Today's cheesy flash game

What? Is Dany upgrading from cheesy midi files to cheesy flash games? Oh yes, and this time she expects you to take part and sing along too...

A fairly-traded cash crop is still a cash crop!

In the impoverished Shire Valley [of Malawi], a South African company runs a lush, 30,000-acre sugar plantation that uses huge amounts of water from the Shire River every day for irrigation, with energy provided by hydroelectric dams. The plantation employs 7,000 workers and has enough extra water to support extensive landscaping and a small golf course.

But company officials said they had no interest in switching from sugar to corn, which after years of government price controls is seen as unprofitable in Malawi. "To grow maize as a commercial crop, it's not viable," said Irene Phalula, a company spokeswoman. "We wouldn't make anything out of it". See this Washington Post article on Malawi.

This wasn't the point of the article, but I got thinking: hang on a minute, I'm fairly sure that my Fairtrade sugar is from Malawi. I just double-checked a moment ago, and it was. But they don't need nice sugar farming co-ops in Malawi. They need food for the whole population.

They shouldn't be using that water for a cash-crop and I don't care if a portion of workers are making a living wage if nearly 11 millions struggle without jobs and without irrigation for their subsistence plots because the World Bank and IMF won't allow state-led development. Fairtrade is just a stupid cosmetic solution to make stupid westerners feel good.

Hardcore post about famine and stuff - feel free to skip

There’s a movie (I can’t remember which, unfortunately) in which a couple of young people enter the home of an old lady in Florida and kill her. Their justification is that the old lady’s pension funds -and her decisions to have them-, have killed many more people and she is therefore guilty of their death.

It’s weird to discuss this online, and the weirdest thing is probably that I don’t even feel very strongly. I should scream my head off in despair, but instead I just “sense”, on some intellectual level, that something is wrong. If anything, I feel like I’m rather more sensitive than the rest of the population and secretly I can be a bit smug.

A guy called Robert hasn’t been able to find work for nearly a decade. He owns a field, but the crop has failed. He has no money and no food. Nobody around him has money or food so he can’t even beg. Maybe there is food on the shelves of a shop a few miles from where Robert lives, but he cannot afford it. So Robert went without eating, apart from tree leaves. He got so weak that he was admitted to hospital. Yet, the hospital did not keep him. They discharged him, telling to eat more or he would die. Food was not an option. Robert prepared to die. He said goodbye to his family and kids. He prayed to God for their welfare. After a couple of weeks Robert died.

I’m not making up this story. I’m not even making up Robert’s name. I Skype to Rwanda and I think that’s way cool. I’m good at networking, at linking people to each other. I speak several foreign languages. I’m reasonably clever. Yet I did not find a way to network with Robert. I did not implore my church and my work colleagues to help me find solutions. I was busy with other things.

If Robert had been my brother I’m sure I would have found a way. How complicated can it be to wire some cash directly to Malawi? People who have loved ones in Malawi do it all the time. By the looks of it, I have no loved ones in Malawi. Robert died of hunger and I did nothing. And I knew, the whole time.

Or rather, I sort of knew… Because I did not dig up the topic all that much. I sort of knew that there was a famine going on. Terrible stuff, but like I said, I was busy. There is a scene in The Pianist where the main character manages to emerge from the ghetto in which he’d been hiding, alone, everybody else having been deported. When he gets into the normal streets, people are buying bread, cheese, flowers, life goes on normally. Don’t find out. Don’t find out. Don’t look too closely. Stay safe. It’s none of our business.

By the looks of it, I have the moral fibre of a N*zi-supporter. I’m worried that God will never forgive me the death of Robert and my refusal to find out whether the stuff Robert went through is happening right now to someone else. I’m worried that God will never set me free me from the sin of indifference. I’m actually letting my Lord starve, knowingly. I haven’t yet taken any significant steps to demonstrate solidarity with those who, like Robert, are excluded from the capitalist project.

Small steps yes. I have taken lots of small steps. Tiny steps which serve as a smoke screen to hide the callousness of my indifference but still make me look all nice and spiritual to outsiders. I'm sure the devil loves those outrightly disobedient small steps. I would if I were him. The truth is that I don’t even dare to pray. So I try to hold prayer in but I can't. I cry for the mercy of God on my life. I'm crazy to even hope.

More Skype weirdness...

D. Hey Olivia, how are you? We haven’t spoken in ages!

O. Hi Dany! I'm in Kigali. I’ve been living and working in Rwanda for the past five months.

D. Woa! How's that going?

O. Okay, but to be honest I'm struggling, I don’t really like it.

D. Why?

O. I can’t get through to Rwandans at all. They all see me as a rich white girl, they ask for money all the time. Then they shut me out.

D. Wait, my best friend is from Rwanda, he had to flee to Germany in 1994 and stayed with a family there. You can probably hang out with his friends and family. Can I give him your number?

O. That would be great, I would really love that. I've been here for months. I haven't met anyone from Rwanda except superficially. I hang out with German colleagues all the time, it's really weird.

Missing Glastonbury

For the past few months, I was quietly convinced that I had “done” Glastonbury. I’d been a few times, I knew what to expect, I knew what Glastonbury was all about. I did not want to end up an old hippie who “does festivals” all summer. Then tonight I stuck a CD in the player. I had bought that CD at a late night concert in the Green Fields –the Green Fields is that permaculture hippie-ish part of the festival with tiny little acts held in dozens of colourful tents.

Each year, I would snub the big bands to hear what’s going on in the Green Fields. This year was fantastic because the festival was soaked by heavy-hitting rain. I actually like Glastonbury in the rain; it’s got this amazing “Spirit of the Blitz” to it. Instead of lounging in the sun, the Green Fields enthusiasts sneak in the first tent that takes their fancy, and sip some chai together.

The reason I love Glastonbury so much is that it fills your cup in a way nothing else does. You know the feeling after a great night out, some drinks and an amazing concert. Well Glastonbury puts 1000’s of concerts, plays, parties, films and books your way, for four days and four nights. Glastonbury fills you with art, with beauty, with music, with poetry to the point where you don’t yearn for art anymore.

The nation’s best performing art is all around you. You’re like a kid in a candy shop and so is everybody else. There is nothing you want. There is no time for wanting. You’re being subjugated by all this. Come with any sort of expectations, Glastonbury will beat them by very far. Glastonbury is life * 1000.

The performers are just as taken by the general excitement as the punters are. They too have had their fill of amazing concerts and, carried by the Glastonbury atmosphere, they give you their absolute best.

I remember this amazing performance by Celeste Lovick. She was alone with a guitar, at one in the morning on the tiny new world stage. The rain was pounding on the tent ceiling, but the inside was not wet, it was warm and beautifully lit. There were about ten people in the audience, two of whom were asleep. The others were awestruck by Lovick’s sheer poetry. She had this little Amish air, and was sharing her songs almost prayerfully in a dimly lit tent. It was the last night of the festival, people were tired yet happy and mellow, they had tanked up on music for at least a month.

I did not want this to end. As each year, I only wished I could take a little bit of this moment into the rest of my year. I picked up the CD. While it is still very good, it is miles away from the performance. For one it’s got a lot of side instruments, effects and even extra voices. I listen to it in a room full of books. It is a mere shadow of what Glastonbury had been. I feel like I’m spending the rest of the year living in Plato’s cave, listening to shadows of the real. As always, real beauty can’t be frozen and unfortunately you can never take bits of Glastonbury with you!

Žižek's "ethically cornered agent"

Let me put it this way. Bernard Williams, the English moral philosopher, develops, in a wonderful way, the difference between `must' and `have to.' He opposes the logic of positive injunction - in the sense of "you should do this" - with another logic of injunction, a more fundamental sense, of "I just cannot do it otherwise." The first logic is simply that of the ideal. You should do it, but never can do it. You never can live up to your ideal. But the more shattering, radical, ethical experience is that of "I cannot do it otherwise."

