Where there is no vision, the people perish

I’ve got a problem, and it’s caused by you – you, reading my blog (immediate family excepted, of course). The problem is that you pay attention to what I’ve got to say, and remember it, and might even quote it back at me. So what’s the problem, you might say – surely in your job you would hope to have people listen in. And you’d be quite right; part of a bishop’s job is to teach the faith, and to speak out about issues in contemporary life. That’s not where the problem lies.

The problem is that another part of my role is to help the church deal with change, and to lead in mission. As well as being at the centre of the church, a focus for unity, I should be at the edge, an innovator – or at least be promoting and inspiring creativity in the people of God. There is a prophetic part of my calling.

(Incidentally, I’m not claiming that it’s only bishops who have these callings in the church. But that’s another discussion.)

The reason why the co-existence of those two things is a problem, is that it’s very difficult to do both well, and it would seem impossible to do them at the same time. At least, if you accept that there’s a direct link between the prophetic, edgy part of ministry, and creativity. There’s certainly a very strong link between being a public figure, and (in most cases) thinking more carefully about what you say. As a bishop, people do tend to weigh your words; I remember doing it to bishops myself before I was one. So as you become aware of that, you slow down, you check over what you’re about to say. And it would seem that you can’t do that, and be creative, at the same time.

The evidence? That great BBC institution Horizon. The recent episode on brain science showed how knowledge is developing about the areas of the brain which light up when creative activity is happening. The research shows that in moments of creativity, the ‘self-censoring’ parts of the brain are turned down several notches. It’s perhaps the neurological equivalent of that ground rule of brain storming sessions – no one is allowed to criticise anyone’s idea while the brainstorm is happening.

So, if I’m to be creative, I have to switch off my caution. But if I’m to exercise my role with proper care, I have to make sure I don’t say things that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted. So now I hope you see why there’s a problem.

And if there’s a problem for the Bishop of Croydon, think how much more difficult it must be for a Prime Minister, or an Archbishop, or a Pope. Both demands are accentuated to a far greater degree than I will ever have to experience. The bodies you lead need creativity, flair and imagination. But no-one allows you to brainstorm. As soon as you say anything, it’s analysed to death for its significances; as soon as you say anything different, it’s a u-turn, or a defeat. You certainly can’t float an idea – as soon it passes your lips it’s a policy.

And finally, it looks like it’s not easy to switch between the two. Caution is habit-forming, creativity likewise. Maybe that’s why I can’t end this post with a solution; maybe I’m losing the knack of creativity. But there’s always the verse from Proverbs which makes the title of this post: the verse runs in full: Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

An interesting parallelism there, if we allow ourselves a creative re-interpretation of the text. (Paying no attention to original context, accuracy of the translation, etc.) The first half sounds to modern ears like creativity and innovation; the second half like conformity and caution. Maybe there are ways of holding both – and another part of the Horizon episode might illustrate the way. We can open the path to creativity by consciously relaxing those parts of the brain that act as self-censors; and meditation is one of the ways to do it. Taking time out from the public eye can be the space in which creativity can begin to flow. The heart of this contradiction is that paradoxical activity, prayer.

So I think the remainder of my thoughts this evening will, with all due courtesy to my patient readers, remain my own.

 

Having faith in Zimbabwe

It was with some nervous anticipation that I approached passport control at Harare Airport. Would there be problems getting in? Would I be interrogated about the purpose of my visit? Fortunately it went a lot more smoothly than it does for many Zimbabweans visiting the UK. I paid my $55, got the visa, and the receipt from another official whose job it was to do nothing else, through I went and there was Bishop Ishmael.

As we headed out on the way to Gweru, where the Diocese of Central Zimbabwe has its cathedral and offices, I was struck by what a ‘green and pleasant land’ I was looking at. It was the rainy season, of course, but nevertheless I realised right away what an abundance of natural gifts Zimbabwe has. But we were driving down the main road to South Africa – what should be a major conduit for trade – and the road was largely empty. We passed several large farms which had fallen into disuse.  Time and again during my stay I was reminded that the basic amenities of society are in a poor and declining state, and that the economy is operating at a very low level.

Amid the natural beauty and the economic tragedy, I was almost overwhelmed by the vitality, energy and enthusiasm of so many of the people I met. Most of them were from the churches, of course, but I could see that there are many Zimbabweans of all sorts working really hard to create pockets of growth and stability. The churches were not merely full of people, but full of purpose – reaching out to their communities in worship and service.

The picture shows most of the congregation at St Michael’s Kwekwe – the children and the choir are out of sight. The Mothers’ Union, all in uniform, occupy the entire right side of the church.

