Author: admin

Praying for the peace of Cairo

The news and images coming out of Egypt are unmistakably ominous. Political forces are being unleashed that are near impossible to control and are impossible to predict. And when such a powerful player in the Arab world is destabilised the entire region becomes vulnerable. Israel's southern border is less secure, the populations of other autocratic Arab States watch closely, and the world becomes anxious as the major oil source of the Middle East is thrown into unceretainty.

But for me its the people who show us what's at stake. Faces anxious, angry, pleading for support; faces bruised and bleeding, voices crying out their aspirations for freedom, their hunger for a more just society, and whose demand for more influence through democratic processes and structures will not be easily or cheaply silenced. And which have already ended in death.

So today I pray for the kind of peace which is not the capitulation of peoples hopes to violent forces and the manipulative ugliness of a dying regime. When the nations are in tumult prayer can too easily become an asking of God to bless my amateur political solutions and act within the tiny paramaters of any wisdom I might conceivably have. I don't know how this will all end – but the God of peace who brought again the Lord Jesus from the dead is the God I believe is on the side of life, freedom, peace and reconciliation. How that might happen I don't know. So my prayers become an imaginative identification with other human beings' demands for righteousness and justice to flow, instead of tanks rolling. My prayer is that the military presence will remain a barrier to the uncontained violence that might erupt, and that the presence of tanks and guns will provide the kind of restraint that allows a just peacemaking to happen.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

4 February 2011
Holman Hunt and that picture of Jesus at the Door.

Strange, the things you discover when you're not looking for them. A year or two ago I went to see Holman Hunt's The Light of the World in Manchester Art Gallery. It isn't one on my favourite pictures, and I can understand why it was panned by the reviews and notices on its first appearance. It took a John Ruskin to commend and praise it, and Simmons and Ridgway to engrave it, print it and market it, before it became one of the most popular of all Victorian religious paintings. I suspect my own muted enthusiasm is because it has become a shallow cliche, represents an exegetical misdirection of Revelation 3.20, and tries too hard – using the word the way Jamie Oliver and other TV chefs do, Hunt "literally" tries to portray a metaphor too literally!

That said, Hunt was a remarkable artist for reasons other than his painting. Pursuing the same literalism, he spent a lot of time in the Holy Land observing and painting people, dress and customs, works in which he tried to capture what he saw, literally. Sometimes he was in hostile territory and painted with a shotgun in one hand and a brush in the other! Now here's an interesting observation by Helen De Borchgrave, A Joiurney into Christian Art: "Holman Hunt thought that by painting literally what he read in the Bible, he would be transmitting the message faithfully in paint. But truth is not literal; we see through a glass darkly. If you forget fancy, you fence in freedom and everything frays. Even Jesus, who is truth, was not wholly understood by his closest friends."

Now there's a thought for biblical literalists; and also for those interested in exegesis through artistic representation. It may be that by striving for realism, we miss the Real; that by dictating to truth how truth should represent itself, we falsify that which we most seek to verify; that by devaluing imagination and overvaluing factual observation, we miss the Spirit who leads into all truth, who takes of the things of Jesus and reveals them to the heart, and to the mind, and yes, to the imagination. Interesting that Hunt's imagination became servant to a mind grown secure in realism – Hunt's earlier work was wonderfully imaginative, conceiving fantastic images and beautiful depictions such as his Lady of Shallot. Little of that vibrancy is visible in much of his biblical work. If ever a man was captured by his one popular painting, and that still not judged to be his best, it was Hunt, who painted three versions of the Light of the World. There's probably a Phd written, or waiting to be written on what it was in that painting that touched the late 19th Century so powerfully.

1 February 2011
The King’s Speech and why I’m going to see it again

I have a friend who is a speech therapist. But though helping others speak is her job, she is much more than a speech coach. She sees her work as a vocation that involves befriending, encouraging and accompanying each of those she deals with. Many speech impediments are physiological and are helped by exercises, behaviour modification and various breathing techniques. Some are caused by trauma, psycholohgical barriers and other emotional difficulties that affect the confidence, spontaneity and social freedom to speak. But whatever the causes, the distress and personal cost of being unable to speak clearly or fluently can be all but unbearable.

Last year we were sharing in a meeting and she told the story of a child who was unable at pre-school stage to identify and make the sound of the five vowels, let alone construct and articulate words, phrases, sentences. Five years on the girl now well into primary education was able to say in class, equilateral triangle! There is something profoundly humane about a life's work helping others speak. Speech is a primary form of social exchange, of relational building, of personal expression. And those who enable and empower others to speak contribute a precious gift to people like that child, and equally provide one of the most valuable services within our education and health services.

Last night we went to see The King's Speech. Plenty of reviews are available about how good this film is. Most of them are not overstating the achievement of Colin Firth in his portrayal of a proud, self-conscious but decent man who is the son of a King, and who stammers.The speech therapist, Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush is equally convincing. relying on the experience of helping traumatised soldiers returning home and rendered incapable of speech by what they experienced. There are powerful protective walls in our consciousness that hold back what cannot be spoken. Rush brilliantly portrays a compassionate and good man.

