What to do when church bores you

Go clubbing with your gay friends and unchurched friends. Dance, let them hug you, buy them drinks and -with them- sing at the following at the top of your voice (add gesture):

Call on me, call me
call on me, call me
call on me, call me
call on me, call me
call on meeeee,
I'm the same boy (girl) I used to be

I'm the same girl I used to be

call on me, call me
call on me, call me
call on me, call me
call on me, call me
call on meeeee,

I'm the same girl I used to be...

Cry some salty tears if you must. But go to the toilet for that. Declare your love to your friends with the excuse of "being drunk". Listen to them declaring love back to you. Drink water before you go to sleep. Trust in the Lord.

On despair

A man sinned greatly against himself, and when death came to him he charged his sons, saying: When I have died, burn me, then crush me and scatter [my ashes] into the sea, for, by Allah, if my Lord takes possession of me, He will punish me in a manner in which He has punished no one [else]. So they did that to him. Then He said to the earth: Produce what you have taken-and there he was! And He said to him: What induced you to do what you did? He said: Being afraid of You, O my Lord (or he said: ‘Being frightened of You’), and because of that He forgave him.
Hadith Qudsi 32

Within a couple of minutes, I ran into two very different stories of sin and forgiveness. In one, the morale of the story is that culprits really should accept forgiveness, it would be foolish not to turn when this is offered. In the other story (above) the culprit despairs and seeks his own annihilation.

I find the hadith extremely beautiful and I think that God relates to that. I think that Jesus could relate to that. He was very prompt to proclaim to whoever he wanted that his/her sins were forgiven, sometimes out of the blue. Most of the time, the people could not even dare to hope that they could be forgiven (and the religious authorities of the time had made that abundantly clear).

People still live with this kind of despair while some of us are basking in cheap grace. We emphasize the turning point, we celebrate people being reborn, being saved, now walking the narrow path and so on...

What of the folks who have never experienced this and who reach for another drink in despair? Do we keep conveying to them that their sins are forgiven when they don’t even dare to hope? Or does our behaviour convey that we think they’re depraved and worthless failures? I used to know this despair and I used to sense it in others. To my surprise I also used to find the words. It’s just that I don’t see a lot of despair in my neck of the world. And I’m loosing touch with mine.

Sculpture by Antonio Canova

Various Things

It’s that time of year again. The master’s students have handed in their dissertations and the PhD students (who have no clear deadlines) haven’t handed in theirs. People I’ve grown to love are leaving one by one. There’s always Facebook I guess. Liquid Love. I don’t know whether to state boldly that I’ve gotten very good at this and that I’m looking forward to the next couple of months in Durham or whether to say that I'll never get good at goodbye. I feel like Kristin Scott Thomas in the final scene of the Horse Whisperer.

I may not be able to write here very often in the next couple of weeks: I’ve got to get broadband set up in the new place. Anyway, I was running out of steam. I’m feeling really challenged churchwise and I’ll spare you all the further coffee dates in which I get told not to worry about discipleship, that my smile might be “lifting someone’s cross off their back” or some other stupid nonsense. Geez, I should compile a book about the crap sentimentality people pass off for Christianity: that would help humanity I’m sure! Let’s get that out in print, for everyone to reflect upon.

I just can’t believe how comfortable and chummy we’ve become with God. I feel like crying out with Ibsen: “Your God is an old man whom you cheat!”, but mostly, it’s not just God that’s getting cheated, it’s us, and that’s why Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor is such a stunning piece of literature. I could learn it by heart, I could speak it out on the streets: Of course we love our Pop Jesus, but we’re being placated by this stupid religious practice, our spirits are maimed, vanishing into irrelevance and we never got a drop of the freedom Jesus was talking about, we haven’t got a spine, we are not new creations. We’ll just discuss Simon of Cyrene over a cup of freaking coffee. Good thing I usually manage not to throw my cup against the wall.

John, a Benedictine monk, once asked about my weird relationship to Church. The best analogy I found was that of domestic cats and wild cats. I’m a wild cat, overly cautious and wary, who usually stays out in the woods but who might come out to eat once in a while when it’s been starving for too long on its own. That’s before it gets all crazed up again.

