Saturday 30 June 2007

Reforming desires with a giant wishlist

It’s about time I shared one of my prayerful tricks for getting my desires reformed en douceur… It involves no trauma, and it is quite a pleasant process, although I still procrastinate on it because by the end of it, the fantasy of owning three villas in the south of France will have vanished in the sun and have been replaced by a deep commitment to something else. And I kind of like entertaining my vain little fantasies, they feel delightfully normal, not like his crazy stuff from hell.

So anyway, the method consists of writing a huge wishlist, of all my wishes as they stand. They don’t have to be PC (it fact it won’t work if they are); they can be outrageously contrary to Christ’s precepts, i.e. three villas in France, a life spent on Tahiti drinking pina coladas, you get the picture.

This is very funny to do, and it gets your juices flowing in five minutes: the full truth is more invigorating than anything I know. When my best friend and I are in a lousy mood, it’s wishlist time: we love coming up with lots of things we would like, very big and very small, in no particular order. And these are ridiculously materialistic for the most part, you bet! Still, in two minutes, we’re like exited toddlers, giggling with enthusiasm.

Of course, the catch is that quite a lot of the things I desire are incompatible : I'm never going to own those three villas. And that's why I dread the process just before I engage in it: on my list of things I truly desire, there are some stuff that will never materialize, and I don't want to face this reality.

The point of an exhaustive wishlist is to be absolutely honest and follow our gut: yes, that's true, I really really do want at least one holiday home in Southern France one day! The point of the wishlist is to keep going until you absolutely run out of things you desire.

What happens when one writes a very long wishlist is that one then also connects to other desires, which are truer in a sense because they are closer to who we are. Once the big, bulky, non-PC desires are out on the paper and they're not going anywhere, there is space for the other ones to emerge. You don’t know what your gut desires until you get the big ones out.

The longer your wishlist goes, the closer to home your desires are. And then, very automatically, you feel like pursuing those truer desires and the holiday homes become quite secondary. You still want the holiday villas of course, and you can tell God that in a hilarious “cosmic ordering” fashion.

Of course, He then gets to decide whether that’s in store for you (not likely). But then, by that time, I don’t care because, right now, my immediate desires are a piece of toasted French bread with quince jelly, a cup of coffee, listening to Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D and the everlasting fellowship of my God. On reflection, if I could have that last one (please!), then fuck the rest!

All credits for this wonderful trick: Regena Thomashauer's book: Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts, which I recommend to all women everywhere. Take what you like from it and forget the rest.

Christ has come to teach his people himself!

While watching a youtube video of a rather good preacher, I felt extremely uneasy. Why oh why are we forcing this guy to shine alone while we recline in our chairs, feeling all unworthy? I could not agree more with this post by Mark von Steenwyk.

If someone (misguidely) asked me to speak out about my faith in front of a roomfull of strangers, it would go like this: "Welcome and thank you for turning up to the Quaker sermon. Do please rest your heads in your hands and adress Jesus himself, he's an awesome preacher. We'll be meeting up next door in an hour's time over tea and biscuits"*.

I won’t preach. I don’t want to shine and dim your light. I’d be a lousy Quaker if I didn’t let my friends shine on, shine on...

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.

You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.

Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!


Lyrics by Pink Floyd

*Oddly enough, that's also the reason why I'm not really hostile to the stripped-down Tridentine masses, or to the stunning Anglican services of Holy Communion in traditional language, with no preaching, and noone truly leading. If these are followed by beers in the pub, all the better!

Thursday 28 June 2007

Movie Quote

Okay, I try not to associate the F word with God, but this exchange from the movie Clerks II really cracks me up:

Teen: Is that a fucking Bible?
Jay: Hey hey, the HOLY fucking Bible, son.

Book Review 4: The Mountain People by Colin Turnbull

You’ll never guess who put me on to this book. It was John Cleese, yes that John Cleese, via his book “Life and How to Survive It”, a sequel to his first volume which had walked me through my parents' divorce a couple of years back. Both his books come highly recommended if you fancy reading a chat between John Cleese and one of his close friends, psychiatrist Robin Skynner.

So anyway, back to the Mountain People. John Cleese thinks that Colin Turnbull has written a very important and necessary book. It is an anthropological study of the Ik, an African tribe that used to be fairly generous and gregarious until their normal resources were cut-off when a national park was created. The Ik culture was destroyed by the extreme deprivation they were facing, to the point that they led an absolutely selfish and loveless life. When they found food, they would never share it. They would rejoice and laugh at each other’s suffering. Turnbull was most distressed to observe that, by the end of his study, he had picked up their behaviour as well. He had become just as cold and uncaring as they were. He had to struggle for months afterwards to recover his soul.

Since then, I’ve always thought that my life should be about preventing that kind of deprivation at all costs. I’m not overly optimistic about human nature: regular people are not little Gandhis; they’ll probably get very nasty if they lack the basics. The absolute lack of material well-being and security can destroy their love and plunge them further into exile. Just like the generous, nurturing Christian culture can be utterly destroyed by narratives of capitalism, social Darwinism and suchlike.

The book’s dedication reads as follows: “To the Ik, whom I learned to love, and to Joe who taught me”. Joe was Turnbull’s academic mentor. My own dissertation advisor is also called Joe, and he’s got that gentle monastic touch with students which I hope will rub off on me one day. For all its flaws, on days like these, I love my British Harry Potter Uni in the shadow of Durham Cathedral.



P.S. Please note that this is a rather old study. Nobody does social science like this anymore. Today it would be considered a huge, massive breach of ethics to leave the Ik to their situation while the researcher was being approvisioned independently. Still, at the time this study was conducted, there was an ethics of non-interference with the field. You were expected to just observe and to leave the field untouched.

More music

My last hymn was not very melodic, though I do love the lyrics! To compensate, here's another midi file of a pretty cool hymn, by Haendel this time...



