Living Wittily

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.

Cappuccino, Companionship and the Kindness of Not Quite Telling the Truth.

Went to one of our favourite places for a cappuccino.

No loyalty cards there, just good coffee, an off the street ambience, and lots of folk talking, sipping and reading.

Waited more than  10 minutes for the coffee - short staffed, and those who had turned up were hassled trying to keep things going.

When it came, the part time barista was apologetic, out of breath and showing early signs of work related stress.

Then the first sip of anticipated heaven - but beneath the aesthetic beauty of the chocolate topped froth the coffee was cold.

Gently and pleasantly I explained to the now near tearful student trying to make ends meet with extra work.

Genuine apologies, immediate promise to replace them and off she went.

Second cup came, as wsonderful to behold as the last one - it too was cold.

There comes a time when you realise that someone else's day is more important than your own.

Asked if this one was OK I lied and said it was just as I liked it.

If drinking tepid coffee with a smile and a fib prevents tears, what the Heaven?

Now as to loyalty cards - they don't do them.

But I don't go there for the loyalty card and the chance of a free coffee - I go for the lovely people who get upset if they don't get it right.

And I will be back :)

Salley Vickers' new novel, The Cleaner of Chartres - benign drizzle for arid minds.

I agree with a friend who said to me years ago, that The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge was the most complete and satisfying novel she had ever read. Not necessarily the best, the most literary in accomplishment, or the most imaginatively plotted. But one in which plot and character, historical atmosphere, incident and coincidence eventually weave together in a satisfying and finished story.

There are other novels I am glad I read, because they have left their traces in my own view of the world, myself and the way to live a life. Anne Tyler's Saint Maybe and Patchwork Planet; Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev and The Book of Lights; Carol Shields' Larry's Party , Happenstance and the Stone Diaries; Graham Greene's Burnt Out Case and The Power and the Glory; Julian Barnes' Sense of an Ending, and John Irving's The Prayer of Owen Meany; Morris West's The Navigator and A S Byatt's Possession: Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Bernard Schlink's The Reader; Thomas Kennealy's Schindler's Ark and Vikram Seth's An Equal Music; Bernard McLaverty's Grace Notes and Helen Waddell's Peter Abelard; Salley Vickers' The Other Side of You and Miss Garnett's Angel;Gail Godwins Father Melancholy's Daughter and Evensong.

All of these I remember without getting up from the desk to check; they are books that even if you give them away, they stay with you. The best stories, insinuate themselves into our way of thinking, and dissolve into that inner ethos out of which we live our lives, more or less wisely. Good novels slowly adjust mindset, develop our relational literacy, educate and exercise jaded conscience and moral imagination, and eventually germinate and produce outward fruit from those inner seeds scattered on the varied soil of our minds. And some of that seed falls on good soil. 

Salley Vickers latest novel, The Cleaner of Chartres does most of these things. It too is a story that seeps slowly into the clefts and crevices of a mind made arid by too much work stuff, and like the benign drizzle on a Scottish hillside, gently but persistently soaks the soil and encourages renewed growth and recovered vitality. It was a great book to read leading up to Christmas. Agnes, the foundling child, grows up with a legacy of guilt, unhappiness, shattered trust and the kind of brokenness from which a person only recovers through immense courage and the risk of trusting again despite all evidence to the contrary, and through the generous humanity of those whose vocation in life seems to be to believe the best about others and subject gossip and accusation to an hermeneutic of suspicion grounded in goodwill.The human positives of motherhood, love, community and friendship, as often in Vickers' writing, are never allowed to be eclipsed by so much else that seeks to diminish human hope. No need to relate the plot or expound the characters. Just get it and read it.

I am more convinved than ever that pastoral theologians need to read novels with the same theological alertness as the usual practical theology syllabus. Next time I teach Pastoral Theology one or other of Salley Vickers' novels could well be a set text for a critical review and theologically reflective essay.

Poetry, Stained Glass and Being Content with the Inexplicable

Wit Wonders

A God and yet a man,

A maid and yet a mother:

Wit wonders what wit can

Conceive this or the other.

 

A God and can he die?

A dead man can he live?

What wit can well reply?

What reason reason give?