I will go and see it again while it's still in the cinema. As a study in friendship across the chasm of social differences; as an essay on the human voice as an instrument of personal identity and social relations; as a demonstration, through close-up camera, of the human face as the window to that place from which our deepest emotions sustain or wound us; and as a portrayal of that longing to be free of what constrains and limits us that is common to every one of us honest enough to face our imperfections and struggles – as all of these and more, I think the film is a masterpiece. There were moments when it wasn't clear whether my tears were of laughter or sadness, and the truth is there are scenes that are comi-tragic and which encapsulate how hilarity and burden intermingle in the life we all have to live.

30 January 2011
The Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds

Driving along Hutcheon Street in Aberdeen, Sheila looked up and saw a carved crest on a building and we spent the time sitting at the lights trying to decipher it. Eventually we got it between us. The Loyal order of Ancient Shepherds. Never heard of it. So like a good research student I made a note to google it. Here's what I found

"Shepherds Friendly started life as a sickness and benefits society, Ashton Unity, which was formed in Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire on Christmas Day in 1826. It was later renamed as the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds, "loyal" referring to the Crown and "shepherds" to the Nativity of Jesus. Its objects were "to relieve the sick, bury the dead, and assist each other in all cases of unavoidable distress, so far as in our power lies, and for the promotion of peace and goodwill towards the human race".

Now what interests me is the mission statement as expressed with the quotes at the end there. As a description of how a humane society looks out for each other it isn't bad, and it was written prior to the Victorian age. The last couple of clauses would be good filters for current Government policies and cuts and excuses and evasions and all other manner of rationalised inhumanity in the name of economics and the new God on the block who has to be served and to whom sacrifice is to be made, Deo Deficit!

29 January 2011
Offside rules, the human eye, and the human brain – oh and the Sky Sports gender bias controversy

Yesterday the big furore over the Sky Sports sacking of Andy Gray, and the resignation of Richard Keys, filled the back pages of the papers. Apart from the unpleasant suggestiveness of some comments off screen, which were then broadcast, there seems to me to be more than adequate grounds for sacking them both on the grounds of sheer gender prejudice. And alleviation or mitigation on the excuse that this was merely dressing room banter is beside the point and both ethically and culturally puerile.

But also yesterday, a research project Vrije University shows that some decisions are impossible for the human eye to call. It requires the assistant referee to be looking at two different places at exactly the same time. So a good assistant referee is likely to get 90% of the decisions right and 10% wrong. Male or female. And also, the female assistant referee in question did indeed get the crucial decision right, demonstrated conclusively by technology which she didn't have available to her.

Now would the ex Sky pundits say that men would get the 90% right but women less than that? Or are men so omnisciently endowed and so intellectually quicksilver that they could improve on the 90%? And if men are so technically and physiologically gifted of eye and brain, particularly brain, why would male pundits fall for such a spurious and prejudiced viewpoint in the first place. Don't they SEE their own prejudice? Or are they unable to interpret the rules of the game we call human life, community and respect for others?

The photo is of the assistant referee whose skill, athleticism and knowledge of the gaem, got her in the right place, at the right time and making the right judgement.

28 January 2011
Vermeer in the House of Martha and Mary

This Vermeer painting of Jesus in the House of Martha and Mary is on show at the National Galleries of Scotland.

I'm going to see it one of these days when I can find time to look, and appreciate that detailed visual exegesis through canvas, pigment and brush.

And when I've seen it and thought about it, I'll write about it.

26 January 2011
Job Centre Plus taking the Bible literally – ” To those who have not, even what they have will be taken away…”

Let's start with a Fibonacci – you know the drill now, a spiralled increase of syllables for each line so that each line contains the sum of the syllables in the two previous lines. Simple. Well simpler than what I'm about to try and explain further down! Anyway it goes like this 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 – and 55 if your are feeling silly, or have a lots to say. This time I've a lot to say!!

Job Centre Plus Fibonacci

Shout!

Rage!

Outrage!

Shout outrage!!

Job Centre Plus calls!!!

Job seekers, premium numbers.

People on benefits, made to phone 0845?

Job Centre Plus, a public sector service, diverts enquiries to premium charge lines!

Enquiries by phone about a letter intimating withdrawal of benefits cost a job seeker more than seven pounds to resolve.

Unemployed and looking for work; job seeker on minimum allowance; human being determined to maintain dignity; good citizen complying with written instructions; and costs them an eighth of their weekly income!

…….

Now the next line should be 89 syllables. And that would be really, really, silly. But since I'm trying to write coherently about a policy that makes coherence an emotional, intellectual and moral challenge, I'm going to try to write an 89 syllable one sentence essay entitled,

"The 0845 Job Centre Plus Scandal"

By definition people on benefits are low income, and in a recession there are few jobs and more and more people looking for them, and those recently made redundant, or the long-term unemployed, whether young or old, male or female, are anxious to get a chance in life, so why does Job Centre Plus claw back benefits from those enquiring by phone about jobs? Scandalous!

