What To Do?

Last night, my Dearly Beloved and I watched Andrew Denton's excellent documentary "God on My Side", screened on ABC TV. We also watched the first part of the TV adaption of Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", likewise screened on ABC. So it was somewhat serendipitous that I read this article in the current edition of Eureka Street.

I provided some comments in response to the article, provided below. However, read the article first then my comments for the proper context.

I plan to provide my thoughts the Dawkins documentary after its conclusion.

Thankyou for this interesting and timely piece.

Like many Australians, I am watching (with interest and fascination) the TV series of "The God Delusion" currently screening on ABC; and I also watched Andrew Denton's "God on My Side" last night, also on ABC.

I actually agree with you that the current surge of anti-theism is a substantial good - although I'm not sure I'd agree with you as to why. My essential feeling is that it is time that "moderate" persons of faith made it clear that the phrase "thinking Christian" (or Jew, or Muslim, or Hindu, etc) is not an oxymoron - which is essentially Dawkins' argument, inasmuch as he asserts that religion, a priori, prevents free thinking and destroys intellectual freedom.

For me, this was brought home when, at the conclusion of Denton's excellent documentary,my wife sighed rather wistfully: "I wish they'd do a film about moderate Christians to show the world we're not all like the fundamentalists".

And that, of course, is the rub; films about fundamentalists get made because they're "interesting" - that is, they are so far outside the lived experience of the vast bulk of the population as to be assured of generating a response (and, hence, commercial success). But the danger, of course, is that the fundamentalists become the sole projection of faith; just as right-wing Republicanism has, sadly, become the sole projection of US society.

And that, in turn, is why the likes of Dawkins regard religious belief as a synonym for unthinking, authoritarian imbecility.

But here's the other rub: the dilemma facing all "moderates" or "progressives" is that, in order to be true to their philosophical raison d'etre, they have to allow others the freedom they claim for themselves. In other words, if someone wants to be a fundamentalist, I have to give them the freedom to be a fundamentalist, otherwise the freedom I claim for myself is simply an illusion at best, a lie at worst.

Extremists of any persuasion don't have this problem: in their minds, they are right, and everyone else has to tow their line. But this "dilemma of conscience" can effectively cripple "moderates" and prevent them asserting themselves, lest they trip over the thin line between self-assertion and oppression. So the question is: how do "moderates" ensure that fundamentalism doesn't become the sole projection of faith, thereby adding more fuel to the anti-theist fire?

I don't have any easy answers to that; partly because I don't think there are any such easy answers; but also because I think part of the solution is to be found in the good that the current wave of anti-theism will do for people of faith. Which is to say, how "thinking Christians" (or Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists, etc) respond to the charges laid by Dawkins and co in such a way as to demonstrate the fallacy of their position (whilst at the same time recognising any legitimate criticisms they may have to make), may give those same groups an insight into how to ensure fundamentalism doesn't become the sole projection of faith.

Which brings me around to the basic reason why I disagree with you about why the present prominence of Dawkins and Hitchins is good for faith. To be honest, I am rather tired of this notion that Western culture is a bland wash of relativism or that our efforts to afford dignity and respect to competing worldviews is some fatuous ornament to liberal pluralism". On the contrary, I think that Western society is amazingly robust and dynamic, and that its attempts to facilitate multiple approaches to being is both its strength and its greatest validation. No, we don't always do it right, and yes, we must ensure that critical debate and analysis continues and that we do not meekly accept "whatever is going" in some facile gesture to "pluralism" or "multiculturalism" or even "tolerance"; neither must we turn a blind eye to the cruelties and inhumanities practiced in the name of culture, or religion (our own included) out of some misguided notion of respect. But that is a completely different thing from asserting that Western pluralist culture is suffering from some fatal malaise that Dawkins and co will help knock us out of.

In this respect, I would make two observations. 1) If we are being assailed by ennui at present, it is one that exists within faith generally and Christianity particularly. That is why the fundamentalists on the one hand, and the anti-theists on the other, are so attractive to so many: because they appear muscular, robust, alive, and this is interpreted as synonymous with intellectual or moral integrity. 2) The solution to the problem of fundamentalist monopolisation of faith, and the anti-theist critique, lies with ourselves, not in any suggestion of Western cultural malaise. We need to get our own house in order, because the fight is not between faith and a relativistic society, or between faith and anti-theist criticism: the fight is between faith as freedom, diversity, and vigour and faith as uniform, monochrome, authoritarianism.

Thanks again for this article.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case. (Finley Peter Dunne)

A Word About The Word

Last night, my Dearly Beloved and I had the very good fortune of attending a presentation by John Bell, a minister in the Church of Scotland and noted composer of hymns, who is also a member of the Iona Community.

The subject of the presentation was how we read the Bible, and how that reading affects the way we relate to and understand the Bible as the Word of God. He made the important point that the content of the Bible was originally composed by a predominantly oral-transmission society; that is, a society that was largely illiterate (from the standpoint of modern society) but which composed and transmitted stories across generations through a process of memorisation and embellishment and story-telling. The importance of this insight is that it points to the fact that the Bible is, for Christians, part of our lived history - but is too often approached from a literary (reading) perspective instead of from an oral / lived tradition perspective.

To further illustrate this point, Bell spoke about the traditions of sacred story-telling and poetry and hymn-making from the Celtic-speaking communities of the UK and Ireland, which were only written down and compiled in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many of these poems and songs and stories are hundreds of years old; some, indeed, in one form or another, over a thousand years old. And yet they have been retained and transmitted across generations by the societies in which they were retained; partly as an aspect of those societies' cultural identity; but also as a vibrant and ongoing manifestation of the life of those communities.

But what needs to be particularly remembered is that these poems and songs and stories are part of these communities' understanding of, and engagement with, the text of the Bible - as this text was transmitted orally to those communities via the media of pictorial representation or dramatic presentation. By way of example, Bell read a poem from Ireland in which a woman talks about her desire to entertain Jesus and Mary and the apostles, and describes heaven as a lake of beer from which they might refresh themselves for all eternity. In a telling phrase, Bell described poems like this as "the argument between the common people and the text" - the word "argument" being used in its original sense as a conversation or dialogue. In other words, the text of the Bible wasn't simply a "dead weight" to be passively received; it was a living expression of faith which in turn prompted and inspired their own interpretation, their own understanding of and response to the Word of God.

However, one of the outcomes of the Reformation, and the invention of printing in the wake of the Renaissance, was that the Word of God ceased being a Word that was transmitted and served as a point of discussion and expression; instead, it became a matter of "black and white", a text which existed in an unchanging - or, perhaps more accurately, in a solid - form that could only be read, not listened to. And in this regard, Bell made some important points about the assumptions among Christians that this has lead to:

• That understanding the Bible is an intellectual exercise. The point being that this assumption mistakenly believes that the intellect is the only vehicle through which the Word of God can be - or must be - understood. But as the poem from the Irish woman who depicted heaven in terms of hospitality and a lake of beer that lasted for eternity demonstrates, she was responding at a far more visceral and human level - a level that involved all her senses as well as her intellect. She was giving expression to her yearning to see Jesus and Mary and the apostles, and to incorporate the experience of knowing them into her life through the cultural and communal expressions of hospitality and the pleasure of food and drink. It is altogether beautiful and moving and deeply, intensely human.
• That we should be able to understand or "work out" the Word of God. Many Christians have a highly attuned sense of the transcendence of God, of the ineffability and mystery that is God viewed from the human perspective. And yet, when it comes to the Bible, especially if we approach it as a "text", we have this assumption that we should be able to work it out and understand it completely in all of its parts. In other words, while God is ineffable, a mystery, God's Word isn't! But of course this is absurd; partly because the humans who composed the Bible were themselves attempting to respond to, and make sense of, the mystery of God; and partly because, if "understanding" is the only point of the Bible, then it is in fact pointless. In other words, the point of the Bible is not "enlightenment" but response; it's not about "getting it", it's about how we find meaning, and how we incorporate that meaning into our lives so that God's Word becomes a lived experience.
• That people should take their Bibles to church and follow the reading instead of listening to it being spoken. Of course, Bell recognised that there were perfectly good reasons why someone might take a Bible to church and follow the reading; for example, those who were hard of hearing. But the point he was making was that, in assuming that we should "read along", we are in fact missing out on a crucial means by which the Word of God becomes a lived experience. Because the oral tradition was not simply about conveying a story; it was concerned with conveying meaning through speech, transmitting to the audience elements and ingredients of understanding and potential for response through the way the speaker delivers the text to the hearers. Cadence and inflection and all the modes and mannerisms of speech affect the outcome, affect how people will receive information and respond. But that is the very point of the oral tradition; and it is the very reason why we should listen to the Word of God, instead of merely "reading along".

