurred here.
One nurse that cared for me in a particularly gentle manner was Grace, who comes from Nigeria. She is a woman true to her name, with a beaming smile, a piercing laugh, a soothing voice and gentle hands with which she conducts her work with great skill and professionalism. She goes to church in Ealing, and i suspect has a rather conservative social morality (or, for the sake of argument, i will assume so, aware of the risk of homogenising another person into a stereotype in the process). The more time that i spent with Grace, the less i felt able to talk again of African Christianity in a negative manner: despite my presumed differences in belief with Grace, i was struck by her warmth of spirit, her joy with being alive, the excitement with which she spoke about her children, and her very profession of nursing, of caring for the sick.
I think a few things on the back of this:
• How wrong it was of me to label and stereotype. These things close the mind rather than opening and enriching it, and prevent the possibility that one’s experience of the world can be changed by someone that you think you disagree with.
• How important it is that we affirm our ability to learn something from everyone in the world, whether or not we like or agree with them. Grace and I may disagree on some matters of doctrine – but if i let this cloud my engagement with her then i am poorer as a result, as i will not learn about the gifts of compassion, care, gentleness and peace.
• How important it is to expose oneself to, and make friends with, those with whom one disagrees. When speaking negatively of ‘Africans’ in the future i will not be without an image to place on this label. When we are aware that our use of a label requires us to include someone we know and respect within the bounds of those being labelled, it makes us think twice about using it in the first place. Increased exposure to gay people is well evidenced to liberalise people’s views of homosexuality: people put Gary’s, or Megan’s, or Phil’s face to the name of ‘homosexual’, and we realise that behind the label are simply people like us.
Overall, i feel rather ashamed of my (i hope, former) labelling of those conservative (label-alert!) Christians (and another one) who oppose the steps taken by countries in the West towards the equalisation of rights between heterosexual and homosexual people, and those commending similar steps within the Church. The diversity that i prize in the UK as a whole must surely be replicated across the Church domestic and global, even (or especially) when it is difficult to do so. One way of doing this is to meet those that one labels, and to learn from them. Once we have put faces to the names we use about them, our embrace of diversity can only flourish.
Firstly, i reiterate how proud i am to live in a country as diverse as the UK. Far from Nick Griffin’s suggestion that the white race that i am a part of has been the victim of a ‘holocaust’ at the hands of multiculturalism and immigration, i feel that our country is enriched and sustained by our welcoming of those from different cultures to our own. I wrote some time ago about the pride that i felt when i saw Monty Panesar (England’s first Sikh cricketer) take a wicket and explode in rapturous celebration. Even cricket, the most white, middle-class of British sports, was not beyond the liberating energy of those different to ourselves.
In further response to Griffin, the role that immigrants play in staffing the NHS is both vital and enormous. The NHS and the BBC are the two British institutions that most of us are most proud of: they are the envy of the world. To a great extent, both, but particularly the NHS, embodies and enacts that central tenet of Britishness, diversity and multiculturalism, that give me immense pride as a quietly patriotic, proud Englishman.
Secondly, the notion of diversity, especially in relation to Britain’s relation to the rest of the world in general, and Africa (where the majority of the nurses that care for me are from) in particular, was extended to discussions of faith and the current state of the Anglican Communion.
We often speak of how nice it is to “put a face to the name”. That is, to recognise in person someone that we have hitherto known about only in words, and particularly by the chief words that bear their identity: their name.
I have been rather good in recent times of expressing my dissatisfaction and disagreement with people by writing them off, homogenising the group from which they come, and then labelling this homogenous as a convenient and negatively-construed ‘other’, who expresses in a neat fashion some particularly facet of who i am not. The best examples of this occur, as usual, with religion, and with the African church’s apparent unwillingness to accept the West’s moves towards the incorporation of homosexuality into its cultural mainstream, and willingness to sanction the mistreatment (in some cases, to the point of death) of gay people living in their proximity. My attitude towards those operating with similar beliefs in the UK has often been to suggest that they “fuck off to Africa”, or something similar – at least that way they would only spoil the churches of a single continent, and leave the West to bask in its social and theological liberalism. The implicit process of writing people off, homogenising them, and then labelling them has certainly occurred here.
