Another Cecile moment

When I was growing up, our local priest used to make this joke about me quite frequently: “She understands things really quickly, but one needs to explain for a long time before she does”.

So, in another fit of Cecilean sentimentalism, I set out to have coffee with the guy sleeping on the street corner. But when I got there, he was still fast asleep, so what could I do? I actually waited for a couple of minutes, racking my brains and then decided that I’d go to the shop to make a packed lunch instead. So I got the nicest things I could think of, plus the obvious -things we learn in the Red Cross- food that are really nutritious, the obligatory bottle of water, um…

There isn’t much else I could do. I don’t know the city well enough to be able to point him to a truly nurturing place. I’m assuming that the places that do exist were somehow unsuitable -or packed up- at this point in time. Yet I longed for that nurturing place. I longed for him to experience actual love. Anything but this state of affairs.

But it’s the other way round. Divine love does not flow in that direction. From comfortable college girl to dilapidated guy sleeping in the rain. Quite the opposite. It shouts out from the street. It shouts to me. Come alive. Don’t die. Don’t die.

Love will never flow top-down from one person to another. I don’t know what “this” is which does flow top down, I don’t have a word for it, but it sure as hell isn’t love.

Say no to symbolism

I woke up in a Canadian cabin overlooking mountains and the ocean. We had to be out by twelve and the place needed to be cleaned thoroughly before we left, so that the next people could move right in. While cleaning up the ashes from yesterday’s fire, I thought about the symbolism of Ash Wednesday. On some level, I sort of longed for visible, tangible signs of that metanoia business. But I pressed those thoughts away from consciousness. Fuck symbolism. Fuck symbolism. I’m not doing symbolism. Ever. No symbolism. I want to be faithful for real. I want the privilege of serving God real close. I’m having none of that ashes symbolism. But I’ll have another chunk of transforming love. Anytime.

NB. I hope I'm doing a good job of sounding normal and unfazed because when the scenery looks like the picture below sounding normal is a bit of an achievement.

Argh! (bis)

Jimmy Dunn is giving a cool talk in Durham this week -and he really isn't around much these days-. So where will I be? Snubbing Jimmy Dunn of course! Next to the talks I'm gonna be attending, his intervention looks like a consolation prize. 'Nuff said.

He who says he has done enough has already perished

You come across them once in a while. In their own eyes, they are the most radical, revolutionary reformers. You think um... sorry but that's really not radical at all. They can't hear it. Or they understand themselves as the most understanding, loving people on the planet, they're "genuine" and "caring". You think that, at the end of the day, that isn't very loving. They don't hear it. They have arrived, there is no drive, no longing.

Or rather yes, there is that tiny bit of longing, a titillating something that keeps their lives interesing, that keeps them moving forward, supposedly. What the hell is "a tiny bit of longing" anyway? Longing is always enormous, it's always unmanageable, it's always too much to handle.

You’ve come a long way babies!

There’s a student in my class (I teach mainstream social science) who writes every essay along religious themes. He sees religion as the answer to everything. And he’s not even a moronic bigot. He is by far one of my most creative students and he’s an excellent writer.

He’s does a grand job of appropriating the lecture material and framing it in his own way. He’s also got that awesome mix of confidence and insecurity which I really love in students. He keeps reframing me as an equal (“so how was your week?”). I’m not bothered. I already do treat students as equals. That’s because my bosses treat me as an equal and I love that.

Of course his arguments are clumsy and you see him coming from a mile. I keep trying to tell him that he needs to take just that one bit of distance. I just need one tiny bit of distance, like: “some people think that…” instead of “this is how it is...”. I keep telling him that his contribution is valuable and that he is clever enough to fit this contribution into the mainstream academic discourse. I keep pointing him to sources in which the author’s faith commitment are evident to a discerning eye, but still make it into mainstream journals. I point him towards Zizek and stuff, to give him the tools to make a great contribution.