"Earth has a joy unknown to Heaven,
The newborn peace of sins forgiven;
Tears of such pure and deep delight,
Ye angels, never dimmed your sight."

Okay okay... I'm not getting soppy and sentimental. I loathe poetry and sentimental devotion when they're not accompanied by a changed life. Right now I'm just doing my secular work, not planning a conversion, so it's back to dissertation for me. Maybe I'll change the soundtrack to "my way" by the Sex Pistols, that's more like it.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13.34

I think I am starting to get this. We're not meant to say hello and be pleasant to each other at church; that's just the liberal democratic "mind-your-own-business" frame of mind, another word for polite indifference. Maybe we should learn to know each other, and love each other, as he has loved us. And that includes Christians on the other side of the earth.

If we're fortunate enough to experience the love of Jesus, then maybe it's our responsibility to extend that very same brand of love to others. We simply tune in to his love and faithfully replicate it, loving with the same friendly indulgence and the same recklessness. We are his church, we are the "class of 2007". He is the vine and we are the branches, this is a joint venture!

And here's another tacky midi file, it's been a long time...

'Tis the old time religion,
'Tis the old time religion,
'Tis the old time religion,
And it’s good enough for me.

Wednesday 27 June 2007

Where the rubber hits the road...

Ladies and Gentlemen, beloved passengers, we are about to land on Real-life airport and we are asking you to please fasten your seatbelts. The visibility is close to nil and the tarmac is uneven, so be prepared for the landing to be a bit rough. We wish to thank you again for flying with Mystic Airlines and we hope that you will choose to fly with us again very soon.

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Found them!

It was quite easy after all... I got on Amazon.co.uk to buy some big name books which I hadn't read. As I read the reviews written by Brits, I realised that some were writing under their real name and city and some even did provide their blog addresses. Yeehaw! I did eventually find some radical christians (or at least people who read the books that I read) not far from where I live.

Love, not sacrifice

Whao, what an odd messy post! It started on a mildly reflexive topic and it got out of hand. There goes...

This past month has been a month of gentle overdrive: I've got 100's of pages of notes and ideas gathered here and there. The best moments were when I came across something and I realised that I already agreed with most of it. It's like harboring half-backed ideas on the back of your mind and then you read it in someone else's words and you realise that this has, in fact, already grown on you.

The New Saint Benedict by Ivan Kauffman has quite a lot of such ideas, though of course, I don't buy the whole project. I will adapt the ideas and it will end up looking very different. My problem is that I love mainstream people too much, and I don't want to be that different from them. Instead we'll be mainstream with a serious hint of edge.

This has worked for me in the past. I can totally tap into the potential of mainstream folks. I'm just a bit bolder, so I'll go out and invite the homeless kid to our student party, and my mainstream friends would be great: low key, understated, interested, not "driven", not an ounce of righteousness, just amazing.

Mainstream folks have got heart, I promise! Who the fuck are we to think that people sitting in the next pew are hypocrites? They're not, not more than us.

When I was working in the donor department of a large NGO, I had access to research material which established that even though mainstream folks are hit hard by "compassion fatigue" and are reluctant to give money to charity and suchlikes, if they are faced with an emergency like: "this kid needs 20 000 dollars right now or he'll die/loose his leg", virtually all of them would not think twice and give him all that they have and more, borrowing if necessary. It's just that they don't meet this type of situation very often, if at all.

And nobody can be blamed for hating austere self-denying morality*. We're allergic to it and, personally, I think that we should be. We don't know how to do self-denial in the way Jesus meant it. We'll only get swamped in the ugly form of self-denial. Again, the fucking devil can twist anything, so it seems, and he can certainly use our best intentions to turn us into miserable loveless dry snake skins.

One of my favourite line in the Gospel goes along these lines: "You go and find out what is meant by 'I want love, not sacrifice'". Jesus' way has got to become the most attractive option by far. We must desire his stuff so much that anything else is secondary, so much that we'll sell everything for the pearl of great value. Otherwise forget it, we'll only become the prey to self-righteous bullshit. Personally, I'd rather dwell in expectant cognitive dissonance than in righteous do-gooding. If a course of action is not attractive to me I don't take it.

On an everyday basis, I will know, in flashes, why the pearl of great value is so desirable, and why I may very well end up surrendering everything for it, "a fairer bride than any you have ever seen". Francis of Assisi was so hooked on the stuff that he had to ask his mates to do the praying in his stead when choosing between praying and preaching: he did not trust his own discernment, he wanted to pray so much that he was bound to be partial, even in his most honest attempt at discerning.

The most annoying thing is that I only know this in flashes. These flashes come and go, and they stay gone quite a lot of the time, those elusive bugger rats!!! You've got to keep begging for them until they become who you are. And I'm just that, a wretched beggar, impatient to be allowed to live in that reality. They say follow your dream? Well, these glimpses are my dream! Me too, please! Come on, me too! Me too! Please call me too!

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matt 9:13. Isn't that passage just stunning?



*That's one reason why I like the film "Marie Antoinette" so much.

Grand Cru Classé

The French literati approach religion like they approach (French) wine. You'll find pearls of extremely good christianity in French books, and you'll find these books on a saturday afternoon, in the dusty racks of a second hand bookshop. Furtively, you make your way to the "religion and philosophy" corner, pretending that you're casually browsing it as part of your broad, broad curiosity about the world.

You're left thinking: do people really read this? And hell, they do! The shopkeeper will have read it, the grey-haired professor type will have read it, the chic boho lady and the eighteen year old grungy student will have read it. Lots of Frenchmen are conversant with Meister Eckart, it's the talk of the town! It gets passed around between friends. They're also reading all the thoughts of a good handful of our French true pillars of fire.

The only issue I've got with it is that the French seem to enjoy such books the way they would enjoy a good bottle of wine. Here, the Kingdom is not spiritualised, it is "culturised". You can become a fine connoisseur of beautiful souls and enjoy their faithful brilliance like you'd enjoy a French Grand Cru, it's a subtle form of hedonistic escapism. In fact, my countrymen probably enjoy these books together with a glass of wine!!!


