So you're up for a challenge?

High Fidelity both in the mainstream church and in mainstream social sciences.

Not the most feminist song...

... or maybe in it's own way it is. I know too many "strong" women. Or "strong" men for that matter.

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child,
But she's always a woman to me

She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe
And she'll take what you give her, as long as it's free
Yeah, she steals like a thief
But she's always a woman to me

Oh--she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh--and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

And she'll promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause she's always a woman to me

Oh--she takes care of herself
She can wait if she wants
She's ahead of her time
Oh--and she never gives out
And she never gives in
She just changes her mind

She is frequently kind
And she's suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She's nobody's fool
And she can't be convicted
She's earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she's always a woman to me

Billy Joel, Always a Woman.

A great quote

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.

H.D. Thoreau: Walden (link to full text).

I really want to see you
Really want to be with you
Really want to see you Lord
But it takes so long, my Lord

George Harrisson, My Sweet Lord.

Now there's a cool blog!

They say learning German is worth it just to understand J. S. Bach's music. I'm starting to think that I might pick up Swedish just to follow Jonas Lundstrom's blog. I like the blogs he reads and I really like his comments. The other day, our guy was commenting on Jesus Manifesto, and he left a link to this little gem of a blog. Now wait... a cleverish blog, with 700+ posts on the topic of "ecclesiology, especially the purpose of the gathering of the church". By Golly, that makes me happy!

The Gospel Bug

For reasons largely unforeseen, I have spent the last two and a bit weeks immersed in a conventional, low key and fairly tolerant expression of Church. This experience brought my own contradictions to the fore in a BIG way.

See, I usually stay the hell out of conventional churches, which I see as lukewarm Laodiceas. I’m worried about Cheap Grace. I’m worried that these churches just reproduce mediocrity, or worse, that they provide spiritual capital and social reinforcement to people who already possess quite a lot of forms of capital. I stay out because I think I would like it, I could go with the flow. I could end up making my home in the general consensus, and I’m scared of that.

At the same time, I profess to love the Marie-Antoinettes of the world: the shallow westerners who are deep into their own problems and have never been exposed to anything better church-wise. Also, I have published quite a number of posts in here, in which I praise the “barely churched” who baptise their kids and make it to church about once in five years.

Yet I know. I know about people who have to sell their own organs to the black market so that their family can survive for another couple of months. I know about trafficked prostitution. I sort of grasp the horror of the Aids epidemic. I can guess the anger of God when nobody cares. For the people involved are first and foremost His Children. One day He will assuredly call them, by their name, out from the tomb. And woe to us if we never knew their name, and never cared.

So were does that leave us? I still don’t know. Sometimes the despair is so great that I wish a huge rock would fall on me and crush my head under its weight. I hate us westerners and at the same time I love us. It’s weird. That combination of passionate Love with passionate Anger may well be the “Gospel bug”.

Still I’m realising that, in terms of loving the mainstream, I’d never put my actions were my words were, I just avoided most forms of engagement. So I say there’s hope in the mainstream? Does it look like I have ever believed this? Hope in the mainstream?

The miscreant's blog

I said I would not blog about this, but it’s just too hilarious… Our local Anglican chapel is a wooden structure, it looks pretty good, but it’s not the most thermally insulated building in the world. It does have direct heating –those solarium type lamps- but it’s fairly useless. Every morning at nine, the faithful few walk up there for mass.

For a couple of days it’s been so freaking cold that the candle that’s supposed to burn all the time –I forget the name- is frozen on the outside. It still burns down vertically of course, but the outside edges of the wax are freezing up. And so are the two guys that turn up for church.

It’s pretty much all they talk about for twenty minutes afterwards, which is very funny if all you’ve done in the morning is dunk some Italian biscotti into your cup of tea and read some blogs.

Favourite Mug

Umbrellas against Rain, Condoms against AIDS, Trade Unions against Employers!
Heading of a leaflet distributed to young workers by Russian unions in early 2003.