One nurse that cared for me in a particularly gentle manner was Grace, who comes from Nigeria. She is a woman true to her name, with a beaming smile, a piercing laugh, a soothing voice and gentle hands with which she conducts her work with great skill and professionalism. She goes to church in Ealing, and i suspect has a rather conservative social morality (or, for the sake of argument, i will assume so, aware of the risk of homogenising another person into a stereotype in the process). The more time that i spent with Grace, the less i felt able to talk again of African Christianity in a negative manner: despite my presumed differences in belief with Grace, i was struck by her warmth of spirit, her joy with being alive, the excitement with which she spoke about her children, and her very profession of nursing, of caring for the sick.
I think a few things on the back of this:
• How wrong it was of me to label and stereotype. These things close the mind rather than opening and enriching it, and prevent the possibility that one’s experience of the world can be changed by someone that you think you disagree with.
• How important it is that we affirm our ability to learn something from everyone in the world, whether or not we like or agree with them. Grace and I may disagree on some matters of doctrine – but if i let this cloud my engagement with her then i am poorer as a result, as i will not learn about the gifts of compassion, care, gentleness and peace.
• How important it is to expose oneself to, and make friends with, those with whom one disagrees. When speaking negatively of ‘Africans’ in the future i will not be without an image to place on this label. When we are aware that our use of a label requires us to include someone we know and respect within the bounds of those being labelled, it makes us think twice about using it in the first place. Increased exposure to gay people is well evidenced to liberalise people’s views of homosexuality: people put Gary’s, or Megan’s, or Phil’s face to the name of ‘homosexual’, and we realise that behind the label are simply people like us.
Overall, i feel rather ashamed of my (i hope, former) labelling of those conservative (label-alert!) Christians (and another one) who oppose the steps taken by countries in the West towards the equalisation of rights between heterosexual and homosexual people, and those commending similar steps within the Church. The diversity that i prize in the UK as a whole must surely be replicated across the Church domestic and global, even (or especially) when it is difficult to do so. One way of doing this is to meet those that one labels, and to learn from them. Once we have put faces to the names we use about them, our embrace of diversity can only flourish.
Slumdog Easter
I saw Slumdog Millionnaire a couple of weeks ago. It’s a great film, beautifully made and wonderfully acted. Its message also shares rather a lot with the Christian season of Easter, i think.
The story is about a young boy, Jamal, who has had a troublesome life. Eventually he gets onto the Indian version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionnaire?’, and ends up winning the show’s top prize. Given his poor education, he is thought to have been cheating somehow, but the truth is that the answer to each question has come up at some point in his varied and challenging life as a poor orphan in the Indian slums. The film tells his story through the different questions asked to him in the gameshow, and how the appropriate nugget of information came to be known through various episodes.
The film’s vision of gaining immense triumph through a radical acceptance of one’s past is fascinating. Many people regard the past (and especially the bits of it that they don’t like) as something to be forgotten in search of a brighter future, or something to hide from for fear of reopening old wounds. I can’t help but feel that Slumdog is rather a call to affirm one’s past, for once we accept and validate the things that have happened in our life we achieve unity with ourselves, because – for good or ill – our past has made us who we are today, and who we will be in the future.
So why the Easter story? The sense of transforming our experience in the present through a radical acceptance of the past, and a hope for the future based on, rather than in spite of, the testing times of the past, seems critical to the witness of the early Church. Christ’s painful death was never denied, never covered up, and never apologised for, vicious and embarrassing though it was. But instead the early Christians knew that this pain and suffering had been transformed by the new life of resurrection. The past is not forgotten, but through radical acceptance of it the future is transformed.
Dealing with testing things in life is never easy. But i think that the Slumdog story and the Easter narrative give hope that out of even the most difficult things we experience can come hope, peace and joy. We don’t need have chosen our story, but we must affirm that our story is ours, and be hopeful that affirming and engaging with our story and the lessons that it has taught us gives hope when looking forward to those chapters in the story that have yet to be written.