In detailing these assumptions, Bell was making the point that although it is frequently pointed out to us that the Bible consists of many different literary forms, we are rarely - if ever - taught how to read those forms in a manner suited to them. More critically, we are not taught how to speak those forms or listen to those forms in a fashion that gives attention to their literary construction. Indeed, we tend to approach the Bible as though it were a homogeneous document written by the same person; as a result of which, we pass through the various literary forms in the Bible without changing our "perspective as reader". We read the poems as though they were prose; we read the historical chronicles as though they were fiction; we read the prophetic literature as though they were text books. The result is people who tend to read Scripture in one of two extremes: either in a dull monotone; or as though it were a production from an amateur dramatics society.

Bell's point is simple and important: different kinds of literature require different kinds of attention. They need to be approached in different ways and conveyed in different moods and voices. In order for the Word of God to be part of our lived experience, we must appreciate the textual diversity and richness of the Bible; we must listen to the different literary forms with a different ear; we must ditch our assumptions about the Bible and how we must approach it as God's Word; and we must view the text not as a "text" carved in stone, but as one half of an engagement - one half of an argument, a conversation, a dialogue in which both we and God are active participants, and in which we formulate and work through and live out our own response and understanding.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: The Bible is literature, not dogma. (George Santayana)

One of the Boys

I have just finished watching Bastard Boys, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's two-part mini-drama about the "docks dispute" in 1998.

I won't talk about the show itself: it has attracted enough superlatives, all of them richly deserved. Nor will I talk about the politics of the dispute, or the right or wrongs of the issues by which it was underlined: plenty of commentators more qualified than I have already undertaken this task.

What I want to talk about are my memories of that dispute - because I was there, on Swanson Dock, on the picket line. Not as one of the wharfies; but as a white collar union official, and as a citizen supporting the Maritime Union of Australia.

Bastard Boys understandably concentrates on the "headline" features of the dispute: the experiences of the MUA and its members, the motivations behind the actions taken by their employer, Patrick Stevedores, the involvement of the Howard Government in precipitating the dispute, and the courtroom machinations that eventually decided the dispute's outcome. But what went unremarked at the time and afterwards is how soon the dispute ceased being an industrial confrontation and became a community protest.

Many people felt that the involvement of the Federal Government in this dispute, and the measures utilised by the employer, represented both an assault on citizens' rights to be members of a union and not suffer prejudice in their employment, and a violation of the much-vaunted Australian "value" of a "fair go". And this was a feeling that crossed the divides of socio-economic standing, political opinion, or industrial attitude. I met many people on the docks who didn't like unions, who were politically conservative, and who believed industrial relations in Australia needed to be reformed. But they were nonetheless participating in the picket because they objected to what they regarded as the illegitimate measures utilised by the Government and Patrick. Which didn't mean they regarded the MUA and its members as benighted martyrs or innocent angels; rather, that the mechanics of Australian society had to operate on a higher plane than mere industrial flexibility or economic advantage.

I don't think either Patrick or the Howard Government expected the public to react in this way. Indeed, I suspect they thought they would be able to rely on the stereotype of portraying the MUA and its members as a small cabal of corrupt, blue-collar thugs in order to win the public-relations war. However, by being too clever by half - and by engaging in behaviour that could be shown, prima facie, to amount to a conspiracy to subvert the law - Patrick and the Government surrendered the high moral ground.

Sadly, the MUA's success in using the law against the government resulted in the union movement being hoisted on its own petard. Having gained control of both houses of Parliament at the last Federal election, the Howard Government promptly passed the so-called "Workchoices" legislation that spelled out in tortuous detail the prohibitions and limitations on union activity. In other words, the Government weren't going to take any chances of their own legislation being used against them; freedom of association was going to mean the right to not belong to a union - or the right to belong to a union that could do bugger all to help you.

But I digress. As I say, the dispute quickly turned into a community protest. And it was amazing to see the variety of people down at the docks during the long, cold nights of the dispute. Elderly men in business suits; suburban housewives; professional people; tradespeople; young folks from the city fringe; old folks from the leafy inner suburbs. There were musicians and entertainers, food vendors and first-aid workers. A barrier of twisted iron railings dubbed the "community art project". Cut down steel drums to serve as braziers, and chairs, sofas, and improvised seating for all to share.

And the atmosphere was remarkably relaxed. A general air of bonhomie prevailed; there was no drugs, no drinking, no violence; a truce been the police and the protesters had been agreed and kept by both sides. After the initial drama and anger of the lockout, the prevailing mood was of good-natured, though always defiant, resistance.

For myself, I remember two things: how cold it was at night, and how constantly exhausted I felt. The union I worked for at the time somehow managed to draw the midnight to 6am shift on the pickets; we divided into two shifts of three hours each, but that still meant getting up at hellishly early hours to be on the docks, and then having to go to work during the day. I lived at Ocean Grove at the time, down on the Bellarine Peninsular, an hour's drive out of Melbourne. I think I lived on Jolt Cola and Mars Bars, hoping the caffeine and guarana and yerba mate would keep me awake! And I don't think there wasn't a shift when it wasn't bitterly cold, and it didn't matter how close to the braziers you stood, you could never get warm enough.

Well, it was a long time ago now. The political and economic and social and financial and industrial and legal consequences of that dispute have played, and are still playing, themselves out. I only know this: that however tangentially, I was on the side of the boys, I was one of the boys. And I was proud to be so.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: It is always a minority who occupy the front line. (Major-General Orde Wingate)

Original Sin

This semester, one of the subjects I've been studying is Introduction to Biblical Text. This has been a fascinating subject on many levels, not least because it has introduced me to the depths and relevance of the pre-exilic prophets (Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, etc). However, it has also opened my eyes to some of the intricacies and mysteries of the Book of Genesis, especially concerning creation, original sin, and the story of the Flood.

Speaking of original sin, this subject has helped me to see that a close reading of the text reveals a fascinating fact: that when Eve is tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden to eat from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she actually argues with the serpent, and then makes a decision to eat the fruit based on rational criteria: its pleasing appearance, the fact that it would be good to eat, etc. By contrast, when she offers the fruit to Adam, he simply takes it and eats, without either argument or assessment.

Now this is significant, because this passage in Genesis has frequently been utilised to oppress and suppress women, to view them as the source of evil or the originators of original sin. In other words, to treat women as sub-human. The implication in all this is that it was a woman who was weak and fallen, and who was responsible not just for original sin but for all the evils of which humans are capable; by extension, therefore, women are "more fallen" then men and are "more at fault" for the horrors and hardships of the world. Thus, when a man commits some evil - especially if it involves some sexually motivated evil - a woman usually ends up getting the blame, even if only by implication or through the assumptions that undergird our unspoken prejudices.

But examination of this passage in Genesis demonstrates that this attitude is not simply unfair, it's downright wrong. The argument that a woman was responsible for bringing original sin into the world is, in essence, just an excuse to let men "off the hook". Eve argues with the serpent, then makes her own decision; Adam just does what he is told. Thus, it is Eve who displays independence of thought and strength of mind and character, and Adam who is weak and compliant. Eve is guilty, perhaps, of poor judgement; Adam is guilty of moral cowardice.

And let's face it, guys: we've been disguising and warping and covering up the fact for most of human history.

So I was delighted with the following cartoon from one of my favourite cartoonists, Wiley. I really do think it sums up the situation perfectly; note especially Eve's reaction in the cartoon. Click on the cartoon to get an enlarged image.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Original sin: the only original thing about some men. (Helen Rowland)

A Traveller's Tale

My Dearly Beloved has commenced a series of posts on her blog recalling past travelling experiences.

The first is about Italy, with some lovely photos to boot! Well worth the browse...

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Travel is only glamorous in retrospect. (Paul Theroux)

The First Hurdle

Last week, my Dearly Beloved and I were interviewed by our local church council as the first part of the process of offering ourselves to the Uniting Church as candidates for ministry. This is part of the process prescribed by the church for all those wanting to offer themselves as candidates: in addition to the required paperwork, three levels of meetings: 1) the local congregation; 2) the relevant presbytery (region); and 3) by the relevant Synod (state).

Concerning the paperwork, there's certainly plenty of it! I've jokingly told a few people that I had to fill in less paperwork when I applied for my mortgage! But we figured that would be part of the gig, so we weren't too concerned. But as for being interviewed...