For example - this is one of the old partisan myths in Yugoslavia - Yugoslavian rebels killed some Germans, so the Germans did the usual thing. They encircled the village and decided to shoot all the civilians. But, one ordinary German soldier stood up and said, "Sorry, I just cannot do it." The officer in charge said, "No problem, you can join them," and the German soldier did. This is what I mean by sacrifice. There's nothing pathetic about it. This honest German soldier, his point was not, "Oooooh, what a nice, ideal role for me." He was just ethically cornered. You cannot do it otherwise. Politically, it's the same. It's not a sacrificial situation where you're secretly in love with your role of being sacrificed and you're seeking to be admired. It's a terrible, ethical, existential deadlock; you find yourself in a position in which you say, "I cannot do it otherwise."

Žižek, in the Rasmussen Interview.

Everything is a side activity

After posting an entry on "delayed action" -and how I'm struggling with it-, I came across a strange thought by Žižek, who was talking about belief and discussing Palestinian suicide bombers: -It's a strange logic in which the bombers themselves have doubts, and their suicide becomes a way of confirming their belief. 'If I kill myself in this way, I can calm my doubts and prove, even to me, that I do believe'-. Full text here.

I liked the idea for its sheer wrongness: how eagerness to prove oneself can become a paradoxical way of demonstrating unbelief. So on one level this stillness is killing me. On another level, it's "building some character", as Bill Watterson would have it. I want to step out of this confusion, and yet everything seems to say: more confusion, more tension! You'd betray now if you were to leap into some virtuous course of action as a way of avoiding confusion.

As this puzzling confusion settles in, everything else becomes a side interest. My PhD is something I do on the side, my relating to others is something I do on the side. Yet, both of them are going great. The PhD writes itself, I'm much closer to people than I used to be, and my decisions are more solid -and all of it seems to be happening "on the side". Maybe this will never go. Maybe, as the confusion deepens, the side activities -even significant ones- will solidify as well, in a strange dynamic equilibrium...

French time is secular time!

In less than one week, I'll be in France. In all likelihood, that means no (outspoken) religion for a while. We've pushed religion very, very far into the private sphere of individuals and particular congregations. It doesn't get discussed in public at all, unless you're in a very specific context, or with close friends at the end of the night.

That doesn't mean we don't believe, it means we don't talk about it. In France, nearly all my friends are fiercely secular. In France, a great many of my friends are gay -and I can't wait for that new year's eve party!-. In France, all of my friends are idealistic little buggers who try to keep our country humane and give Sarkozy a hard time. In France, nearly all of these friends pray. Alternate soteriology or not, I love our common weal and I love France.

I hate to delay action!

Sometimes you have to wait a while before you make a move. You need to wait and discern whether what you’re thinking about really is the best move at that time. This process can take ages and meanwhile you’re not doing anything.

And the worse thing about this is that it feels so unfaithful! Honestly, as long as I haven’t moved, how do I know if I really mean it? Maybe it’s just fantasies, maybe when the hour comes to make the move I’ll tail off. I don’t know for sure!

I guess that for some people projected action can feel quite good: “I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I really want to do this”. But in my experience projected action can also feel pretty awful: “Maybe I’m deluding myself, maybe I’m full of shit, maybe when I start taking the steps I’ll realise that I never meant it”.

Hey Danygirl, why don’t you just bite the bullet then? I hear you cry. Quite simply, because I don’t know which bullet to bite. I can think of at least six or seven options and I really don’t know which one to go for.

On some level, this unknowing is great. See, I walk around with the knowledge that I have, once, said an outright “no” to God. And for all I know, I might very well do that again. The memory of it is like an open wound. But it is a forgiven open wound and that is a great thing to carry around -and I’m fucking crazy to blog this. So anyway, now I really hate to delay action because I’m so scared that I could be unfaithful again. Yet on some level I know that I need to trust God even with the future.

Disciplopedia

Is there a wiki somewhere on the web with lots of cool ideas on how to be better disciples? Right now I'm poring through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Quaker Faith and Practice, the lives of the saints, some books and some websites.

But really I'm just re-inventing the wheel. There's something to be said for that, of course: when you come out with the ideas yourself, you end up a lot more convinced. Yada yada. As a budding academic I should not owe up to this, but if there was such thing as a (good) disciplopedia, I'd be using it all the time.

Favourite mug

If the Tories had a soul, they would sell it!

1992 slogan of British Labour in response to the privatisation of some segments of health and education advocated by conservatives.

The Brits are catching up!

If you've been following this blog for a little while, you probably know about my spending some time trying to locate radical-ish Bristish folks. We've got no shortage of very outspoken (and may I add, very annoying) evangelical types, but there are comparatively fewer serious warriors. This makes it quite hard to find the real thing behind the huge smokescreen of people who are very good at talking about things. But anyway, the first neomonastic community I ever did manage to find on this small island of ours is alive and well. They don't know it, but I already love them. Go check them out.

In some corner of England II

Rich is this flamed up young man. A combination of a lot of suffering and a lot of faith have turned him into the most exciting 20 year old I know. Theo is a retired CoE minister who comes to our church because it's pretty laid back, but basically he's a sarcastic grumpy old chap. Three weeks ago, I was taking Theo out for dinner and Rich joined us. Now each time I see Rich, he tells me how much he liked Theo: "Theo knows so much, and he's got so much wisdom" and so on and so forth. Each time I see Theo, he always asks me lots and lots about Rich. Sounds like we're going to do dinner again soon.

In some corner of England

A few days after meeting Lynne, I was down to make the soup for our church’s common lunch instead of attending the worship. I was hoping we’d be finished with the soup quite early so we could join the worship; the thought of chopping celery sticks with some random middle-aged lady from my church could only be so much fun. While we were chopping the stuff, Margaret asked me how I was. I was still bugged by the encounter with Lynne, so I told her what was on my mind.

I had hesitated to tell Maggie because I did not want to draw the conversation topic to myself, I wanted to be attentive, self-effacing, that sort of stuff. It turned out that Maggie had quite a lot to say on the topic: it got her started like nobody’s business. She told me about her time working as a social worker (I never knew), how she totally burnt out, the concepts she used to help her feel better, a lot of twelve-steppy stuff and pop psychology. I was fascinated. I still wanted to go worship of course, but by then the atmosphere in the kitchen was getting emotional.

By now the soup was cooked, we still had twenty minutes to join the worship, but we somehow decided that the soup needed more attention: make sure it did not burn or something. And we agreed that the cheddar really needed to be added at the last minute otherwise it would curdle into yucky little bits instead of the creamy consistency we were aiming for.

I had been hoping for some quiet worship time and we got the over emotional “so how did you handle your burnout?” kind of talk. By the end of it, I was even more bugged than when I had first walked in. That weird feeling of being exposed way beyond what you’re comfortable with, that rushed emotional proximity… Hell, did I deserve a cigarette after that!!!

Maggie and I got along pretty well in the following weeks. We did not talk that much; we just greeted each other at coffee. I had a renewed admiration for her: she had given so very much. I was proud of her, I wanted to hug her, but we’re in Britain, so that doesn’t usually happen.

Today was the last service before everyone starts disappearing off to be with family at Christmas. At the end of the service, Maggie grabbed me, with a huge smile she declared: “Dany you’ve inspired me, I’ve taken up volunteering again”. The thing is, I had done nothing at all, zilch, zero, nothing. Nothing beyond sharing how distressed I was that Lynne hadn’t called me.

Kiss me for I have sinned

I wish they had the power to simultaneously rebuke me and yet embrace me. What happens instead is that I’m so demanding that I scare people off. Because I’m not wrong.

Without their presence, I imagine what could be, I imagine another kingdom. It has colours, it has textures, it has shapes, it is only barely out of reach. And it drives me crazy, like a chocolate cake in a shop window when I've forgotten my purse at home. I wish someone would hold me. The title is taken from a T-shirt by nakedpastor. You can even buy it here.