 

God, Truth itself doth teach it.

Man’s wit sinks too far under

By reason’s power to reach it:

Believe and leave to wonder.

(Anonymous – 15^th C)

Joseph kept these things and pondered them in his heart....

The incarnation of our Lord lies at the heart of Christian faith. When the arguments for and against virgin birth have been faithfully spoken and honestly heard, there remains a residue of truth, a core of mystery not amenable to explanation. A small part of that mystery is the faith of Mary who was able to say, 'Be it done according to your will,' and the faith of Joseph prepared to live with consequences he had no way of foreseeing. Clustered around the divine miracle of annunciation and incarnation are a number of smaller miracles of human trustfulness and openness to the coming of God. Perhaps we can be helped in our appreciation of such miracles of faith if we do a little reverent prying into the emotional rationale behind Joseph's reaction to Mary's own disturbing annunciation.  

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Joseph kept these things and pondered them in his heart.......

 

Every time one of our old Rabbi's conducts a betrothal, or a wedding ceremony he tells the joke about the angel who gives just one wish. He told it at our betrothal reception, when Mary and I got engaged.

One day a man did an act of great kindness. As a reward he is visited by an angel." Heaven has sent me to reward you. Whatever you want done, heaven will grant."  After thinking carefully the man said " Build me a bridge  from Jerusalem to Rome so I can visit my family  whenever I want to without going the long way round."

" Wait a blessed minute ", said the angel. "Have you any idea what that costs?  Fifteen hundred miles of bridge! Even angels have to stick to spending guide-lines and work within the constraints imposed on the miracles budget. Choose something else. Give me another option. " The man replied, " O.K. Help me to understand how a woman's mind works." After much thought the angel asked, "How many lanes do you want on your bridge?"

The rabbi told it as a joke. But hard as I've tried, and long as I've thought, I still don't understand the mind of Mary. What she thought, and what she felt about what happened to her, and what it did to us. I didn't understand why Mary disappeared for three months to visit her cousin Elizabeth. I didn't understand when she came back and said she was three months pregnant.  I didn't understand when she said " I've never been unfaithful.  The baby is God's gift."

I didn't understand why she, the woman, should be the one who got to decide on the name. I couldn't believe her story about being visited by an angel, who told her that, of all the women in the world, God had chosen her as his point of entry into human affairs,  I didn't understand, and I don't understand, in fact, I'll never understand how a virgin can be pregnant.

What I did understand, was that the Mary, who was promised to me, now belonged to someone else. What I did understand, because I'm not just a man, I'm a just man, was the need to protect Mary, from public shame and legal penalty.  What I did understand  was that our future stops here. No marriage! No shared joy! No family! Just this unwanted pregnancy forcing us apart. And what I did understand, and felt fully, unflinchingly, was the sense of opportunity lost, grief at the wasted possibilities, the certainty our dreams had ended.

 

But the dreams weren't ended! I thought, just like the just, sensible, unimaginative man I am, I thought, I'll deal with this rationally, quietly divorce her, and get on with my life. Still, before doing anything I decided to sleep on it!  But it wasn't a slumberland sleep. It was restless, anxious sleep; my mind and body tossing and turning. in synchronised uneasiness. Then through my confusion and hurt a shining clarity.  Interrupting my scheming and dreaming,  a voice,  that shook my whole being awake. An angel, not like the one in the rabbi's joke. He didn't ask  me what I wanted more than anything. Not that it would have mattered.  I wanted the one thing I could no longer have...Mary, uncomplicated, faithful, understandable Mary. Mary before all this angels and God nonsense.

But before I could think of what to say, the angel spoke. "Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus."  I no longer doubted Mary. But what it must have meant for her, what it does to a woman to have others question her integrity as a woman,while all the time she is being faithful to God by receiving the gift of the Almighty. That I have not, cannot understand.

 I don't understand how Mary, carried the burden of truth, that she would mother God's son. I don't understand her openness to God, her obedient humility, or her determined yes to the purposes of God. Like the child she carried, she nurtured and nourished the truth of God's loving purposesfor us and the whole world. I don't understand the ways of God, not even when angels tell me.

