Living Wittily

The Boston Marathon and an Alternative to the Futility of Violence

I haven't been in many American cities, but I have been in Boston three times. My good friends Bob and Becky live in New England, and as their guests we have enjoyed the hospitality, warm love for all things Scottish, and the intellectual and cultural experiences of New England people. And from a blugerass concert to Shaker heritage, to Boston and its important place in the history of Baptist thought and practice, even visiting the Quaker assembly which Elton trueblood attended.

I guess not many now know the name Elton Trueblood. Philosopher and cultural critic, radical Christian practitioner and intellectually generous follower of Jesus, a man whose wisdom and deep love for God illumines much of what he wrote, lived and said. His sermons The Yoke of Christ, his numerous books on Christian engagement with society in the 1950's and 60's, and his reputation as a thinker deeply plunged in the contemplative foundations of Christian theology and prayer, made that brief glimpse of the place where this man lived out his later life a kind of low key pilgrimage. I owe much to Trueblood's thought.

His book Alternative to Futility was born in class discussions about war and peace, violence and dialogue, conflict and reconciliation. In the 50's the Cold War was fuelled by runaway fear and suspicion, and the futility of a world divided along lines of terror, hostility and the idolatry of explosive power. The idolatry of explosive power from bullets to missiles, smart bombs to IED's, and yes nuclear weapons and drone delivered death, is now an established and largely unchallenged recourse to the explosion of energy for the damage of other human beings.

And I guess my overwhelming response to the explosions at the Boston marathan, immediate and so far largely unreflective as it is, is one of deep sadness at the futility of such acts of violence and hatred of other human beings. The death of an 8 year old boy, there to celebrate his father's finishing the race is, well futile. The reduction of human life to fuel for publicity of any cause or none fulfils no meaningful purpose I can discern. Trueblood's thesis still requires adequate refutation - whatever the motives for the use of explosive power to the damage of another human being, it will always be invalidated in any hieracrchy of values that sees human hurt and human killing as a means to an immensely lesser end. I realise more can be said. And on reflection I may wish I'd said more, or less. But the sense of sadness, and the refusal to give in to the temptations of despair and cynicism that grow out of a sense of futility, will not make me want to be less hopeful, more committed to an alternative view of the world, more thoughtful in my prayers for a world like ours.

One of the great visions of the Hebrew Bible is children making the noise of play and excitement in city streets. Whatever else the death of that young boy means, it is a reminder of what I hope for in human fulfilment, and what I pray against in the actions and thinking of those who settle for futility.

Kyrie Eleison

Christe Eleison

Kyrie Elieson

Reflections on Rowan Williams and the Art of the Impossible.

One of the more glaring ambiguities of being the Established Church is the qualities, attributes and skills required to be a leader who is able to face two different directions at the same time, work with two sets of pragmatic principles which are likely to get in the way of core convictions that don't easily survive compromise. I am thinking of Rowan Williams, a man in whom deep spirituality, theological scholarship, personal holiness and ecclesial conviction leave him deeply unprepared for the maneouverings and compromises, the moral ambiguities and relational ruthlessness that seems to be required to prosper in the arena of politics, ecclesial or state.

He comes to the end of his tenure soon, and there will be those who will do an audit on his performance as Archbishop. For myself, I think there need to be two audits, appraisals, or reviews whichever term we prefer. And the criteria for assessment cannot possibly be the same in both spheres, the political and the ecclesial. As a spiritual leader of worldwide Anglicanism he cannot escape political engagement within and beyond the concerns of the Church; but neither can he surrender principles of spiritual conviction, theological commitment and Gospel imperatives. It is that dichotomy of foundational commitments that have always made the role of Archbishop of Canterbury impossible to fulfil to the satisfaction of everyone. That's before we talk about being the leader of a culturally diverse, theologically broad, historically compromised organisation whose foundation beliefs are vigorously contested in the postmodern marketplace of alternative narratives.

Holiness has little value as political currency; prayer and spirituality by definition are not power tools at committee level, where pragmatic instrumentalism is a primary virtue; theological wisdom and erudition, even when combined with moral imagination in exploring the cultural and ethical minefields facing an ancient church travelling across the terrain of the contemporary world, do not carry decisive authority. It is near impossible to speak with Christian integrity and a political correctness all will approve. Indeed there is a plurality of political correctness which underlies the polarities and conflicts of much contemporary ethical and theological debate. Clashes of fundamentalism tend to crush those who stand between them as mediatior - Christians of all people should know that. The photo above captures someone whose surprise, laughter and sense of the ridiculous are emphatically not out of place in someone asked to do the impossible as a routine expectation.