The story is about a young boy, Jamal, who has had a troublesome life. Eventually he gets onto the Indian version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionnaire?’, and ends up winning the show’s top prize. Given his poor education, he is thought to have been cheating somehow, but the truth is that the answer to each question has come up at some point in his varied and challenging life as a poor orphan in the Indian slums. The film tells his story through the different questions asked to him in the gameshow, and how the appropriate nugget of information came to be known through various episodes.
The film’s vision of gaining immense triumph through a radical acceptance of one’s past is fascinating. Many people regard the past (and especially the bits of it that they don’t like) as something to be forgotten in search of a brighter future, or something to hide from for fear of reopening old wounds. I can’t help but feel that Slumdog is rather a call to affirm one’s past, for once we accept and validate the things that have happened in our life we achieve unity with ourselves, because – for good or ill – our past has made us who we are today, and who we will be in the future.
So why the Easter story? The sense of transforming our experience in the present through a radical acceptance of the past, and a hope for the future based on, rather than in spite of, the testing times of the past, seems critical to the witness of the early Church. Christ’s painful death was never denied, never covered up, and never apologised for, vicious and embarrassing though it was. But instead the early Christians knew that this pain and suffering had been transformed by the new life of resurrection. The past is not forgotten, but through radical acceptance of it the future is transformed.
Dealing with testing things in life is never easy. But i think that the Slumdog story and the Easter narrative give hope that out of even the most difficult things we experience can come hope, peace and joy. We don’t need have chosen our story, but we must affirm that our story is ours, and be hopeful that affirming and engaging with our story and the lessons that it has taught us gives hope when looking forward to those chapters in the story that have yet to be written.
Monday 2 February 2009
Tom Hogan and St Francis of Assissi
Yesterday I met a man named Tom. He is homeless, and is 17. He has been homeless for six months and has sold The Big Issue for the last 15 weeks. He was kicked out of his house by his mum’s boyfriend after he finished school. He sleeps on night trains (in the first class section, to that he can charge his phone). Regularly he gets mugged for his Big Issues ‘by crackheads’, and last week he had his coat stolen – but someone gave him another one. I find it deeply disturbing that a bright, socially-ept and genuinely interesting 17-year old could be in his situation. Homelessness is a genuine evil, and when it happens to someone so young you can help wondering whether Tom has been given a life sentence.
When I bumped into Tom yesterday he was selling at Clapham Junction. I was on my way to a friend’s house, and decided to have a chat with him. Went to a coffee shop and had something to drink, which was great. I now have his mobile number, and will see him again. A few things hit me:
1. That Tom is just like most 17-year olds. He saved up for 5 days to buy a mobile phone (earlier that week). He played me the songs that he had on it (downloaded from an internet café), and sang along while dancing in his chair. He MCs, and spat some lyrics over the beats. He really likes drinking Guinness and gets annoyed when people think he shouldn’t because he’s homeless – he’s as entitled as anyone to a drink. He thinks that most people don’t understand him, or think he’s got ‘Joe Cunt’ written on his face – actually, his name is Tom Hogan and he certainly isn’t one of those. He had a girlfriend who he wants to get back. He longs for the days at school when he had no problem picking up girls, and mourns his homelessness because no girls are going to fall for that. He loves music (which is ‘his life’). He hears that Jamie Oliver is opening a ‘Fifteen’ near Clapham Junction, and really wants to get a job there – he doesn’t mind if it’s just washing the dishes, but he’s always fancied being a chef. If he got a job, of course, he could get a house, and everything would be alright. Tom is just like any 17-year old – he hopes the same things for the future, and likes doing some of the same things for fun.
2. When I met Tom, I had had a pretty garbage day. A few things had happened and was feeling pretty rough. Shane Claiborne talks about Jesus’ command never being to give to the poor, but being to become poor yourself. Without glorifying poverty, I think this is right – there is something of immense healing power in giving of ourselves, rather than taking. A lot of people seem to regard Church as an opportunity to receive lots of spiritual wisdom, self-help books as a way of cultivating a sense of worth and value for oneself, and of learning to feel better about yourself. Yesterday I bought Tom a drink, a sandwich and some cake. But I also offered him my time, my experience, my ears and my words – these things are invaluable. But giving of oneself is not one-way traffic, for our meeting changed me beyond belief. Quite how is difficult to say, but it did and that is a good thing. I wonder if Church might be somewhere where we learn to give of ourselves, rather than somewhere from which we take whatever is offered.