PS: This post was prompted by my frustration this morning when trying to search for a phrase that a friend had once told me. She had found it in one of these obscure French books. Google knew nothing about it. The sentence reads: "la reponse, c'est de demeurer dans la question*" and prompted some of my thinking on the topic of Christian calling, which I don't think is a one-off event.



* The answer is to dwell in the question

Wednesday 20 June 2007

I wish there was a critical mass of people who were already in the zone and I could just model my attitude on theirs. I wish I could be carried there. I wish that Rebecca wasn’t ignoring me as if I had the plague since our conversation yesterday. Oh fuck, I need a cigarette, and I need to write! I miss you, my shiny French friends, I have never felt alone in your presence.

Tuesday 19 June 2007

Coffee number five: "I wanted to be snappy at her, but I wasn't"

Rebecca is a theology student...

D Hey Rebecca, what the hell does the Gospel mean by "take up our cross daily"?

R You know, take whatever suffering is coming your way on any given day.

D Well, I woke up at 9.30 in my warm bed this morning. Then I worked on my PhD sitting on that same bed for the rest of the day, listening to Faithless. That's not a lot of cross. Why is the image so damn brutal then?

R Um, here's the way I took up my cross today: my friend was being so annoying that I really wanted to be snappy at her but I wasn't.

D Um, thanks Rebecca, sorry I asked you that.

I walk to the dinner table. There's a huge chocolate cake which I made for a flatmate's birthday. Other flatmates are chatting exitedly about a wedding one of them attended. There's a newspaper on the table. The (sore) face of a man beaten to death while in British custody is splattered across the page. I really, really don't want an answer to my question.

Faithless

Strange how almost anything by Faithless (including the side projects) always finds an echo my soul. My musical home.

Monday 18 June 2007

One very lame post

I can’t believe this. I spent half an hour trying to pray and I could not even say an Our Father loud and clear, with moving lips, one that could be heard at the other end of this room where there is only me and God.

I also spent part of the day blogging “out of my pocket” as Quakers would say, so I ended up removing the three posts that have appeared here today. I’m sorry. Dan’s post upset me so much that I had tried to come up with a quick way to deal with it.

Right now, I’m thinking about logging onto Wikipedia to see if I don’t fancy following Shiva instead of Christ after all. I’ve no idea what it means to take up one’s cross daily. The internet is unhelpful and God seems to want me to say a loud "Our Father" right here and right now, which I can’t. Just how lame can lame get?

Other factoids from the day:

- The plane my best friend was on caught fire while in the air. They landed safely. My best friend is alive.
- Alex knocked on my door while I was trying to pray, she had a broad smile on her face.
- A couple of secular friends, whom I thought I had freaked out forever by showing them this blog are actually not freaked out after all.
- I feel seriously humbled and I hate it.
- I'm going to have a cup of tea

(and the freaking bonus: my indonesian flatmate was absentmindedly humming Cohen's Hallelujah in front of the telly while I was boiling water for tea. Spooky shit. Go away, I'm a sinful woman.)

Sunday 17 June 2007

Lying awake at night

Are you an heir to thousands of years of faith? Is that your tradition? Is that your dwelling place? Can you "hear" the rumble that moved Abraham? Girl, do you even know what you're doing? My girl, be quiet! Be quiet!



Caravaggio "The Sacrifice of Isaac" (click for larger picture)

The spirit of prayer

It's so unsettling when all the truth I have to offer is: "I just can't pray, there is no prayer in me, and that's it for today I'm afraid".

Part of me thinks: it'll come back, relax! Your inability to pray is a prayer too anyway, and just because you don't "feel" it doesn't mean God is not there. You're still a subject of Christ the king, remember? Nothing can alter this and your emotions are irrelevant. God will get you to pray when he wants to. Meanwhile you get on your knees anyway and you beg for your spirit of prayer to return. That's the deal.

The other part of me thinks: I hate being in that spot. I don't want to let the sun go down on this state of affairs. I'll do anything. I can't loose this. I feel like an inarticulate puppet without it. I'm so scared of loosing it forever. I want my spirit back! I want my spirit! And I cling to my BCP, not reading it, just clutching it. Fucking pathetic.

My conclusion is that I think I'll tolerate this for a week at most. By then it will probably be so unbearable that I'll end up exploding into a massive emotional tantrum, and have a bit of an "explanation" with God. This is becoming a familiar pattern, I know it well by now.

In some corner of England

It's just another manic sunday...

Drink water!
Take painkiller
Drink more water!
Eat sushis while reading blogs
Meet up with friends at 4pm for coffee
Go to catholic students' mass (conveniently scheduled on the evening, they know their flock well)



WHOA, I can't believe this: the frikin' sermon was about "binge drinking". God is wicked funny! Also, my friend is back in the communion line, like the rest of us lucky sods. I had a big grin on my face after church when meeting another friend. She asked: are you exited about Glastonbury??? "Oh well, about lots of different things" I (sheepishly) replied.

Are you a FUC (Frankly Unfriendly Catholic)?

Take the Quizz!

Here's what I got: Although you are clearly a heretic there is hope. Try going to Mass more often and you may be saved.

Saturday 16 June 2007

Swapping subject positions

When I've reached out to people "in exile", I've often found that the most effective way to reach someone is to let them inhabit a new subject position, in which they get to be the hero and I can be the recipient.

For example, there’s a student in my cohort who started out in a very scary place. If you’ve seen the movie Carrie, she was like Carrie’s mother. My lovely Christian friends even came up with an affectionate nickname: the “Swamp monster”*.

I’m not going to play hero. I felt helpless, and I wasn’t the first person to reach out. A friend of mine was: she was the first to see potential in Alex. Nicole was the first to truly enjoy her company; she was the first to love her. I later got to borrow Nicole’s point of view and liked her too.