Well, it's not like we were scared exactly,but it's never easy talking about yourself to other people, especially about something as personal as your faith journey - and especially not to people you know. That's one of the odd things about being honest: it's not a problem with strangers, because they're people you're not likely to see again. But people who know you also have a certain picture of you; that is, they know you through a paradigm that consists of a combination of their own impressions of you as well as your direct interactions with them. So sharing something as intimate as faith experience is always a risk, because doing so might change their paradigmatic understanding of you as a person, and thereby alter the nature of your relationship.

However, I am delighted to report that, for both my Dearly Beloved and myself, the experience of being interviewed by our local congregational council has been wonderfully affirming. The council members listened with interest and generosity as we told our respective stories, and then proceeded to ask questions that demonstrated both that they had been paying careful attention, and were genuinely desirous of knowing more about us. It was an intense, but powerful and exciting, experience.

The upshot is that both my Dearly Beloved and I have the wholehearted support of the congregational council to offer ourselves as candidates to the ministry. It is impossible to express how humbling, gratifying, and quite simply joyful it is to know that we have been accepted so completely by the council; without their interest and support, and without the encouragement and wisdom of our congregational minister, we could not even have come this far.

So it is hope and anticipation that we look forward to the next stage: the presbytery.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Meetings are rather like cocktail parties: you don't want to go, but you're rather cross not to be invited. (Jilly Cooper)

The Patron Saint of Deadlines

I stumbled across this little item somewhere in the wilds of webland, and I thought it was so apt right now, what, with assignment deadlines due and such, that I'd post it for your edification.


SAINT EXPEDITUS
Also known as Elpidius

MEMORIAL
19th April

PROFILE
Possibly legendary. Unclear whether his name led to his association with expeditious matters, or the other way around. This association led to his becoming the patron of people who had to deliver things on time.

CANONIZED
Pre-congregation

PATRONAGE
against procrastination, for expeditious solutions, of merchants and navigators (and maybe also harried university students?)

REPRESENTATION
young Roman soldier holding aloft a cross; young Roman soldier holding aloft a banner with the word "hodie"

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. (Adam Smith)

At Four 'O' Clock In The Morning...

There has been much discussion recently among my Dearly Beloved's and my circle of friends and acquaintances at our local Uniting Church congregation about a recent article in Crosslight, in which biblical scholar Marcus Borg talked about the need not to get lost in debates about whether or not the Resurrection "actually" happened, and instead to focus upon what this means for where the living Christ meets us in our lives.

I'm not going to enter into that debate right now, but I must say that Christ meeting us in our lives has been a theme much on my mind lately, heightened by the recent occurrence of Holy Week. And I guess that must have been playing on my subconscious a bit, because I've just woken up and scribbled the following lines:

The Living Christ Meets Us Here

In spirit -
in the small, secret space
where knowledge ends
and faith begins -
my Lord comes to me
clothed in death:
triumphant
living.

In flesh -
the fragile, breathing clay
where shadows sing
and darkness speaks -
my Lord comes to me
clothed in grief:
triumphant
healing.

In death -
the narrow, barren vale
where all hope ends
and prayers fail -
my Lord comes to me
clothed in regret:
triumphant
gloried.

In life -
the crowded, riven plain
where fear and fortune fight
and comfort bleeds -
my Lord comes to me
clothed in strife:
triumphant
peace.

In silence -
the open, boundless place
where mind and matter meet
and joy prevails -
my Lord comes to me
clothed in sound:
triumphant
singing.

Not great poetry, I agree, but perhaps indicative of my deeper thoughts on the subject of where, and how, and the sometimes paradoxical paradigms in which Christ comes to us in our lives.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote of the Day: We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. (Romans 6:9 - NRSV)

Breaking Up (Is A Religious Thing to Do)

I stumbled across the following at this website and thought they were good enough to share:

Atheist: The burden of proof is on you to establish the existence of this so-called "god" but I believe that if there was any such divine entity "it" would not want us to continue dating.

Intelligent Design Theorist: Our relationship bears the marks of irreducible complexity making it too difficult to explain by way of natural causes. Therefore, there the most reasonable conclusion is that we were designed to break up since things have gotten so complicated.

Calvinist: We were predestined before the creation of the world to break up according to God's good pleasure. I am, on my own power, unable to break up with you apart from the irresistible draw of God's sovereign grace which leads me to end this relationship. Those that truly break up will not get back together in the end.

Arminian: While you love me and have a wonderful plan for my life, I have the power to resist your will. If I did not, love would not be possible. For our relationship to be loving it needs to include the possibility of breaking up--something I am doing right now.

New Perspective on Paul Scholar: Rather than earning God's blessing, it is established on the basis of our covenant courtship (I asked your dad to date you didn't I?) which requires the proper response of an intentional and deliberate pursuit of marriage. Yet there is no such pursuit, therefore God's blessing on or relationship is no longer maintained.

Open Theist: I am not really sure if we are supposed to be together, because neither is God.

The Young Earth Creationist: No, I do not believe we have been going out for that long. Our relationship is only six days old and the on the seventh God rested. I think we need a rest too.

Emergent: The question if whether we are in relationship or not is mired in Modernity's obsession with propositional truth. A better a way to look at this is to enter into God's story about how he lead us together and is now leading us apart.

Catholic: Honey, I think the Virgin Mary is leading us in different directions. I think it is her will that we break up.

Lutheran: I want our relationship to continue, but first there are a few things about you that God wants to change. Here is a list of 95 that I made. What? OK, then, I guess we're done.

Episcopalian: Ummm... I'm gay.

Fundamentalist: You have tarnished the pure nature of our love by incorporating such heathen elements as "dating" and "fun." I am afraid I can no longer court you--yea, even speak to you--until you repent of this apostasy.

Mennonite: At that holiest barn raising two weeks prior to this conversational exchange, I realized as I drove you home at sunset in my best carriage, that there are other falsettos in the choir; some that art willing, with all fervent spirit, to trimmest my beard and even my eyebrows on such special occasion, and would, though it hurts me to spake this, make a more holy match.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Relationships are things we get into just to get out of the ones we're not brave enough to say are over. (Julia Phillips)

Wedding Pics

For those who may be interested, my Dearly Beloved has posted some pics from our wedding on her blog.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: A wedding is the day in a man's life when he realises that he can't face another date with a legal secretary who wants to be a night club commedienne. (Henry Youngman)

Plaster Saint

Given that constantly being original can be a tiresome burden, I have once again pinched a quiz that appeared on my buddy Caro's blog. The following represents my result:

You’re St. Jerome! You’re a passionate Christian, fiercely devoted to Jesus Christ and his Church. You are willing to labor long hours in the Lord’s vineyard, and you have little patience with those who are less willing or able to work as you do. Your passions often carry you into temptation zones of wrath, lust, and pride. http://www.fathersofthechurch.com/quiz/">Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

I have to say I was somewhat surprised - and perhaps even a little disappointed - by this result, as I certainly don't see myself as this dogmatic (and where did the guff about working hard come from??).

My Dearly Beloved, true to her usual supportive form, suggested that this quiz was in fact very like me as I am both grumpy and a bad translator from the Greek!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: A saint is a dead sinner, revised and edited. (Ambrose Bierce)

The Sound of Grace Happening

Given the season (both in terms of the calendar - Autumn, my favourite time of year - and Easter, the most profound and joyous occasion in the Christian year) I thought I'd provide a "top ten" of my favourite examples of sacred music.

1. Blogoslovi dusche moya (Bless the Lord, O my Soul), the 2nd movement from the All Night Vigil by Rachmaninov
2. Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd) by Howard Goodall
3. Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber
4. Kherumivskaya pesn (Cherubic Hymn) from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, by Rachmaninov
5. Nyne otpushchayeshi (Lord, Now Let Thou Thy Servant Depart), 5th movement from the All Night Vigil by Rachmaninov
6. Kyrie from the Requiem by Gabriel Faure
7. Credo from the Missa Aedis Christi by Howard Goodall
8. Milost mira (The Eucharistic Prayer) from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom by Rachmaninov
9. Pie Jesu from the Requiem by Gabriel Faure
10. Salvator Mundi by Thomas Tallis

Near misses and honourable mentions include: Miserere by Allegri; In Paradisum from Faure's Requiem; Svete tikhyi (Gladsom Light) from Rachmaninov's All Night Vigil; and Song for Athene, The Dormition of the Mother of God, and Elizabeth Full of Grace by John Taverner.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus: let no such man be trusted. (William Shakespeare)

In the Steps of Holy Week

This week, my Dearly Beloved and I have journeyed through a profoundly spiritual series of services associated with Holy Week.