I leave to others to judge the contribution of a good man in an impossible role, though I would ask them to be careful of Jesus words about being judged by the same measures we judge others. For myself I am grateful to Rowan Williams for accepting a vocation from God that for his years as Archbishop of Canterbury, has gone against the grain of a spiritually faithful intellect. His term has exposed him to dilemmas of labyrinthine complexity, and at times has made him in turns unpopular, ridiculed, deemed irrelevant, focus of anger. But he has demonstrated the incompatibility of being a leader in Church and State. And he has done so by speaking and arguing out of a resilient and generous faith, by manifesting holiness as both practical and costly and ultimately different from mere goodwill however astute, and by a rootedness in his own tradition that does not need to diminish or exclude those of other traditions and faiths.

I leave you with one of those momkents of brilliance that say so much about the faith and faithfulness of Rowan Williams.

Rowan Williams once brilliantly compared prayer to sunbathing. "When you're lying on the beach something is happening, something that has nothing to do with how you feel or how hard you're trying. You're not going to get a better tan by screwing up your eyes and concentrating. You give the time, and that's it. All you have to do is turn up. And then things change, at their own pace. You simply have to be there where the light can get at you."

I pray that at the next stage of his ministry, there will be time for such sunbathing.

The Courage and Preciousness of Malala Yousafzai

This is the face of courage, bearing witness against a brutal world

Malala Yousafzai is slowly recovering.

This also the face of hope - for Muslim girls and women.

She is not out of danger. Medically she has a long journey ahead.

Her enemies remain incensed by their own lethal hatreds.

She was shot because she wanted to go to school.

If ever there was a time to uphold the value and human significance of education in our own culture, and across the world

If ever there was a person who embodies the human passion for learning

If ever there was a personality and character more worthy of our admiration than any amount of "celebrity personalities"

If ever there was reason to hope for a better human future for children across the world

If ever there was a time to contradict and subvert prejudice and religious hatred

If ever there was a demonstration of how one person's actions can make a difference for others,

Then Malala Yusafzai is such a person, and the time is now.

And,

If ever there was a young woman entitled to immediate nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize

it is this young teenager

whose blog was answered by bullets,

whose love of learning is threatened by lethal force,

whose young life has been spent in an environement of fear, repression, violence and religiously fuelled hatred,

and who only wants to go to school, in peace, to learn.

May the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, protect and bless her.

Malala Yousufzai and a Prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

I have a number of Muslim friends, with whom I have laughed, argued, shared food; to whom I have listened, spoken and whom I deeply respect, a feeling that is mutual.

When earlier this year I conducted the funeral of a close friend who was a spiritual ecumenist, a man of profound and searching Christian conviction, who epitomised respectful listening, humble speaking and generous thinking, and who was a trusted member of the Inter Faith Group in Aberdeen, amongst the mourners were some of his Muslim friends, one of whom spoke at the funeral, to which the local Imam had sent a sincere apology that he could not attend due to other duties.

At University I majored in a course called Principles of Religion - forgive the immodesty, but I won the Class Prize. A major component was study of Islam, including sections of the Quran, a study of Judaism including Talmudic Tractates, and the same for Buddhism and Hinduism. I later won another prize for an essay entitled, "Compare the Islamic and Christian Conception of God". Amongst the greatest books I have read was the then recently published book by Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, a book still acknowledged as an exemplary exploration of Islam by a critical and trusted Christian friend. 

This isn't mere autobiography, nor, I hope a piece of online self-indulgence. My Muslim friends, my experience of Muslim Christian relations locally and in relationship, my own education and ongoing interest in the Abrahamic faiths, all combine in a complex reaction somewhere between deepwater sadness and turbulent moral outrage, laced with compassion and tears when I read the following:

"Taliban gunmen have shot and seriously wounded a 14-year-old schoolgirl who rose to fame for speaking out against the militants, authorities have said.

Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head and neck when gunmen fired on her school bus in Pakistan's Swat valley."