It’s been the same pattern for years. I’m not a Church-going Christian because I hate church and I’m incapable of attending this respectable social club for very long. I also don’t want show up at the Lord’s table unless He’s got my undivided goodwill. I think that anything else is unworthy of God. I can't help it. So I’ll stay in the wild, trying to work out what reconciliation looks like.

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift”. Makes sense. But that means I’m staying clear of the church building more often than not. How do other people work this tension out?

Drawing by Rembrandt, click for larger picture.

Mourning normalcy

Lunch with a friend. She tells me about her recent holiday in Antigua. How her girlfriend went to L.A. and bought plenty of clothes, because it’s so cheap and they’re so cool. There’s a dark blue pencil in my book. It still smelled of thick paint when I bought it. I liked the smell -like one would like the smell of petrol-. Somewhere in China there’s a factory that smells like this. I miss my normalcy.

Marie Antoinette again

It’s probably very bad blogging etiquette to write on the same topic twice, but I have watched Marie Antoinette again this afternoon, and I’m somehow convinced that it is the most critical (and political) movie to grace our cinema screens in recent years. In this movie, Marie Antoinette is most definitely not an immoral character. She is caring and lovely. She is us.

A beautiful quote

“By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight, the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst”

Albert Raboteau

Today's (absence of) cheesy midi file

(The cyberhymnal midi file really is horrible, do give it a miss! Anyway, this one is a classic so I expect that you all know the tune)

Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
Thou art scattering full and free;
Showers the thirsty land refreshing;
Let some drops now fall on me;
Even me, even me,
Let some drops now fall on me.

Pass me not, O God, my Father,
Sinful though my heart may be;
Thou mightst leave me, but the rather;
Let Thy mercy light on me;
Even me, even me,
Let Thy mercy light on me.

Pass me not, O gracious Savior,
Let me live and cling to Thee;
I am longing for Thy favor;
Whilst Thou’rt calling, O call me;
Even me, even me,
Whilst Thou’rt calling, O call me.

Pass me not, O mighty Spirit!
Thou canst make the blind to see;
Witnesser of Jesus’ merit,
Speak the Word of power to me;
Even me, even me,
Speak the Word of power to me.

Have I been in sin long sleeping,
Long been slighting, grieving Thee?
Has the world my heart been keeping?
O forgive and rescue me;
Even me, even me,
O forgive and rescue me.

Love of God, so pure and changeless,
Blood of Christ, so rich and free;
Grace of God, so strong and boundless
Magnify them all in me;
Even me, even me,
Magnify them all in me.

Pass me not; but pardon bringing,
Bind my heart, O Lord, to Thee;
Whilst the streams of life are springing,
Blessing others, O bless me;
Even me, even me,
Blessing others, O bless me.

Words: Elizabeth H. Codner
Music: William B. Bradbury

Paper flowers

"And don't you dare put flowers on my tomb. I want printed sheets of paper with the names and addresses of families for whom you have found housing".

(I never knew you could miss someone you've never met so very much. France misses her granddaddy. My country was so beautiful when he was living in it. When he was there with us, believing that one could still get some good out of a bunch of Frenchmen)

Uh oh...

I just found out that I have quite a lot in common with freegans. I'd always discarded them as a bunch of excentric clowns far too full-on for my liking. Then I wondered why I could not find anyone with half a critical mind among my centre-left friends.

I think that I still hate the hype though, so I'll pass on some of the more visible idiosyncratisms. As I once told one of my undergrad profs: I'd rather be a sheep in wolf's clothing.

picture credit: http://eyfa.org/bla

Favourite Mug

I thought I'd share the message on my favourite mug, which has been in our student kitchen for years, apparently:

Socialism is what a Labour Government does
Herbert Morrison

Yeah right....

Film Review 8: The Painted Veil (2006) directed by John Curran.

Kitty is a selfish upper class British girl who marries Walter, a bacteriologist, so she can get away from her family. Her family had been desperate to see her go in any case: supporting her cost money and it was about time she was supported by a husband. She follows Walter to China, but Walter is a bit reserved, bookish and not very talkative, so Kitty soon falls in love with someone else and has an affair.