In my dream a deeper reality than I ever imagined had come close to me;  And in Mary, the deepest reality of all was coming true. God coming close to the world in an inconceivable conception. God with us, love made flesh, borne and born through Mary.

The Rabbi's joke about bridges and a woman's mind? To unimaginative, rational patronising men,perhaps understanding a woman is miracle enough. But when it comes to bridges, through the faithful intuition, the imaginative love, the trustful yes of a woman, God built a far, far bigger bridge than a Jerusalem to Rome flyover.; the promised bridge between heaven and earth, through the faith of a woman, and the birth of a baby.  That's a miracle of love that exceeds all budgets, and like much else in this story, I’ll never understand it.  But I’ll sleep on it.

The Shalom Tapestry and Shalom as Vocation.

The Shalom tapestry is coming along slowly.

          Peace Haiku

     Shalom comes slowly,

     each stitch hand-crafted  prayer,

     for mercy, peace, love.

For a couple of months now I have lived with the form and the content of this beautiful strange and life-enhancing word. The quest for shalom means seeking well-being of heart and body, discovering energy and resilience to live faithfully and creatively for God, receiving from the Holy Spirit the freedom to trust our imagination to envision healing and wholeness and justice for our world.

This small  tapestry (4 inches by three) is part of a bigger project. When finished it will be the small panel at the bottom of a larger, brasher celebration of Shalom based on rainbow colours. Working with these Hebrew characters, and the English letters in the larger panel, is an experiment in contrast, construction and compassion. This small panel is entirely impressionistic. I love the sound of the word Shalom – the threads impossibly try to give sight to the sound as I say it or hear it spoken; the colours depict mood which you may rightly say is likewise impossible, but the attempt is still important; sometimes while working it I listen to music, carefully chosen music. So reader, what music should be played when stitching Shalom?

During the last two months of stitching Shalom I have prayed for Malala Yousafzai and Afghanistan; for Palestinian people and Jewish settlers; for children, teachers and families in Newtown Massachusets, and for children and families in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan; for people close to me struggling with the life they are living or trying to survive, and for others I hardly know but whose hurt makes prayer and work for Shalom both an enacted imperative and an essential attribute of spiritual integrity.

To seek Shalom and pursue it, to be a Shalom maker, to recognise again the words of Jesus ‘my Shalom I leave with you’, to lie within reach of and to trust the Shalom that passes all understand ding – not a bad way to live really, or to really live.And during Advent to share the longings of millions for peace on earth and mercy mild....

Coffee, Loyalty Cards and Christian Discipleship?

In the space of two days -

Went into Marks and Spencers for a coffee - presented the loyalty card and got a free coffee.

Went into the UWS Canteen for a coffee - presented the loyalty card for a free coffee next time.

Went into Cafe Nero for a coffee - presented the loyalty card and got a free coffee.

Went into Costa at Waterstones - nobody mentioned loyalty card. Might not go back there!

As an habitual theological reflector I sat and thought about the profound implications of retail adultery, indeed retail promiscuity.

Just how many people can you be loyal to for life, if those people are competitiors and rivals?

And is loyalty conditional on reward or should faithfulness be that which we give to those we value, love and want to be with?

Are some loyalties limited and non-exclusive of others, and if so what does it mean to be loyal if there is, to put it nicely, a clash of loyalties - presumably someone gets dumped?

In Theistic terms, a Monotheist is faithful and loyal to one God, whereas a Henotheist is faithful to one God at a time, and can therefore be a serial monotheist. A matter of personal convenience and expediency which sounds like the kind of religion just made for consumers.

In ethical terms, is the loyalty card an invitation to a monogamous relationship, or an incentive to self interest? If so is it really a bribe which allows both retailer and consumer to benefit, to the exclusion of others?

In human terms, there is the comedy of standing at the till, flicking through the wodge of loyalty cards to find the right one, and the barista waits patiently because there's nothing new here - just customers after a free coffee, a good deal, and doing what everyone does.

These are reflections of a coffee drinking theologian wondering if churches should issue loyalty cards.

And then remembering that maybe that is what Baptism is -

a lifetime act of loyalty and only one card,

and at the Eucharist, every time, the bread and wine are free.