On Wednesday evening, we walked the Labyrinth. This is a sequence of short prayers and meditations structured around Gospel accounts of the Passion, utilising the layout of a labyrinth to take participants on a journey into the significance and meaning of Easter. In particular, the participant is required to reflect on their own place within the event of the Cross, on how the acts and omissions of the various participants in Christ's crucifixion reflect the reality of their own spiritual condition.

The especial power of the Labyrinth resides in the fact that it is an intensely interior space, a time and place in which the individual is required to focus on the state of their own spirituality, and how that relates to the message of the Gospels, to their faith, and to their life as a whole. Through the use of text, space, physical props, and audio accompaniment, the participant experiences a multi-layered exploration of meaning that enables them both to reflect on their being, and look forward to the future.

Inevitably, you always leave the Labyrinth feeling both deeply humble and profoundly refreshed.

Last night, my Dearly Beloved and I lead a tenebrae service to mark Maundy Thursday, assisted and guided by our local minister. Tenebrae is a form of service in which utilises a Jewish menorah, and in which a series of readings trace the events between the Last Supper and Christ being handed over for crucifixion. At the end of each reading, one of the candles on the menorah is extinguished. The church, having began in shadows, is left in darkness.

One of the special aspects of the service was that, at the suggestion of our minister, the reading about the Last Supper was broken into just as Christ had shared the bread and wine with the disciples; at this point, the congregation were invited to live out the story of the Last Supper and participate in communion. This was a profoundly beautiful moment, enabling the congregation to experience the richness of the reading through participation, and not just the narrative of the text. At the end of the service, when the church was in darkness, we processed out in silence, amid an atmosphere replete with reflection, humility, sorrow, and - paradoxically - deep peace.

Finally, this morning, we attended the Good Friday service at our local Uniting Church. It was a rich, textured experience in which readings, performance, and multi-media were successfully employed to deliver a meaningful and moving account of Christ's death on the Cross. Of especial significance was the performance of the text, in which members of the congregation represented various people who had been present at the time of the Crucifixion - Simon of Cyrene, Barabbas, the Roman Centurion, etc - in which they all articulated the various ways in which they had failed Christ in his hour of need; an articulation that spoke to our own failings, and the manifold ways in which Christ's death supersedes these failings.

The second telling moment in the service was the minister's sermon, in which he drew upon the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, writing from his prison cell, reminded us that Easter enables us to think beyond the events themselves to the greater issues of being: life, death, faith, existential purpose. It was a sermon that reminded us of the transcendence that lies at the heart of the Easter event: that beyond the suffering of Christ, the failings of the people around him, and our own broken humanity, lies the endless and boundless grace of God, which we can never earn, but which is never withdrawn - and through which we are brought to salvation.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom; lead thou me on. (Cardinal Newman)

Score One More For The Good Guys!

My buddy Caro had the following quiz on her blog site, and I'm delighted to report that, similar to one about cynicism, I've come through with flying colours! Well, if not with flying colours, then at least a pass!

You Are 46% Misanthropic

You're somewhat misanthropic, but you're not willing to write off the human race (yet!).There's a few people you like, and even them you like at a distance.

How Misanthropic Are You?

So shame on all you folks who think that I don't like people just because I don't like you!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: A misanthrope is someone who hates other people as much as they hate themselves. (H L Mencken)

Disconnected

While travelling on public transport, especially on the train, it has always struck me how people use technology to dislocate themselves from their surrounds. On every trip I take, I am sure to see at least one person plugged into their ipod (or, in former years, a discman or walkman), even if they're doing something else, like reading a book. I recently saw a young man on the train both plugged into a walkman and playing a portable computer game.

I have often wondered about this phenomenon, about the apparent unwillingness of people to undertake a journey without somehow removing themselves from their environment. Sure, technology isn't the only way we can do this - immersing yourself in a book or a magazine or newspaper is just as effective a method as any - but there seems to me to be something particularly pervasive about the need for distance through technology. Reading a book can be just a way of passing the time on what might be an otherwise dull journey spent doing nothing more than staring listlessly out the window or over the shoulder of the person sitting opposite you. But there seems to be something about technology that enables us to not only escape our locale, but also ourselves.

This is a phenomenon I've observed in other contexts, as well. People frequently talk about getting bored easily, about needing to do something in order to feel as though their lives are being spent in meaningful activity. People speak of the need to constantly occupy themselves, as though being unoccupied might imply some sort of non-existence, some refutation to the proposition that they actually are. Descartes asserted: I think, therefore I am. But it seems to me that many people would argue: I do, I act, I behave, I experience, therefore I am.

Why should this be? At the very basic level, plugging into the ipod while sitting in a train carriage is just a particular means of getting through a tedious chore. Likewise, there are some people who are simply constitutionally disposed toward activity, whether whittling a stick or building a house. But what about the people who listen to their ipods while reading or playing a computer game? Is this just a portable analogue of listening to some pleasant background music while curled up on the couch with a good book? Or is there some deeper issue?

Take, for example, the man I saw on my recent trip to the wonderful Yarran Dheran sanctuary. There he was, striding along the walking path on a beautiful Autumn morning, surrounded by picturesque scenery - and yet he was plugged into headphones, from which I could hear tinny music blaring. Was this just a means through which he could add an extra dimension to his experience of walking through the bushland - or was he actually incapable of having that experience on its own terms? Did he need some form of technological accompaniment to mediate the sensory input of his surrounds? Or was there something much deeper, more profound at work?

I have become convinced that there is indeed something quite powerful at work in this phenomenon of self-removal. At one level, the need to be pre-occupied arises, I think, from the related fears of death and meaninglessness. The desire to be doing something meaningful - ie: the desire to avoid doing nothing - is a symptom of our inability to come to terms with our mortality. We are conscious that we only have a finite amount of time in which we will exist, and we greatly desire to ensure that it is not "wasted". We don't necessarily want to be famous or to make our mark - although, in our celebrity-driven society, in which fame (or notoriety) are increasingly articulated as the the only measures of worth, this is becoming ever more the case. Rather, we want to know that our life has not been "idle", that we have somehow been "productive" or "useful". Because we don't know what - if anything - lies beyond death, we want others to say of us that we did not "waste" our time.

Which feeds into the issue of meaninglessness. It seems to me that unless someone has "something to show" for their life, be it the conventional markers of "success" such as house, family, career or business, or more abstract indicators such as fame, reputation, status and so forth, we consider them to have lead a largely meaningless life. A person has to "make something of themselves" or "do something" with their life in order to be regarded (by others) as having "made a contribution" to the sum total of human meaningfulness. Not that I'm suggesting that complete and total idleness is a virtue; rather, that what we do is frequently driven by our fears, and these fears shape the criteria by which we assess meaning and value.

But beyond all these, I think there is a very simple malaise at work in the human psyche. The desire to dislocate ourselves from our environment, to use technology to escape from our surrounds, is, in fact, an attempt to escape from ourselves. It seems to me that so often we plug into our ipods and computers and televisions because we can't bear the thought of being alone inside our own minds for even the shortest period of time. Because if we were, we would have to think; and if we started thinking, we might start dwelling on our fears; and if we allow our fears to stir, all the insecurities and anxieties about our lives burst to the forefront of our consciousness. In other words, the desire to disconnect is the desire to avoid the fears by which we are so often driven.

I think the antidote is not necessarily to switch off all the gadgets - although I do think that perhaps less time spent plugged in, and more time spent in the dual processes of contemplation and engagement, would be both more useful and healthier, existentially speaking. More importantly, however, we need to reassess the values by which we create meaning and interpret value. To begin, we need not be afraid of thought, because it is only through thought that we can confront our anxieties. Deep reflection may be frightening, but simply running away from our fears doesn't solve the problem; our fears remain, for all that we may ignore them or pretend they don't exist. But confronting our fears also involves challenging the basis of their existence; do they actually articulate a recurring issue in our lives, or are we just allowing ourselves to be swept up in a tide of neurosis and insecurity? If the former, how do we address that issue; if the latter, how do we create a new, more healthy basis for being?

Quite often the problem is not that we have to confront our demons, but that doing so requires that we take action in response. All too often, we grow comfortable with our fears; they become like a kind of callous on the soul, familiar in their irritation. Equally as often, we allow others to tell us what we should think, or where the answers to our particular problems lie; a fact that has enabled the hugely destructive self-help industry to generate enormous amounts of money peddling easy answers and simplistic platitudes to the existentially destitute. In the former, we stay locked within the bounds of our despair; in the latter, we substitute one addiction for another.