When Walter finds out, he accepts a job in a remote village ravaged by cholera and asks Kitty to either follow him or to accept a humiliating divorce. The story is about Kitty’s “awakening of the heart”. Yet, it is not at all mushy. Kitty is a very tough nut who is profoundly self-centered and who does not care about anything or anyone in the world. Most of the movie depicts her resistance and her attempts to find a way out of having to crack open. I think I needed to see it. Possibly twice.

The raft and the sinking ship

I feel like I really should engage in the debate on Christians and the State by re-reading one or two of Poserorprophet’s latest posts on the topic (+ all the comments) and by also engaging with Stephen’s rather excellent responses. So let’s try…

To retrieve one metaphor used at some point in the debate, on the one hand we’ve got a sinking ship. The ship is really a galley that can only move forward by exploiting galley slaves and it regularly throws the useless slaves –the lumpenproletariat- overboard. The chattering classes on the deck barely know of the slaves’ existence and they don’t care anyway. You can’t really organise a mutiny either because power is so dissolved in society that beheading the king is no longer an option. These days, most passengers discipline themselves like zombies.

On the other hand we’ve got a tiny raft made up by a handful of dedicated Christians leaning towards Anabaptism and Christian anarchism. The people who end up on the raft are those who hate the big boat, don’t want to be part of it, jumped from it and swam to the raft. They're a rather demanding church, who does not shy away from advocating excommunication for members whose behaviour directly harms the brothers and sisters of our Lord. This excommunication is –they hope- temporary and encourages the would-be members of the raft to stop whatever harm they’re engaged in.

So we have some honest Christians on the raft, who mostly rescue the discarded Lumpenproletariat from the water. Some of them also yell out to the sinking ship in the hope that more passengers will take the jump and join the raft.

We also have some honest Christians on the sinking ship who don’t want to leave behind the 99.999 % of the population that will never join the raft. They’d rather die trying to fix the ship than leave the riffraff behind. They believe that there is something of God in everyone, Christian or not. So they will run down to the galley level and make a huge fuss there. Then they run back up to the leisure deck and make another fuss there. They try to fix the ship so it won’t sink all too quickly.

Finally, we’ve got folks like Stephen and myself, who work on the ship and yet they hear the raft calling (or blogging) and they don’t quite know how to respond. They're dead excited about the raft, but they won't leave their ship and the people who still depend on it.

Painting by Theodore Gericault, "The raft of the Medusa". Click for larger picture.

Having already died

"C’est ainsi depuis l’enfance: devoir qui n’est pas fait, leçon qu’on n’a pas eu le temps d’apprendre, et ainsi jusqu’à l’heure de notre mort, où nous nous présenterons les mains vides, torturés de regrets abominables". Alain Fournier

I'm a bit last minute about things. I rush things up at the eleventh hour and so far, luckily, there has been no major disaster. I still manage to get things done. There’s one thing, however, which I do not want to leave to the last minute and which I do not want to delay for another month or another year. I want to have already died so there will be extra-time, so that my time on Earth can be a bonus, a second chance to do all the things I wish I’d done before. For now I’m just trying to figure out the things I would wish to have done differently if I were to die today. That way, maybe I'll still be able to squeeze some of them in.

I read somewhere that in some ancient traditions when they baptized you they almost killed you. They maintained your head under the water for a while. They asked you to be quite serious about your repentance and your faith before you got in the water because otherwise, as the process pushed you to the limit, you might despair, give up hope and inhale water. They got you practically dead, to the point when you’re so vulnerable that you get a glimpse of the divine. Then they pulled you back up, and sent you back into the world, still shaking, on your bonus time.

A beautiful quote

I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out. ~Eugene V. Debs

Borderline blogging

(This post is a bit borderline, I’m not too sure whether to publish it or not but I’ll give it a try anyway. As a disclaimer please understand that perception is subjective and that I may just be delusional. If my life does not look very Christian, then I'm also a hypocrite on my own terms)

In the past few days the spiritual stuff has reached a standstill. I’m not going to mass; I’m dissatisfied with the theology books; if my flatmate starts playing Allegri in the TV room while working on her thesis I just leave the place. Prayer is reduced to an inarticulate plea for mercy. Even getting on my knees feels incredibly presumptuous. How dare I address God? So prayer is just a recurrent supplication which I almost repress, something that pops up in my mind but which I dare not formalise.