I do not, and will not recognise nor concede that such an act has any connection whatsoever with Islamic doctrine and practice, with Muslim ethics, with a valid Islamic worldview, or even has a foothold on any mind and heart that dares speak the name of the God of Abraham. Taliban justification is a meaningless rhetoric of lethal hatred and a misconception of righteousness that is the toxic opposite of all that the great word "righteousness" means. 

Oh God Of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

have mercy on your daughter Malala Yousufzai;

restore her to health,

protect her from those who hate her;

frustrate the hate and violence

that targets children and silences voices of truth.

Eterrnal God, look on our history with compassion,

help us to look on our history with hope,

invade hearts that are hate filled,

occupy minds that are empty of life-giving ideas,

turn bullets to bread,

grenades to grain,

and the improvisation that creates devices of death,

convert to energy and creativity to build a different future.

We are running out of ideas, God of Wisdom:

Come in peace, Bringer of Life, Compassionate Lord,

Amen, and Amen.

"Give us this day our daily bread",....but what about Hell - icopter Gunships....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am  preaching at a favourite place this Sunday, on The Lord will provide.

One of the fascinating debates surrounds the meaning of the word translated in the Lord's Prayer as "daily".

Give us today bread sufficient  for today

or

Give us today bread sufficient to give us strength to work tomorrow for our daily bread.

In the middle of the Lord's prayer there is this crusty plain loaf, and for me that is the essence of the Lord will provide.

The hallowing of the Name, the coming of the Kingdom, forgiveness and deliverance, and at the centre - daily bread.

So what do I pray for when Syrian helicopter gunships turn their lethal weapons on safe zones and bread lines?

What do I mean when I say the Lord will provide, when news images show hungry people queuing for daily bread being used as target practice by a regime gone rabid?

I deeply believe and trust in the Lord who provides.

But I deeply believe in the Lord of justice, righteousness and mercy - and I see none of that in Syria, and countless other places.

But I believe - and because I believe I hope - but there are times when human behaviour makes me despair.

Kyrie eleison

 

Ricky Gervais, Kittens and Cardiff University - or ethics with our eyes open.

Now and again it's the comedian who, like the joker and jester of old, opens the eyes of the audience to unpleasant truth. Ironic that Ricky Gervais has opened the eyes of the wider public to an experiment involving sewing the eyes of 31 kittens closed, and once the experiment was complete, the kittens were destroyed. Cardiff University defends the experiments because they are aimed at understanding the signals between the eye and the brain cortex, an important area of ophthalmic research into lazy eye conditions in humans. You can read more here

The University Ethics committee approved the experiment, which of course begs the question about which criteria are invoked to justify such purposeful cruelty. Interesting that in search of a cure for a human condition, inhumane treatment of non humans is spoken of not only as acceptable but as an imperative claiming moral high ground. Further, the very procedures required suggest a best an emotional confusion for the scientists and vets involved, who we believe are acting out of altruistic compassion. You have to be cruel to be kind isn't to my knowledge a scientifically established procedure. 

On any ethically responsible investment portfolio it would be difficult to justify making money, or putting money into, what by any definition is such an extreme form of animal cruelty. What makes this situation more unacceptable is that tax payers' money funds this particular research project. I not only object to that; I protest against whatever guidelines make it possible to sanction such behaviour. 

Then there is the question of animal rights which are the flip side of human obligations. What is it, what exactly and precisely is the basis for human beings treating other life-forms as if pain, suffering and abbreviated life is at the behest of human self interest? We rightly prosecute those who are cruel to animals. Why wasn't the Cardiff University experiment articulated truthfully and transparently, and only when outed is there the usual ethical smokescreen of the greater good?

Is it really necessary cruelty? Even if it is necessary to find a cure for lazy eye, does that necessity and the perceived possible benefit override the cost to the animals, and the desnesitizing impact such behaviour has on human attitudes to other sentient beings? Sewing a kitten's eyes shut is rather different from recalibrating a tool, rebooting a computer, or trying out a new golf club! Different too from putting a car through a road impact test that wrecks it. I mean different in kind - inanimate as opposed to animate. Sentient life is not a mere commodity for human consumption, and animal suffering is not to be discounted merely because scientific research is furthered by it. The balance is finer than that, and the moral implications of sanctioned cruelty far more dangerous, and requiring higher ethical norms than utilitarianism. 