Because the card is stamped, the heart is given,

we love Him because he first loved us,

we are no longer our own but are bought with a price,

water has become wine,

bread is broken and we are fed,

and there are still twelve baskets full.

If any one will come after me,

let them deny theirselves,

take up their cross,

and follow me.

For what are we advantaged

if we gain the whole world,

and lose our own soul?

 

 

 

What does comfort look like?

It is one of the gifts of art and image that words are compelled to recognise their limits.

What does "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" look like.

It looks like this.

Baptist History, Baptist Identity and Baptist Humility

C S Lewis, the Christian popular apologist, in an essay, On Reading Old Books, accused those impatient with history of being guilty of chronological snobbery.  The Prophet Isaiah dealt with a different problem, chronological amnesia. Speaking to the people of Israel about their exiled loneliness and dislocation, disorientation and spiritual confusion, Isaiah urged them, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn”.  By which he meant study the past, find there clues to understand the present and give imaginative energy to create visions for the future.

History can be boring, mind numbingly, soul sappingly uninteresting. By definition it deals with what is past. It has a crisis of relevance in an age of fast, immediate and instant. In a pragmatic can do world the crudely utilitarian question what is the use of history asks precisely the question history can only answer if it is, indeed used.

Historical precedent, the perspective of another age, and the keeping alive of cultural memory, are essential strands in human knowing. Learning with a humility given backbone by intellectual integrity, and fuelled by curiosity, history helps us come to understand who we are by answering first, how, why and when we got here; what is our place in the world; and then to recognise the reality and dignity of others whose history is different from ours, but with whom we share a common humanity, in theological terms the image of God.

The history of a Christian tradition is what gives it roots, explains its distinctive and peculiar identity, and places its followers in the broader context of Christian tradition and cultural change. Such self- reflection gives us a sense of humility, a critical openness, and makes our voice worth hearing. It also makes other voices more obviously worth hearing, and attending to with a listening spirit.

When we understand our own story, with critical faithfulness and the wisdom of hindsight, we can then acknowledge the validity and integrity of other people’s faith story, those whose history makes up another tributary in the river system of the Christian tradition. Baptists have a history, or should we say there are Baptist histories. Britain, the United States, Europe, and Russia, each have their history. Amongst the distinctives of Baptist spirituality is a passion for religious liberty, a profound sense of the sovereignty of the individual conscience before God, and an historic aversion to all forms of external compliance in matters of belief and worship.

In times when Baptist Identity is either a contested series of questions, or a denominational irrelevance in a post-modern world impatient with particularity, it is imperative for the integrity of a Christian tradition that its adherents know who they are, understand the source of their convictions, and be visibly committed to the living practice of a tradition which is essential to the overall wholeness of the Christian witness of the Body of Christ, the Church.

Baptist is not a pseudonym for Evangelicals who happen to immerse believers, nor is it a euphemism for a generic evangelicalism, and it isn't a vaccuous denominational label either. It is a description of a specific way of being Christian; it is christologically centred, rooted in the life and mission of the Triune God, earthed and embodied in a community of believers committed in covenant faithfulness to discern the mind of Christ together.

Our history is chequered and splintered; our story is still being written and told; the witness to which Christ calls us remains a vital and vitalising discipleship of faithfully following after Christ. Only as we cherish and value our own tradition, explore and reflect critically on how far we have been faithful to Christ's calling, and listen carefully to what the Spirit is saying to us, only then will we be humble enough to listen with the same receptive care and an appropriate respectful questioning, to those other followers of Jesus in other Christian traditions. And then we will learn, and be enriched, and pray God, perhaps bring some gift of our own to an already laden table.

Robust Questions, Rude Interruptions and the Lost Art of Courtesy.

In the space of three minutes my quietly begun and enjoyable day was derailed by Radio 4. I listen to the Today programme most mornings, often with a mixture of interest and irritation. The irritation is usually at the aggressive, rude, badgering approach to interviewing; an obsessive admiration on the part of the intrerviewer for playing the devil's advocate, undermining the person interviewed and demonstrating to the audience how clever, ruthless and cynically correct the interviewer is. A week or two ago Lord Falconer demolished John Humphreys wall of shoogly words and opinionated self assertions.