I look at my students and I see potential. Big fat potential. When they’re good I tell them. And then I tell them again. I’m bossy as hell, I demand extensive reading and five citations per page minimum, but I’ve never read first year essays that were so objectively good. I only teach about one fifth of the year, others get tutored by someone else. But I still don’t have to mark to a curve. If they’re all good then they’re all good. The essays get moderated between all the tutor groups and mine just rock! Fucking hell, these are first year essays? They write better than me the little buggers!

In my department, the longer you've been around, the higher the level you get to teach, so if you’re finishing your PhD, you teach more specialist modules. I always apply to teach first years. I hate teaching later years and discovering students that don’t know the first thing about the academic game and that have lost all their initial confidence. That’s not happening to any of my kids. They’re awesome, awesome, awesome!!!

Pity that in the grand scheme of things, I'm only reinforcing kids who are already privileged. Anyway, if they've really enjoyed what they did at uni they tend not to become accountants or big five consultants. I'd love to try my skill with students from more difficult backgrounds. And in a way, it's pretty good that I got to learn how to teach in such an easy environment. The kids here are a dream to work with. It reminds me of a friend who was training to be a catholic priest. The first year they sent him to a wonderful, nurturing parish. Then the next year they sent him to a dreadful one in a really dangerous part of Milan. He says he picked more knowledge and understanding from seeing the contrast and from trying to help his second parish than from all his formal schooling. And he loved the second parish so bad he didn't know what hit him.)

Not entirely relevant

Once in a while, I find the religious stuff a bit suffocating, so I'll post something not entirely relevant. Like the lyrics to Jean jacques Goldman's Doux. Mainstream, I love you.

C'est pas moi qui vous ferai des plans
De loup-garou, de grand méchant
S'il faut se battre pour que ça vous plaise
Malaise

Je vous aimerai pas dans la sueur
Genre stakhanoviste du bonheur
La voix mielleuse : 'Alors, heureuse ?'
Horreur

Genre Australien, blond, sable chaud
Surf sur les vagues, sel sur la peau
Grands les sourires, gros biscotos
Zéro

Mais je serai doux
Comme un bisou voyou dans le cou
Attentionné, tiède, à vos genoux
Des caresses et des mots à vos goûts
Dans la flemme absolue, n'importe où
Mais doux
Je serai doux
Comme un matou velours, un cachou
A l'abri lovés dans notre igloo
Couchés, debout, sans dessus-dessous
Grand Manitou de tous vos tabous
Si doux

S'il vous faut un intellectuel
Un bel esprit, un prix Nobel
S'il faut briller dans le tout Paris
Sorry

Si la réussite vous excite
Le style Yuppie cool mais dynamique
Coke pour le speed, pills pour la nuit
Oublie

J'expliquerai pas de large en long
Le Kama Sutra en dix leçons
Les modes d'emploi, notices, techniques
J'évite

Mais je serai doux
Comme un bisou voyou dans le cou
Attentionné, tiède, à vos genoux
Des caresses et des mots à vos goûts
Dans la flemme absolue, n'importe où
Mais doux
Je serai doux
Comme un matou velours, un cachou
A l'abri lovés dans notre igloo
Couchés, debout, sans dessus-dessous
Grand Manitou de tous vos tabous
Si doux

Le complice avoué, le joujou
De vos fantasmes et tous vos Pérous
Capitaine exclusif à vos cours
Si doux...

Faithfulness to the present

I think that "faithfulness to the event" is a bad idea. "Faithfulness to the present" is better. Which links to one of my favourite quote of all times: Love does not age, it is always being born. (By Blaise Pascal, king of the cool quotes)

The Eastern soul

I wouldn’t claim to know the Eastern soul. I just realised that I miss my friend Sergei. He once invited me to spend two months in his country when I was 21. In my circle, Sergei’s the big moral Russian orthodox rock, way more solid than anyone I know. Yet excessively vulnerable, I’ve seen him cry more than any other guy.