I wanted to avoid condescension at all costs. It was Alex who found a way of relating to me. She saw me as the helpless foreign student who needed help adjusting to British culture: that was her excuse for spending time with me. You’ll be glad to know that she also saw me as a lousy Christian and thought she could probably teach me a thing or two. In fine, she thought that I was lonely, and offered to take me hiking on a Saturday. She cared for me, and after a while, she enjoyed my company. On occasion she would say something like: you're just like me.

Me? I tried to stay in the zone, telling myself: "That’s good, you’re doing awesome, you stay in that zone kid, just stay humble and just send Alex some friendly vibes". We ended up spending so much time together that we started to genuinely look forward to seeing each other. The mutual condescension vanished after a few days spent together. She lightened up considerably and now gets on with practically everyone. And I’m proud as hell because it seems like I was one of the first persons** she ever smiled to. AMDG.

Edit: upon reflection, I hate this post. It does not do any justice to the present state of affairs. I love Alex like I love myself, with the exact same friendly indulgence. It's true, we didn't hit it off initially. It was a deliberate course of action on my part: I was trying to be good. She was trying to be good to me. And then Grace hit us from on high. I love you Alex. Thanks for your trust.



* To their credit, they did this for a reason: they were convinced that Alex needed to be snapped out of her attitude, and that this type of banter would achieve it. They wanted to knock off her rough edges. The name calling was not really vicious, it was meant as a wake-up call, they did want her to fit in. But when that did not work, they just settled with not interacting with her at all, they did not know how to relate to her. While I thought that this was brutal, I was also very bad at relating to her, and just did not interact with Alex either.

** Not the only one though. It took a whole village, and three years, to get her there. I don't know the others personally, but her church did help considerably, and for this the happy-clappy "born again" have my eternal respect.

Friday 15 June 2007

Book review 3: Beware of Pity by Stephan Zweig

Once again, this book is not my favorite by Zweig. Confusion has to be one of the most stunning books I’ve ever read. Still, Beware of Pity is gripping to say the least.

The story is about a young man who starts out “feeling bad” about a crippled young woman. This book taught me that there were very high risks when approaching the vulnerability of others. One reviewer on Amazon.co.uk cites this haunting passage: 'the outcasts, the branded, the ugly, the withered, the despised and rejected love with a fanatical, a baleful, a black love.'

Of course, they only start out like that. So do you fancy taking the very real love of our Lord into these dark waters? I do too. But be as wise as serpents, dear readers, and maybe read some Nouwen first. You will encounter the black love. Can you handle it? I think that the aim is to channel this black love towards God, who can handle it beautifully, as yours truly found out.

I actually think that the rawness described in this passage is beautiful. These kids are so very close to the Kingdom if they made it here, and they're certainly not indifferent. I fall head over heels for keen Zaccheuses hidding in the trees, I'm just not very skilled around them, and I know that. Finding oneself the object of that monster love is a tough spot to be in. Maybe I'll share my tricks on how to get out of it some day.

(The Amazon reviews are tolerable on the US site. They’re better on the UK site, but the second one gives away a bit of the plot)

Of Love and Shadows...

February 2000, Cerro San Cristobal, Santiago de Chile. We’re drinking white wine. It was my idea, a little revenge to the world, a failed attempt at enjoying a world which could be so scary. My friends think that we’re being civilized. I tell them about Love and Shadows, how drinking white wine on the Cerro, laughing there, loving there, playing with the soft rays of the evening sun, was the least we could do. I’m too damn intense, again.

I had read this book a year before while interning with a big human rights organization. My days were full of things I wished I did not know, and full of our daily failures at changing them. And while my evenings were full of parties, I clung to this book as I identified with Francisco. I was 19, I was fucked up. I ran straight into the wall. I still haven’t recovered.

Thursday 14 June 2007

Pantocrator



I once lived for nearly two months with a family in an Eastern Orthodox country. What struck me about their faith was how little scope there was for reflection and intellectual dilettantism.

The room I slept in, like every other room, had an Icon in it.

When you got blessed by a monk, you got blessed by a monk, and that was it. It was their initiative, and if they sought you out, you just passively accepted.

In the period immediately after Easter, you don't say hello, or "cheers" when you lift a glass. You say: "Christ is alive". The reply to that is "In truth, he is alive". Again, you'd better not even begin to think about saying anything else.

I read an article recently about an orthodox legend in which angels are sent to all the churches of the world to determine which one is closer to the truth. They pick an Eastern Orthodox church, because it is closest to what heaven is like. Christ is not an earthly figure, but the undisputed pantocrator king of the world. And that's it, no discussion. A flimsy little moth of a human being can have doubts of course, but they're still living under his dominion regardless. It doesn't change a thing: they're still subjects. Subjects with all sorts of stuff in their head, but subjects nonetheless. It was a very new sensibility.

The above is a Russian painting by Ilya Repin. Again, click for a bigger picture.

Wednesday 13 June 2007

My faith in a nutshell

Maybe we’re not fully Christian until we fully believe in your forgiveness. In terms of nasty betrayal Peter was not faring much better than Judas. But Judas despaired and Peter jumped in the cold water to be with you sooner.

The essence of Christianity in two and a half lines, courtesy of my friend Matteo.


Drawing by Jean Francois Millet

Film review 6: Quills (2000) directed by Philip Kaufman

The catholic chaplaincy at my former University shares its church and worship with an international Franciscan study centre. If you stay in Canterbury outside of term, as I often did, you end up being the only student and worshiping with a bunch of friendly sandal-wearing scholars.

On that day, I wanted to watch the movie on offer at the Student Union. It was Quills, a movie about the marquis de Sade. To my surprise, quite a portion of the Franciscan community was there too. I was younger and less ambivalent about things: I knew right, I knew wrong. I tried to stay on the sunny side of the road.