So it's not easy, nor is it simply a matter of recognising the symptoms and responding. It is a life-long process, an ongoing experience of lived reality. But it is a reality in which we must engage, and upon which we must reflect and meditate. Nor is there a single, hard and fast way; often, the path we have to tread is solitary and difficult. But it seems to me that this is what life truly lived is all about: embracing ambiguity, engaging with uncertainty, and walking in the darkness with openness, humility, generosity and humour. For me, my twin guides are Stoic moral philosophy and Christian faith; for others, the guides will be completely different. What matters is not which particular road we walk, but whether we are prepared to undertake the journey; anything else is simply denial, and ultimately destructive.

Talk to you soon,

BB

All men desire to be elevated; but all men fail to understand that they have within themselves that which is already elevated. (Mencius)

In The Heart of Silence

On Saturday, my Dearly Beloved and I visited Yarran Dheran, a beautifully tranquil reserve of bushland in the heart of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, located at the edge of the Mullum Mullum Creek. Our visit was the culmination of a four week course in meditative spirituality in which we had been participating, and the purpose of the visit was to spend a "quiet day" of meditation and contemplation.

My first reaction was one of surprise, for I didn't even know this bushland reserve existed. I had walked the trail alongside the Mullum Mullum Creek, but I wasn't aware that it was part of a larger preserved landscape. My second reaction was one of incredulity: it was so quiescent and serene, yet the busy construction site for the eastern link freeway was a literal stone's throw away. What a marvel of serenity and space amid the crowded bustle of suburbia!

After an initial brief session of orientation, the group of which we were a part scattered to all parts of the reserve. In one hand I held a bag with a packed lunch, a Bible, a book, and some writing materials; in the other, a steaming cup of vanilla tea. It was a glorious morning, a quintessentially Autumn day: bright sunshine, blue sky, and crisp air. I wandered along one of the many trails that snake through the reserve, up hill and down dale (as it were), delighting in the scenery and the sheer, unlikely tranquility of my surrounds. Suddenly, I came to a small pool set in a deep, rock-bordered basin, its still surface covered with greenery that looked like a kind of mossy clover. With a contended sigh, I sat down on a hard, flat rock and, sipping the tea, contemplated my chosen locale.

It's hard to articulate the sense of deep fulfilment that welled up within me. Here I was, on an achingly lovely morning, sitting undisturbed in the midst of bush and birdsong. For this precious space of time, my concerns about study and finances and relationships and vocations - all the dragging paraphernalia and baggage of daily life - dissipated into the stillness and peace. Who wouldn't be overjoyed to be afforded such an opportunity for freedom, however temporary?

I opened my Bible to Psalm 23. I know this Psalm is one that is well-known and familiar; so familiar, in fact, that it might almost be considered hackneyed, as though its very lack of anonymity had drained it of meaning or richness. But for me this Psalm has always been something of a talisman, representing my understanding of God and the relation of my humanity to and with the divine. I read the Psalm through, and then re-read specific passages, thinking about them deeply. One of the meditative methods we have been examining in the course is the lectio divina, the practice of deep reading specific passages of Scripture, then re-reading them until a phrase or a word strikes the reader with particular resonance or meaning; the reader then focuses on that word or phrase, using it as the lynch post of their meditation.

Thinking about the specific passages within Psalm 23, I wrote the following:

Psalm 23, v. 1-3

Interesting that verses one and two of this Psalm should talk about the Lord leading the Psalmist beside still waters and into green fields, for here I sit beside the still waters of a pond in a place of beauty and rest. He leads me in right paths for his name's sake, reads verse three; and here I am, though I know not how I came to be here.

I think this passage reflects the unbounded love of God, both in terms of its eternal presence, and how the created order is both wonderful and good. I have often said to others that it just makes me feel glad to know that I live in a universe where such wonders exist: the majesty of mountains, the deep expanse of the oceans, trees so old they reach back to the last Ice Age, and the many marvels of the wider cosmos. I have often felt that I will always envy the generations who come after me, because of the things they will see at which I can only marvel: Jupiter rise over the horizon of Ganymede, for example, or the multitude of wonders that exist both within and beyond the Solar System. And yet I am not envious because I know that, of all the species of life on this planet, homo sapiens is the only one who can appreciate the majesty by which they are surrounded. A tree can live for 10,000 years but never appreciate its own beauty; humans, who live for scarcely 80, see all these things and are struck with awe. I know who is getting the better end of that bargain!

v. 4

Verse four talks about the rod and the staff of the Lord protecting the Psalmist from evil, even though they walk through dark valleys and places of shadow. There is an old Egyptian prayer: May God go with you and stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk. I think that life requires that we must walk in the empty places, even if only the empty places of our inner self, in order that we may find our way back into the fullness of our humanity, and into the fullness of our relation with God.

In this respect, the image of the rod and staff are of particular comfort to me, because they remind me of my childhood reading, especially Ursula Le Guin's wonderful novel, A Wizard of Earthsea. A fantasy set in an imaginary world, it features powerful wizards called mages, who carry an oak staff tipped at either end in bronze, symbols of their power. But the power they carry is not over others, but for and on their behalf. The one character in particular who still stands out in my imagination after many years was called Ogion the Silent, for he was calm and self-possessed, full of deep wisdom, who rarely used his power and when he did,only when it was needful. Moreover, the image of this silent, grave, yet gentle mage has always been for me the representation of the perfect person, whose staff - whose symbol of power - was never a threat and always a place of refuge.

I think this is the kind of refuge of which the Psalmist speaks in verse four.

v. 5-6.

I think verses 5 and 6 are emblematic of the boundless grace of God. A feast is prepared for us even though we are unworthy through sin; but the invitation to participate in that feast is never withdrawn, despite the brokenness of our nature. God's mercy and love are ever present in the subtle and majestic beauty of the created order; and no matter how often I despoil myself in sin, God's grace is never withheld. All that is required is that I respond to the invitation; that I work out my own salvation, as Paul wrote, in fear and trembling. God always keeps open the doors to salvation; all that is required is that I make the attempt to respond, so that,through God's grace, I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

When I finished thinking and writing, I was surprised to see that nearly two hours had passed. I ate my lunch and finished my by now cold tea, read a few chapters from the book I had brought with me, then just studied my surrounds. After a while, I eased into a deep meditative state, my thoughts focused on a simple prayer that we had been taught during the course: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. This simple confessional prayer is not meant to induce feelings of guilt or shame or self-hatred: it is nothing more than a profound and beautiful offering to God, a means through which we come before God in humble recognition of our brokenness, of our total dependence on God, and of God's loving grace and forgiveness. And as a focal point for meditation, it is wonderfully effective.

I emerged from my meditation after about 40 minutes, feeling refreshed and discharged of all my emotional, spiritual, and existential baggage. I read a little more, then it was time to head back and rejoin the rest of the group. We debriefed and prayed and discussed our experiences: my impression was that the day had been one of powerful and resonating grace for all the participants.

I think one of the tragedies of the modern church is that we have, in many respects, forgotten Christianity's deep and ancient tradition of meditation and contemplation. Technology and special effects, though wonderful in many ways, have all too frequently taken over from content, so that the "worship experience" has come to mean more than either the content or the purpose of worship and faith. The "buzz" too often means more than whether or not we effect and nourish the indwelling of God in our lives.

For myself, one of the disciplines of my being has always revolved around the preservation of the sacred space within myself, of the "divine emptiness" at the core of my life. Even after I had become alienated from the Catholicism of my childhood and youth, and before I became part of the community of the Uniting Church, I had maintained this struggle through the agency of Stoic moral philosophy; indeed, it was Stoicism that first enabled me to meaningfully clear this space within myself. Faith has not filled this space, but given it richness and dimension. And rediscovering the meditative and contemplative tradition of Christianity has only served to make that richness greater still.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Only in silence the word; only in darkness, light; only in dying, life; bright is the hawk's flight on the empty sky. (Ursula Le Guin)

Oh, Happy Day!

In order to get to uni, I have to take a train; and in order to get to the train station, I have to walk. It's a pleasant, fifteen minute stroll - and, this morning, made all the more pleasant by the fact that I had to wear my raincoat.

Yes, you heard me correctly: I was wearing my raincoat.

And that's because it was raining. And not just a passing shower, but a constant, gentle, soaking rain. The kind of rain for which our parched, drought-struck country has been thirsting after. Alas, by the time I made it into the city, it had stopped coming down; and didn't rain for the rest of the day, despite the skies remaining overcast and threatening. We need much more of the kind of rain that fell this morning; but, oh, what a joy to have some rain of this variety at long last.

