from the edge

Tuesday 29 July 2014

With sighs too deep for words

What are we to do in the face of the suffering we see in Gaza? And not only in Gaza, but in the whole of the Middle East. We are there, virtually, at around 7pm every evening. Are we to ‘switch off’ at the end of the news and try to return to our normal lives, even if they are not always all that normal? How are we to think of other things? Is it even possible, at the stage which these various conflicts have reached, to do so? So much has been written. So much has been said, but there is little in the way of sane prognosis for the future, or of how to alleviate suffering in the present. We are left feeling angry, confused and profoundly disturbed by it all. So what can Christians, Muslims and Jews living away from these conflict zones, but watching the events unfold before their eyes day after day on the news, do that would make the slightest difference?

As a Christian, I am convinced, along with St. Paul writing in his letter to the Romans, that neither hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Rom.8) This does not make me feel especially safe, because engaging with this particular text attentively requires that we also engage with violence. Furthermore, we have to do this from our most vulnerable place, the inner space where we know ourselves most truthfully. This truthful space is that part of our selfhood which  few others know. Only God himself knows us as we really are and loves us as we are. There exists a similar conceptual space for nations and peoples, in which all are both accountable before God and fully ‘justified’ – their cause understood and dealt with justly by him because of his deep love for them. History has shown that in this place of truth he remakes nations.

Here then is a place for Christians, Muslims and Jews who want to see an end to the suffering in the Middle East to begin the work of remaking. All people of genuinely good faith can do this by engaging directly with God and with his redemptive purpose for the whole world, and for every person caught up in violent conflict at this moment. Together, as Christians alongside other people of faith, we need to allow ourselves to feel the pain on all sides by owning it as our own before God.

This is not just a vaguely spiritual exercise. It involves honest thinking, leading to the asking of difficult questions of ourselves as well as of those we either disagree with, fear, or simply hate. So one way to begin, with regard to the conflict in Gaza, might be to consider what Hamas, itself an agent of fear, represents in the minds of ordinary Palestinians, both in Gaza and in other parts of Palestine/Israel, and what it represents to Palestinians living in other parts of the world. Do they believe that Hamas is to be trusted with the well being of a people in the longer term? Has it proved itself, in this respect, so far? To what extent, might it be directly responsible for the carnage which is taking place in that country now? How much does it really value the lives of the people it has been elected to protect and serve? Do its members think of Israelis as in some way less human than they are? Is it conceivable that Hamas might one day think of Israelis as something other than ‘occupiers’, to quote its leader in exile, Khaled Mishal?

Similarly, how does the ordinary Israeli, who genuinely wants peace and justice for all, view the wholesale appropriation of Palestinian lands and the bulldozing of their homes? Are they prepared to accept that they are indeed, to a great extent, ‘occupiers’? If so, might they be willing to dialogue with Hamas, beginning with this crucial point? How do these Israelis come to terms with the hugely disproportionate numbers of Palestinians being killed or wounded (the majority being women and children) compared to the relatively few Israelis (mainly military) in the current conflict? Would these Israelis personally be prepared to go into Gaza to help rebuild what has been devastated? If a climate of trust could be generated, in the way I am about to suggest, could they conceive of a time when the brutal wall which divides families and has wrecked lives, be dismantled with their help? Could they see themselves, as people whose faith centres on a righteous, just, merciful and holy God, rebuilding what has been shattered by decades of conflict? Would they even like to think this possible?

These are questions which need to be addressed from within a place of truth and of deep silence before God. It is a silence shaped by sighing and longing, always in the presence of God. Before there is any more talk of truces and ceasefires, we and all who long for an end to this incessant killing need to keep silence together for an hour before God, the hour to be followed by two hours the following day, three on the third, and so on, until continuing with the slaughter and the hatred is revealed in all its ghastly futility and stops. This would be a time for everyone in that region and elsewhere in the world, to simply stand in the presence of God. Secularists should respect it and try to use it to the highest possible good for all in whatever way they can, but they too should remain silent.


This is just one way of re-directing sighs, so that they acquire a purpose. That purpose will ultimately consist of God’s word speaking wisdom into the silence through the voices of women and men who want the kind of peace which, as we say in the blessing given at the end of the Eucharist, ‘passes all understanding’ but which might just get people together who can speak wisdom into the turmoil which is overtaking the Middle East.  

Tuesday 22 July 2014

Vladimir Putin, What Have You Done?

In a post earlier this year I said that autocratic power disconnects rulers from people – from the persons for whom they are accountable (‘Russia and the Dynamics of Grace’, March 4th 2014). I have yet to see the face of Vladimir Putin in the press, following the recent gunning down of a commercial airliner, in which he does not look disconnected. When pressed for an explanation, or better still for a willingness to take responsibility for the tragedy and allow himself to be held accountable, he seems remote, absent, afraid. Perhaps he is afraid of what his power has finally done, with or without his consent. Politically, he is caught in an impossible situation. Either he accepts responsibility for the shooting down of the plane, or he admits that the separatists whom he supports have taken power into their own hands and have now separated from him.  Perhaps he senses, too late, that they are pursuing a trajectory of their own.