Let down by a book

You place your hopes in yet another book: the book that is going to expound it all, the book that is going to serve as a manifesto. A book so Christ-infused that light would shine forth from its pages.

You wait for that book. When it comes out, you devour it. Turns out that it’s not bad. You type a few concepts into your files of notes. But your eyes hurt from the tears of frustration that you don’t quite dare to shed. Not realising that this frustration is giving birth to something in you. Your voice maybe. Still too big for you.

(umm... that's a lot of blogging these days. Whatever happened to last week's reverential silence)

Bakunin's "aristocracy of labour"

In Marxist theory, those workers (proletarians) in developed countries who benefit from the superprofits extracted from the impoverished workers of underdeveloped countries form an "aristocracy of labor." The phrase was popularised by Karl Kautsky in 1901 and theorised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's theory contends that companies in the developed world exploit workers in the developing world (where wages are much lower), resulting in increased profits. Because of these increased profits, the companies are able to pay higher wages to their employees "at home" (that is, in the developed world), thus creating a working class satisfied with their standard of living and not inclined to proletarian revolution. Lenin thus contended that imperialism had prevented increasing class polarization in the developed world. Wikipedia's entry on Labor Aristocracy

John Holloway online

"Our scream is a refusal to accept. A refusal to accept that the spider will eat us, a refusal to accept that we shall be killed on the rocks, a refusal to accept the unacceptable. A refusal to accept the inevitability of increasing inequality, misery, exploitation and violence. A refusal to accept the truth of the untrue, a refusal to accept closure. Our scream is a refusal to wallow in being victims of oppression, a refusal to immerse ourselves in that 'left-wing melancholy' which is so characteristic of oppositional thought. It is a refusal to accept the role of Cassandra so readily adopted by left-wing intellectuals: predicting the downfall of the world while accepting that there is nothing we can do about it. Our scream is a scream to break windows, a refusal to be contained, an overflowing, a going beyond the pale, beyond the bounds of polite society". -John Holloway. How to Change the World Without Taking Power.

For variations on a theme, I'm including Faithless' "Bombs" in the radioblog box. I realise that this (edgy text + edgy song) is a lot of data for one post, maybe I should have written two. Still, I really like the tension of that tune, so here goes:

We never teach

Thanks to all of you who thought that I was a really useless Christian when they read my post about Lynne and yet refrained from commenting or pointing out the screaming inconsistencies of this blog.

That afternoon with Lynne really did get me thinking. Or rather it confused me for a week in which I was just numb and unable to process information. Of course, Lynne was protective of her violent boyfriend –and therefore wary of those of us in the mainstream who think otherwise and who might have taken action against him. But there was more, and again it is related to something I learned through teaching.

At the beginning of my teaching career I received an excellent piece of advice: “We never teach, we make it easy for students to steal from us”. I sat back as this sunk in. The initiative must come from them; we just do our thing and make it easy for people to steal from us. I think of all the theology I’ve picked up in the past few months just by “stealing” if from blogs. At one point I was getting so good at stealing that I almost resented direct advice.

So yeah, I had lots of relatively good ideas, but I totally robbed Lynne of the initiative. I think I was mistaken to think in “Good Samaritan” terms. This could have been an improvement from just tossing a coin, but we needed a further improvement. That of not forcing things. That of letting Lynne “steal” whatever she needed from me, over a period of time -and meanwhile I would also get to learn from her wisdom. Of course, for this to happen it would have been useful for us to live in the same part of town. But hang on a sec, did I just steal that from poserorprophet?

Pride-busting spiritual exercise!

It has been a while since I provided my dear readers with one of my fearsomely effective tools of spiritual warfare. So today we're dealing with pride, the sin from which all others arise. But fear not, faithful pilgrim, for this dreadful capital sin can be succesfully overcome with just one little dose of Italian kitsch.

All one needs to succesfully overcome pride is to emulate Laura Pausini's soulful 1993 performance of La Solitudine. Yeah, it's really uncool, but that's um... the point. So come on, yell your heart out! Extra brownie points if your flatmates pass by rolling their eyes.

Marco se n'è andato e non ritorna più
Il treno delle 7:30 senza lui
È un cuore di metallo senza l'anima
Nel freddo del matino grigio di città

A scuola il banco è vuoto, Marco è dentro me
È dolce il suo respiro fra i pensieri miei
Distanze enormi sembrno dividerci
Ma il cuore batte forte dentro me

Chissà se tu mi penserai
Se con i tuoi non parli mai
Se ti nascondi come me
Sfuggi gli sguardi e te ne stai

Rinchiuso in camera e non vuoi mangiare
Stringi forte al te il cuscino
Piangi non lo sai
Quanto altro male ti farà la solitudine

Marco nel mio diario ho una fotografia
Hai gli occhi di bambino un poco timido
La stringo forte al cuore e sento che ci sei
Fra i compiti d'inglese e mathematica

Tuo padre e suoi consigli che monotonia
Lui con i suoi lavoro ti ha portato via
Di certo il tuo parere non l'ha chiesto mai
Ha detto un giorno tu mi capirai

Chissà se tu mi penserai
Se con gli amici parlerai
Per non soffrire più per me
Ma non è facile lo sai

A scuola non ne posso più
E i pommeriggi seza te
Studiare è inutile tutte le idee
Si affolano su te

Non è possibile dividere
La vita di noi due
Ti prego aspettami amore mio
Ma illuderti non so

La solitudine fra noi
Questo silenzio dentro me
È l'inquetudine di vivere
La vita senza te

Ti prego aspettami perché
Non posso stare senza te
Non è possibile dividere
La storia di noi due
La solitudine

Will Brown on politics-beyond-the-state

What if the church focussed on everything except politics? No matter who is president or how slow the Democratic strategists are to “get it,” much else can happen: communities can organize, non-corporatized food can be grown on church lots, fossil fuels can be avoided en masse, churches can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enemies can be boldly loved, massive consumer pressure can be exerted on the bad boys of business, and Christians can be a calming, defiant presence in places of violence. Of course policy changes would help in many cases but the point is that there is more power to be discovered and shared at the bottom than grasped for at the top. That’s the paradox. - Will Brown A letter to progressive Christians in the USA.

(I seem to come across this idea a lot these days, so I could link quite a few sources. Brown gets my vote for being both very clear and very succint.)

Poverty: a residual state of affairs?

One of the earliest and most notable casualties of this resurgent 19th-century liberalism was poverty. Governments of a new-right persuasion effectively defined it out of existence [...]. Ironically, this terminological 'eradication' of poverty found a distorted echo in the views of north-west European states that believed that their highly developed social protection systems had actually eradicated poverty. For instance the European Commission (1992) pointed out that in the 1970s many member-states assumed that poverty had been reduced to a "residual state of affairs which would disappear with progress and growth".

Rob Atkinson in: Combating Social Exclusion in Europe: The New Urban Policy Challenge.

A good article on trade liberalisation

This article (and comments) on The Guardian website -a newspaper sometimes affectionately referred to as "The Grauniad" by the British public- offers a succint overview of some of the issues related to trade liberalisation between the EU and developing countries. I'm linking it as part of a process of gathering various bits and pieces on capitalism, so I can weave them together later on.

Lynne

It took me more than two months to write about Lynne. In this case, failure just hurts too much. I had gone up to Edinburgh for my friend's birthday. We were supposed to meet at 6.30 but I made sure I would arrive in the early afternoon: I wanted to see if I could find the blue-eyed kid again. This time I had a plan. The blue-eyed kid really did not seem to have been on the street for very long. He did not seem addicted either. I thought that I was going to help "Good Samaritan style": if I could find him, I was going to try to be his friend until he recovered from that situation (and possibly beyond).