My brother looks up to him. My mother calls him up if she’s got couple issues. He asked me to be his little girl’s godmother (or "cometri" anyway, because I'm not orthodox. The orthodox apparently write down the names of all the brotherly adults to be co-responsible for the child in the baptismal register, and then they consider themselves bound to the cometri, who are like family, and to be honoured always. The kid calls them "aunts" and "uncles").

I can call on him all the time, I can sleep at his’ all the time, I know nothing at all about the Eastern soul, but I love Sergei’s. And I love the country that produced Sergei. The eastern guys! Oh the eastern guys! I really do recommend travelling to the former soviet republics. That part of the world got soul. And music. And more soul.

Smetana's music isn't eastern quite yet -there a distinct mitteleuropa tone to it-. But it makes me think of my friend.

Thesis madness

D. Don't talk to me. I'm an antisocial freak until I finish those chapters. Sorry. Got to get back to it. Sorry. I'll be normal again soon. I promise. Why did I sign up for this? I want to die!!!

F (my flatmate). Dany, I cooked some chicken satay and rice. I made more so there would be enough for you. Would you like some?

If you've got 20 minutes...

You might like to wach the story of stuff which provides a clear, succint argument explaining what's wrong with the economy. I could not do it better if I tried.

Quote of the day

Thou wilt love the Lord thy God because he hath loved thee. Thou wilt love thy neighbour as thyself. And then it will be thy glory and joy, to exert and increase this love. - John Wesley, full text here.

Ricardo Flores Magon on the public order

"The public functionaries are not, as is commonly believed, the guardians of order. Order, which is harmony, doesn't need guardians, precisely because it is order. That which needs guardians is disorder and a disorder which is scandalous, shameful and humiliating to those of us who weren't born to be slaves, a disorder which reigns over the political and social life of humanity. To maintain disorder, that is, to maintain political and social inequality, to maintain privileges of the ruling class and the submission of the ruled, that is why governments, laws, policemen, soldiers, jailers, judges, hangmen, and the whole mob of high and petty functionaries who suck the energies of the humble people are needed. These functionaries don't exist to protect humanity, but to maintain its submission, to keep it enslaved for the benefit of those who have contrived to retain the land and the factories for themselves up to this moment."

Argh!

One of my buddies is spending tomorrow morning having breakfast with Rowan Williams here in Durham. And me? I'll be working on my thesis because I'm not invited. Whatever. It's not like I care. Really. Who would want to have a chat with Rowan Williams anyway? Well fuck my friend! He only wishes he could have a chat with the damn great people I'll be having breakfast with in two weeks.

Pleading with Pharaoh

The argument that Christians should not vote really gets on my nerves. I agree that voting does not change much, and I also agree that voting is definitely not the only type of politics that Christians should engage in -prefigurative politics has a lot more potential. It would be great if God did break in and we pray for that all the time. But while God doesn’t seem to break in -in the way we expect-, is it really that bad to plead with pharaoh? How the hell are the two notions antithetical?

I spend my days trying to establish what the hidden agendas are, to make sure we are talking to the hidden agendas, and not debating away at issues that are irrelevant. For instance, there is no way we can significantly enhance the European welfare states and international development if -economically- we buy fully into the Washington Consensus. So democratic debates about improving quality of life at home and abroad are bound to be primarily placative devices designed to wear out the opposition.

Why would it be unfaithful for a Jewish slave (or even for an Egyptian technocrat) to rack their brains in order to come up with some new ideas that would appeal to folks in power? I suppose someone could object that I have no faith in God doing stuff, or in Christians being reformed. That I'm a pagan placing my trust in the system. But I just don’t think that inbreaking will necessarily be thunderous.

And yes, I do damage control. I convince my friends who work in the fashion industry to look out for working conditions. I don’t even have to do a lot of convincing at all, the passion is there already. Our generation has these concerns already. Someone please start having faith in mainstream people, mainstream Christians. The inbreaking of God in their lives.