The thing I came away most convinced of, was that our partnership with the church in Zimbabwe must be genuine partnership. All Christians have something to give to the whole body of Christ; and all have something to receive. Precisely because of our very different situations, we in Southwark have much to learn about our own life of discipleship to Christ as we grow in our relationship with the churches in Zimbabwe.

 

Pax

Morning Prayer with Cat

Unfortunately I can’t play you the purring sound track, but this morning’s company at Morning Prayer reminded me of D H Lawrence’s poem, Pax:

All that matters is to be at one with the living God
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress,
at home, at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of the master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being,
in the house of life.

 

A sermon for Epiphany

It’s really dark in the Orkney Islands, this time of year. Once when Alison and I were there at new Year, we saw the sun come up one day, rising over the sea and the islands, at 9am exactly. It was dark by 3:30. It was really quite difficult to get used to. You wake up, thinking you’ve had a long night’s sleep, and it’s still dark. Then you realise it’s 8 o’clock already. But when the light does come, there’s an amazing quality to it. The sunshine flows like butter, all day from such a low angle, sometimes bathing the island so that it seems to glow, sometimes shining up and off the bottom of the clouds to create an eerie, beautiful light. There’s so much sea and loch surface that there’s always a reflection of the sky wherever you look, so you feel as if you’re caught in between two mirrors reflecting light to each other.

One night it was completely clear, so we walked out beyond the street lights to see the stars – not the dozen or so which are strong enough to shine through the London glow, but the sky full of stars, thousands of them making you realise quite how small we are on this planet of ours.

Epiphany is a season of light – as the year begins to turn and the nights get a little shorter, we celebrate Epiphany, the coming of the light of Christ into the world. We are lucky enough that we don’t have to think about light in the way that our ancestors did: we have it at the flick of a switch. I think my only real experience of living without plentiful light was the three day week of the early 70s – I remember the strangeness of sitting in the living room with no light (as well as no television). But the lack of light was normal – for most people until our present age, and in our part of the world, when it got dark, that was about it. Candles wouldn’t light up much; there would always be far more darkness than light.

It’s into that sort of darkness that the light of Christ shines, not as just another neon sign competing for our attention in a brightly lit world. The Epiphany – the manifestation, the revealing of Jesus – lightens us at the point of our deepest darkness. Placing the festival at this point in the year is supposed to create an instant connection, a reality we can feel in our bones, between the darkness in our physical lives, and the spiritual darkness in which we walk without Christ.

George Mackay Brown is one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century (in my opinion) – and he was an Orkneyman. This is his Epiphany poem:

The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.

The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.

The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.

The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.

The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.

The three kings (well, not in the Bible story, but never mind) are already on a quest before the star shines on them – a quest which has proved fruitless, leading them only to impassable barriers. It is the star which gives them a new path by which to travel. What John describes in cosmic terms – the light of the world – Matthew shows in the language of story: a star which leads the wise men to Jesus. The meaning is the same: Jesus is the one in whom the world becomes more than Matthew Arnold’s dismal vision at the end of ‘Dover Beach’:

                    the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

It’s not insignificant I think that Arnold’s poem, which is largely about the loss of faith, ends on a note of darkness. The wise men come out of the furthest dark place that Matthew can conceive. They come from beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire, in the darkness of barbarian lands (as the empire thought of them); they come from the darkness of being Gentiles, those who had not been given the gift of the Law, who did not know how to obey God; and they come from the darkness of sin: ‘magi’ almost certainly means something less complimentary than ‘wise men’: astrologers, probably. Out of this triple darkness, travelling in the dangerous night (if they are following a star) come these three to find and worship the light.

Their gifts, we all know from ‘We three kings’ demonstrate the depth of their insight into the mystery of Christ. Gold crowns him as king; incense is offered by a priest in worship; myrrh anoints a body for burial. These magi haven’t just struck lucky, or come wondering after a star to see what it might lead to; they know whom they are seeking, and understand that his light also will pass through the darkness of death.

When we switch off the lights, we realise that the darkness still exists. We can cover it up with light entertainment, but there are parts of each of us that we do not understand, parts we fear. There are areas of our lives of which we are ashamed. We do not live in as certain and untroubled a world as we would like.

The Epiphany reminds us that the light of Christ shines in all those dark places – whether we’d like it to or not. The places we would like to hide are not hidden from God. The places we do not know in ourselves are no secret to God. The star which led the magi to Jesus was bright enough to lead them: and Matthew wants us to know that if it could attract them, it can attract anybody. But there are also those who were not attracted, Herod and the priests in Jerusalem, the ones who didn’t wish to acknowledge the presence of another king. The star over Bethlehem is easily ignored; we can switch on the lights and live by our own resources instead. The Epiphany is Christ’s manifestation to the world, but the world did not receive him. The choice is always ours, whether to follow the way of Christ, to offer to him the gifts that we have to honour him with, or to keep them for ourselves.