I knew Edinburgh quite well, I even knew a pretty nice backpacker’s hotel that served as the point of first call for Australians who were starting out on a working holiday visa, but who did not necessarily have jobs yet. It was clean, very friendly, and a great resource to get back on one’s feet, as the guests would usually trade their tricks about finding jobs and generally support each other. I was going to pay for a couple of months and make some money available to him. That, I thought, would be pretty awesome.

I never found the blue-eyed kid again. But I could not justify walking past one girl who was begging on Princes street so I stopped to invite her up for coffee. She replied that she couldn't, as she needed to raise money for a night at the hostel. I gave her that money, and asked again if she really would not consider coffee.

She smiled and said yes. She asked if we could go to MacDonald’s. I told her a bit about myself so she could place me and then Lynne started telling me her story: parents who abandoned her and verbally abused her, a violent boyfriend (she had quite a few big scars and even an untreated fracture!!! Part of her finger was coming up perpendicularly on the wrong side, it was yellow and infected). She told me about her kids, who stay at her mother’s and whom she never sees. How she misses them everyday. At this point she was very close to tears.

I realised that the backpacker’s was not going to work. Lynne did not have the confidence to mix with a crowd of loud Aussie travellers. She would totally freak out and that would destroy her instead of empowering her. Lynne did not need temporary assistance (even of the comprehensive type). Lynne needed a sibling.

I had just finished looking for rooms in Durham and I’d seen quite a few affordable ones (about £35 per week). But I could not plug Lynne with students unless I was living in the house too. I’d just taken up a room in a shared place, but there was no room left in it.

We kept talking, went for some fags, and then it was time for me to go to my friend’s birthday. I asked Lynne if she wanted to come but she really wasn’t keen, and to be frank, I was more than a bit apprehensive about that too. I asked her if she wanted to meet the next day. She said yes. So I gave her my number and she said she would phone me from one day-care centre that had a phone. She explained to me how to get to the pub I was looking for and walked with me part of the way. Then she thanked me for "making her day" and gave me a hug. She was crying. "Call me tomorrow" I said, "we can spend all day sipping cappuccinos and doing nothing".

The night at the pub was a bit surreal. The picture of Lynne’s quasi-gangrenous untreated fracture kept popping through my mind. Also, I did not have a solution. I was hoping to sleep on it and that the Allmighty Lord Creator of the Universe would help me come up with something the next morning. I decided against drinking alcohol on that night, my emotions were far too volatile, so I stuck to sparkling water. I also felt a bit stupid for exposing myself to this hardcore stuff before attending my friend’s birthday. You’re meant to have a long bath and indulge a bit before a party, so you can be relaxed and help turn your friend's birthday into an awesome party. Instead I was worried. I really did not have a plan laid up for the next day.

The next morning I woke up quite apprehensive: now the phone could ring anytime. My new plan was to get a phone for Lynne, try to get a feel for her existing support system, take her to the doctor's for an appointment, introduce her to the vegan activists who run a bookshop near St Edmund's church so she would have someone to call, maybe invite her up to Durham for a couple of days away from it all, I'd show her our cathedral and the old town. But really these were just ideas: I would dive in and "see how it went".

Lynne never called. I spent the whole day looking for her with another friend. We ended up learning quite a lot about the support systems for homeless people in Edinburgh, but we never found her. A couple of months afterwards, I sometimes picture Lynne and I watching telly, giving each other manicures, doing girly stuff... But this stuff really hurts because I know that it’s just a fantasy picture in my head and that it never did happen, nor will. I liked Lynne. It was irrational, almost an animal instinct. I really liked Lynne.

Oceanic prayer

"Certains se donnent tellement qu'ils parviennent à nager juste sous la surface... il n'y a presque plus rien entre eux et Dieu. Et lorsqu'ils meurent, Il n'a qu'à se baisser un petit peu pour les recueillir au creux de ses mains. C'est plus difficile d'aller chercher les hommes au fond de l'eau". Pierre Guy, Dans le ruisseau

"Some give so much of themselves that they end up swimming quite close to the surface... there is practically nothing between them and God. And when they die, He only needs to lean a little bit to scoop them out into his hands. It's harder to go and seek men at the bottom of the water".

Seneve is the catholic student newsletter of a university in central Paris. I sometimes read it to keep an eye on what French Catholic students come up with. In this funky little text, the author assimilates life on earth to life underwater, where the people living in a water stream try to imagine what life above the surface would be like.

I read this piece ages ago -several years back-. Yet somehow, this is how I still conceptualise sin: someone falls to the bottom of the stream and is far removed from the surface. The answer is to plunge to where they are. Prayer is a bit like being brought back to the surface after dwelling at the bottom of the pool for a bit too long.

I very nearly spat out my coffee onto the keyboard...

On holy stakhanovism and community

I was obsessed with trying hard, being good, meeting needs, pleasing God, and doing the right thing. There were so many good causes to join, so much knowledge to master, so many people to meet, so many relationships to build, so many obligations to fulfill, and so many opportunities to explore. But as I plunged into the whirlwind of possibility, I became systematically fragmented. -Charles E. Moore on joining the Bruderhof Community.

High Church for everyone!

It may be the world’s biggest cliché, but I learn a lot from teaching. I worry about empowering my shy students and, recently, I’ve come across a truly Machiavellian way of encouraging them. The answer it to force *everyone* to sit on the edge of their chair.

No discrimination kiddos, you’re all going to make fools of yourselves in my class, even the confident ones. Then, after I’ve let the confident ones trip over a couple of times and the world does not fall apart, I invite the shy ones to give it a go. And if they trip over, big deal! After a few sessions like that, I’ve got all of them in the learning zone.

This incidentally, is why I sometimes dislike churches that “reach out” to vulnerable populations. These are full of confident types that never really trip over. Rather, they do the “reaching out”. Picture this: what would it do to my class if I told my confident student: “you’re really really good, why don’t you go help my weak student?”. I don’t know about you, but just the thought of doing this drives me nuts. No! no! NO!

So there, I don’t often like touchy-feely churches as there can be much undercurrent condescension in them. My approach would rather be to take everyone to high church. Because high church is the home of every baptised Christian and we don’t need cheapo “relevant” versions for the riffraff. High church is so reverential that we’re all sitting on the edge of our chair. High church enables the poor and vulnerable to construe the middle class folks as a fairly useless bunch of Christians, because they don’t have to be on the receiving end of their awful condescension.

This said, I’m actually a bit ambivalent about stating this. To be honest I don’t really know what I think, this is just my gut feeling. There is a saying in German that I really like: “Die kochen alle nur mit Wasser”. It translates roughly as “Everybody boils [pasta] with water”. The Germans say this when someone idealises someone else, or wonders what someone else has that they haven’t got. The answer is nothing. They tag along like everybody else; it’s all in your head. I wish we made it clear, with sackcloth and ashes, that we’re just tagging along. If it weren’t for the grace and mercy of God, no human being would ever stand a chance.

Talk is cheap

I think I've overdone it this week. Right now, if I hear any more Christian conversation I might be tempted to leave and instead go take a little nap in the river. I feel like shutting up for all eternity, a phenomenon which does not happen very frequently on these pages, and -as you are bound to notice- does not usually last for very long either.

(Here for a reassuringly titled cheesy midi tune).

Not entirely relevant

I'm craving some secular stuff in here. So here goes Faithless:

I love the way you're so deliberate,
How you light your cigarette
Head on one side as you pull, you look almost regal.
I'm digging it, on your mobile, one eye closed
Blue smoke curling out your nose
Wearing one of my shirts and what some call panty hose
Cause you look wicked in scanty clothes,
Long legs like an antelope
You're my antidote to city life, my pretty wife
Hooked up the year before
Together thirteen outta twenty four
And you would never guess
I wanna miss you less and see you more,
See you more, see you more, see you more

And when I kiss you I'm never sure
How do I get to miss you less and see you more?

Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!
Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!
Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!
Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!