What I think is really needed is for someone to line out how things could be done differently. Call it "best practice" if you will. Call it incrementalism. People are ready for it, but they need to be shown how it’s done. And meanwhile, please do vote for the least of two evils. Please vote for the person you think will do the least damage. That might just save a few thousands lives in Iraq. But do you even care for these tangible lives? Or do you care more for your own pretty argument: “I’m really an expat, I’m a citizen of Heaven, I want Jesus to be my president”.

Quote by Martin Heidegger

Philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. That is not only true of philosophy but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poetizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering; for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder. (Full text of the Spiegel Interview here. It gets interesting around p.104)

Mike Meginnis on the dangers of "faith"

" If we take God as our premise, given that there is not sufficient logical cause to believe in God, we have to look outside logic. We have to turn to faith. And once we accept faith as evidence, as a reason to do or believe anything, we have given up the game. There is no idea too absurd. There is no argument that cannot be successfully made. Why should we go into Iraq? Because I have faith that things will work out fine. Why should we kill all the Jews? Because I have faith that God would want us to. " (full text here).

Keep it simple: exposing the devil's own plan.

Most of humanity will starve to death amid plenty because no one has any money, or rather because it has concentrated totally in a tiny fraction of the population. (Adapted from this website)

Sacramental encounters

The sacramental encounters I believe in are: the presence of Christ in church, the presence of Christ in the poor, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the presence of Christ in prayer and the forgiveness of sins through unmerited Grace. I have abused, and continue to abuse, each and all of them. Increasingly, I try not to abuse these, but I still feel like hiding under my bed every time I think of them. And every once in a while, Grace seeks me out from under my bed. "Peace be with you" it says.

On giving and buying...

About a year ago, I was visiting the art market in Strasbourg with a good friend. It was an open air affair in which local artists presented the work they wished to sell to the local punters. But really, in terms of organisation, it was a glorified car boot sale. One painting caught my eye. I hesitated because it was expensive, but on the other hand, the Chinese painter looked like he needed the money quite badly, and the painting was stunning. I did not want to ask him to bring the price down and I hesitated for about five minutes. When I said I wanted it, my interlocutor was visibly relieved.

For me, this is a crap position to be in. Why did I even have that sort of purchasing power? Or that power full stop. This is a hateful state of affairs, I don’t want to live knowing that a fraction of my budget is a transformative sum to someone else. I loathe the idea of it. Again, Cecile is haunting me.

I’m really ambivalent about this. I started this post with the idea that not all consumerism was necessarily a bad thing: sometimes, there is a very thin line between buying and giving. The products or services you buy are someone else’s livelihood. This is why some “radicals” make a point of shopping only within a bubble of ethical co-ops: their spending is their mates’ livelihood. Other more mainstream friends purposefully consume primarily local products and services.

In some cases I also think that buying is a lot more sensitive than giving. Should I have offered money and not taken the painting? Of course not! While buying the painting did seem like a nice thing to do, the exchange seemed a lot crasser than going to my local hairdresser. I assume that my hairdresser and me are in the same boat financially. At this level, consumption is mutual back-scratching. But as I think of the transaction over the painting, I’m a bit revolted. How I hate having that power over someone's life. How I hate being Cecile. I’m sick to death of this top-down crap.

Blogging in the New Year

Ah yes, the Christmas-New Year marathon... spending lots of time with family and friends + lots of shopping. It was great and I'm really glad I caught up with all my folks. I forget how fantastic they are. After a couple of days with my ol' buddies I feel like stating with Oscar Wilde:

Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.

I had lots of ideas for new blogging topics, but I did not even write them down into my files of notes, so I might forget a few. I typed a bullet point summary yesterday night but in its present form it is far from bloggable. Not that this one post is either, come to think of it.