Living Wittily

Category: Current Affairs

  • The blade of the plough…….

    Swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks. Military hardware recycled as agricultural implements, personal weapons reshaped into horticultural tools. The African-American spiritual, ‘Aint gonna study war no more’, protests the use of human ingenuity and creativity in the art of war, as if there were such a thing as an aesthetic of killing. Instead to lay down the burden, down by the riverside, and cultivate, nurture, harvest and then feed, nourish, share – to rehumanise (new word?).

    File0119_2 The poet Daniel Berrigan, one time friend of Thomas Merton, grew up in a farming family. I learned that by reading his meditations on Isaiah 2 in his book Isaiah. Spirit of Courage. Gift of Tears. Most of the chapter he works away at thinking through what it means to beat swords into ploughshares. And he makes it personal by recalling his own childhood experiences of ploughing with his father. Several sentences triggered deja vu in my own memory and experience – I was also brought up in a farm labourer’s family. My father was a dairyman and ploughman – the picture shows him ploughing in the early 1950’s – with my mother,(I’m sitting on her knee!) and my brother (standing at the edge of the field)watching the world, and the horse, go by. So when Berrigan describes the tranformation of soil through ploughing the images resonate deep in my memory of childhood, my love for my father, and make me long for a more innocent time – except by the 1950’s, the last decade of horse drawn ploughs, nuclear weapons were the holy grail of post-war governments desperate to possess the ultimate deterrent.  Here is Berrigan complete with American spelling:

    Each spring I stumbled along after the plow as my father turned the earth, one furrow upon another. A sense of new life, damp, permeating, haunted with presences, arose in the mild air, so welcome after a killing north-country winter. I imagined that giants of the earth were turning over in sleep just before awakening. Or I thought of the furrows as great coils of rope, weaving, binding all things in one; earth and season, furrow and family, the horse plodding along, the planting, the harvest to follow, my father and me. It was all one. The blade of the plow wove the garment of the world.

    I love that last sentence: The blade of the plow wove the garment of the world. Swords into ploughshares. Work that ‘rehumanises’.

    Stuart has a characteristic word at the barricades, on the prophetic relevance of that short text for today (and I mean today, Saturday the 24 of February, the date for anti-war protests). See here. I’m blogging at hopeful imagination next Wednesday (Feb 28), on precisely this text, Isaiah 2.2-5. I’ll post the photo of my father there too; such human, humane labour, weaves the garment of the world…., and whatever else dad was, he was a man of the soil.

  • Humankind cannot bear very much reality. (Eliot)

    Ukbb4vid An English College is trying to attract adults back into education by offering a course on BB – yep, Big Brother.  The cultural impact, the significance of celebrity, the nature of vicariously enjoying other people’s fear, aggression, verbal wrangling, psychological warfare, alliance making, mickey taking, the whole package of what is ironically called Reality TV. Put that term into a search engine and you will come up with scores of articles from Time, New Yorker, a whole cluster of respectable broadsheets, offering serious social and cultural comment on one of the most powerful media developments in years. And now you can do the course.

    The attraction of Reality TV, Big Brother, Temptation, Pop Idol, I’m a Celebrity etc, is explained by cultural commentators in various ways. Fascination with the psychology of trust and betrayal, a voyeuristic interest in other people’s problems, desire for status and fame being nurtured by watching unknowns suddenly become famous, or infamous – depending on the article, and the vested interests of the writers, you takes your choice.

    Made me wonder though, what does a church that believes in the reality of Jesus, have to say to a culture and its people, saturated in manufactured experience, fascinated by lives not their own, absorbed into the world of cctv video-gossip and relationships driven by the desire for audience approval? Would it be possible to win BB without being selfish? Could you survive if you acted in the best interests of others? Is truthfulness and sincerity an assett or a liability? How far does big brother dehumanise relationships by pushing contestants to forms of rivalry that require calculated alliances and personal betrayals? And what is taking place when BB creates a context of proximity to others and invasive spying from the outside – for one thing a worldview in which every ‘other’ is a rival for the prize.

    Maybe the first thing the church is able to offer our culture is an unembarrassed sense of moral realism (NOT MORALISM) – all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Why be surprised by the relatively mild form of sinfulness that can be exposed by Reality TV? Maybe sin is one of the few truths that reality TV does accurately portray. Our original sin of putting self at the centre of the universe; the sin of Cain, jealous of his brother; the human capacity to dehumanise others who are a threat to our purposes and ambitions; our love of approval, even if it is bought by fundamental dishonesty……. and so on.

