There's a lot of "magical thinking" around at the moment. The clock is ticking ominously towards Brexit-Day next March. The Prime Minister clings stubbornly on to her Chequers plan which politicians of all hues, not to mention EU leaders tell her has little hope of flying. Canada and Norway are back in the frame as possible Brexit models. There's talk about how a no-deal Brexit could do the nation a power of good. So much busking, so little planning, still no clarity - it isn’t looking good. When was a modern nation as confused as this, as exposed to European ridicule, as diminished in its standing on the world stage? It's sad to watch any country agonise like this. It's tragic when it's your own.
Much of the Remain perspective on Brexit draws on metaphors of height. "Falling off a cliff edge" is a favourite. "Staring into the abyss" is another. To me, the government’s confusion is redolent of mountain madness. Above a certain height (is it 7000 metres?), your capacity to think clearly and make sound decisions is significantly lessened, which is why climbers die as a result of poor judgment. Your ability to calibrate risk, assess the weather conditions and the passing of time (how much daylight have you got left?), your physical and mental condition, your stamina levels can become dangerously skewed. Not to mention your ethical judgment when it comes to helping others who have got into trouble in high places. How many mountaineers have died because they didn't recognise the moment when they should and could have turned back?
A chance encounter on social media today got me thinking about this image of surviving at a dangerous height. In H.G. Wells' famous short story, a traveller finds himself in a secret, enclosed mountainous land where because of some inherited genetic condition, everyone is blind. Ah, he tells himself, "in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". It proves otherwise. He attempts to escape by climbing his way out of this kingdom where no-one can see except him. But the heights are fraught with danger and he doesn't have the equipment or the skill to scale them safely. He falls to his death. That seems like an eloquent image of our political leaders struggling to keep their heads clear when they are well above their safety zone, where the Brexit air is too thin and conditions too treacherous for them to keep their footing.
One image from the Bible stood out as I thought about it all today. It's the well-known story of Jesus' temptations. Two of them are about high places, as it happens, but here's the one that struck me forcibly.
Then the devil took Jesus to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, 'if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, "He will command his angels concerning you", and "On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone."'
Many people who are not in the least suicidal report that same irrational pull towards danger-at-a-height. They feel some strange, unaccountable instinct to do precisely what Jesus is tempted to do, throw themselves off. It's as if there is something enticing about the cliff-edge or mountain-top, the tower of a great building, a parapet of high bridge, the rim of some chasm in the ground. We can be seduced into thinking we are safer than we are. "Our interest's in the dangerous edge of things" says Robert Browning in one of his greatest poems, "Bishop Blougram's Apology". I sometimes wonder whether our leaders are increasingly finding themselves in this fraught terrain.
What strikes me in the gospels' temptation story is how uncannily accurate the devil is when he suggests what Jesus might do. "Throw yourself off, because you know the angels will come and rescue you." Really? How can he possibly know that, whether he is the Son of God or not? It's an absurd temptation, and yet Jesus takes it seriously. Is this because he knows himself, knows his demons (so to speak), knows that the absurd is exactly what so many of us find ourselves doing when we lose our ability to think clearly? Knows that blind faith is never reasonable, never makes any sense, despite the specious appeal that irrationalism of every kind always holds out for a life that is happy and painless and filled with certainty, and trouble-free.
That's to speculate, of course. But there's no speculation about how Jesus sees off this temptation to do what makes no sense. He focuses on where his own rationality and self-knowledge lead him, back to the God from whom he draws his identity and his sound mind. He answers the devil, 'Again it is written, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."' In other words, let faith and trust in God be informed, not by idiocy or self-interest but by a reasoned discernment of what God requires of us. And if I read the gospels aright, among the ways God wants humanity to know him and serve him, thaumaturgy, overt dramatic displays of supernatural power are not among them. Rather, he wants us to be sound in mind so that as disciples ("learners"), we make good judgments about what is in our own interests, and even more important, what is in other people's. It's what the Bible calls wisdom.