But the weird thing is how incredibly tangible God is in those times. It’s scary and I've written about this before. I really hate this state of affairs; I really hate feeling so lame. I’m really scared that I will never amount to anything. I’m scared that my life will be a series of renouncements. I’m scared that I’ll never answer God’s call and that I’ll be a hypocrite forever. I’m scared that God won’t walk me out of this. And I just hang my head in shame.

And boy, is it crazy… suddenly God is everywhere. I’m still feeling useless but God is so real that I wonder why He’s overriding my free will by just turning up. An hour ago, there was this Love just bubbling up and I was so surprised and excited that I wanted to weep and hug my flatmates –but since I can’t really do that I tried to convey it with a smile instead-.

All this turns me into even more of a rascal, I guess, because I really can’t say that I did not know. I did. It was undeniable. And I’m scared that I’ll still manage to live a life of mediocrity and indifference despite this. I’m so scared of it. And God keeps shouting “I love you, I love you, I love you” –a plural you-. And I can hear it. I'm scared and pathetically grateful. God have mercy on us.

Film Review 7: My Life Without Me (2003) directed by Isabel Coixet

There are two sorts of people. Those who love Spanish cinema and those who don’t (yet) know anything about Spanish cinema beyond the latest Almodovar. For one, earlier Almodovar is much better. And then it’s worth noting that some folks who have been influenced by Pedro Almodovar have made some stunning movies of their own and surpassed the master in many ways. My Life Without Me by Isabel Coixet is one such movie. Since it is set and filmed in Vancouver and starrs Sarah Polley in the lead role, I expect that some readers may well have seen this film before I did. So maybe I’ll stick to reviewing obscure European movies from Scandinavia, or Pasolini’s The Hawks and the Sparrows.

Abusing Art

In the streets of Durham you can often overhear Bach or Mozart melodies coming out of a window. In a posh bohemian London shop I once noticed the St Matthew’s passion playing. The freaking St Matthew’s passion? The one where the opening notes literally drive me crazy, as in “running-around-the-room” crazy? The CDs I own but never play? Sometimes I wonder if we rich folks are just abusing art. Using it as a last measure to revive a sparkle of emotion in our moribund souls.

I write this as someone who is utterly dependent on the arts. Glastonbury brings me tremendous joy. The Edinburgh (theatre) festival, with a friend, is my definition of bliss. The plays we saw were magnificent: they put us in touch with the soul of this country and introduced us to the sensibilities of many great new artists. The whole thing is so inherently generous: surely this must the secular equivalent of writing hymns!

But that’s the point. I wonder if writing hymns is all that legitimate after all. By fine-tuning my sensibility and worldliness, I wonder if I’m living in a sort of wonderland in which I get to appropriate all the markers of a high culture, while I'm aware that others can remain too uneducated to be able to articulate their feelings at all other than through formless ressentiment.

These days, I feel like I’m abusing everything: art, the sacraments, even prayer. So I stand at the edge of them; I climb into my sycamore and look at the action from a distance, wondering what forgiveness would be like.

Painting by Thomas Couture

Nightstop

Just for balance... I think our chosen charity for December is pretty damn cool and I may not wait until December to show some support. Basically, it recruits volunteer families to accommodate young homeless people while another solution is found. (There isn't a branch in Edinburgh but we do have one in Durham). Told ya we're still the best of the rest.

In some corner of England

The business meeting I just attended ran extremely well. This Durham church has got to be one of the friendliest organisations I know. It’s full of funky older Christians who have been friends for years and obviously love each other very much. Their meetings are like being at the pub, but without the booze and with some genuine concern for the outside world. Hanging out there is refreshing.

The business meeting ran extremely well. This church is like a wonderfully maintained locomotive. It feels so right. Every Sunday, we will start the engine and we’ll have a little trip in the countryside. It is a wondrous, well-oiled machine and it functions amazingly well. Surely, this is what church should feel like.