 

00:00

I have enjoyed the reminiscence programmes this year – especially the ones reflecting in wonder and amazement at the UK’s amazing year of sport. The Olympics was such a success that even now more than three quarters of people in the country thought it was worthwhile – even after being reminded of the price tag. I didn’t think three quarters of people in the UK would agree about anything.

In the gaps between reminiscence, there has been prediction. What will be the main events of 2013? Who’ll be up / down / out? Will the economy feel any better? Will Andy Murray win Wimbledon? Will the royal baby be a boy or a girl? It’s a fun game, though pretty pointless, especially when you compare reality with the predictions of previous years. At least with the royal baby you’ve got a 50:50 chance of being right.

And now we’re heading for that one moment when we all try to live in the present (except those of us safely tucked up an asleep, I suppose). That second which is only different from any other because we make it so, but then gets invested with such significance – a time to make our resolutions start from (and last until Jan 10th, on average, apparently). It’s a sort of secular repentance: time to start again, do it properly this time.

Good as far as it goes, but my New Year’s resolution is not to let 00:00 01/01/13 be the only time I live in the present. Every moment can be a new start; every moment is the time of God’s grace. So may I wish you many many Happy New Years in 2013, many moments of repentance and grace. And champagne.

 

Scary, beautiful, moving: Jocelyn Pook’s ‘Hearing Voices’

I caught the second half of Hearing Voices on the radio the other night while driving back from a meeting, and listened to the whole thing on iPlayer yesterday. Clergy in urban areas encounter people with mental illness all the time, and I was no exception when I was in Hackney. We meet people in that territory of pastoral care, which is not a personal relationship, but neither does it confirm to the tightly policed boundaries of most modern professions: our professional work happens through unstructured and informal encounter. So though I have not experienced mental illness myself, nor do I have the depth of expertise of those whose work it is to care for mentally ill people, i think I have some empathy.

I found Hearing Voices quite extraordinary. The music of Jocelyn Pook that I already knew had an eerie beauty, combined with powerful bursts of energy; that style. combined with the words, spoken and sung, of sufferers from mental illness, had an effect which I found surprisingly hopeful. The speakers/singers take us through the fear, the passion, even the humour of mental illness. But while they are describing things beyond their control, and the often unavailing attempts of the medical profession to help, the music is providing a shape and a structure which makes it possible to descend with the speakers into their inner chaos. The music makes a meaning even out of the experiences of meaninglessness.

If I’ve tempted you, it’s available till Tuesday 11th, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2qp6. (By the way, if you’re not a fan of Schoenberg you might want to skip the first 45 minutes.)

 

And now?

The day after…

Having just spent ten days in the Holy Land, I have been thinking a lot about irreconcilable conflict. What do you do when different groups have different base lines – when the starting point of each side’s aspiration crosses the bottom line of the other?

Israel/Palestine is a splendid example of how not to do it. Both sides became involved in a ‘might is right’ struggle, which Israel won conclusively. Having won the military battle, Israel has continued to work for the delivery of its political aims by quasi-military means – house demolitions, movement controls, land and resource seizures, and so forth.

What’s needed is a different sort of game, but as far as I can see the Palestinian leadership is trying to find a means of winning, if not militarily, then certainly by a variation on the ‘might is right’ strategy.

That’s a struggle which costs lives. I don’t think anyone has died over the ordination of women as bishops, but on its own scale the problem of irreconcilable bottom lines is just as acute. It is very depressing indeed to hear people talking as if there were a better solution just to hand, especially those who have been through all the negotiations of the last few years. Circles do not become squares. A solution acceptable to everyone is not going to emerge. Israel/Palestine shows us that.

So what is the other game? It’s the game that anyone’s played who was patched up a rift between friends; on a political level, it’s the game that was played in Northern Ireland. It’s a game that involves listening – something that many of those opposed to women bishops were claiming has not happened. I think they were probably confusing listening with agreeing.

Listening means speaking honestly. A starting point would be the recognition that there is no magic bullet, and an agreement to stop using the myth of a consensus on this issue as a rhetorical holy grail with which to criticise any actual concrete proposal.

Much as I would have wished that Bishop Justin didn’t have this on his plate, I pray that in the providence of God he may have been called to Canterbury to help the Church of England in this particular hour of need. I pray too that church business, however important, doesn’t prevent him from leading us in mission.