I was seating next to the habit-wearing Franciscans. While I was shocked by the movie and wanted to leave, they liked it. I couldn’t believe it as I looked at them. They were absolutely not shocked. I decided that I was going to borrow their lens for the duration of the movie. Geez, I thought, if these holy-ish Franciscans, whom I respected so very much, could like this movie, maybe there was something to it.

And there was. This movie rid me forever of my delusion that I was essentially a good individual with pure motives. I became aware of the shit that lives in me. I became so very aware of the danger of pretending that it was not there.

I began to pray in a different way, something I called the “car boot sale prayer”. I would just lay the bare truth in front of God: here’s what's in my soul, see what You can make of it. I too found freedom in the most unlikeliest of places: at the bottom of an inkwell, on the tip of a quill. Despite some heavy-handed blasphemy, Quills has been my favorite movie ever since.



P.S. There are some (moderate) scenes of sex and violence in Quills. Indeed, the whole movie is about how individuals handle violence and the roots of violence.

Maybe I should come clear about my view on the topic of violence. Violence is fine in abstract fantasized fiction, indeed fiction and writing are great outlets for it. I'm physically revulsed by, and very prepared to fight against, any type of violence -even subtle and socially acceptable- which gets played out in real life. I find even the thought of it intolerable.

The reasons why I think like this are complex. But to cut a long story short, I believe that it is the repression of violent impulses (as opposed to the confrontation of them in a safe context) that leads to stuff like the Rwandan genocide. I think that Quills makes that point quite cogently too.

Tuesday 12 June 2007

Coffee number four, with the boss

J: I'll take you there

The Quaker Post

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Monday 11 June 2007

Coffee number three: "You're challenging me"

with my college chaplain...

D Hey Ralph, nobody really takes Jesus seriously. I kinda want to, but I feel isolated.

R What do you mean?

D Like not live the normal capitalist stuff. Francis of Assisi refusing to soak beans from one day to the next. Rich young man, that kind of stuff.

R You're challenging me

D That's not my aim, I feel challenged myself. I was hoping you could clarify. I don't want to wear clothes sewn by kids. I don't want the rat race. I'm just not sure how to adapt the "take not more than one shirt" command in a twenty first century context. Have you got examples?

R Yeah, some of my friends just set up a self-sustaining farm in Alasaka. You know, I don't buy in that "systemic evil" kind of argument.

D I think I do

R No no no... the world doesn't work like that. An honest teacher doing their job is not evil. Fordism, you know: pay the workers enough so they can buy what they produce. That's good.

D But is Fordism still valid? Are we not moving towards an ever greater gap between the rich and the poor? Race to the bottom? Are we just exploiting the developing world? What's your view on development anyway? If we advocate our levels of consumption, we're wrecking the planet.

R Maybe we need to be prepared to lower our consumption levels a bit

D Make affluence history!!! Yay, that's cool.

R You're challenging me

D Sorry, I'm so confused. I was hoping you'd have an answer. What's the modern way to carry just one shirt?

R This is very challenging to me. It's evensong in two minutes, you coming?

D Um, sure, I need that.

Coffee number two: The Palestrina appreciation society

D Hey John, how was Castle?

J Great, we sang some Palestrina

D Which Palestrina?

J Can't remember, one of the missas

D I love the missa pro defunctis. The Kyrie in that one is just amazing

J Yes, we sang that last week at Corpus Christi

D Rats, I should have gone to your church, I'd kill for that piece. John, do you know any activist type-christians?

J Not really

D As in none?

J Nope

D Um okay, I thought you might, that theology college of yours seemed kinda funky. I just would like to explore all the different paths there are out there. Just read people's blogs and Myspace, get exposed to new stuff.

J (John, who's a bit autistic at the best of times, just changes the conversation topic)

Coffee number one: "You'd be crap at it!"

Meeting up with Tom, my office buddy. His church is a lot more happy clappy than mine, and he's a total Christian Union freak.

We're talking about the job, what kind of university we would like to move on to after Durham, we're both a bit bored by this town, but we're both about to finish our PhDs, so the future is bright. I haven't seen Tom in ages. He's on suspension for depression and he's not allowed in the office for health and safety reasons.

I ask: hey Tom, my church is bloody apathetic (albeit very musical and nurturing), do you know of any radical christians? I'm not gonna do this upwardly mobile thingy, I want some form of fellowship with people on the margins.

The look in Tom's face gets very sombre. The light tone of our conversation has just droped five levels: "you'd be crap at it"! Since moods are contagious, mine droped quite a bit too. I start to panic: but I'm not that bad, and I'm not even that inexperienced, well, maybe you're right, maybe I'd be crap at it.

He launches into a little lecture: "You've either got to be FROM the margins originally, or you need to be a VERY advanced kind of christian, otherwise your motivations are probably dodgy, and you won't last a fortnight. You know, people who are from this milieu are a million times better than we are. Middle class sentimental christians like you probably should not journey in there. What are your motivations anyway?"

I knew pretty well what my motivations were a minute ago, but you've just delivered me into a spiral of self doubt. Oh God, maybe I'd be crap. Maybe my motivations are dodgy.

I make a mental note: stay tuned to that feeling anyway, Tom may not be entirely right but it's not a bad idea. The stuff I desire are probably still all determined by consumerism anyway, so if I plunge head on into the margins, there's quite a risk that it would be "sacrifice", not "love". Tom does not think I've got what it takes to exit the matrix. I'm hurt, too hurt. He just hit a weak spot.

I don't mind weak spots, I like revisiting them. I did not realise that there was quite a bit of baggage right there where Tom pressed his finger. There's gonna be some hardcore journalling tonight. The truth, all the thruth, nothing but the truth. A quill!

I wanna be in that number…

Le seul malheur irréparable est de se trouver sans repentir devant la face qui pardonne*. Georges Bernanos, Journal d’un Curé de Campagne

I had a fairly intense dream recently, although I can’t remember whether I was actually asleep or just daydreaming in the middle of insomnia. I don’t know what the “judgment” will be like, but I’ve been quite close to death, and it’s awesome, not in the least scary, -all those NDE stories are true.