    But a second offering from church to our culture is evidence of communities where we seriously resist all that makes Reality TV so precisely accurate in its portrayal of post-modern self absorption.  Yes, I know, post-modernity is resistant to any concept of the self – but in reality, the less sure we are that we have a self, the more frantically we go searching for who then we really are.

    300pxchrist_of_saint_john_of_the_cross Whatever else the cross of Jesus means to the Christian, it is the place where we truly discover who we are, who God is. And there we discover too, that the reality of God and the reality of our sin, are taken into the deep purposeful love of God and we are given back the self God made us ( and is making us) to be, in Christ.

    For freedom Christ has set you free – stand fast therefore in the liberty of Christ! In that freedom, there is created space for love, capacity for compassion, energy for peaceable peacemaking conversation, commitment to forgiveness, joy in the other’s blessing, celebration of the other’s gifts, defence of the other’s worth – now that is reality. But whether it would make peak viewing……..?

  • Lead-free bullets……

    Bulletl_175x125 A friend has paid a gift subscription for me, for the Reader’s Digest, for over 20 years. The late Murdo Ewan MacDonald, pioneer in securing practical theology a place at the academic round table at Glasgow University, once referred to it as "that saboteur of the modern intellect". But now and again, by accident or intent, it gets it right. One of its snippets illustrates the ethical ambiguity, rational dexterity, logical inconsistency, dubious ecology, theological illiteracy, philosophical stupidity, social irresponsibility, technological rapacity….och I’ve ranted long enough – just read it…………. and laugh………., or weep.

    A pressure group poured scorn on BAE Systems after it emerged that the defence company was developing "environmentally friendly" munitions – including lead-free bullets.

    The Campaign Against Arms Trade called the move "laughable". But BAE Systems said it was not embarrassed about its efforts or by a statement on its website that "lead used in ammunition can harm the environment and pose a risk to people".

  • Hauerwas 9:the power they pretend to possess

    P_hauerwas0014_2 Matthew’s story about Herod, John the Baptist and Herodias is the only story in this gospel which does not involve Jesus. And Hauerwas is alert to the political realities of power in his reading of a petty tyrant’s cruelties and insecurities. The connection between political power and popular approval is dangerous – for tyrant and oppressed.

    "Matthew has described the insecurity of those in power who depend on the presumption of those around them; that is, they must act in a manner that assures those they rule as well as themselves that they possess the power they pretend to possess. The powerful lack the power to be powerful, which means that they live lives of destructive desperation. That desperation, moreover, often results in others paying the price of their insecurity". (page 138).

    Intended or not (and knowing Hauerwas, I think it is) that is an incisive comment on the recent history of Britain and America, our leadership and their policies. Leaders trying to "assure those they rule that they possess the power they pretend to possess".

    The next story, the feeding of the crowds, has the same political critique. Jesus feeds the hungry out of compassion, and because they are hungry. Herod feeds those who are not hungry as a way of showing his power and buying their favour. Jesus’ feeding of the hungry is an alternative politics to that of envy, greed and purchased popularity. How exactly the story fits the current news, eh?

    "Those who would be Jesus’ disciples need to learn how to feed the hungry in a manner that charity does not become a way to gain power over those who are fed. There is a violent and nonviolent way to feed the hungry". (Page 139)

    It is interesting, and spiritually astringent, to read a commentary on the gospel which is so outspokenly frank in its commentary on the kind of world Jesus calls us to confront, subvert, love and feed…. a world of Herodian banquets and hungry crowds.

  • bewilderment fatigue

    In a recent post I mentioned (tongue in cheek) the Blessed John Reid, who has given us such bon mots as ‘Not fit for purpose’ and ‘Get it! Recent mismanagement of Home Office remits has put one of the most durable and varied political careers of recent years in serious jeopardy. Now I can’t begin to make sense of how and why so much has gone wrong – and like most others I am suffering from bewilderment fatigue, that rare but serious condition when the mind has been exposed to so much incredible nonsense and self-contradictory claims, that it resigns itself to accepting nonsense as the norm.