3. St Francis of Assissi talks about receiving as we give, not as we seek to gather more for ourselves. I was in Francis House at school, and have always had rather a lot of time for the 13th Century nature mystic whose prayers have become engrained on the hearts of most Catholic schoolchildren. I find his most famous prayer deeply engaging, and one that, when placed within the context of my experience with Tom yesterday, speaks volumes about how I think Theology works. The interplay of past and present, of experience and reason, of tradition and not-yet tradition makes for a wonderfully rich means of engaging with life – the good bits and the bad. It is something that informs and directs my experience of the world, never knowing the answers or even the questions. It frames the actions that I take and the instincts that I cultivate, and makes like interesting beyond belief.
So here it is:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
When I bumped into Tom yesterday he was selling at Clapham Junction. I was on my way to a friend’s house, and decided to have a chat with him. Went to a coffee shop and had something to drink, which was great. I now have his mobile number, and will see him again. A few things hit me:
1. That Tom is just like most 17-year olds. He saved up for 5 days to buy a mobile phone (earlier that week). He played me the songs that he had on it (downloaded from an internet café), and sang along while dancing in his chair. He MCs, and spat some lyrics over the beats. He really likes drinking Guinness and gets annoyed when people think he shouldn’t because he’s homeless – he’s as entitled as anyone to a drink. He thinks that most people don’t understand him, or think he’s got ‘Joe Cunt’ written on his face – actually, his name is Tom Hogan and he certainly isn’t one of those. He had a girlfriend who he wants to get back. He longs for the days at school when he had no problem picking up girls, and mourns his homelessness because no girls are going to fall for that. He loves music (which is ‘his life’). He hears that Jamie Oliver is opening a ‘Fifteen’ near Clapham Junction, and really wants to get a job there – he doesn’t mind if it’s just washing the dishes, but he’s always fancied being a chef. If he got a job, of course, he could get a house, and everything would be alright. Tom is just like any 17-year old – he hopes the same things for the future, and likes doing some of the same things for fun.
2. When I met Tom, I had had a pretty garbage day. A few things had happened and was feeling pretty rough. Shane Claiborne talks about Jesus’ command never being to give to the poor, but being to become poor yourself. Without glorifying poverty, I think this is right – there is something of immense healing power in giving of ourselves, rather than taking. A lot of people seem to regard Church as an opportunity to receive lots of spiritual wisdom, self-help books as a way of cultivating a sense of worth and value for oneself, and of learning to feel better about yourself. Yesterday I bought Tom a drink, a sandwich and some cake. But I also offered him my time, my experience, my ears and my words – these things are invaluable. But giving of oneself is not one-way traffic, for our meeting changed me beyond belief. Quite how is difficult to say, but it did and that is a good thing. I wonder if Church might be somewhere where we learn to give of ourselves, rather than somewhere from which we take whatever is offered.
3. St Francis of Assissi talks about receiving as we give, not as we seek to gather more for ourselves. I was in Francis House at school, and have always had rather a lot of time for the 13th Century nature mystic whose prayers have become engrained on the hearts of most Catholic schoolchildren. I find his most famous prayer deeply engaging, and one that, when placed within the context of my experience with Tom yesterday, speaks volumes about how I think Theology works. The interplay of past and present, of experience and reason, of tradition and not-yet tradition makes for a wonderfully rich means of engaging with life – the good bits and the bad. It is something that informs and directs my experience of the world, never knowing the answers or even the questions. It frames the actions that I take and the instincts that I cultivate, and makes like interesting beyond belief.
So here it is:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Sunday 18 January 2009
Come and See
At church today I heard a familiar reading from John 1, in which Jesus meets Nathaniel. Nathaniel starts by questioning Jesus, and whether anything good can come out of Naxareth. Jesus’ reply is simple: come and see.