Anyway, in my sort-of-dream, I got to meet my Lord. And I was sobbing like bloody St Peter, I was so grieved, I wanted to tear my own limbs apart, pull my own eyes in horror. “I loved you more than my life, you gave me everything, I remember the bridge in Jena, I remember your tender leadership and camaraderie, it felt crazy but I valued this so very much. It’s not that I didn’t love you, I did, I did love you so much. Why did I let you down? I did not even realize, I kind of tagged along, half committed, half aware, why did I do this to you?”. I knew I was forgiven and I was so grateful for it, but it was almost making it worse, it was pure grief at what I’d been.

Maybe I’m in the sphere of metaphor here. I have no idea what the afterlife is like, how it happens, but I’m pretty damn certain that this will happen. I’ll be a fucking wretch at that moment, no matter what. I’m going to be in that spot at one point in time, guaran-fucking-teed. And all I pray for is please, can I have a bit of that self-knowledge and clarity now while I’m twenty seven? Please, please.

(Maybe I shouldn’t have written this here. This is exactly the kind of stuff which I’m scared of “freezing”. I may delete it because I prefer the immediate reality to the recorded account)

* The only irreparable disaster is to find oneself without repentance in front of the face who forgives. In Diary of a Country Priest.

Sunday 10 June 2007

I keep coming across that verse

If a verse pops up a lot, in my head, or in weird unexpected contexts, I start thinking that uh oh, let's pay some attention.

"Woe to you Korazim! Woe to you Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you".

(Here's the last place where I came across it while searching for a commentary on another verse. Before that was this morning in the shower, and yesterday on a blog)

Liberal readers please note: a prophetic voice often means "watch out, danger here", much in the way in which you would say "watch out, there's a bus coming". It doesn't mean you'll be hit by the bus. It means "do something".

Conservative readers: can we talk about this when we meet up in "the depths"? :-)

Maya Angelou Quote

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning "Good morning" at total strangers."

You dwarves of adherence!

That's the way Chouraqui translates "men of little faith". As if faith wasn't something you had, rather, something you have to grow in.

On a number of occasions, I'd been wanting to do something so well that I had to ask God to please let it work out, just this once. Each time, it worked very well, but I also knew that I was being carried: this was not intuitive, I was stepping well out of my comfort zone, this was not regular me, it's as if Chinese was suddently coming out of my mouth.

So while the Chinese language will come out when I ask for it, I don't speak Chinese. I'm not at home in it, these are heterotopic moments. I'm at home in mediocrity. I may be punctually given the language of faith and the actions of faith, but that's out of the ordinary.

I've always been struck by the fact that most people's last word is "mom". I find that so unbelievably touching. Gandhi's last word was Rama, God. If this guy could appeal to God with the type of longing and trust that the rest of us have for our moms, I want to find out how.

Should I just beg God to let me dwell in the heterotopic as often as I can, to see if it becomes me, if I can become a citizen of the kingdom by being exposed to it a lot? Maybe then I'll pick up the Chinese like a second language I fully adhere to. I wish faith was the place I speak from, not an identity I get to borrow on occasions.

Saturday 9 June 2007

Book review 2: Antechrista by Amelie Nothomb

Amelie Nothomb is a Belgian wonder, and while Antechrista is not my favourite book by her (Fear and Trembling is), it is a damn good book.

Blanche is a shy bookish teenager who doesn't quite fit. She gets to know another girl (Christa) on her course who fits very well indeed. The other girl is incredibly popular, and everyone seems to love her. Blanche's parents even take to liking her so much that they invite her to live in their home, she'd be such a good influence! But Christa, always held up as a model, is a monster of selfishness and vacuousness. For a while, Blanche longs to be like her and she comes perilously close to achieving that. Christa's way is undeniably appealing, so very appealing.

I love this book if only for the description of the weeks Blanche spends in her room full of books, curtains shut, hiding from the Belgian summer, trying to reconnect to her soul when Christa has left. Nothing beats a room full of books in mid-summer.


The Amazon (absence of) reviews can be found here

Book review 1: Judas by Marcel Pagnol

Marcel Pagnol is best known for his autobiographic stories of childhoood in Provence (My Father's Glory and My Mother's castle) and Provence fiction (Jean de Florette, Manon of the Springs). All of these are delightful, they radiate a tender love and wonder at the world, and people all across Europe relate to them.

The book I'm talking about isn't very frequently published, let alone reviewed. People may come to read it if they buy the full collection of the author's writings. It hasn't even got a single review on Amazon.fr, and it was never translated into anything. It had the same fate as one of my other favourite books by Pagnol: his radiant translation of Virgil's Bucolics.

Pagnol's younger brother, Paul, was a sensitive boy who became a sheperd in the provence. Marcel went on to study in Paris and had an academic career there. But Marcel remained incredibly fond of his brother, and they would spend time together whenever they could. In both the Bucolics and in Judas, the love between them jumps from the page, but more so in Judas, which is a work of fiction (and not a translation) so there is more scope.

Judas is the story of your actual Judas Iscariot, but what a story! Before it became trendy to think so, Pagnol thought that the whole treason thing made no sense, and that Judas must have thought that this was an order. Anyway, that book is a love letter to Jesus, written by a very good author who really is thinking about his own brother the whole time. I've never read anything written with such tenderness. I must have read it twenty times. Each time I make it home to my mom's, I'll grab my copy, lie in the garden's grass and loose myself in it. The friends I've lent it to have also loved it.

Along with Don Camillo, it must have helped to define the (somewhat un-hebrew) Jesus that I relate to.

Let us live to make men free

I was chatting about the Battle Hymn of the Republic with a Quaker friend (which was complicated because he doesn't know any hymns, as in zero). The finishing line of one of of the stanza used to read like this:

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.

In recent years, people have taken to singing "let us live to make them free". I find the new version equally daunting, but I like the liberation tone.

Ironically, this hymn is also the unofficial hymn of the Republican Party of the United States.