Tom

One of my office mates is in the last year of his PhD. He started a year before I did, but was out of it for one year because of “depression”. He was back for a few weeks before it got announced that he was quitting. He’s done all the empirical research and jumped through all the hoops. The last thing he needs to do is commit to six months of writing up. I haven’t seen him in a while, and everybody keeps telling me not to mention the topic to him when I do see him, because he is overcome by a massive sense of shame. He is also getting married this year and is a very committed Christian.

Around me nobody wants to do shit. “He must have thought about it”. “Maybe God is doing something with him, you don’t know”… I want to have coffee with him and yell at him: “Tom, fucking hell Tom what the hell is wrong with you? Just write up with me, I’m writing up too: we can meet up everyday. Just finish this, you’ve done most of it, it’s five and a half years of your life, hang on in there”. What would you do?

Coffee number eight: the raising of Lazarus

D. Oh fuck it, I’m bored with my own stuff, let’s talk about your stuff. How’s it going?

H. Oh well, had to do some research for a sermon I got to preach in a couple weeks on the raising of Lazarus.

D. What you gonna say?

H. Something about Jesus being upset that even people who were closest to him did not understand what he was on about and did not trust that he could raise Lazarus up. And so, in a Lenten context, maybe we can take comfort in the realisation that even the folks that were closest to Jesus did not understand him at all.

D. I think that’s a lot of b******! It is sad when people die. When people grieve they “lose it”, they say things they don’t mean, their loss nearly shatters their hope, that’s what happens. It is sad even if people are walking with God. Because as Espiritu Paz puts it, the left behind shed “tears for their lost dreams of life with their brother/sister”.

So even if you were right, it would be the worst timing ever to reprove anyone for their lack of faith. It is sad that life has to be so full of heart wrenching brokenness – it is sad that Lazarus has to die, it is sad that Mary and Martha face a life without their brother. It is sad that people who resist the Empire get tortured to death. It is sad for those who end up getting killed (Jesus and nearly all of his immediate followers) and it is horrible for the people who stay behind too. In my opinion the raising of Lazarus is more about God the Father encouraging Jesus to go ahead with the plan.

H. Yeah, they are a few folks who think that Jesus was sad because Lazarus was dead, but most commentators seem to be closer to my argument.

D. Um okay, I don’t know about any of them. Maybe I just trust my own intuition too much.

To my boomer parents

They never said how much my leaving home was tearing their heart apart. This song by Jean Jacques Goldman, which they played on my last day at home, did this for them. They tried not to cry when they dropped me off at uni. It took them years to get over it.

Puisque l'ombre gagne
Puisqu'il n'est pas de montagne
Au-delà des vents plus haute que les marches de l'oubli
Puisqu'il faut apprendre
A défaut de le comprendre
A rêver nos désirs et vivre des "ainsi-soit-il"
Et puisque tu penses
Comme une intime évidence
Que parfois même tout donner n'est pas forcément suffire
Puisque c'est ailleurs
Qu'ira mieux battre ton cœur
Et puisque nous t'aimons trop pour te retenir
Puisque tu pars

Que les vents te mènent
Où d'autres âmes plus belles
Sauront t'aimer mieux que nous puisque l'on ne peut t'aimer plus
Que la vie t'apprenne
Mais que tu restes le même
Si tu te trahissais nous t'aurions tout à fait perdu
Garde cette chance
Que nous t'envions en silence
Cette force de penser que le plus beau reste à venir
Et loin de nos villes
Comme octobre l'est d'avril
Sache qu'ici reste de toi comme une empreinte indélébile

Sans drame, sans larme
Pauvres et dérisoires armes
Parce qu'il est des douleurs qui ne pleurent qu'à l'intérieur
Puisque ta maison
Aujourd'hui c'est l'horizon
Dans ton exil essaie d'apprendre à revenir
Mais pas trop tard

Dans ton histoire
Garde en mémoire
Notre au revoir
Puisque tu pars
Dans ton histoire
Garde en mémoire
Notre au revoir
Puisque tu pars

J'aurai pu fermer, oublier toutes ces portes
Tout quitter sur un simple geste mais tu ne l'as pas fait
J'aurai pu donner tant d'amour et tant de force
Mais tout ce que je pouvais ça n'était pas encore assez
Pas assez, pas assez, pas assez

Dans ton histoire (dans ton histoire)
Garde en mémoire (garde en mémoire)
Notre au revoir (notre au revoir)
Puisque tu pars (puisque tu pars)

Now that is just what we've been waiting for!