I can gauge your mood, from your approach to food
You use ya rude red shoes to accessorize your attitude
Desensitized to my roving eyes, and ready smile
I get loving that's versatile,
Worth that extra smile lying next to me
Your textured voice whispering,
I'm listening with my whole skin
Holding onto the moment for all its worth
How could I continue to be the sky without my earth

And when I kiss you, I'm never sure,
And when I kiss you, I'm never sure,
And when I kiss you, I'm never sure,
How do I get to miss you less and see you more?

Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!
Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!
Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!
Miss you less, see you more, love to know you better!

In the former USSR, Part II

The members of the family I was staying with had worked for decades in a Kolkhoz. Private property had been seized during the revolution and redistributed to all -bourgeois or peasants- more of less fairly. Religion had taken on an incredible force because repression had forced people to become reflexive about it, so it carried on from the past, never becoming "liberalised".

In the nineties the rouble collapsed. The state practically gave up and nearly ceased providing services. It became so useless as to be seen by all as irrelevant to their lives. Yet, the solidarity between people was exceptional and (in the countryside) nobody really lacked anything. Indeed people from the countryside supported the urban-dwellers.

In the noughties, neoliberalism broke in. People were eager to learn what confident westerners wanted to teach them about entrepreneurship, to study economics, to enrol in business schools. Everybody wanted a job in the real economy, everybody wanted the hope of a better future. Some had "made it" abroad. Girls left their country only to end up working as prostitutes. Mein Herz brennt.

We will not be activists

"Il ne s'agit pas d'être militant. Le militant par son coté d'ascète est un repoussoir. Il vient justifier chez l'individu son inaction, son impuissance car son militantisme lui parait inaccessible, trop difficile. Les militants entretiennent, par leur valeur exemplaire, l'idée que seule une petite minorité prête à se sacrifier (temps, loisirs, famille, vacances) peut agir et confirment en retour, par leur distanciation, le consentement à l'assujettissement."

We will not be activists. "Ascetic" activists only serve to repel. Their level of militancy seems inaccessible and paradoxically it serves to justify the inaction and powerlessness of observers. By their sheer heroism, activists cultivate the idea that only a small minority who is prepared to sacrifice much (i.e. their time, leisure, family and vacations) is apt to take action. By distanciating themselves from the rest of the population, they only enable its resignation and its consent to remaining subjected.

(via Indymedia Paris)

Picture: from the movie "Dangerous Beauty"

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

Again, just thinking aloud here. At the moment I'm just throwing bits of ideas into this blog and some of them may be really bad ideas. I'm not inspired all the time, I just think too much.

Thank you very much for your kind offer to start supporting our activities financially. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept money which does not come accompanied by a statement of the donor’s other commitments towards social justice. We are trying to incrementally set up a fairer economy by getting more and more people to help effect the switch. This means that, at the moment, we don’t really see the point in robbing Peter in one part of our life to pay Paul in another and we are led to question the validity of working in the capitalist economy while giving some of our surpluses to causes we like.

More than money, we need people’s commitment to being the “Wilberforces” of our century and we would like to know what people do, at their level in their workplace and in the public place, towards achieving a better quality of life for human beings everywhere. In a sense, we aim to be modern Zaccheuses: we don’t offer just our resources to God; we aim to offer up our reformed lives. Again, thank you very much for your interest in our activities. The statements of past and present supporters can be found online, we would love to be able to add yours to the list.

Painting by Aaron Douglas

Trading with anyone?

In 2001, a few months after graduation, I was invited to live in one republic of the former USSR for a little while, staying with a friend's family. The experience totally changed my life and I would very highly recommend it to anyone. See, in a largely subsistence economy, money was practically irrelevant. The rouble had collapsed and had instantly wiped away everyone's savings. In any given year, the family I was staying with would spend less than 20 dollars. Everything they needed, they either produced, or they neighbours would produce it and they would just depend on each other.

Say your cow was pregnant: your neighbour would supply you with milk, without thinking, and without keeping precise accounts. Come summer if you had lots of cherries, you'd share them with the whole village. While money practically did not exist, people felt very rich and shared with people poorer than themselves. Jesus was king, no contest: to everyone this was evident. Anybody who did not know this was obviously a bit backward. That or the poor soul had never received a proper schooling. It was criminal to raise a kid without this knowledge, and without them having access to God. All the time I sat back while my neurone-connections were slowly getting rewired by their way of life. Mostly, I was amazed.

Admittedly, that's a rather lengthy introduction for the one idea which I wanted to introduce in this post. The people of that country did not understand capitalism! It's the weirdest thing in the world! We went to the market once and I saw a musical instrument which I wanted to buy. I could afford 100 times the asking price but they would not sell it to me. Uh? What? Even if I offer a relatively huge price for it? What's wrong with you?

It turns out that they would not sell it to me because (a) I could not play it, (b) they had put lots of work into it and it was not getting turned into a souvenir for some young French girl and (c) they wanted to sell it to a local person like themselves whom they knew was doing some honest work and to whom it would be valuable: they wanted to know where the money was coming from that would buy their musical instrument. It was a "no", and a very firm "no" at that.

When we got back to my friend's home he told me that he was ashamed of my behaviour. Hours afterwards his face was still red with shame when we discussed it. I really wanted the instrument so I had offered more and more money, to convey that I wanted it, that I valued it. In my mind I was saying: "it's a great instrument, I would pay lots to have it". I did not understand the language or the culture well enough to realise that it did not work like that.

Earlier today, I was thinking: Wesley, Wesley, Wesley... The problem is that if you want to give a lot you have to earn a lot, and no matter where you earn your money from, it's always from somewhere bad. I have a public sector job, but the taxes that pay for it were generated by big businesses, so it's hardly an ethical option. The people that sell us ethical coffee and organic cotton T-shirts are getting paid by this very same money of dubious origin.

That's until we start thinking like our guy, until we refuse to trade with just about anyone. Until we want to know where the money that pays for our goods and services was generated and how. Just how countercultural is THAT?

(And here for an interesting historical reference)

A beautiful quote...

The tragedy of life is not that we die, but is rather, what dies inside a man while he lives. -Albert Schweitzer

Painting by Henry O. Tanner. Click for larger picture.

A great quote...

"Fighting crime by building more jails is like fighting cancer by building more cemeteries."
-Paul Kelly

Disempowered students

I just got back from teaching two classes (first years). In one of them, I was very tempted to ask two students to stay back at the end of the hour and tell them that (a) they were my weakest students, and (b) they were not doing the reading and that I was not going to take this crap. I would have done so nicely, in the understanding that they are not "weak students" per se, but that they are allowing themselves to fall behind.

I'm worried about their "can't do" attitude. I feel like I need to reinforce the two girls in some way: it is my duty to "catch them" now. I think I can do that in a way that is insightful and sensitive but I don't quite dare to. The likely result of my inaction is that they might carry that disempowered attitude into the rest of their studies, and I won't tolerate disempowererd students on my course (especially not girls). They're my kids, they're brilliant and none of them does poorly at university.

My students are usually full of ambition and idealism. They shine out like the glorious young things that they are. In class, they share their dreams, their hopes, the crackpot theories they've been making up while in the shower and this is wonderful. Their essays are inventive and a joy to read. I love to challenge them, I would cut off pieces of paper with outlandish statements on them, give these out randomly and "force" them to argue for that statement with no preparation, to make sure they're always sitting on the edge. It works really well, the class is always full of laughter but they work bloody hard.

I pretty much demand that they stay on top of the material and warn them that if they don't, the consequences will be very dire in their second and third year. By then, they won't be able to catch up. I warn them all the time and I do this because I also teach finalists who have fallen behind, don't know what Neoliberalism is and have no confidence in their own ability to succeed.