I think there is a clear strain of irrationalism in a lot of the pro-Brexit rhetoric we are hearing. The increasing shrillness of it is evidence here - shout louder because the argument is weak. It's been abundantly clear from before the referendum that the EU as a rule-based organisation could not compromise its four freedoms, and that any credible Brexit proposal from the UK would have to honour them. Instead, there is still talk about unrealisable ways of managing the Northern Ireland border, some of them recklessly putting the Good Friday Agreement at risk. We were told during the referendum campaign that achieving trade deals with the EU would be straightforward when we knew that Canada's has taken a decade to be realised. No-one can tell us how this country is going to recruit people to the NHS, the hospitality and agricultural industries. Warnings against Brexit by those whose business it is to understand and manage the economy are contemptuously disregarded as fear-mongering. This wearisome litany could go on and on.
So I'm thinking: are our leaders perched on the high pinnacle of some building of the mind, an edifice they have imagined for themselves where the rules of real life don't apply, where they can step out into empty air and look forward to being rescued by the angels? Are they so locked into the Brexit group-think ("the will of the British people", "what's best for Britain", "no People's Vote") that they can no longer see the risks they are running? I think I can safely say that there is no angel waiting to bear us up, no divine intervention that will protect us from our own folly. Why should there be? The stones our nation may dash its feet against will be unforgiving and hard. God gives no command concerning us.
We are already on our own as a nation set on this course of action. Europe and the world don't owe Britain any favours. We have fewer friends abroad than we used have and that isn't likely to change soon - the hurt Brexit is inflicting on our partner EU nations will take a generation to heal as will the bafflement beyond Europe as to why the UK would want to walk away from hard-won alliances. Whatever judgment we make about Brexit, we are responsible for it and will have to bear the consequences not just for a few years but, if many are to be believed, for decades to come. And our children and grandchildren whose future we have robbed know all too well that they are the ones who will carry the sins of their fathers and mothers for much of their lives - sins not of Brexiters' bad intent (let's not judge motives here - no doubt they were sincere, they meant well and the idea was good) but of unreason and poor judgment.
So I call it mountain madness. I pray - but don't yet dare to hope - that we all get down to safer levels where we can breathe properly, see the hazards we've been facing, and think clearly again. Yes, of course nowhere in life is risk-free, but we shall be a lot better off where evidence and logic and realistic projection are leading us rather than up here among the perilously tempting eternal snows where the view may be magnificent but the dangers are very great. Even a small slip could cost us our lives. Better get back down while there's some daylight left. It's late in the day, but not too late - yet.
About Me
- Aquilonius
- Pilgrim, priest and ponderer. European living in North East England. Retired parish priest, theological educator, cathedral precentor and dean.
Monday 24 September 2018
Friday 21 September 2018
Brexit: The Prime Minister Speaks
So Mrs May has come back from Salzburg empty-handed.
Brexit-watchers can hardly be surprised. The Northern Ireland border was always going to be a tough challenge if the Good Friday Agreement was going to be honoured. As was finding a modus vivendi with the other 27 EU nations unless it was going to be on the basis of the Single Market and Customs Union. The impossibility of squaring the circle is the right metaphor. You can find as good a match as you want, and you can get closer and closer an infinite number of times. But you can never make the circumferences or areas exactly equal. It all comes down to π.
Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace. Its name literally means the Castle of Salt. Well, the EU leadership has certainly gone through the PM's Chequers proposals like a dose of salts. How she must have wished for some Mozartian Magic Flute to come to her rescue, confer wisdom, protect her against her foes, lead her into the right path! Instead, negotiations on these two critical points have reached an impasse. The EU is clearly in no mood to bend to her wishes. So she has no room to manoeuvre unless she compromises on both of them. And as she keeps reminding us, there is no Plan B other than to crash out of the European Union with no deal.
The Prime Minister has just spoken to the nation. The robust tone was consistent throughout her short speech, the Leitmotif being "we cannot accept...". Some of her red lines will find ready agreement across the nation, such as "we cannot accept the break-up of the United Kingdom". Of course not. But as everyone can now see, this is a non-trivial risk for the Union, especially those who live and work in Northern Ireland. I don't suppose many people foresaw this when they voted Leave in 2016. Like the false prophets in Jeremiah, the cry was "peace, peace, where there is no peace". And the cavalier way some leading proponents of Brexit are ready to treat the Good Friday Agreement is both breathtaking, and desperately sad.