Britain's first Christian sex shop...

Two spots on the road to work

There are two spots on the road to work through which I cannot walk without thinking of you. When I get to them, I always look down, or else I pretend it’s nothing, I joke at myself for being unable to be normal. But really my soul fills up with gratitude for the moments in which you were so tangible and real, in which you broke in and taught me stuff.

When things are complex, the world hurts and I haven’t heard from you in eons, I walk through those spots quickly for I could cry. Your promise, which I thought I grasped, is nowhere to be found. Yet I can only cry because I know you’ll catch me. It takes trust to mourn. I wish I dared to say that I love you.

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread,–behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it–he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.

Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

Percy Shelley

I heart Durham

The ethnographic and foreign film society is showing a Dardennes movie!!! We have folks on this campus that actually know who the Dardennes are. Durham rocks!

A beautiful quote

They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions.

They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears like women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance.

Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves.

[...] And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." Know that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting "to make up the number." But I awakened and would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - The grand inquisitor scene.

Just linking to Nakedpastor

"Our community is unpredictable, spontaneous, bi-polar, and often messy. The music can be good. The coffee may be ready. The room may be warm. But then there’s all the people. Sometimes we’re dealing with suicide, sometimes infidelity, sometimes drunkenness, sometimes drugs, sometimes anger, sometimes heresy, sometimes death, sometimes depression, sometimes silliness, sometimes all the good things too…. well, you get the idea. In fact, I never know from one day to the next where I stand." Full text here.

NP takes the direct counterpoint of one of my old posts in favour of impersonal "high" church. Gosh, this is complicated stuff!

The other exiles

Because they lose their babies. Because their teenagers die in car accidents. Because they are caring for dying relatives. Because they face cancer. Because they do not have the life skills for it. Because they do not know how to pray. Because they do not know how to relate to their God their Father. Because all they have is their formless hesitant hope. They are the other exiles. Those whom the church lets down when it does not nurture their faith or praxis.

I know them. I know them very well indeed. And boy do I love the unchurched mainstream! When they tell you of their pain. When they ask you but is it true? Is there a God? When they barely dare to hope. When those who do not have faith fervently hope that those who do are right. They’re lost in the desert too. And when life hurts, their questions inevitably pop up. Does God love my baby? Does God love me?

N=1: Embodiment

In the social sciences, n stands for the number of cases which you have studied. So n=1 means you’ve been studying one case as opposed to many. If you don’t mind bearing with me for a short while, I will forge ahead with my little ethnography of this one guy.

He would say things like: “I’ve got to go and see the boys” by which he means the guys that hang out at the pub all afternoon most days. He loves them as they love him. To tell the truth he almost needs them and he is refreshed by their friendship.

When required to go to some sort of “spiritual” retreat he sticks it out for about an hour and then either goes back to watching telly in his room or disappears off to the pub. Celtic prayers printed on blue paper are not his thing.

When I talk about “downward mobility” over pizza, he sort of acquiesces, but instantaneously I understand the terrible pretentiousness of that concept. That guy takes embodiment to a whole new level. A level that’s not even reflexive or self-aware. He doesn’t just love folks, he needs them.

I suspect it’s the same for God. It’s an utter, fundamental need for God, one that dispenses with the Celtic prayers at retreats and (sometimes) with prayers altogether whenever he’d rather spend time loving God’s creation. Prayer is not a duty. It is a need. It’ll pop back of its own accord. Immense. Compelling. It will find you.

Max's stuff

On a random day you get called to the hospital. A very young (single) mother has just given birth a stillborn baby. She's crying her eyes out and asking whether her baby can be baptised and have a funeral. What would you do?