University Research Ethics Committees are highly responsible, ethically informed and composed of people who combine commonsense, humanity and expertise. As such they are expected to acknowledge the profound responsibility of acting under public trust, and in decision-making be transparent and outward looking beyond the immediate interests of its researchers. This is true especially in areas of such heightened sensitivity as balancing animal welfare and perceived human benefit, or animal suffering and assumed advances in knowledge.

This however, was not an experiment in the search for a cure of a life threatening condition. Even if it were, misgivings and safeguards ought still to be an essential part of a process that demonstrates there is no other way. Even then such a conclusion is not itself a sufficient reason for proceeding with an experiment of inflicted suffering. It is a legitimate question -where are the boundaries of human behaviour and inumane behaviour in pursuit of human welfare? 

All readers of this blog know I'm a cat lover. But if the experiment were carried out on mice, rats or rabbits the arguments would be the same, and the outrage as real. So I'm not special pleading for my own pet preferences. Therefore no cute pictures of cuddly kittens in this post - and no distressing images of mutilated animals either. Instead I post a protest at the hubris and callousness of human behaviour towards creatures over whom we have absolute control and the power of death or worse. That power brings with it responsibility and the institutional imperative of a University that life never be discounted, and suffering of animals never be dismissed as the mere emotional inconvenience of an oversensitive public. 

And as a taxpayer I express outrage that I am implicated through public funding in practices that would - rightly - have me jailed if done outside a laboratory. Public opinion may be deemed fickle by the scientific community who are well into data and statistics and social trends - but public instincts and disapproval are important guidelines for decision-makers. And there are times when what is done in our name is plain wrong - this is such a case.

Puts You in the Holiday Mood - Ornitheology

The Farnborough Air show brings in around £48 billion in trade agreements, many of them related to armaments, a trade-off which has its own Shard sized ethical question mark for those trying to live wittily in the tangle of our minds as followers of Jesus!

But I love it when God speaks ironically. Like when it is discovered that a pair of very rare black redstarts have nested in one of the show tents. And legislation and the commonsense of the powers that be, including contractors, have left the tent standing and the area immediately around it undusturbed. In a couple of weeks the young birds will have flown, and the world can get on with the business of selling air power, whether for travel or war.

Look at the sparrows of the air, five for a farthing, and not one of them falls but the Creator sees it, notes it, and cares. For sparrow read black redstart. So while the big deals are being done, and the Billions are being traded, two birds weighing an ounce or two between them, go on doing what life does, reflecting the will of God like a sacrament of life and hope - building a nest, raising the next generation, and doing so as an endangered species. And we think humans are the apex of creation....hmmm. And I wonder if the Holy Spirit, the Dove of Peace, was brooding over Farnborough grieved by the uses we make of technology, but delighted with the joy of God at a fragile nest, with featherless nestlings, defying all the hardware, and just needing a little time and peace to show that life, with all its contingencies, is mystery and miracle that puts all our technology in its place. 

A Harbinger of Hope in a World of Knowledgeable Cynics

Not often that North East Scotland reminds you of Isaiah the prophet. But this photo, due only to the coincident thought flashes in my own imagination, reminds me of Isaiah 35, one of the most remarkable poems in the Hebrew Bible.

1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,

the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the LORD,

the majesty of our God. 

Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees. 

Say to those who are of a fearful heart,

"Be strong, fear not!

Behold, your God will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you." 

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 

then shall the lame man leap like a hart,

and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert; 

the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 

And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Holy Way;

the unclean shall not pass over it,

and fools shall not err therein. 

No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there. 

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah was a harbinger of hope, a good news correspondent in a world wearied by waste, a visionary who could imagine an alternative reality and make it sound realisable. He is the patron saint of indomitable faith, not fideistic naivete, but someone who spoke out of a living core of obstinate belief that God is faithful, come hell or high water. Deserts blossom, streams flow out of rock and sand, safety is not a mirage, and joy doesn't have to be sought in artificial stimulant or chronic mental distraction, nor emotional satiety, but in the deep, deep knowledge of a love beyond grasping, holding and being held by that inexplicable hold God has on us that provides subterranean permanence beneath our doubts.

In other words, God is the renewer of deserts, the restorer of hope, the giver of joy, the eye-opener extraordinaire, the sound that penetrates the dullest deafness and speaks new truth. For jaded 21st Century Christians Isaiah is the fifth Gospel, the good news for a world whose ecology is being devastated, for a world of jagged fractures and frantically maintained walls, for souls parched with too much flux and hype, starved of silence, cheated of joy for the sake of pleasure, and deprived of peace.