 It seems that the power which Putin has relied on, helped by a certain kind of personal charisma, is not up to the job of controlling what he has unleashed in the Ukraine. The genie is out of the bottle. The charisma was helpful at first in enhancing a certain Napoleonic public persona, someone who, one suspects, was trying to create a legacy for himself by re-building the lost empire of the former Soviet Union. But things have not gone according to plan, with tragic consequences for innocent third parties, the 298 people who died in that airline crash. Days after the event, evil continues as incompetence, duplicity and chaos, made all the worse in the ratcheting up of the blame game. Passing the blame around wastes valuable time and resources and allows the evil to spread unchecked, attracting others to itself and absorbing them in the power games of international politics.

The Genesis story of the Garden of Eden, read allegorically, speaks into this situation. God’s question to the man and the woman, “What have you done?” has profound implications for those who hold power and who make choices which have tragic consequences, even if they did not intend such consequences. It has something to say about power when the person wielding it is either ignorant of its potential, or, having some sense of that potential, uses it to ideological ends which have more to do with self aggrandisement than they do with serving and protecting people.

 In the story of the Garden of Eden, we see two human beings who share power which has been entrusted to them by the ultimate giver of power, allowing for a degree of imbalance in the initial sharing, but that is another story. What matters in the context of what is happening in Ukraine at present is that the man and the woman are answerable to the giver of power, to its source, for what they do with it and for the long term consequences of their actions. The ultimate source of power is the one ‘in whom all things are made’.

Iconographers of the Orthodox tradition represent him as the ‘Pantocrator’, the one in whom all life is sourced and who embraces the whole of humanity in his own humanity. In contemplating the icon of the Pantocrator we are always brought back to the same story about power and accountability. It is a painting which disturbs. There is a darkness and  mystery about it. You have to really look to see the face. It is hard to ‘read’ its expression. It is meant to be that way, because it is the face in the icon which is in fact reading you, the viewer. This also makes it hard  to hold the gaze of that face for any length of time, although it is not a face which accuses. It simply knows. The figure usually holds an open book in one hand and points back to himself with the other. It is sometimes easier to look at the book and the hand than it is to hold the gaze of the face, but one always ends by looking at the face, out of need and out of a kind of compelling love.


Something greater than the human intellect or sense of self is at work in this unspoken visual dialogue. We love but at the same time know ourselves to be accountable in a way which can only be described as awe. Vladimir Putin is often seen taking part in Orthodox liturgy and venerating these beautiful icons but does he look at that iconic face and allow it to question him? 

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Desperately Seeking the Church - And Finding It

At what point, on their outward bound journey, does the space traveler experience real panic? On seeing planet earth recede past the point of no return, in the knowledge of limited supplies of oxygen and other life sustaining resources, perhaps. I think the Church is in danger of reaching this point.

This week, I find myself once again at Modern Church’s annual conference. Its theme, so well timed to coincide with the happy outcome of the vote on women bishops in the Church of England, is ‘A Liberating Spirit? Exploring Spirituality for the 21st Century’ -  and how badly that spirituality needs to be explored. As one conference delegate put it, “either we get spiritual or we go under”, or perhaps lose sight of ourselves as we drift ever further away from our source of life, our element.

Spirituality, however we may think of it, is the Church’s true element, the oxygen on which it depends for survival. The going under is the point of no return, the separation of the Church and the planet itself from its source, its life. So exploring spirituality for the 21st century involves re-discovering that element so that the Church can be seen again, as it were, from a great distance. This is where Modern Church and its conference offers hope. The conference, and Modern Church itself, is an element, a life context, in which the wider Church might begin to be visible again to the world, and to itself.

What Modern Church is offering to its conference members, and to the wider Christian community, is “passionate liberalism”, to quote Canon Professor Martyn Percy in his opening address. It is passionate about accepting the ‘other’ and 'the way things are' without seeking to dictate, dominate or control. It is passionate about embracing and holding the world as it is, and the Church as it is, in the boundless realm of God’s mercy and love. This is the spirituality we need for the 21st century, a spirit of a love which goes way beyond tolerance because it is a forward movement towards the other. It is akin to that of the Father running towards the son who he does not understand (which doesn’t matter to him in the least) and yet fully understands. It is a complete re-shaping of the Church as we know it.