In class, most of them play along. I'm not asking them to know everything, I'm asking them to try, to jump in the deep end and yes, make fools of themselves! Hell, I make a fool of myself in front of them sometimes and they sure love to point that out! I'm really just coaching them, they're the ones coming up with the ideas.

They're great students, they're doing amazingly well so far and I make sure they know that. I'm proud of them: they're going to do better than the rest of their cohort, and they're going to leave university happy, empowered, and as shiny as the day they first came in. I'm also proud of the way our classes work. But I do wish I'd asked the two girls to stay behind. I won't have any disempowered students on my team. Sorry girls, I just don't do disempowered.

Le droit a la paresse

Affamés, ils portent les gerbes... (they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry) Job 24:10

"M. Bonnet, here are your working women, silk workers, spinners, weavers; they are shivering pitifully under their patched cotton dresses, yet it is they who have spun and woven the silk robes of the fashionable women of all Christendom". Paul Lafargue, in The right to be lazy (1883). Highly recommended. Although, to be honest, Lafargue's prose is much better in French -and come to think of it, so is the Bible.

This is hilarious!

You peace-lovers out there, I've just come accross this on Tantalizing if True:

"Announcing the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Amish, Mennonites, and other historic peace churches":

Islamic banking: some ideas

Principle: the lender must share in the profits or losses arising out of the enterprise for which the money was lent.

"Islam encourages Muslims to invest their money and to become partners in order to share profits and risks in the business instead of becoming creditors. As defined in the Shari'ah, or Islamic law, Islamic finance is based on the belief that the provider of capital and the user of capital should equally share the risk of business ventures, whether those are industries, farms, service companies or simple trade deals. Translated into banking terms, the depositor, the bank and the borrower should all share the risks and the rewards of financing business ventures. This is unlike the interest-based commercial banking system, where all the pressure is on the borrower: he must pay back his loan, with the agreed interest, regardless of the success or failure of his venture. The principle which thereby emerges is that Islam encourages investments in order that the community may benefit"

From this website.

Ethical trade: shape up or we won't buy your stuff!

Just thinking aloud here. Shops in France and Britain rely heavily on both (1) the Christmas season, and on (2) the sales season. The nine o'clock news will often broadcast interviews of shopkeepers expressing their feelings about how good (or how bad) the season has been for them. Those two periods of the year really make or break their yearly income.

What's more, the general public generally resents Christmas consumerism anyway. So if we start off at the same time as the Christmas Carols with a well-planned campaign of recruiting the general public to the "I don't buy this shit" cause, that would really annoy the retailers, i.e. force them to pressure their suppliers into implementing standards.

I would have been in favour of warning them in advance in a friendly letter, the point is not to damage their sales, it is to get them to re-think their value chains. Still that would just give them plenty of time to come up with their own glossy propaganda.

Alternatively, they could just come up with a grossly overpriced fairtrade line of products in which their profit is even more substantial than on mainline products. This means that the value chains are not tilted one bit in favour of the producers and "Fairtrade" remains an expensive luxury, not the norm.

There was an old post on Mark von Steenwyk's blog on which the ever-inspired Espiritu Paz commented that a real solution could be to create a whole Fairtrade Wal-Mart. That would be mint of course, because everyone would just end up shopping there. Can't we get some entrepreneurial genius to do just that?

In Britain, lots of folks are buying fairtrade tea and coffee, and even the right-wing tabloids have started attacking The Gap every second week or so. Maybe we're ready for a bit of action here. Obviously, I would have to think some more about this, and about who will end up being affected. I just re-read Zola's Germinal, so I'm erring on the side of caution.

Wesley + Ethics

For the last couple of weeks, I've been seriously racking my brain over Wesley's maxim: “Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.”

Seriously, even the nicest idealistic ventures need money that has somehow been generated somewhere within the system. I have no intention of running out of boiled eggs, but then I don't want to make the money for the boiled eggs through a system that generates so much misery. While I'm attracted to the frontline, I also realise that frontline communities need to be funded somehow and that even church donations were originated somewhere. Besides, if frontline communities are joined only by a tiny minority of people, they stand no chance of altering the broader system.

All the time I think "ethical standards". Wesley + Standards. I can't think beyond ethical capitalism. Frederic Jameson once stated that it was easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. On days like these I'm ashamed of my (high) level of education. Still, even the profs at my university don't seem to know much better than Wikipedia. Please Lord, I'm begging you, please give us an understanding for our times, don't let us be so stupid and clueless.

Painting by Gustave Caillebotte

And now for a cheesy midi tune!

Against the early invasion of (bad) Christmas carols, o may thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold, fight as the saints who nobly fought of old...

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Krugman's "In praise of cheap labour"

Please feel free to get mad at me in the comments, but I think that Krugman has a point when when he says that: "As long as you have no realistic alternative to industrialization based on low wages, to oppose it means that you are willing to deny desperately poor people the best chance they have of progress for the sake of what amounts to an aesthetic standard--that is, the fact that you don't like the idea of workers being paid a pittance to supply rich Westerners with fashion items". Full article here.

Um, we do need some credible alternatives... The fate of the lumpenproletariat is a very real concern and maybe "bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all". Do we really place our hopes in the moral fibre of capitalists, states and consumers?

Zizek's "Nobody has to be vile"

"According to liberal communist ethics, the ruthless pursuit of profit is counteracted by charity: charity is part of the game, a humanitarian mask hiding the underlying economic exploitation. Developed countries are constantly ‘helping’ undeveloped ones (with aid, credits etc), and so avoiding the key issue: their complicity in and responsibility for the miserable situation of the Third World". Nothing new here, but some of it is worth re-stating. Full article here.

And here's another one: Resistance is Surrender. It's a bit messy, not very innovative and not as well thought-out as some theology out there. Still, at least it takes on the right issues and reviews some resistance approaches, so I thought I'd still link to it.

Maybe I don't like Zizek, I only like the topics he writes about and some of his (occasional) strokes of genius.

Voices form the past

I picked up both English (as language) and my first solid grasps of philosophy in a highly unusual manner. At fifteen I sent a postcard to a death row inmate in California. He wrote back… a lot. In no time, we were writing twice to three times a week. Rob was very interested in my philosophy classes, so I ended up translating all of my lecture notes for him, perusing through the Robert and Collins dictionary.

My grades in both English and Philosophy went right through the roof. Indeed, at one oral examination, I was given the topic of “determinism vs. free will”. This topic had interested Rob very much because of the stories he could tell of the people he was sharing life with on death row. I sailed through that exam, making the absolute highest grade. It sort of made up for my lousy grades in Chemistry, Physics and Maths and got me into the University of my choice, but I divert.

In my first year of University, Rob and I were still writing pretty regularly. I was your typical activist and had joined all the campaigns on campus, even running the Amnesty International society at some point. Rob and I did fall apart after a while. It was not a major disaster since Rob was corresponding with quite a number of people and I was jut one of the lot. Around that time, some of my friends had to actively pull me out of the Human Rights agenda. I was living and breathing the stuff, I was writing all my essays on the topic and spending all my summers interning with activist organisations. I had disappeared behind the cause. I practically talked about nothing else.

About a year later, I picked up Sr. Helen Prejean’s book. I cried through the whole thing. Before reading that book, I had been an isolated French girl with a friend on death row. It was so weird to read my thoughts in somebody else’s book. At some point I wanted to travel to Paris to hear a conference that she was giving. Still, back then, I wasn’t used to crossing the country at a moment’s notice so I ended up not going.

Twenty minutes ago, I got an e-mail telling me that she is coming to Newcastle this Saturday and that our campus’ Cathsoc is going to attend her talk. It caught me a bit off guard, as I’m currently quite busy with other stuff (like finishing a &*$%£* dissertation). But suddenly, all of that surfaced again.