I love this book - to use an older phrase, "it speaks to our condition". What would it be like if, after the usual litany of what we now call the news, someone was brave enough to say "And finally, the wilderness will be glad, a highway for the righteous, streams in the desert, and everlasting joy shall be upon our heads". I know - daft, naive, - but Isaianic naivete is preferable to what we call political sophistication and realpolitik.

, s a

Refusing to confer ultimacy on evil

Funny how sometimes several scattered moments of cognition can be drawn together by one of those rare migrating coincidences of thought, when against all odds, we are made attentive to something precious and important to capture,which otherwise would disappear in the fast flowing stream of consciousness which passes for thought in an overstimulated world.

It started when I read a novel last week by David Silva, The Rembrandt Affair. It's the story of a lost Rembrandt masterpiece, an SS Officer who combined an obscene courtesy to those he robbed with indifference to the plight of those same Jewish victims, a Jewish painting restorer who works for Israeli intelligence, and a little girl who, like Anne Frank was hidden by neighbours. A key moment in the story is when against all warnings, she crept out into the snow one moonlit night to play and dance. She was seen by the neighbours, reported, and the family were transported, except her, whose freedom was bought with the painting. Like so much of the literature of the Holocaust, there is the tragic irony of guilt clinging to the soul of the victims, who have done nothing wrong - other than exist.

Then I listened to Sheila Hancock's audio version of her autobiography Just Me. One chapter describes her visit to Hungary, and her discovery of the 600,000 Jewish people who were there before the War, and the tiny remnant who survived. Her sorrow and anger, her utter bewilderment at such organised human cruelty, combined with her rage that this could happen while she was betwen the ages of 8 and 13, in her lifetime, is one of the most telling pieces of soliloquy she has ever uttered, including Shakespeare.

I then watched the programme on Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, a pre-olympic docu-drama that filled out the stories of these two remarkable human beings. Both of their later lives overshadowed by war, and the cost and consequences of ideologies that reduce human beings as means to ends, rather than privilege every human being as ends in themselves.

By now, inside a few days, one of the 20th Century's most systematic forms of madness had insinuated itself back into that conscious reflective place in the mind, where prayer, ethical judgement, moral energy, critical thought and human wondering mix together in the search for meaning. As if the discovery of meaning could lessen the evil, reduce the guilt, redeem the suffering, restore hope or render the Shoah as something less than the mystery of iniquity it is. Because at the same time it arose in an historical nexus of events imagined, initiated and implemented by human beings, morally accountable, made in the image of God, and utterly capable of denying to others the humanity they claimed for themselves, thereby raising by their actions, in the tragic irony that accompanies moral suicide, a more potent question mark over their own humanity.

And then I came across this - and I realised again the spiritual genius of God's people, the miracle of human hopefulness and goodness, the capacity of that of God in us to look Hell in the face and refuse it ultimacy.

O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us.

Remember the fruits we bought, thanks to the suffering; our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this.

And when they come to judgement, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.  (Prayer of a condemned Jew in Belson)

I'm glad I was in my study on my own when I read this, and I am glad for two reasons. First, because together with the clues and intimations above, I was ready to hear words that in their truth and hope and love, slice through the dark tangle of hate and anger, sorrow and shame, despair and distress that grips the heart when we are confronted by intolerable but unalterable truth. Secondly because I cried, confronted by the distilled essence of goodness and mercy.

Adidas - The trainers that scored an own goal!

The post last week on those shackle trainers touted but then withdrawn by Adidas, can now be supplemented by a further very interesting perspective. A friend drew attention to the take of the Guradian correspondent on this consumerist own goal. And his perspective is perhaps the more subversive, powerful and telling. Go to the link below and read for yourself.

What the piece does is identify and expose the hubris and accompanying moral blindness of brand driven companies, so assured of their captive market that they miss the internal critique of one of their flagship designers. Was the designer genuinely making a sociao0ethical statement, or is this a clever piece of social hermeneutics?

So here again is the image of these trainers which purportedly carry the message no matter how hard you kick the ball they won't come off. Except the same trainers carry now the more powerful image of a company scoring an own goal in late extra time!

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/19/adidas-trainers-slave-fashion