This morning it was reported that the RSPCA had successfully prosecuted members of a a fox hunt, located in David Cameron's balliwick. They played sound footage of the hunt and the kill, then reported the judge as saying the fact the RSPCA had spent in excess fo £300,000 bringing the prosecution was 'staggering', heard one of the guilty ridicule the RSPCA for wasting so much money on prosecuting such behaviour, and then Justin Webb interviewed the chief executive of the RSPCA.

Take time to listen to it on IPlayer. In it Webb is biased, rude, cajoling, deaf to any answer he is given, loud in making his own opinion heard, and an utter failure as an interviewer. That is, if an interviewer is there to enable intelligent comment, question where that comment is unclear, and generally be present as the facilitator of a discussion the public might want to listen to. Webb seemed to operate with an hermeneutic of suspicion, assuming the chief Executive of one of the oldest charities in the land was an evasive power mongerer out to prove a point, or a sentimental fool who thought £300,000 was not a ridiculous price for a fox.

First, as was pointed out between rude interruptions, the RSPCA was upholding the law of the land, and by the way when it comes to fox hunting it is, quite literally, the law of the land.

Second, the Crown Prosecution Service have repeatedly and habitually  rejected such cases due to lack of evidence. This time the RSPCA gathered the evidence and brought the prosecution itself.  The defendants didn't even contest the charges and pleaded guilty.

Third, Webb made no concession to the point, made several times by the interviewee having to speak above the hectoring of Webb, that the fox hunters were deliberately and knowingly breaking a law they didn't agree with. A Standard Grade in citizenship would teach any of us that such a precedent of selecting which laws we agree with and only obeying them would be, well, socially inconvenient and legal nonsense!

And finally, for now, the RSPCA is older than the police force in this country. Was founded to prevent cruelty and protect animals from needless or deliberate suffering, and as such is an important expression of our humanity, care of creation, and responsibility to all other sentient beings on this planet.

Justin Webb's lack of respect, common courtesy and professional skill as a prime time interviewer leaves me, to use the words of a certain Judge, 'staggered'. A highly professional CEO of a charity deserves better than such cheap baiting and uninformed opinion badly disguised as robust intelligence.

I was brought up on farms in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire. I've seen the damage foxes do on farms in the countryside. Farmers hate them, and have little compunction in killing them. They are not my favourite animal either. But fox hunting with hounds has been defined as a practice that causes unnecessary suffering and banned by law, along with hare coursing and badger baiting. Is a fox worth £300,000? What price do we put on cruelty, inflicted suffering, and the blatant ignoring of the law by the socially privileged? Not one word, not one, from the interviewer acknowledging the values that lie behind these questions, and that underpin the work of the RSPCA.

Oh. And to Justin's jibe that people don't give to the RSPCA to see the funds used in pursuit of such cases, in the words of the Panto audience, "Oh yes we do".

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Update - the following complaint has been submitted online by me to the BBC.

Full Complaint: Justin Webb from the start of the interview was hectoring, sceptical and biased. Repeated interruption and confrontational tone made it difficult to answer or correct Webb's bias and uninformed comment. The lack of respect and courtesy shown to a spokesperson of a leading charity was embarrassingly obvious, and unacceptable. The key question of law-breaking was drowned out by questioning the judgement of the RSPCA to fund and pursue prosecution.The issue of the CPS declining to pursue previous charges was likewise swept aside. No recognition in Webb's questioning that law breakers should be prosecuted, instead blame for the RSPCA for using charitable giving to bring the case. The claim that 'the public' would resent their money gifts being used for such a purpose is unfounded, and an unfair criticism of a judgement based on previous experience of CPS responses. The setting up of a fighting fund for such cases was likewise rubbished by the interviewer, despite the clear explanation given. This in the context of a prosecution for animal cruelty, by pursuing a sport now outlawed and defined as a cruel sport. Why on earth would the RSPCA not bring the case? The comment of the judge in the case, which was used to set up the discussion was itself tendentious. An interview ought to clarify issues, allow viewpoints to be heard, weigh evidence in an exchange of views, and this in an ethos of courtesy, respect and intelligent listening, by interviewer and audience.