The passage ends with a reference to angels ‘ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’. This, of course, is a reference to Jacob’s ladder, which appears when Jacob is resting at night on the way to Haran. (Also, Nathaniel regarding Jesus as an ‘Israelite’ is surely a further reference to Jacob). A couple of things are to be noted here:
• Haran, wherever it was, was not in Israel
• Jacob names the placed ‘Bethel’ (ie, ‘house of God’)
I wonder if Jesus’ reference to the angels going up and down might have another thematic connection to the Genesis text.
Firstly both Haran, as somewhere outside of Israel, and Nazareth are regarded as inappropriate places for good, godly, things to come from, such that both offer a surprise when something positive is to be regarded.
Secondly, both Jacob and Nathaniel respond to this with a recognition that God may indeed be found in surprising places: Jacob notes that ‘surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it’; Nathaniel with a rousing ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are thee King of Israel’ after his initial doubt.
So drawing these together, an unsuspected location for divine appearance, coupled with initial scepticism, is met with surprise when a positive result ensues. As a result, these original views are changed.
What really fascinates me in this story, though, is what Philip (who first met Nathaniel) says in order to instigate Nathaniel’s engagement with Christ: ‘Come and see’. That is, come and see whether anything good can come out of Nazareth. Not ‘here is a good argument about why something good might come from Nazareth’; not ‘how silly of you to ask such a question’; not anything other than a simple call – go and have a look for yourself.
Experience and reason are critical in the way I regard Theology. I shouldn’t have to believe something that every ounce of good sense that I have tells me is incorrect, and shouldn’t regard life as a competition between religious and secular explanations f everything. Also, particularly on the grounds of ethics, I think we can learn a huge amount from experience first hand. I wish fewer people would decide that abortion, homosexuality, women bishops and the like without talking to people who live with these issues every day, without listening to the experiences of someone who has had an abortion or a civil partnership. Sometimes it is only when we go and see things for ourselves that we see God in them.
The passage ends with a reference to angels ‘ascending and descending upon the Son of Man’. This, of course, is a reference to Jacob’s ladder, which appears when Jacob is resting at night on the way to Haran. (Also, Nathaniel regarding Jesus as an ‘Israelite’ is surely a further reference to Jacob). A couple of things are to be noted here:
• Haran, wherever it was, was not in Israel
• Jacob names the placed ‘Bethel’ (ie, ‘house of God’)
I wonder if Jesus’ reference to the angels going up and down might have another thematic connection to the Genesis text.
Firstly both Haran, as somewhere outside of Israel, and Nazareth are regarded as inappropriate places for good, godly, things to come from, such that both offer a surprise when something positive is to be regarded.
Secondly, both Jacob and Nathaniel respond to this with a recognition that God may indeed be found in surprising places: Jacob notes that ‘surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it’; Nathaniel with a rousing ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are thee King of Israel’ after his initial doubt.
So drawing these together, an unsuspected location for divine appearance, coupled with initial scepticism, is met with surprise when a positive result ensues. As a result, these original views are changed.
What really fascinates me in this story, though, is what Philip (who first met Nathaniel) says in order to instigate Nathaniel’s engagement with Christ: ‘Come and see’. That is, come and see whether anything good can come out of Nazareth. Not ‘here is a good argument about why something good might come from Nazareth’; not ‘how silly of you to ask such a question’; not anything other than a simple call – go and have a look for yourself.
Experience and reason are critical in the way I regard Theology. I shouldn’t have to believe something that every ounce of good sense that I have tells me is incorrect, and shouldn’t regard life as a competition between religious and secular explanations f everything. Also, particularly on the grounds of ethics, I think we can learn a huge amount from experience first hand. I wish fewer people would decide that abortion, homosexuality, women bishops and the like without talking to people who live with these issues every day, without listening to the experiences of someone who has had an abortion or a civil partnership. Sometimes it is only when we go and see things for ourselves that we see God in them.
Wednesday 14 January 2009
Sad News
I got some bad news today. A wonderful woman, who was out cleaner for many years, died in a car crash last week. She was from Newcastle, and moved to Buxton to move in with her partner, who subsequently got rid of her. She has two grown-up children and a grandchild who she would talk about a great deal.