I don’t usually like speaking tours. One of my pet peeves with Human Rights organisations was their habit of demanding that the people we had gotten out of horrible situations come and give talks all around the country every year. Okay, we were not successful that often and we probably did need some success stories. And still I thought that this was brutal. I mean honestly, how many times do we expect these folks to talk about the torture their body suffered to a roomful of people who barely care? Leave them alone! Don’t trap them in the past, don’t define them by what they had to go through, and don’t fucking expect that they will be available to speak to your half-assed activists for the rest of their lives.

So while I don’t like speaking tours I’m still going to that one. It’s going to be weird. Oh and before I forget, if you ever thought that my punctuation was pretty bad you could write to Rob to complain about it.

Polanyi's "evil freedoms"

I admit it, I'm too lazy to start reviewing some proper social science in order to start contributing to the debate from the perspective of one who (supposedly) knows political theory rather well. So in the past week I have started out by posting some intriguing quotes. Maybe I'll graduate to writing book reviews, and even fuller thought pieces. I'm getting tired of all the cutesy posts on this blog.

So anyway, here's another quote, Karl Polanyi's four evil freedoms: "(1) the freedom to exploit one's fellows, (2) the freedom to makes inordinate gains without commensurable service to the community, (3) the freedom to keep technological inventions from being used for public benefit, or (4) the freedom to profit from public calamities secretely enginered for private advantage". This fellow was defining neoliberalism back in 1944 and he's a pretty exciting thinker, so I may share more of his thought in here.

Picture: Karl Polanyi

A great quote

"Theory is necessary to figure out what’s really going on. People always want to be a saviour for the community. It’s like they see a baby coming down the river and want to jump in and save it. We need to stop being so reactive to the situations that confront us. Saving babies is fine for them but we want to know who’s throwing the [...]damn babies in the water in the first place." -Michael Zinzun

(I removed a bit of the swearing to keep this more or less kosher, these social scientists are a bunch of freaking pagans!)

You don't know what love is

Feeling slightly dysfunctional. I think my mental health has deteriorated by 100% between yesterday and today. I can’t say I dislike it. It’s great to revisit old wounds and to notice that they don’t really hurt that much anymore. Each time I let go of a dream I still feel that something is staying with me. It’s quite a substantial something too. I’ve grown to love it. Maybe I really was on to something with my basil leaves.

(Ah rats, Radioblog gives me a file error when I seek to embed that song so I'm including an old fashioned link instead.)

Claiming joy

"The earth was radiant with the presence of God, and in the light of it the community of the disciples could walk the roads, share the lives of their land, and await the future with confidence. It was this joy, this sense of being within the life of God, this source of inward gaiety and outward fortitude, which stirred the stem and disillusioned world of Rome to wonder [...]. Here was surely the light that illuminates every man and is his life. Jesus had come unto his own; and at first they recognized him". -Charles E. Raven

Lovely quote heh? I live and worship in the city centre of Durham. We’ve got some cool Harry Potter bookstores within the precincts of the cathedral that sell books full of quotes like these. I personally find the characters who purchase these books a bit sinister and I avoid them like the plague (instead of loving them as I should). So why would I include this quote in here, among heart wrenching videos and more serious concerns?

Quite simply because if you attempt to claim that joy without changing your life, it will kill you. The more you seek to experience it in the comfort of your own stylish home, the less you will relate to it. You may try to turn up the volume, listen to the world’s greatest music, hear the most inspiring preachers, it will never work. At some point you will long for a genuine emotion, you will go on pilgrimages to holy islands. You will feel less and less. You will be gone.

This is the joy of Francis, who would give away his only blanket just so he would never lose this joy. This is the joy of those who long for Christ to dwell among them, no matter what it will cost them. And it is possible to experience this joy while at the same time wishing for the welfare of Bangladeshi workers. The point is, you want them to share in it so much that you just can't sit still and you mind goes in overdrive trying to find solutions. This is the joy of those who want to claim it now, for everyone.

Joy is explosive. If you're not ready for it, don't seek it. When you meet joy, it either kills you, or it changes your life.

Painting by Alonso Cano

Come as you are

About a week ago, Naked Pastor published yet another stunning cartoon. Through it, NP was stating that you really cannot start out by disliking who people are. As a response to this, some of the commenters argued that we needed to be more ambitious for our churches and start envisioning what could be, instead of simply loving what is.

Today as I re-read the fairly socialist stance of my previous posts, I was reminded that Christians hope not only for the liberation of the poor, but for the liberation of the rich also. Our hope is that Christians in the West will wake up to their responsibilities as Christians and start being the church.

Yet, if we consider that dependence on the Western system is a form of addiction, then affluent Christians need to be loved as well. We tend to think that it’s okay to bawl them out because they "can take it" and they really need to be scared into action. Still, I believe that not all of them are self-righteous hypocrites. Some of them need to be loved into trusting God and the community of believers. Some of them need to be shown ways of living out the gospels. Above all, some of them need to be trusted with it, much in the way in which Andre Trocme trusted his congregation.

This is where I really love Shane Claiborne’s voice. There are instances in which I find him plain annoying (e.g., recycling bath water), but I really admire the way in which he relates to middle-class folks without an ounce of judgement. By being genuinely fond of people while remaining consistent with the demands he lays out, he quite simply makes the gospel attractive to them. And I could not agree more with the message behind Naked Pastor’s cartoon.

Pham Binh on Terrorism

"When Marxists talk about terrorism, we mean violence conducted by a small group or individual on behalf of the masses. We are against terrorism of this sort for many reasons. As socialists, we think that the motor of history is class struggle, action by the masses on their own behalf. The central idea of Marxism is that "the emancipation of the working class has to be the act of the working class itself." We don't think indivuduals or small groups, no matter how well-meaning they are or how shocking their violent acts, can substitute for the working class fighting for itself. This kind of terrorism belittles the role the working class can and must play if capitalism is to be overthrown. It reduces them to being passive spectators, rather than active partipants, or, if you will, actors on the stage of world history. Not only that, but terrorist acts - assassination of government officials, for example - strengthen the repressive machinery of the state. Every act of terrorism serves as a pretext for new invasive laws, shortened court procedures, and a heavier hand in dealing with any opposition, terrorist or not. In this sense, terrorism is reactionary - it serves the enemies of the working class".

Quoted from this website.

Pham Binh on the "vegan diet"

"Instead of trying to organize the working class to collectively seize power from the capitalists (as Marxists do), many try to buy food that is not from corporations, practice veganism, and so on. Others focus on establishing "affinity groups". Either way, they are compromising with the status quo; the ruling class is not trembing because people are eating their all-natural veggies. If we want a society free from hunger and oppression, we have to take the society we do have as our starting point. We can't just "skip" over reality as it stands today and pretend that by eating a vegan diet will somehow overthrow the capitalist class and win workers' power".

Quoted from this website.

Made in France

At the end of a Quaker meeting, we ended up chatting about our varied denominational background. Most were Church of England, one is a liberal baptist and I'm a catholic. It had been a while since I got to reminisce about this background, but when I did I felt quite sad. I realised that the tone of my faith had changed and that I was leaving stuff behind.

I was leaving behind the happy memories of squeezing Church between piano lessons and ballet every Wednesday. Moving away from a whole lot of traditions tacked onto church culture by the countryside I grew up in. I loved every instant. It will always where I'm from. But from my current vantage point my own culture feels slightly odd.

One of the things I like most about Europe is hopping from a country to another, spending some time in each and tuning in to the tone which Christianity has taken there. I never really cared whether we were being particularly true to the hebraic meaning of the Bible. We were not first century jews. We were the European churches, grown here over the centuries, flourishing into hundreds of different expressions. We were the churches God loves.

This picture was taken at St. Peter in Chains Church in Rome by Michael Du Bruiel. I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing it here.

A beautiful quote

"Regarding those who deserted him, those who betrayed him, not a word of resentment came to his lips... he prayed for nothing but their salvation. That's the whole life of Jesus. It stands out clean and simple, like a single Chinese ideograph brushed on a blank sheet of paper. It was so clean and simple that no one could make sense of it, and not one could produce its like."