…..

Only when it becomes personal do we discover the hidden injustices others have to put up with, day in and day out. Someone close to me took the £7 hit for phoning, as requested, to clarify the benefits position, and phoning, as advised, about job possibilities. I did a quick internet search and came up immediately with exchanges about the 0845 Job Centre Plus racket. You can start by looking here. I'm intending to follow this up with a letter to the local MP, and to the Minister at the DWP – that would be Iain Duncan Smith who did some research while in opposition into the difficulties faced by people on the lower ends of the income scale, if I recall….. Wonder if he remembers. Of course this nonsense pre-dated the present Government – but they haven't moved to change it either.

22 January 2011
Journey by moonlight, ambushed by beauty

The drive to Aberdeen from Glasgow was a journey of two halves, or a journey of two worlds. Glasgow to Dunblane was frozen fog, a thick grey blanket of low visibility .

Beyond Dunblane the sky cleared and just about Gleneagles the full moon appeared above the hill line. Pale orange, a luminous disk suspended like a chinese lantern over Perhshire hills, creating the impossible illusion of glowing warmth on a frosty night.

Then passing Forfar the same moon reflected on the loch that is home to hundreds of waterfowl, as if an artist with a coarse hair brush had painted the surface the colour of the moon with one stroke – and decided to leave it at that.

By the time I got to Laurenckirk the magical moments were beginning to come with alarming and delight filling frequency. The moon still low over the Mearns, I looked at the new windfarm and at just the right moment the gigantic three blades were framed against the now bright cream moon. And for a brief epiphany it was the CND sign captured by heaven and earth, the moon and the mill co-operating in the sign of peace.

Finally, crossing the River Dee at Maryculter, the entire river seemed to be illumined by a thousand ripples of pale cream light, and against the background of silhouetted Scotch Pines through which the moonlight streamed with carefully controlled extravagance.

There's an enchantment that I guess is embedded in our spirits when we see such beauty, and we feel and know deep down the reverberations of our own createdness, the answering upreach of our own longing. A journey like that can change an entire perspective on life, or at least remind us that to enjoy and grow through the life we have, a first necessity is open eyed wonder at the gratuitous loveliness of the world. Tonight I gazed at the varied canvases of a night sky, painted from the palette of the One in whom is truth, beauty and goodness.

20 January 2011
The Cross in Our Context – an eye-opener for sleepy Christians!

Here's why I think Douglas John Hall is one of the most challenging theologians around. His book The Cross in Our Context, is a distillation of his three volume systematic theology. It is a passionate and compelling book, learned without being technically forbidding, and written as a forthright challenge to the church to stop lamenting the loss of Christendom and embrace again the call of God to be a community of the Cross. What that means is explored by a theologian who has spent decades teaching a theology that critiques power, empire and cultural conformity to consumerism. Here's his primary point:

If you claim to be a disciple of the crucified one you must expect to participate in his sufferings; if you preach a theology of the cross, you will have to become a communityof the cross. Anything else would represent a kind of hypocrisy. A purely doctrinal or theoretical theology of the cross is a contradiction. This theology is only authentic – only "for real" – insofar as it gives birth to a community that suffers with Christ in the world. Nowhere does Christendom difference from the New testament church show up more glaringly than in the fact that the birth of Christendom in the fourth Century C.E. brought about a species of Christianity that with rare exceptions could be practiced without any threat or hint of its being a process of identification with the one who was "despised and rejected". (pages 140-1)

Further comment superfluous.

19 January 2011
37 years on, Small is [still] Beautiful

"Call a thing immoral or ugly,

soul destroying or a degradation of man,

a peril to the peace of the world

or to the wellbeing of future generations;

as long as you have not shown it to be 'uneconomic'

you have not really questioned its right to exist,

grow, and prosper."

That was E F Schumacher in 1973, in one of the great tracts of the 20th Century. Small is Beautiful fell like a benediction on a planet slowly awakening to the dangers of greed, extravagance, exploitation, over-fishing, acid rain, deforestation, habitat destruction, over-consumption and the long term toxicity of the myth of sustainable growth. But a benediction often unheard, and as often unwanted and unwelcome. And the consequences are piling up decade after decade. In the realm of religious economics, the word 'uneconomic' is the definition of sin, and economic growth the terminology of sanctity. The economy is divinely ordered and the quest for economic production, and market growth equates to the search for the good life. And the irony is that our pursuit of economic growth is ruining life, suffocating life, extinguishing, eliminating, crowding out, diminishing, devaluing and finally buying and selling the means of life in a crazy festival of waste. Read Schumacher again – and ask what is beautiful, moral, peaceful and future preserving about the economic policies of the developed, and yes the rapidly developing world.

And pray, "Lord have mercy".

16 January 2011