But what about her opening "we cannot accept"? She said today, "we cannot accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum". This begs so many big questions, all of which have been fully rehearsed in the two years the nation has been debating the consequences of the vote. I don't want to plough in well-worn furrows. We were reminded ad nauseam by Brexiters that Parliament is sovereign, and this includes its powers to rescind what has been decided in the past - which is precisely why the referendum and Parliamentary endorsement of it was to reverse the decision first made by the nation in 1975 to confirm our membership of the EU (with the strong support of the Daily Mail - newspapers can change their minds too!).
Add to that the clear proviso that the referendum was advisory to Parliament, and it really won't do lamely to appeal to the referendum result as if it were set in stone like "the laws of the Medes and Persians that can never be revoked". This is immature politics that devalues the intelligence of voting people and infantilises them. In a democratic society, we are free to change our minds, and frequently do at general elections. As I've said, the second EU vote was itself a change of mind following the first.
There's one more issue here, and I recall writing about it in an earlier blog. We know that the majority of elected members in Parliament were for Remain. Not just by a margin of a few percent like the UK electors, but a really significant majority. The point is this. If these MPs believed in 2016 that it was in the interests of the UK to stay in the European Union, what changed with the referendum result? Remainer MPs should be principled enough not to sacrifice their convictions on the altar of a public vote, especially when it is as close as the result was two years ago. They are not delegates who must vote as instructed by their constituencies. They are independent representatives who, having regard for the views of their constituents, nevertheless are free to vote, and indeed must always vote, in accordance with what their conscience tells them is in the national interest, without fear or favour.
What has happened in Parliament that even our Prime Minister, who is undoubtedly a woman to whom principle and conscience are important, is enslaved to this theory that the referendum result is inviolable and sacrosanct? Yes of course, to act with integrity, to follow principle and your own conscience in the face of fierce and loud opposition does take courage. It is fatally easy to be compromised when the stakes are so high and the pressures very great. And who appreciates the demands that are placed upon political leaders in times like these? I'm not at all defending the PM's approach to Brexit when I say that we can all feel for her in these ordeals she faces, not only among her EU colleagues, but (especially, I think) the brutal EU-psychodramas that the Conservative Party has enjoyed acting out for so many decades now. "Bastards", John Major called the far-right Tories when it came to Maastricht. You get the point.
I'm not expecting the PM to read this. But if by chance she were to, here's what I'd want to say to her.
1. None of this fiasco was of your making. You were landed with this poisoned chalice by your predecessor. Having promised he would see the consequences of the referendum through, he promptly walked away from his duty. I wonder how he can sleep at night.
2. Most of us do not want Brexit to be a disaster for the nation. We want you to succeed in your negotiations, not just to get the best deal for Britain, but what is best for Europe too, in the spirit of friendship, understanding and peace-building that is why this EU family exists in the first place. We want to go on being friends, partners and allies of the EU27. To crash out would sour relationships that are immensely important not only to our immediate neighbours and ourselves, but geopolitically too.
3. Don't underestimate how big a loss the UK's leaving the EU will be to the twenty-seven. It's not just the four freedoms or our payments into its budget. It's about the real and deep partnerships that have been so carefully built up across areas such as security, science, culture, environmental care and medicine as well. EU leaders are not punishing Britain for leaving, but they are sad about it, and that helps to explain some of the tough rhetoric coming out of Brussels. The parting of friends is always painful, and we are seeing this being acted out as we watch.
4. Please don't make our nation the laughing-stock of Europe and the world. What happened at Salzburg was humiliating, not just for you personally but for all of us who love our country and count ourselves fortunate to be British. Negotiation is what grown-up people do when things get tough. Whatever comes of Brexit, it needs to be with our dignity intact. I'm very much afraid that we have lost stature in the world during these past two years. Maybe that's good for a nation, not to think of itself more highly than it ought to think. But if it's respect that we've forfeited, shouldn't that make us think carefully about the course we've embarked on? I hope so.