Those attending this conference are here because they not only believe passionately in liberal theology but because they love God in and through the thinking which is done here, through wisdom which is new and still ‘on the edge of things’ and still being explored, through ideas brilliantly presented and hammered out further in conversation, and through deep and powerful worship which takes place here three times a day. Modern Church is not secular humanism dressed up as church.

It is the thinking, the patient listening and the depth of prayer which makes this event significant for the future of the Church as a whole today. In some ways, what is going on here is as important for the future of the Church of England as the decision taken by its General Synod on Monday. In both of these contexts, truth is being recognised. Here, at the Modern Church conference, we are coming across things which, to quote Mark Oakley, another of our speakers, ‘we don’t know that we don’t know’ and for which we realise a new language is needed. 

We will need a new language for these new times in the life of the Church of England.  If we can learn to speak each other’s language we shall have something new to say to the world. We shall have learned, through forgiveness, a language which resonates with the other’s pain, rather than what is loosely termed ‘relevance’. The language of resonance is what the Church needs to learn in order to communicate the reality of God’s loving embrace of a broken and hurting world. In order to learn this language, the Church needs to let go of some of its own self inflicted pain, much of it bound up in all the events and exchanges that led up to the synod vote.


There is quite a bit of letting go happening here at this conference. We are all to some extent letting go of old habits of mind, re-focusing the lens through which we have seen the Church, the world and ourselves, as we continue to explore new ways of thinking about spirituality. We have thought about the nurturing aspect of the Christian life, and of ministry in particular, in which we allow the grace of God to flow into and through us onto others, as a mother does in breast feeding her child. This is a letting go in order to allow. There is the letting go of the past and of the future, in order to be fully present to the present, to value it as the only moment we can truly call our own and so make the present, whatever it is being for others, as rich as it can be. This is a re-focusing of our lives. Then there is the ultimate letting go which, as I said earlier, takes us beyond tolerance and relevance, into deep relatedness, true wealth and the commonality of being bound together, re-connected, found by one another in Christ. It could also be called the Church.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Changing the Face of British Politics

In Italian, ‘Fare brutta figura’ means ‘to make a bad impression’. It translates literally as to ‘present (or make) an ugly face’. In China the words ‘saving face’ carry great social, political and personal significance. It is easy to suppose that both these expressions are a matter of what the British might in the past have called ‘keeping up appearances’ but now it seems that we are far less concerned about appearances, and more, perhaps, is the pity.

 It is true that ‘appearances’ convey little, if any, of the wider and more significant meaning of what people say or do, but how those in the public eye behave, what ‘face’ they present, tells us more about the kind of people they are than they themselves perhaps realise. This pertains especially to the way politicians are viewed in public and in private (and what is private will inevitably become public sooner or later), but it also applies to other role models, opinion formers and trend setters. The ‘face’ they present in both private and public spheres, tells us quite a bit about who they are and what they really want, but little about what they believe, what their vision or dream for goodness and truth consists of, assuming they believe in some form of higher good. What powerful or influential people believe about goodness and truth really matters for the rest of us – and it will show in the ‘face’ they present.

How politicians behave in public tells us about the extent to which they honour those who have entrusted them to govern in a way which is both good and truthful, and for whose well-being they are responsible. Politicians are elected through a democratic process (allowing for whatever one may feel about the lack of proportional representation in the UK) which is founded on trust. But trusting politicians to do what they say they are going to do gives only a partial view of the kind of trust needed between the electorate and those who exercise power. Trust also requires integrity. A person has integrity when they are ‘integral’, or ‘at one’ with themselves and act from that integral place. Acting with integrity requires the ability to remain connected to the essential truth about God’s love which is planted within a person by God himself.

 Politicians, and all who hold any kind of power or influence over others, are therefore accountable to God for the way they have retained that integrity and used it to work God’s love and goodness into their particular sphere of influence. With politicians of all persuasions, integrity is revealed in the kind of ‘face’ they present to the world, a ‘face’ which, whether they like it or not, is transparent to who they are. When their speech and actions are at odds with their own integrity, or goodness, it indicates that they are not at one with themselves. It indicates a lack of integrity. Where there is no integrity power is exercised in a way which is not only untruthful, but damaging for the way our democracy functions because it undermines our fundamental trust in the political process as such. People feel that politicians have lost their way and, if they continue to engage with politics at all, these people will be increasingly drawn to those who beguile them with dangerously simplistic answers to perceived social problems.

This is probably why the nasty and personalised invective which passes for ‘lively discussion’ and ‘feeling passionate’ about issues, specifically in the context of House of Commons debates, simply will not do. Not only is it irresponsible, immature and dangerous for a healthy democracy, it also clearly reveals that short-termism linked to personal gain are what count most for politicians today. Here, in particular, politicians could benefit from the wisdom of the Iriquois people of North America whose decision-making processes take account of the well-being of the next seven generations. Our own ‘playground bully’ style of political debate cannot possibly deliver anything like this because it fails to educate politically by setting an example of intelligent and humane discussion aimed at the common good.  So, perhaps in the short time left before key elections take place in Scotland and, later, in the rest of the United Kingdom, we need to step back from the political scene before us and ask ourselves what it is we hope for our nation, or nations in, say, 100 years’ time? Perhaps we have no dreams at all for times in which many of us will no longer be around. In which case, what does that say about us as citizens of a democracy for the future?