Let's pray it continues.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Rain is what makes flowers grow - and taxis disappear. (Hal Roach)

The Heat of the Dinner Party

The other night, my Dearly Beloved and I watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? on DVD, starring Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, and Katherine Hepburn.

Aside from the fact that my Dearly Beloved described Mr Poitier as "sex on a stick", the thing that struck me most about this movie was its disarming frankness on issues such as sex and race relations. Granted, the film was made in 1967, at the height of the "swinging sixties", and granted also that matters such as sex and race relations were the point of the film, the unabashed fashion in which this film tackles these contentious subjects is both refreshing and captivating. And let us bear in mind that the civil rights movement, and the upheavals of the end of segregation, were still being played out in America at that time, leaving millions with raw and anguished sensitivities.

The plot of the film is simple enough: the daughter of two wealthy, white liberal parents returns home from a holiday in Hawaii, bringing with her a man she has met while away, and with whom she has fallen in love. Simple enough, except the man turns out to be black, a fact that confronts the parents with their own prejudice. At first, they try and pretend that they are concerned for the welfare of the young couple, and the hostility they will face on the matter of inter-race relationships. All too soon, however, it is shown that what really disturbs them is the fact that their lovely young daughter wants to marry a talented, intelligent, black man.

There's a terrific scene in which the mother (Hepburn) and the father (Tracy) are contemplating the situation. Hepburn laughs wryly and says something to the effect of: "We raised our daughter not to be prejudiced, to not see any difference between black people and white. We taught her that folks who do are sometimes hateful, mostly ignorant, but always wrong. We just forgot to tell her not to fall in love with a negro."

Of course, the difference between their pretensions and their actual attitudes is illustrated by the fact that they have a black cook/housekeeper. But it is in this character that we also get to see another dimension to prejudice. Because of all the people you would expect to be on the young black man's side, it would be the black housekeeper; and yet she is immediately hostile to him, and sustains that hostility throughout the film. Indeed, there's a brilliant scene in which she gives him a piece of her mind, informing him that she knows what his "game" is: that he is some "smooth talking" hustler looking to exploit a vulnerable and naive young woman in order to get "above himself". Her prejudice is the prejudice of learned helplessness, of accepting that there is a "natural order" to existence and that anyone who breaks the conventions of that order must be immediately "pulled into line".

The young couple are played by Poitier and Katherine Houghton. And they, too, have their failings. The daughter is to some extent quite self-involved, acting on impulse without consideration for the feelings of others, and simply expecting that they will fall in line with her plans. And Poitier, while pretending to be mindful of the sensitivities of the situation, in fact backs Hepburn and Tracy into a corner by delivering a rather self-serving ultimatum. In exploring all these foibles, the film is not being nihilistic or cynical; on the contrary, it is simply reflecting on the fact that prejudice is about more than just race bigotry - it is the assumption that other people will respond in certain ways on the basis of how we have defined who they are.

And the counterpoint that illustrates this principle occurs in the figure of the old Irish Monsignor, a long-time friend of the daughter's family. You would expect this figure to be an unreconstructed racist; afterall, the Irish in America were noted for their hostility to African-Americans, a hostility extending back to the so-called "draft riots" during the American Civil War, when Irish mobs in New York lynched blacks en masse. But it is the Monsignor who unhesitatingly and unconditionally accepts and welcomes the young couple's relationship, overthrowing the ancient stereotype; because, of course, it would have been both a stereotype and racist to have assumed he would be racist on account of being Irish.

I won't spoil things and reveal the denouement, suffice to say that Spencer Tracy delivers one of the most brilliant soliloquys in film history at the end. There is little to wonder that this film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards; what is inconceivable is that it didn't win all 10 - unlike, say, that piece of melodramatic tripe that was Titanic, and which ended up winning a swag. On a personal note, I spent the whole film looking at Spencer Tracy and thinking: "He looks like my father". Naturally, my Dearly Beloved, being the sensitive and sweet-natured being she is, remarked that Spence, in his appearance and attitude, reminded her of Yours Truly!

Postscript: One poignant aspect of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was that, in certain scenes, it was possible to detect signs of the Parkinson's Disease that was to afflict Katherine Hepburn's later years: the involuntary shaking of the head or hands. And yet she carried off the role with great poise, charm, warmth, and humour. At one stage, watching her, I said: "Gosh, she's beautiful!" And not because she looked beautiful, but because, in her character and in the signs of the disease that was only then just emerging, she conveyed the terrible beauty and dignity of life and being.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Terrific - I'm married to a combination of Spencer Tracy and Homer Simpson. (My Dearly Beloved, talking about Guess Who)

Broader Horizons?

As part of my Period of Discernment with the Uniting Church in Australia, I have been talking to my mentor about chaplaincy. I have been having this discussion with him partly because the POD is about exploring the individual's call to ministry, and what form of ministry that call may take. Ordained ministry as a congregational minister is not the only form of ministry within the church; the UCA, like most other churches, has both ordained and lay ministries to which people may be called. The purpose of the POD is to help them discern in which one of these ministries they are being called to serve.

Within the UCA, there are two forms of ordained ministry. One is the Ministry of the Word (congregational ministry) while the other is the Ministry of the Diaconate. The Diaconate is a ministry that is focused on pastoral care, and can operate both within the congregational setting and within the wider community and institutions. Some Deacons act as pastoral assistants to congregational ministers; others work within institutions such as hospitals; some functions as chaplains; and others perform a combination of these tasks. It is an incredibly rich and varied ministry.

Personally, I feel called to the Ministry of the Word; that is, to being a congregational minister. However, I am also interested in chaplaincy, and with the possibility of combining chaplaincy with congregational ministry. And chaplaincy is an interesting role, because it can be performed by both ordained and lay people; it is a role in which the ordained and lay ministries cross-over. And that is the other reason why I have been discussing chaplaincy with my mentor: because I wanted to obtain some insight into chaplaincy and how it operates from the perspective of an ordained minister; but also because I have in mind a particular form of ministry to which I feel called and for which I feel there is a very great need.

As readers of this blog will know, in a former life, I worked for a white-collar trade union; indeed, my involvement in unionism in various capacities goes back the better part of two decades. During this period, I made a number of observations:

• Working for a trade union means dealing with human suffering. This seems a somewhat melodramatic statement until you realise why trade unions exist: because the employment relationship all too often involves exploitation and/or victimisation of employees by employers. Not always, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the arts of trade unionism is knowing when your own members are at fault or not telling you the truth. But the bottom line is that no-one calls a union to tell them that everything is fine, that they are being treated properly and paid correctly. On the contrary, people call the union because they are in distress: they are about to be sacked, or are being bullied, or discriminated against, or victimised in some way, or exploited. Which means people who call the union are, at best, concerned, and frequently highly stressed. Which means being a union official is a stressful occupation.
• The union movement operates in a uniquely democratic/political environment. The leadership of unions are not appointed, like chief executives or board members. On the contrary, every three or four years, they have to face the membership, conduct an election campaign, and risk being challenged for office, in order to retain their jobs. In some unions, this electoral process extends down to the staff as well. Thus, there is a certain degree of understandable angst among elected officials about their job security and whether or not they will be challenged at the next election. Which makes the internal environment of the union intensely political, a factor which gives rise to stress and tension.
• Being a union official is an intensely thankless task. On the one hand, union officials must deal with the frequently unrealistic expectations of their members; the "wave a wand and make it alright" attitude among rank-and-file union members is widely prevalent. Over and against this is the fact that union members pay their dues to receive the benefits of membership, including competent industrial advice and advocacy. On the other hand, union officials rarely receive any acknowledgement for their efforts; you can put months or even years of your life into a member's case, only to have them walk away at the end without a word of thanks. By the same token, some members for whom you feel didn't get a good result are intensely grateful just to have someone on their side, someone to speak on their behalf. So the thanks, while few and far between, also occurs in the most unexpected places.
• Union officials suffer from being members of a "closed community". That is to say, many union officials feel unable to talk to their families and friends about what happens to them within their work as a union official because people outside the movement just don't "get it"; they don't understand the "context" in which stress and tension arise as a result of working for a union, and thus are unable to effectively act as "sounding-boards" or avenues of de-briefing. Exacerbating this tendency is the fact that the political environment within a union makes many officials hesitant to talk to their colleagues out of fear (whether justified or not) of any potential consequences for doing so. Thus, many officials simply try to "cope" without having anyone with whom they can "let off steam"or turn to in times of crisis.
• Working for a union frequently "burns out" people - for the reasons stated above, but also because union officials struggling to cope with crises or stress tend to "self-medicate"; that is, they turn to alcohol, for example, for stress relief. Which isn't to say that there is an "alcohol problem" within the union movement, or that unions are populated by sad, hopeless drunks. Rather, that in the absence of other support mechanisms, the "quick and easy" fix of alternatives such as alcohol can be a trap into which some fall, and which in the long run contributes to their sense of distress and isolation.