5. Please, please, consider it possible that you may be mistaken about a People's Vote. I am no enthusiast for referenda in a representative democracy, but once that genie is let out of the bottle, you can't put it back again. I think the cry for a third referendum (not the second - that's what 2016 was) will become unassailable in the coming months. Please, please, consider letting the nation, especially its young who were disenfranchised in 2016, speak once more, with the option of remaining in the EU on the same terms as we currently enjoy. After all, if Brexit is really what the UK wants, then Brexiters have nothing to fear from going round the tracks in the light of what we have all learned in the last two years. Minds change, not because people are fickle or wayward, but because circumstances change and new evidence emerges. Previously unknown information, newly assessed risks, clearer perceptions of what Brexit would actually mean, all this comes from the intensive scrutiny Brexit has been subjected to in the last 27 months. Such a triage is a good thing. I'm sure you welcome it. I believe you have the courage to ask the nation in a People's Vote what it now believes about its future in the light of what it now knows. Don't be afraid.
6. It may be small comfort, but I want to assure you that the prayers of people of all faiths are with you. And the thoughts of many more.
Brexit-watchers can hardly be surprised. The Northern Ireland border was always going to be a tough challenge if the Good Friday Agreement was going to be honoured. As was finding a modus vivendi with the other 27 EU nations unless it was going to be on the basis of the Single Market and Customs Union. The impossibility of squaring the circle is the right metaphor. You can find as good a match as you want, and you can get closer and closer an infinite number of times. But you can never make the circumferences or areas exactly equal. It all comes down to π.
Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace. Its name literally means the Castle of Salt. Well, the EU leadership has certainly gone through the PM's Chequers proposals like a dose of salts. How she must have wished for some Mozartian Magic Flute to come to her rescue, confer wisdom, protect her against her foes, lead her into the right path! Instead, negotiations on these two critical points have reached an impasse. The EU is clearly in no mood to bend to her wishes. So she has no room to manoeuvre unless she compromises on both of them. And as she keeps reminding us, there is no Plan B other than to crash out of the European Union with no deal.
The Prime Minister has just spoken to the nation. The robust tone was consistent throughout her short speech, the Leitmotif being "we cannot accept...". Some of her red lines will find ready agreement across the nation, such as "we cannot accept the break-up of the United Kingdom". Of course not. But as everyone can now see, this is a non-trivial risk for the Union, especially those who live and work in Northern Ireland. I don't suppose many people foresaw this when they voted Leave in 2016. Like the false prophets in Jeremiah, the cry was "peace, peace, where there is no peace". And the cavalier way some leading proponents of Brexit are ready to treat the Good Friday Agreement is both breathtaking, and desperately sad.
But what about her opening "we cannot accept"? She said today, "we cannot accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum". This begs so many big questions, all of which have been fully rehearsed in the two years the nation has been debating the consequences of the vote. I don't want to plough in well-worn furrows. We were reminded ad nauseam by Brexiters that Parliament is sovereign, and this includes its powers to rescind what has been decided in the past - which is precisely why the referendum and Parliamentary endorsement of it was to reverse the decision first made by the nation in 1975 to confirm our membership of the EU (with the strong support of the Daily Mail - newspapers can change their minds too!).
Add to that the clear proviso that the referendum was advisory to Parliament, and it really won't do lamely to appeal to the referendum result as if it were set in stone like "the laws of the Medes and Persians that can never be revoked". This is immature politics that devalues the intelligence of voting people and infantilises them. In a democratic society, we are free to change our minds, and frequently do at general elections. As I've said, the second EU vote was itself a change of mind following the first.
There's one more issue here, and I recall writing about it in an earlier blog. We know that the majority of elected members in Parliament were for Remain. Not just by a margin of a few percent like the UK electors, but a really significant majority. The point is this. If these MPs believed in 2016 that it was in the interests of the UK to stay in the European Union, what changed with the referendum result? Remainer MPs should be principled enough not to sacrifice their convictions on the altar of a public vote, especially when it is as close as the result was two years ago. They are not delegates who must vote as instructed by their constituencies. They are independent representatives who, having regard for the views of their constituents, nevertheless are free to vote, and indeed must always vote, in accordance with what their conscience tells them is in the national interest, without fear or favour.