I didn’t know much about Janice’s life history, but I suspect that it was a rather familiar story of a working-class girl from the north growing up, having children early, and never losing both her passion for life, and her desire to make the best she could of her life. One of the many tragedies of this story is that learning to drive was a key turning-point for her, which gave her independence and empowered her. She had passed her test only a few months earlier, and I remember her enthusiastically telling me about her driving lessons – she lent me her driving theory DVD to encourage me to learn.
Life is a fragile thing, and can be gone in an instant. At least twice a day I (and most who live in London) stand feet away from an electrical line that would kill us instantly, and that has little by way of protection. I find this thought rather difficult, and also quite empowering – through the death of others we may learn the joy of simply being alive, of meeting people, and having thoughts, hopes and loves. Sometimes it takes this to get out of our emotional inertia of doing things all the time, without taking stock of life’s joys – and sorrows – that make out existence such an incredible thing.
I have never lost anyone that I was really close to, and don’t look forward to the day when it will arrive. I think one must meet death with two things: firstly, acceptance that death is part of life’s rich circle and is nothing personal – no God decided your number was up, or could have prevented death if only someone had prayed harder; and secondly, almost uncritical optimism and affirmation of life with all of its high and low points – experiencing the death of someone may encourage us towards a reflexive sensitivity, that affirms and seeks to enhance all that works for life, and to challenge that which diminishes it. The fact of simply being is hard to talk about, but I think it’s something that the death of someone might be able to enhance. Perhaps this, then, is life after death – that the gusto with which Janice lived life, the aspirations she had, the faith she had in the goodness of people may perpetually exist in those that know her through memory, and the grief felt by those in mourning be brought together into the unified oneness of being, whatever being is.
So Janice, rest in peace. And may your kinds words, thoughtful acts, generous spirit and hope for the future continue to inspire us all.
I didn’t know much about Janice’s life history, but I suspect that it was a rather familiar story of a working-class girl from the north growing up, having children early, and never losing both her passion for life, and her desire to make the best she could of her life. One of the many tragedies of this story is that learning to drive was a key turning-point for her, which gave her independence and empowered her. She had passed her test only a few months earlier, and I remember her enthusiastically telling me about her driving lessons – she lent me her driving theory DVD to encourage me to learn.
Life is a fragile thing, and can be gone in an instant. At least twice a day I (and most who live in London) stand feet away from an electrical line that would kill us instantly, and that has little by way of protection. I find this thought rather difficult, and also quite empowering – through the death of others we may learn the joy of simply being alive, of meeting people, and having thoughts, hopes and loves. Sometimes it takes this to get out of our emotional inertia of doing things all the time, without taking stock of life’s joys – and sorrows – that make out existence such an incredible thing.
I have never lost anyone that I was really close to, and don’t look forward to the day when it will arrive. I think one must meet death with two things: firstly, acceptance that death is part of life’s rich circle and is nothing personal – no God decided your number was up, or could have prevented death if only someone had prayed harder; and secondly, almost uncritical optimism and affirmation of life with all of its high and low points – experiencing the death of someone may encourage us towards a reflexive sensitivity, that affirms and seeks to enhance all that works for life, and to challenge that which diminishes it. The fact of simply being is hard to talk about, but I think it’s something that the death of someone might be able to enhance. Perhaps this, then, is life after death – that the gusto with which Janice lived life, the aspirations she had, the faith she had in the goodness of people may perpetually exist in those that know her through memory, and the grief felt by those in mourning be brought together into the unified oneness of being, whatever being is.
So Janice, rest in peace. And may your kinds words, thoughtful acts, generous spirit and hope for the future continue to inspire us all.
Tuesday 4 November 2008
Worship Music/Institutionalised Homoeroticism
Whether it be the faux-American accents that everyone insists on singing in, the awful singing/harmonising that usually accompanies it, the implicit eroticism with which spiritual themes are addressed, or the psychological manipulation of ecstasy coupled with hard-hitting and unequivocal sermons that usually accompany it – I feel rather uneasy about it.
My personal favourite is ‘Jesus, take me as I am’.