It is for this and other reasons that I feel there is a real and urgent need for a chaplaincy mission to the union movement. Moreover, I feel that my past experience as a union official equips me to deal with some of the cultural aspects of the union movement which may be problematic for others.

My mentor generously provided me with the details of a UCA minister who is also an emergency services chaplain;and he graciously agreed to meet me. We had a most interesting and enlightening discussion; and although I was a little disturbed to realise that, in so far as chaplaincy is concerned, matters within the church appear a little haphazard and ad hoc, nonetheless, I was able to clarify my thinking in this area. And the result is that I feel even more strongly compelled than before that I should make it part of my response to God's call to engage in some form of chaplaincy to the union movement. Moreover, I don't think that I need necessarily wait until the POD is completed, and the church indicates whether or not I am accepted as a ministry candidate. I think I need to take the initiative; I will discuss this with my mentor and reflect further.

But I feel very excited by the possibilities and the prospect for broadening horizons.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1 - NRSV)

Send in the Clowns

I went into today's Greek lesson not feeling terribly confident. Afterall, I had endured a less than ideal week in terms of study, what with various events and commitments to deal with, and relatives on both sides of the family providing very unwelcome distractions (is it too late to be adopted out?). Not that I'm offering excuses; just explaining that I was feeling less than boned up (and NO I'm not being crude) heading into today's weekly installment of torture by Koine.

My feeling of unease was not mollified when I noticed there was more than one missing place around the table this morning. I already knew one of my fellow students had decided enough was enough, and I started to wonder whether or not more than a few others had come to the same conclusion. The lecturer was also looking mightily pleased with himself; for a moment, it looked like his cunning plan to get out of marking a lot of exams at the end of the semester was bearing fruit.

Fortunately, it transpired that a couple of folks were running late or otherwise indisposed. Whether or not they turn up again next week is another matter. For the nonce, I was still content that I continued to be surrounded by plenty of fellow sufferers.

And so we commenced the lesson with a revision of last week's work and the exercises we had been set. Now, I produced a less than stellar performance, but I actually noticed that I hadn't done too badly either; my translations were either pretty good or just off the mark. Granted, there were some that stumped me altogether, but I was actually quite pleased that I seemed to be making some headway. Yet the curious thing is that I hadn't the faintest idea about the grammar; somehow, I had just managed to nut out what the sentences meant (or had nearly done so, anyway).

I was feeling a tad disturbed by this when one of the other students confessed to the same experience. And then a thought occurred to me: maybe if I can get enough of the vocab stuck in my head, I might just be able to make a fist of this subject. That is to say, when translating from Greek to English, an inside out understanding of the grammar is not strictly necessary; a sufficient dosage of vocab combined with a sense of sentence context might just be enough to see me through.

Naturally, the universe having the sense of humour that it does, I quickly realised that my revelation was not going to be the salvific experience for which I'd been hoping. Because, of course, when translating from English to Greek, I have to remember the right case endings and where the postpositives go and so on and so forth. And I'd be willing to bet my bottom dollar that our lecturer, being the smiling assassin that he is, will require that we render into our best Koine more than one passage of English for the exam.

But I thought to myself: maybe I might at least have the key to understanding at least half of this Greek thing...

Or am I just kidding myself? Am I doomed to end up with the linguistic equivalent of the custard-and-cream pie in the face...mmmm, custard and cream pie (incoherent Homeresque gurgling...)

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it. (Benjamin Whorf)

Picture Perfect

Those of you who remember my post on the neo-creationist nonsense calling itself intelligent design will appreciate the following cartoon from one of my favourite cartoonists, Wiley.

The man is a genius.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the day: I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it. (Oliver Cromwell)

Morituri te salutat

I had been pleased with myself.

In the week and a half since my Greek precessional and the commencement of first semester today, I had thought I'd made some progress. I'd drawn up charts for the Greek alphabet and stuck them up on the back of the bathroom door, where I could contemplate (and memorise) the Greek alphabet at leisure. I had also drawn up a table of the noun and definite article declensions in masculine, feminine, and neuter singular and plural nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative cases. I'd also constructed some flash cards with various items of grammar and vocab.

And I'd also studied. No, seriously, I had studied. Indeed, I had reached the point where I could write out the Greek alphabet in both capitals and script (in sequence, if you don't mind), and had also been able to construct the full declension for some basic words. So I figured I'd made some progress, if not exactly become a star pupil. Granted, I was still having trouble with the vocab, as well as remembering where pesky little items such as breathing marks (for pronunciation) and iota subscripts (I won't even try and explain that one to you) went. But all in all, I reasoned, not a bad start. I was looking forward to today's lesson.

Nothing like an actual lecture to knock the stuffing out of you.

Well, okay, not the stuffing, exactly, but certainly my illusions. When we started the lesson with a review of the work canvassed in the precessional, I realised that I didn't know diddly squat. I had forgotten about the partial declension pattern for proper nouns, as well as the irregular declension pattern for feminine nouns (which results in feminine nouns ending in "alpha" changing their form from "alpha" to "eta" in the genitive and dative singular if the penultimate letter is not "epsilon", "iota", or "rho"). I'd also forgotten about postpositives and how they go between the positive article and the noun, as well as "epsilon/iota" ending that makes a noun a verb and means "I/he/she/it performs the action of the verb".

You get my drift!

So you can imagine my joy upon learning that today's lesson would cover prepositions, and all the tricky little rules and variations that go with them. My personal favourites are the triple-meaning prepositions; that is, prepositions that have three different meanings depending on whether the noun that is their subject is in the genitive, dative, or accusative case. What bliss, I thought, reaching for the aspirin; now I only have to remember the same word in three different forms and meanings! What could be simpler!

No kidding, Greece may well have been the cradle of Western civilisation, but they knew sweet FA about making knowledge - never mind learning - easy to access.

This whole experience reminds of the story about the English cricketer who was asked what it was like facing the terrifying fast bowling of the West Indian cricket team. He is said to have paused thoughtfully, then responded: "Tell me, did you ever watch the film Zulu and wonder what it was like to be one of the British redcoats facing the charge of the impis?"

I know exactly what he's talking about.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Education is what remains after what one has learned has been forgotten. (B F Skinner)

Weltschmerz

"What is freedom?"

"I don't know either. I only know that it is neither irresponsibility nor aimlessness. It's easier to say what it is not than what it is."

I am presently reading the novel Heaven Has No Favourites by Erich Maria Remarque, which is set in the immediate post-war period in Europe. It concerns a racing driver named Clerfayt, and a young woman, Lillian Dunkerque, both of whom are seeking freedom from a sense of doom, from the inevitable collapse of dreams and hopes and ideas in the face of time and death. Time and death are stark realities for Clerfayt and Lillian. He lives from race to race, knowing that his life-span as a driver is running out, that he must endure either a long, empty retirement forgotten by the world, or horrible death or disfigurement in an accident; she is dying from tuberculosis, her alternatives being a short, bright spurt of living life to the full, or the drawn-out accumulation of days and weeks and years imprisoned in a remote Swiss sanitarium.

Both were traumatised by their experiences in the war: he as a POW, she as a frightened fugitive on the run from the Nazis, and these experiences have coloured their perception of life. Knowing what they know of the human capacity for evil, and of the random arbitrariness of death, they regard the rituals of modern life as empty, meaningless, irrelevant. And yet they also long for meaning, for substance, for freedom from their sense of inevitable decay and entropy. They long for life, for innocence, for a time when they did not know what they know, and did not feel as they feel. They fear death, but also regard life as irrelevant.

Heaven Has No Favourites is the story of their attempt to escape their ennui, their attempt to try and find some meaning in life through the agency of all the things they regard as meaningless; it is the story of their attempt to escape back into meaning from the wasteland of alienation.