Over here in the UK, it is a major anthem for social progress and an ode to collective action: (Old) Labour ministers are fond of singing it. There's even a socialist-friendly version which substitutes "Glory Alleluia" for "Solidarity Forever!".

Which leads me onto a topic that's been brewing in my head for a couple of weeks: it's all very well sharing pretty hymns and woolly reflections in here, but what concerns me as a political scientist is the relationship of christianity with collective action.

To give an example: in European social democracies, we all pay lots of taxes that go towards helping the poor and disadvantaged. So technically, as a collective entity, we have not (always) let them down. In other words, we feed the poor and clothe the naked, we just believe in doing it collectively, anyone who pays taxes takes part in it, so I'm curious to see how we can separate the sheep from the goats.

What's more, as Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon point out in their stunning article "Contract versus Charity: Why Is There No Social Citizenship in the United States?", the notion of rights, entitlements, and social citizenship is actually quite valuable on the political plane. As a citizen of a European country, you have a right to take part in the heritage of this country, you have the right to free education, free healthcare and so on. Your job is to defend this collective heritage and not let it slide.

I still care about where the country as a whole is going. I'm unwilling to inhabit solely the radical margins. I still believe in my fellow mainstream citizens. I'm proud of collective social achievements of which the church speaks so little. I'm bored with personal ethics, but I don't know what I think yet. This is so frustrating.

Let's christianise the system a bit. My intuitive wisdom on the topic is "keep going and extend", which could mean, keep going with the social democratic achievements, but extend them to folks living and working abroad and let's pass some kick-ass laws already! Maybe I'm more anglicised than I realise, but the Battle Hymn of the Republic will always mean that to me. Our God is marching on!

In an era of reckless capitalism, post-fordism and "area competitiveness", it would not be business-like, would it? "No, sir, to be business-like is sometimes to be devil-like. But I would not have you business-like when it is so. Out on your business; be Christian-like!" (Spurgeon's 145th sermon)

Friday 8 June 2007

Where was this picture taken and who took it?

You, dear reader, get to guess where that is. Yes, it's Jerusalem, but where?
If you can also guess who took the picture, you just might win a signed copy of the book because my stepmom works with his publisher. Reply in the comments.



(Click for a bigger picture) If nobody knows, I'll post the reply in here in one week.

Literary bible musings

Last summer, while I was doing research in France, I stayed in someone's appartment, opposite the St Maurice Church, which I loved for a variety of reasons. The owner had left me all her furnitures and books for the summer, and I got to muse in her bible during that time: It was an old, literary one, translated in part by Blaise Pascal and incredibly poetic. The most incredible thing is that it was written in the "vous" form, which is the respectful way of adressing someone in French.

Reading of Jesus saying "vous" to folks is quite fun, it makes him sound like an educated French gentleman. The Bible translation by Lemaitre de Sacy used to be the most common Bible at the time, and these are the words that the eternal Victor Hugo would have read. But I was born in the twentieth century, so, like everyone else, I got a twentieth century oecumenical bible.

Another funky one is the French translation by Andre Chouraki, who tries to stay as contextual as possible and to keep the grammar and vocabulary close to the actual aramaic and hebrew. So the names of Yeschua, Matyah and Co. are rendered in a phonetic kind of way, and they're hilarious at times, not to mention the lively (and disorienting) idioms.

There, you just feel like reading your bible under an olive tree in the scorching sun somewhere in Corsica, pondering on the false teachings of the Sopherîm and Peroshîm. I find it a bit challenging, because I can't really imagine Christ outside of contexts I know, so French, Italian, Spanish and German all seem natural, but Hebrew, now that's exotic!

Still, I can't help calling to mind the songs from the Jewish Soc Shabbaths meals each time I read the word "Elohîm" (and I have been meaning to learn a couple of theses songs properly. Hava Nagila is about the only one I can master).

Je vous souhaite un fort agreable sabbat, dear readers, Shabbat Shalom!

Thursday 7 June 2007

Today's tacky midi file

I'm too disorientated to blog anything else:

Sweet Sacrament divine,
hid in thine earthly home;
lo! round thy lowly shrine,
with suppliant hearts we come;
Jesus, to thee our voice we raise
In songs of love and heartfelt praise
sweet Sacrament divine.

Sweet Sacrament of peace,
dear home of every heart,
where restless yearnings cease,
and sorrows all depart.
there in thine ear, all trustfully,
we tell our tale of misery,
sweet Sacrament of peace.

Sweet Sacrament of rest,
ark from the ocean's roar,
within thy shelter blest
soon may we reach the shore;
save us, for still the tempest raves,
save, lest we sink beneath the waves:
sweet Sacrament of rest.

Sweet Sacrament divine,
earth's light and jubilee,
in thy far depths doth shine
the Godhead's majesty;
sweet light, so shine on us, we pray
that earthly joys may fade away:
sweet Sacrament divine.

The AWFUL midi file (this one is really bad) can be found here

A friend's confirmation verse

My friend cherishes it, and so do I. It is beautiful on a number of levels, and I'll always associate it with her.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me"

Wednesday 6 June 2007

Shiny little playful streak

On some level, I am extremely moved by Bouguereau's painting "Compassion". On some level, it feels like the only rational thing to do, in such a world, because I don't have another answer. On some level, I grasp full well what "cruciformity" is about.

But at the moment when I understand it, a lighter me also surfaces. It reminds me of my cat, when it was hurting: it was cudly and it wanted nothing else than to be held close.

And I never have to operate on such a deep level, because in these moments, a peaceful, shiny little playful streak pops up too. If I'm around people I can leap into it without being phony, just a bit reserved maybe.

Like now, I've just been watching Hotel Rwanda for the first time... and a funky little subdued tune by Ladytron is playing in my head: "Playgirl, why are you sleeping in tomorrow's world, hey playgirl".