Jesus take me as I am,
I can come no other way.
Take me deeper into You,
Make my flesh life melt away.
Or:
I want to know you,
I want to hear your voice,
I want to know you more.
I want to touch you,
I want to see your face,
I want to know you more.
Or:
And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m desperate for you.
And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m lost without you.
When Jim Chew referred to much of what happens as (something like) a huge white, middle-class love-up, I don’t think he was very far wrong.
Worship music is so Protestant. It has ticks in all the right boxes:
• No talent required at all (a monkey can learn four chords on a guitar)
• Everyone is invited to participate (ie, sing along)
• Popular, emotive soft-rock ballads become personal salvation drivers
A wonderful South Park episode gets it about right. Cartman sings in a worship band, who perform such tracks as ‘I wasn’t born again yesterday’. One track contains the words:
I wanna get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus
And feel his salvation all over my face.
Whatever you think of South Park, they certainly know how to parody things.
But I do like good music. I do love listening to choral music, which seems increasingly rare in churches, and least of all in churches that regard themselves as ‘cutting edge’. So what’s the difference?
1. Choral music uses the same words all the time (in a literal sense – worship music does this, of course, but without acknowledging it). The repetition of familiar words with different musical settings encourages one to engage with them in different ways.
2. Choral music is often genuinely difficult to perform, and beautiful to listen to. Engaging with spirituality through excellent music is a good thing.
3. Choral music is based around the liturgies of the Church, and recites actual bits of the Bible! Incredible! Interesting that those adopting a particularly high doctrine of Scripture are often those whose worship involved precisely none of it, whereas choral evensong has the songs of Mary and Simeon, and a WHOLE Psalm! I remember one advocate of worship music advocating Hillsong on the grounds that it had ‘some really biblical lyrics’. This is certainly not the case in every Hillsong tune I have ever heard, and is the case in liturgy that, err, is straight out of the Bible. Simple really: use beautiful language and concepts directly, rather than putting them through the triple beauty/content bypass from which most worship songs have suffered at is a rather good thing.
My personal favourite is ‘Jesus, take me as I am’.
Jesus take me as I am,
I can come no other way.
Take me deeper into You,
Make my flesh life melt away.
Or:
I want to know you,
I want to hear your voice,
I want to know you more.
I want to touch you,
I want to see your face,
I want to know you more.
Or:
And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m desperate for you.
And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m lost without you.
When Jim Chew referred to much of what happens as (something like) a huge white, middle-class love-up, I don’t think he was very far wrong.
Worship music is so Protestant. It has ticks in all the right boxes:
• No talent required at all (a monkey can learn four chords on a guitar)
• Everyone is invited to participate (ie, sing along)
• Popular, emotive soft-rock ballads become personal salvation drivers
A wonderful South Park episode gets it about right. Cartman sings in a worship band, who perform such tracks as ‘I wasn’t born again yesterday’. One track contains the words:
I wanna get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus
And feel his salvation all over my face.
Whatever you think of South Park, they certainly know how to parody things.
But I do like good music. I do love listening to choral music, which seems increasingly rare in churches, and least of all in churches that regard themselves as ‘cutting edge’. So what’s the difference?
1. Choral music uses the same words all the time (in a literal sense – worship music does this, of course, but without acknowledging it). The repetition of familiar words with different musical settings encourages one to engage with them in different ways.
2. Choral music is often genuinely difficult to perform, and beautiful to listen to. Engaging with spirituality through excellent music is a good thing.
3. Choral music is based around the liturgies of the Church, and recites actual bits of the Bible! Incredible! Interesting that those adopting a particularly high doctrine of Scripture are often those whose worship involved precisely none of it, whereas choral evensong has the songs of Mary and Simeon, and a WHOLE Psalm! I remember one advocate of worship music advocating Hillsong on the grounds that it had ‘some really biblical lyrics’. This is certainly not the case in every Hillsong tune I have ever heard, and is the case in liturgy that, err, is straight out of the Bible. Simple really: use beautiful language and concepts directly, rather than putting them through the triple beauty/content bypass from which most worship songs have suffered at is a rather good thing.
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