    I suppose what I’m trying to do is make sense of something like this –

    • prisons are in short supply, overcrowded, and in crisis (all agree)
    • too many people are being imprisoned for offences better dealt with by alternative sanctions such as community service, tagging or fines ( some, perhaps most agree)
    • the Home Secretary is obliged and expected to keep the judiciary up to date with the current position, and to remind of guidelines about appropriate sentencing (some agree, but it seems some judges don’t)
    • the judiciary is independent of government, and due legal process is expected to operate beyond political interference ( all, or at least most, agree)
    • so why have some judges acted on the Home Secretary’s reminder as if it were an order they had to obey – and in doing so have used the independence of the legal process to make a political point by acting as if they were not independent, which they are free to do because they are independent.

    See what I mean, bewilderment fatigue!

    Cd746_royal_courts_l That a judge who could have detained a man convicted of serious offences involving child pornography, chooses not to in response to the Home Secretary’s memo, is, it seems to my less complex mind, an abuse of the independence of the judiciary. If the appropriate sentence is custodial, and that is what the law requires, surely the availability of a place is a secondary and practical problem – the primary obligation is that a law intended to safeguard the public (in this case children) should be upheld. Had the judge in question imposed a custodial sentence, that would have upheld the independence of the judiciary. Instead, the judge chose to make a statement – by acting as if he were not independent of political pressure.

    Or have I missed something?

  • Money! Money! Money!

    Sq351 I’ve been thinking about money – for the purposes of this post multiply the Scottish pound note by approximately 128 million.
    The following three headlines appeared on The Glasgow Herald website. One speaks of ‘record starting salaries and unprecedented competition’; the second suggests £128 million is incidental to a footballer’s lifeplan; the third comes on top of reports of record debt amongst Uk consumers.
    Graduates are set to earn record starting salaries when they leave university this summer but face unprecedented competition for the best jobs, research has found.
    Former England captain David Beckham has denied his £128 million move to the United States is purely for money, saying he wants to boost the game’s popularity.
    Homeowners were dealt a New Year blow after a shock decision by the Bank of England to raise interest rates for the third time since August.
    Away from the headlines was another piece of news with financial implications:
    Scotland’s manufacturing industry received a massive blow last night with the loss of 650 jobs at NCR’s Dundee plant.
    I have to say the money link was easy enough to make. And my unease came closer to distress listening to David Beckham’s disclaimer followed by the bewildered anger of hard working folk who feel they’ve been sold down the river (Tay, Danube?). Decades ago Abba inadvertently gave us lines of prophetic satire 
    I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay
    Aint it sad
    And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
    Thats too bad
    In my dreams I have a plan
    If I got me a wealthy man
    I wouldnt have to work at all, Id fool around and have a ball…

    Money, money, money
    Must be funny
    In the rich mans world

    There’s something linguistically ironic about ‘bread’ being a slang term for dough, sorry money. ‘Human beings shall not live by bread alone, but by the words that come from the mouth of God.’ And anyway, said Jesus, ‘What does it profit any person, to gain the world and lose their soul?’ Jesus wasn’t against wealth, he just understood it better than us – he also understood us better than us – that part of us so easily tempted to equate security and happiness with the bottom line.
    Is my unease, sadness, and simmering anger only the politics of envy, or do they stem from the feeling that the politics of Jesus inevitably give rise to such an accusation? How do we effectively call in question the set-up of a society where the bottom line is such a lethal economic weapon, and such a powerful economic motive? I don’t feel informed enough, or competent in economics to explain the decisions of the management of NCR, the inflationary fears of the Bank of England, or the ludicrously lucrative footballer contracts – not in business terms, anyway.
    Theological ethics is something else. There is something unsettling about the fact that money can be so corrosive of our humanity. If you get £128m over 5 years are you a person or a commodity? If you have to fight in the marketplace of ‘unprecedented competition’ for a job are other people to be seen as opponents, rivals, threats to our life aspirations? On the other hand, what does it do to a person’s sense of worth and human purposefulness, to feel lied to, used, and then disposed of to protect the bottom line?
    ‘Two things I ask of thee; deny them not to me before I die:
    Remove far from me faleshood and lying:
    give me neither poverty nor riches;
    feed me with the food that is needful for me,
    lest I be full and deny thee and say ‘Who is the Lord?’,
    or lest I be poor, and steal and profane the name of my God. Proverbs 30.7-9.
    A good prayer – wise sentiments – but the cool realism of the sage needs supplementing with the radical outrage of the prophet. "Selling the needy for a pair of trainers", "trampling on the heads of the poor", "the notable people of the foremost nation who feel secure" – Amos, Micah, Isaiah, and Jesus, represent an alternative, less comfortable economics!