It's not that I couldn't inhabit the story, indeed one of my best friend lost all his classmates in the genocide, and we cried together on his twentieth birthday when ,after a normal party with cakes and balloons, he couldn't shake the sadness and I could not either. It's just that this forgiving little streak is always there, no matter what, reliable as ever, if barely audible. And if I feel too exposed I can hide behind it.

Some may say: "but retaining that shiny little streak means you don't fully engage with the present situtation". It's quite the opposite: when I know that I will not loose this tiny lifethread, I can plunge head on into quite a lot of shit, I can journey much further into the dark than I could without it. Let's go.

Insider Allies

I am so thankful for Geez Magazine's Catalog of Social Change, and currently at home in at least one of their categories: the Insider Ally.

"The ranks of the middle and upper classes and other privileged groups have well-meaning individuals who want to share power. Some of these folks may even favor radical change, change that challenges their own power. They’re convinced major change happens when people on the inside of major institutions act as catalysts.

On the grand scale, you’ve got your CEOs for climate change and rich celebrities stopping AIDS. Closer to home, you’ve got people like the civic bureaucrat who finds money for the food bank, or the police officer who initiates training in racism-awareness. Insiders may be crucial allies (or infiltrators, depending on your perspective)"

Tuesday 5 June 2007

"Bethlehem Down" in the Pennines

Bethlehem Down is a haunting Christmas Carol that goes straight through my spin. Oddly enough, it is not festive, it's even a bit sad. I always loved it because it expresses a sense of missed opportunity to which I sometimes relate (and I totally recommend anything by Peter Warlock: his harmonies are out of this world). We were gonna do a whole lot of things when he is king.

We were driving through the North Pennines, a desolate land with nothing but sheeps and we were chatting about carols. I asked: do you know Bethlehem Down? You did. We chatted about it: it's a odd one isn't it? What a melancholy little carol. You knew the lyrics. You were so musical that we tried to put Bethlehem Down onto a major key, rejigging the melody. We had just spent 48 hours together at a conference. I was pleased to have a new friend.

Today was the first time I listened to Warlock since I found out. The feeling in the pit of my stomach is different: Warlock, lovely Warlock. You were the only one who knew of him. My hypnotic, wintery little carol, that makes me wish I'd spend christmas on the pavement. Will I ever listen to it with the same wonder again?


Picture: Alex Braiford on Trekearth. Full credits here.
(There's an okay exerpt of Bethlehem Down on Amazon, it's number 7)

Monday 4 June 2007

Catholic Doctrine

Sydney's Cardinal George Pell plans to ask principals of Catholic schools to make a "religious submission of intellect and will" to the teachings of the Church.


(via the Brisbane Times and the CWN site)

French and understated

I think there's something really quite beautiful about the way the French go about being catholic. The overwhelming majority goes to church only for big celebrations: baptisms, weddings, funerals, in a word: when they can't avoid it.

That doesn't mean anything: we're just a fiercely secular society, and that is so attractive! Quite a lot of my French friends have got a rough childish faith from their first communion days: faith is what they did when they were kids, they have some memories of cathechesis classes when they were eight and flamed up. Oddly enough, their relation to the divine stayed like that, childish and dependent, untouched by years of self-righteous efforts at being holier than the next person. We're almost fighting to be the least zealous of the lot: we loathe religious zeal with a passion.

But we'll still let our kids be raised in this tradition, we'll still entrust our babies and our dead to the care of God. We'll pretend that we don't care, we'll say loudly that it's a nice occasion to have a party, to be together, we'll be all mundane about it, and conceal our true position so as not to impose on the reality of others.

We'll sneak into the cathedral to pray on a tuesday, feeling slightly stupid because we don't know how. The whole nation all buy the same books like Christan Bobin's stunning "The Most Low". (The bloody English version's cover is cheesy as hell: just another religious lit book; the French version is packaged to appeal to literary types of all persuasions, and indeed it does, and goes on to win the most prestigious secular literary prizes).

If you know us very well and you get us very drunk, we might owe up to the ways in which we know God. And then the next day we'll feel exposed, vulnerable and loved. Then we will forever live knowing that our beloved Frenchmen have got as much faith (or Zaccheus-like agnosticism) as anyone, they're just not inclined to talk about more than twice a decade with their closest friends. And how I cherish those moments, in which the divine just bursts out, vulnerable and beautiful. I'm a fan of tiny allusions, tiny little socially unacceptable sentences in which we bare our souls for an instant, before stepping back into ordinary French life. A couple of words which really mean: do you know too?

Sometimes, when I've had enough of North American in-your-faceness, I long to drink a beer with my french friends next to a peaceful lake, any old lake. And if there is no allusion to God, all the better! I'm still feeding on one splendid instant from two years ago.

Sunday 3 June 2007

Not sure I agree...

I just went to catholic mass. There, one of my close friends is not taking part in communion. The big deal? She lost her virginity to a man she loved and who promised to marry her. She's the sweetest girl in the universe, and she's too hurt to want to say that this was a mistake, or to "repent" it as it were. Apparently, the priest and her agree that he should hear her confession first. I'm all for true-blue 180 degrees conversions, but come on! The gospel says quite explicitely that we should all take part.

Saturday 2 June 2007

Exit matrix now

An acquaintance from work, whom I happen to be fond of, and who also attends my church has been found guilty of owning and making child porn material and sentenced to seven years of monitored treatment. I'm not sure of the details: making material could mean just compiling it, I don't know. I found out yesterday night at a party. Bloody fucking hell. I hate this fucking world and I feel like an idiot for leading such a carefree life. Is it really responsible to be reading the Fioretti while this is going on?

The timing is spooky as hell too, I'd been raving about how sheltered this town is. I wanted to write about an event last week during which I totally messed up and I was treated which such gentleness by someone in that same church that I thought I'd write about it here, as a reference for later. Maybe I still will. I'm tempted to still appreciate the things about my town which I like and find incredibly nurturing, but maybe it's time to swallow the red pill. I hate this fucking world.