So far I have read only a couple of quotes extracted from Shusaku Endo's "A life of Jesus". Both of them breathtaking. I can't wait to get into that book. Endo's "Silence" will be the topic of Martin Scorsese's next movie. Rats, I was sort of hoping to keep this author to myself. I'm going to hate the buzz.

The garment industry: a video clip is worth a thousand words

I'm leaving this link (hidden face of globalization) in here just so I don't lose sight of things. And we're "fighting" to get in the shower at some point before 10.30 am? Fucking hell!

You know you live with a bunch of Christian graduate students when

... the only day on which you fight to get in the shower is Sunday.

She decided she could spare a hard-boiled egg

"The voice of a child cried to her “Auntie, please Auntie”. The cries are so incessant that it’s easy to miss them; they’re background noise. Courtney did not have enough to give to all who cried out. The little she had she reserved for only the most desperate, so she continued. But so did the voice of the little one. When she finally turned to tell the child that the food was only for those who were sick, she saw instead that the child’s pleas were coming from a man of about twenty whose body had degenerated to next to nothing, and who was clothed only with rags. She decided she could spare a hard-boiled egg." (Scott Bessenenecker, The New Friars, p.127)

I’ve been meaning to blog about this quote for a while, or ever since I came across it, a couple of months ago. Somehow the picture of the hard-boiled egg stuck to my mind. The horrible picture of having to reserve one’s limited resources only for the most vulnerable, of having to ignore all others. One some days, I must admit that I’m really tempted by the Bill and Melinda Gates brand of activism. I’d rather be part of something big than have to deal with the type of powerlessness described in this passage. I had always been attracted by big top-down solutions. And in many ways, I still am.

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto

"When you painted on Earth -at least in you earlier days- it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too." C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

I can never quite forget that Mozart completed this piece as he was dying and while also working on the Requiem. There is such peace, such subdued joy in this work, it is truly amazing. Grace (and our responses to it) are both unfreezeable, but if you're going to try, do it well! So I'm posting this just for pleasure and also because I'm thrilled about this radioblog thingy.

(I've also edited this post)

Zoecarnate

This might be one of the best websites I've come across in months. It's things like this that make me happy I never got near a formal theological education, because I'm pretty sure that everyone who did would have known about this website in their first week of university. Well, I didn't. And boy, you should see the sheer look of excitement on my face right now!

There's something great about finding something when you've been looking a while. One of our profs over in the social sciences expressed this very well in the opening pages of a great textbook. While his book provides a wonderful framework through which students may fully "appropriate" the discipline, he argues that such a resource is probably best used by finalists. The book assumes that they had already picked up quite a lot of concepts in their previous years and now just needed to learn to see the whole. He'd rather provide lots of disjointed bits of information in the early years rather than start out with an empty framework "to be filled". He finds that imposing a framework on the students' minds at eighteen is a brutal way to teach. He'd rather they reached their third year, their minds brimming with interests and questions, desperate to know more, desperate to understand.

I think I'm unusually fortunate in this respect, because my curiosity on all things "God" is intact and (so far) boundless. I'm just desperate to find out more.

Overheard in yesterday’s small group

T: Okay now, do we have anything we could pray for?

P: Can you pray that I’ll manage to do all my work and still spend some proper time with God?

D. Suits me fine! 'Cause in the last few days I’ve been praying that God might go spend some proper time with someone else!

T. Dany!

This made me laugh...

(on whether recreational flying is "a symptom of sin")

This bishop is not very fun. A real Christian would be talking in terms of airflight being 'Wanton Harlotry afloat on the Devil's Own Breath' or words to that effect. If we could get more blood and thunder in the church's utterances they may get more credibility. For instance they could draw attention to the colour of the tarmac used at airports and say that 'Evil is that Black Expanse upon which the Godless artifacts of the Misbegotten, nay and thrice nay, etc. etc.' Let's have some good old Bible waving and shouting from the pulpit about lost souls in torment. Is there any wonder people stay away from the churches if all one gets from the clergy is the same old crap that the politicians are coming out with?

The comment was left by "Slightfoxing" on the Guardian's Comment Is Free page.

A Fan Art for David Hayward

Another one of my favourite hides...

Mr Sauder's Commencement Address

Yesterday while reviewing my notes I came across a passage that I had lifted from one commencement lecture given at the Faith Mennonite High School by a guy called Mr Sauder. This address is absolutely brilliant and quite possibly the number one best thing I’ve read this year so I thought I’d link to it. The initial link was provided a while back by Espiritu Paz, to whom I referred a couple of posts back. An exceptional blog in many respects.

"But the most important point I want to make in connection with this sort of sacrifice is that you must be committed to it, in the deepest parts of your soul, in order to go through with it. There will be difficult moments, perhaps when your investments have displaced the resources that another tribe survived on for centuries and you have to briefly glance at painful newspaper pictures of their starving bodies over your morning cup of coffee, or listen to sobering 25 second sound bite analysis of their deadly poverty during which Expert Economists try to explain that their deaths were unavoidable".

In some corner of England...

We had seen each other in Church before, but we met again on the way to lunch. It turned out that we had a lot in common, and that included a burning desire to go and explore the West Coast of North America. At lunch we found each other again and continued the conversation where we had let off. I noticed that he was wearing both a Star of David and a Hand of Fatima around his neck. I liked this. He showed me a third medal around his wrist. Then I noticed. His forearm was covered with scars. “Wow” I said, hoping to mean “man this is hardcore!”. “Yeah wow” he said, meaning “this is where I’ve been”. Shit.

We were having lunch at one of elder’s home who was in charge of the students and who had consequently invited them round to his place. There were quite a few 18-years-olds whose parents had phoned our church to make sure that they would be cared for. Most students were here for the first time. The weather was brilliant and the conversation was lighthearted. Most kids were fresh out of youth group and actually knew each other from yearly gatherings and camps.

So um, well. Conversation. There was definitely a blank, but not an awkward one. Rather a weird sense of fellowship. Though I’ve never actually self-harmed, I’ve been quite tempted to. On some days I could not verbalize the pain and I wished there was something else to take my mind off it, to escape from it. Also, it seemed like a way of expressing that I felt guilty somehow, guilty for not knowing better, guilty for not being better. I’d been quite close to that point. So in this silent fellowship we laughed. Wholeheartedly we laughed. There were two of us and we had found each other. Life is shit isn’t it? We were happy.

Anyway the scars looked very old (several years I’d say). They were white by now. And hell they must have been deep too. I still wonder whether it’s rather good or rather bad that I am always able to de-escalate things. Some days I think it’s bad because I’ve got no heart. On other days I think that’s good because I do have a radically democratic heart that refuses to construe others as pathological while it gets to feel smug and “functional”. So I de-escalate homelessness and I de-escalate self-harm. We’re in this together. You’re not that fucked up. You’re great.

I’m sure that it all sounds a bit reflexive on a screen. I.e. there goes Dany feeling all nice and warm inside because she was able to be supportive to some social charity case. This is not what happened. I was not reflexive at all. If anything, I was surprised that such a great guy had had such a rough background.

I thought his guy was awesome. I was so proud to have met him. I wanted to congratulate him: Well done! Well done for turning into such an engaging, soulful young man! Well done for making it to this University! Well done for thriving in it, despite a suicidal mother and non-existent father! Well done for caring so efficiently for her! Well done for joining this church and finding support in it! Well done for the all-out loveliness with which you simply enjoyed church and the company of normal church-going kids before university! Well done for the way in which you single-heartedly love them! I mean, you’re not just normal, you’re beautiful. I noticed that well before I noticed your arms.

I’m not sure our lousy church deserves to mumble its litanies next to someone who cries when he prays, but it is an honour to worship God next to someone like you.

(Absence of) picture credit: I really can't remember where I nicked that one from.