All of this begs the question of what, as a nation, we really think we are? Here I am not talking about ‘Englishness’, or, for that matter, ‘Scottishness’. I am talking about righteousness under a righteous God, as opposed to bland secularism or extreme religiosity with no clear framework, vision or motive for articulating and wanting the good for society as a whole. Our nation is rooted and grounded in that righteousness. It owes its identity and parliamentary system to Jesus Christ, to the principles he taught and died for. Being a Christian nation, in the context of the public and private sphere of politics, means behaving and legislating in a way which conveys that specific underlying sense of who and what we are. In politics it could be called seeking a gracious integrity. A gracious integrity would present the saving face of the Redeemer, a face which is transparent to wisdom and compassion for the nation which politicians are called to serve. Where shall we find politicians capable of rising to such a challenge? Start praying now.

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Dealing with Depression - Letting go and letting be

On Sunday I had one of those ‘low’ days, the kind of day everyone has from time to time when it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s good in our lives and what isn't. The day gets ‘lower’ as we dig ourselves ever deeper into a generally negative view of our self, our current situation and other people. In the end we just become resigned to it all and, depending on temperament, will either turn to some form of palliative overlay, usually in the form of activity or ‘busyness’, or try to get a grip from within, through denial or self-enforced cheerfulness. Somewhere in between lies acceptance. We have to accept that the situation just is. We have to step back from it, at least in our heads, if not in our emotions, and take stock, by appreciating it’s being as it is and that it might even go on being that way for some time. We let go while at the same time accepting the reality of the pain itself.

In the sense that most day to day suffering is, of its very nature, tedious and repetitive, pain blocks our sensory perception of the possibility that we might be surprised by something new. So, as I have found in my own low moments, it is important to do everything possible not to allow the pain to block the way we might perceive things differently. Sensory perception gets blocked when we allow the pain to be artificially reduced or trivialised (in telling ourselves that it’s not all that bad really and that we should ‘snap out of it’) or, on the other hand, allow it to completely overwhelm us, mentally, spiritually and sometimes physically.

Taking control in low moments is not a matter of deciding on a course of action, or willing oneself into a different frame of mind by minimising the significance of our pain in sweeping it back to where it came from, wherever that was. It is a matter of sighing it out, of letting it go. It is the equivalent of ‘breathing through’ a contraction during labour, in order to relax the mind and body for the next one. The technique works in a similar way for dealing with depression. We breathe through it by a process of acceptance and sighing.

But accepting our feelings does not automatically entail unquestioning acceptance of our situation, as I know in regard to my own as a woman in the Church. Rather, it allows us to get out of the situation and look at it objectively, as well as looking objectively at the way we are feeling about it, especially as those feelings affect the way we relate to other people. Accepting negative feelings, with or without their being associated with unhappy memories, is the first step in taking real control of ourselves and of the situation which is causing us grief. Being simply passive to the pain is the quickest and surest way to allow whatever darkness we are experiencing in any given situation to overwhelm us. So we have to ‘labour’ through our feelings by sighing them out. The sighing is important because it obviates the need for words. But we still need someone to listen and be with us. With low days and low moments it is important to allow our sighs to be directed to someone who can show us how to get through the whole process of being ‘low’ and emerge intact, and not only intact, but a new person. This is part of what it means to be re-born in Christ. 


This happened to me on Sunday. I was sighing (yet again) about my situation vis a vis the Church. I was sighing into God and into his Christ. This was made easier by the fact that I was in the congregation rather than leading the service. It was a most refreshing change made possible by a cycle race which obliged me to take a major detour so that I arrived too late to be ‘up front’ with the other clergy. At the end of the service, having chatted to a few of the parishioners there, I was reminded of my great love for them all. Later, a colleague came up to me. I apologized for being late on account of the cyclists (I was pretty annoyed with them too which didn’t help the ‘low’ feeling) and she responded with a hug and something along the lines of ‘lovely that you’re here with your people’. Generosity of spirit, grace and goodness in a colleague who shares her ministry with me (when she doesn’t have to) with those particular words, ‘your people’, dispelled the low feeling in an instant, along with all its attendant bits of baggage relating to the Church and my situation in it. Her smile and those words were the answer to my sighing. Sighing out our pain into God opens us up to hearing him, or recognising his presence, in surprising ways. He makes himself felt from within the pain, often through the sheer goodness of others.