It is hard not to see Remarque's own life projected through this novel - as, indeed, it was projected through all his novels. Remarque's first and most famous novel - All Quiet on the Western Front - and its sequels - The Road Back and Three Comrades - depict the alienation and dislocation which young men returning from the horrors of the First World War experienced. And it is an experience made all the more poignant because they were enlisted in 1916 - that is, they weren't old enough to enlist at the war's beginning, and thus weren't old enough to have jobs or families or careers, conditions which could anchor them in the pre-war world and to which they could return if they survived. On the other hand, they were just old enough to have all their illusions and naivety destroyed by the experience of war, to have their expectation of, and faith in, all the things older men took for granted fatally undermined. And so when they returned from the fighting they had nothing - no hopes, no dreams, no plans or ambitions, no sense of place or belonging. Just cynicism, and grief, and anger, and guilt for having survived the conflict that claimed not only the lives of their friends, but also the world into which they had expected to grow up and become citizens.

Part of what makes adolescence a difficult period is that we are able, for the first time, to critically examine the world around us; and yet we also lack the life experience to resist the shock-value of our discoveries. Remarque and his peers went through a greatly magnified process; the shock value not of life, but of mass slaughter. And so they were confronted with the "Big Questions" of being without the luxury of first coming to terms with existence, and working out for themselves their own ground on which to stand, and from which to answer such questions.

The result was an alienation - not only an emptiness, a hollowness, but a sense of aloneness and insignificance - which haunted Remarque his whole life. After the war, he struggled to make ends meet variously as a teacher, a funeral ornament salesman (depicted in his novel The Black Obelisk), a theatre critic, and a sports journalist. When All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929, he found fame and fortune - but not peace. The rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930's resulted in him being condemned as a "defeatist" writer, eventuating in his exile, first to Switzerland, then the United States. His sister suffered a terrible fate at the Nazis' hands because of him, and his personal life was a shambles, marked by a self-conscious, alcohol-fuelled hedonism, and destructive intimate relationships.

Remarque's sense of rootlessness is depicted in his "emigre" novels: Flotsam, Arch of Triumph, A Night in Lisbon. All the old certainties have been destroyed; but there is nothing to replace them, except grief for what has been overturned, and a vague, unsatisfying hope for what might be. You get a real sense that the emigre people of the between-the-war years understood that they were doomed: what they had once been, or might have been, had been swept away by the destruction of war and the upheaval of its aftermath; and they could also sense the forthcoming conflagration, and understood that its impact would be even greater than the first war. The in-between time was, at best, a brief respite.

And this impression comes across in the experience of Remarque's own life. Despite the fact that he lived in, or habituated, many "exotic" locations - Monte Carlo, Paris, Milan, New York - he never discovered a sense of home until later in life when he settled in Porto Ronco, Switzerland. Even so, the fact that he was forced into exile from Germany, and felt too alienated to re-settle there after the war, accentuated his feelings of rootlessness. Likewise, despite the fact that he had affairs with some of the most beautiful women of his day - Dolores del Rio, Lupe Valez, Maureen O'Sullivan, Luise Rainer, Marlene Dietrich, and Greta Garbo - these were almost always unsatisfying and frequently turbulent, characterised by emotional neediness and recriminations born of insecurity. His first marriage was marred by mutual infidelity and jealousy, and it was again only later in life that his second marriage, to Paulette Goddard, provided any sense of stability and comfort. And just at the point when his life seemed to have found depth and meaning, his being was undermined by terminal ill-health.

Many people find Remarque's work too cloying, too full of sadness and despair. But a careful reading also indicates an undercurrent of heroism and hope; the very fact that people struggle against their despair and feelings of futility instead of surrendering to apathy is itself a cause for celebration. Weltschmerz, the sense of the terrible sadness of being, may be the theme of Remarque's novels; but so, too, is the terrible beauty of existence. There is a glory amidst the sadness, a glimpse of the heights to which the human spirit can rise, in spite - and despite - itself.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the day: Thought shall be harder, heart the keener, courage the greater, as our might lessens. (Anglo-Saxon epic: The Battle of Maldon)

Our First Service

Last night, my Dearly Beloved and I lead our first worship service together.

We have come to this point by an interesting road. When we commenced our Periods of Discernment last year, we wanted to undertake a project that would provide us with some experience in leading worship, as well as working collaboratively with others to enable them to utilise and express their gifts. At the same time, we also wanted to make a contribution to our local Uniting Church community.

As is often the way with these things, we found our way forward by talking to people. Through conversation, we discerned that there was a desire within our local church community for a time and a space which was focused exclusively on worship and worship styles; a process that complemented the regular Sunday morning service, but which was solely about the exercise of worship, about drawing on the richness of Christian tradition in order to bring people into an encounter with the holiness and mystery of God.

As a consequence, my Dearly Beloved and I hit upon the idea of a series of monthly services on a Sunday evening. They would not be services as this is understood in terms of the regular Sunday service; rather, they would be services that would focus on and utilise a particular process of worship. Hardly an original idea, I grant you, but we recognised that it fit the bill in terms of what we wanted to achieve and the contribution to our community we wanted to make.

The first step was discussing the idea with our local minister; and as we talked through the project with him, we felt blessed by his wonderful support, affirmation, and wise guidance. With great enthusiasm, he helped clarify our thinking and gave us the green light to proceed. Next, we approached a smaller group of people within the church community whom we knew possessed particular gifts and asked if they wanted to be involved in the project; and for a second time we were blessed by their support, enthusiasm, and generosity. Before we quite realised what had happened, we were planning the first service.

And last night was the occasion for same. It was a contemplative service structured in "cycles" that told the life of Christ from the commencement of his ministry to just before his entry into Jerusalem. Each cycle consisted of a reading, a Taize chant, and a meditation space. The intent was to generat in the participants a meditative mindset that enabled them to focus on God, and to have an experience of the indwelling of God which they could then take with them from the worship space.

The service started at 7pm. The cool change was threatening, but it was still hellishly hot. Nonetheless, an encouraging number of hardy souls turned up for the service. In retrospect, the whole service went better than either my Dearly Beloved or I anticipated, thanks to the contributions of our support group and the affirming presence of our fellow parishioners. No doubt there will be one or two minor aspects that will require attention; we'll debrief on these and make any necessary adjustment. But it seems to me that by the time the service ended forty minutes after it commenced, an atmosphere of contemplative peace had indeed touched all who participated.

For me, one of the most significant moments occurred during the first meditation space. As silence fell upon the congregation, the cool change at last arrived, and rain poured down onto the church roof. I have always loved the sound of rain falling, especially at night; and on this particularly hot and torrid evening, the sound of rain falling felt like the gentle benediction of God's grace.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: The quality of mercy is not strain'd, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. (William Shakespeare)

It's All Greek....

I have just returned home from the first day of a two-day precessional on Koine, the dialect of ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written. This is part of my theological study for 2007, and, if I hope to ever be a minister one day (that is, assuming I'm accepted as a candidate), I must complete at least one semester of study in either Koine or Hebrew.

I will try to convey to you my first impressions as succinctly and as accurately as possible:

OH - MY -GOD!!!!

Make no mistake, dear reader, I was under no illusions that this subject would be anything but difficult. But having no illusions is not quite the same as understanding the cold, brutal, frightening reality.

The lecturer was keen to dispel any misconceptions which I and my fellow students may have nurtured. In pleasantly conversational tones, he informed the class at the beginning of the day that Koine is a subject that produces a high "casualty rate" among students in terms of failures and drop outs. I know he was simply telling us what we were letting ourselves in for - I just wish he hadn't been smiling when he said it! Nor was I comforted by his assurances that dropping out or failing was okay; I don't want to drop out or fail, I want to pass, so that if I am selected as a ministry candidate, I won't have to worry about learning another language in order to successfully complete my candidature

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean, as if learning a new alphabet wasn't bad enough, there's the grammar. I don't even know the first thing about English grammar, never mind that pertaining to an extinct dialect of ancient Greek! Subjectives, participles, tenses, cases, infinitives, and on and on and on....and, hey, just because I do a bit of scribbling in my spare time doesn't mean I actually know anything about the way my mother tongue is constructed. I'm a writer, not a grammarian!

It needs hardly be said that the rest of the day was a real slog, and I made a complete hash of everything; I could barely write the alphabet out coherently, never mind do any transliterating.

I really don't remember much of the train trip home; and I certainly hope none of the neighbours noticed the foetal ball I collapsed into when I staggered through the front door. I think this is just going to be a case of lots and lots of study and lots of hard work in order to scrape a bare pass...but I'll be damned if I drop out. I've already made the investment, I can't afford to.

There is one bright side: my Dearly Beloved has a real facility for languages - afterall, she speaks and teaches Chinese, and speaks one or two other languages besides. I really, really, really hope some of that facility rubs off on me.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: In language, the ignorant have prescribed laws to the learned. (Richard Duppa)