The agenda is impressive: “What charity are we going to support this month?” “The regional church office is asking us what we are doing for refugees in county Durham, so guys, let’s shape up and come up with something credible on that front”. “Also can everyone please rack their brains for the funeral service of our deceased friend, we’d like to thank God for the Grace He showed us and the world through the life of our friend, so let’s write something nice”. “Any book recommendations for new additions to our library?”

I’m concerned that we’re really talking about tiny amounts of time and money here. It’s almost funny that we should have such formal procedures for (collectively) sending a hundred quid per month to a charity, or for nominating our newsletter editor*.

But I don’t say anything, I like this church. I like its people. This is the very opposite of a dysfunctional church: these are the most playful, tolerant bunch of folks I know. I wonder what the voice of Jesus would sound like in our nice meeting. If Jesus had anything to say to us lot, what would it be? After racking my brain for most of the meeting, I still honestly don’t know.

Somebody relates a special moment they shared on the train with a troubled kid. The 12-year-old was living in a foster organisation and had been expelled from quite a number of schools. He was back from a day trip in London with his carer and he chatted with one of our church member on his way back. He was starting at a new school and was nervous about it. When he nipped to the loo, the carer told our congregant that she was very surprised, as the kid had never opened up to anyone like this before.

Cool story! Everyone was admirative and expressed hope that this brief chat might be a turning point in the kid’s life. At some point I asked whether our congregant had gotten the kid’s phone number and whether they planned to stay in touch. It turned out that she had sent him a card, wishing him luck in the new school. She was not going to write any more as she did not want to be another person “telling him what to do”.

Fair enough. I still think that an impersonal Hallmark card is in fact rather placating and closes off all dialogue instead of initiating it. Still, I didn’t say that out loud. I had already been the only slightly dissonant voice by suggesting that it was important to stay in touch. That was pretty daring, even though I really don’t think that there was any hint of judgment in my remark.

So really I don’t know where I stand. I like this church and I don’t like it at the same time. I like it because it’s the friendliest thing on Earth, and as far as I can tell, it is one of the most committed churches around. At the same time I don’t like it because it seems a bit complacent, and it might just try to discipline me into its norms. I’m very confused. I don’t want to judge anyone and I absolutely love the tolerant “zone” which this church has created. But I’d also like to be challenged a bit more.

Whenever I walk home from this church, I’m restless and dying for a cigarette. To be honest, I’m on the verge of giving up on this Christianity business. All it does is keep me up at night with prayers, and during the day it makes me even more awkward and weird than I already was before. I’m evolving into a freak of sorts.

I’m still haunted by the blue eyes of the homeless kid in Edinburgh. I can’t believe that I did not think of asking where I could write to him, and that I don’t even know the name of the hostel he sometimes manages to stay in. I feel like hopping on a train and scouting the whole city to find him again. I feel like giving him my mobile phone and opening a bank account with some cash on it. I feel like finding the best person in Edinburgh for him. I feel like acting as I would if it was my actual sibling sitting in the rain (or my actual God, for that matter).

Recently, someone asked me what I get out of prayer. Well, sometimes not much. It feels a bit like in "Life of Brian": Christ is patently there but I’m definitely not getting anything of the message.

And then sometimes -you don’t quite expect it as you walk between the kitchen and the TV room- you sense a rumbling muffled cry, like a father whose child has died and whose grief is beyond words. All you can sense is a growling lament. There’s not a hint of reproach in it, just this huge grief for His child. You realise that the God you pray to is a God who cares, deeply, for each of His children. And that if you can maintain your composure in the presence of His grief, check your pulse, for you might be dead.


Someone would need to go to the places in which people are hurting and dying. Someone would need to deeply care for people there. Someone would need to allow the “muffled cry” to dwell in their own guts. And someone would need to come back to my lovely church, and ask us, in the name of God, not to turn away from our very own family and from the people God so loves.

* Although to be fair, I have no way of apprehending what people commit to in private, i.e. outside of the things we do as a "church". There might be quite a lot going on backstage.