What has happened in Parliament that even our Prime Minister, who is undoubtedly a woman to whom principle and conscience are important, is enslaved to this theory that the referendum result is inviolable and sacrosanct? Yes of course, to act with integrity, to follow principle and your own conscience in the face of fierce and loud opposition does take courage. It is fatally easy to be compromised when the stakes are so high and the pressures very great. And who appreciates the demands that are placed upon political leaders in times like these? I'm not at all defending the PM's approach to Brexit when I say that we can all feel for her in these ordeals she faces, not only among her EU colleagues, but (especially, I think) the brutal EU-psychodramas that the Conservative Party has enjoyed acting out for so many decades now. "Bastards", John Major called the far-right Tories when it came to Maastricht. You get the point.
I'm not expecting the PM to read this. But if by chance she were to, here's what I'd want to say to her.
1. None of this fiasco was of your making. You were landed with this poisoned chalice by your predecessor. Having promised he would see the consequences of the referendum through, he promptly walked away from his duty. I wonder how he can sleep at night.
2. Most of us do not want Brexit to be a disaster for the nation. We want you to succeed in your negotiations, not just to get the best deal for Britain, but what is best for Europe too, in the spirit of friendship, understanding and peace-building that is why this EU family exists in the first place. We want to go on being friends, partners and allies of the EU27. To crash out would sour relationships that are immensely important not only to our immediate neighbours and ourselves, but geopolitically too.
3. Don't underestimate how big a loss the UK's leaving the EU will be to the twenty-seven. It's not just the four freedoms or our payments into its budget. It's about the real and deep partnerships that have been so carefully built up across areas such as security, science, culture, environmental care and medicine as well. EU leaders are not punishing Britain for leaving, but they are sad about it, and that helps to explain some of the tough rhetoric coming out of Brussels. The parting of friends is always painful, and we are seeing this being acted out as we watch.
4. Please don't make our nation the laughing-stock of Europe and the world. What happened at Salzburg was humiliating, not just for you personally but for all of us who love our country and count ourselves fortunate to be British. Negotiation is what grown-up people do when things get tough. Whatever comes of Brexit, it needs to be with our dignity intact. I'm very much afraid that we have lost stature in the world during these past two years. Maybe that's good for a nation, not to think of itself more highly than it ought to think. But if it's respect that we've forfeited, shouldn't that make us think carefully about the course we've embarked on? I hope so.
5. Please, please, consider it possible that you may be mistaken about a People's Vote. I am no enthusiast for referenda in a representative democracy, but once that genie is let out of the bottle, you can't put it back again. I think the cry for a third referendum (not the second - that's what 2016 was) will become unassailable in the coming months. Please, please, consider letting the nation, especially its young who were disenfranchised in 2016, speak once more, with the option of remaining in the EU on the same terms as we currently enjoy. After all, if Brexit is really what the UK wants, then Brexiters have nothing to fear from going round the tracks in the light of what we have all learned in the last two years. Minds change, not because people are fickle or wayward, but because circumstances change and new evidence emerges. Previously unknown information, newly assessed risks, clearer perceptions of what Brexit would actually mean, all this comes from the intensive scrutiny Brexit has been subjected to in the last 27 months. Such a triage is a good thing. I'm sure you welcome it. I believe you have the courage to ask the nation in a People's Vote what it now believes about its future in the light of what it now knows. Don't be afraid.
6. It may be small comfort, but I want to assure you that the prayers of people of all faiths are with you. And the thoughts of many more.
Tuesday 18 September 2018
A Day of Wisdom
I've just got back from leading a study day for clergy and
readers in Llandaff Diocese where my friend June Osborne is bishop. They
had asked me to reflect with them on wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible
with the tasks of leadership, ministry and preaching in the church today
especially in mind.
I wrote a book a decade ago on precisely this theme. Wisdom and Ministry (SPCK, 2008) was an elaboration of ordination retreat addresses I'd already given in the Diocese of Durham. My focus on wisdom in relation to public ministry had been prompted a few years earlier when the Church of England draft revised ordination rites were presented to the General Synod. I made a speech about the readings from the Hebrew Bible that were proposed for ordinations. All of them, I recall, were drawn from the Prophets: call-narratives like Isaiah's "Here am I: send me" (Isaiah 6. 1-8), and Jeremiah's "I have put my words in your mouth" (Jeremiah 1.4-12), or passages that affirm the prophet's vocation, like the Isaiah passage quoted by Jesus in St Luke, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me" (Isaiah 61.1-3).
Now these are all great texts, I told the Synod. But invariably to read passages such as these at ordinations suggested that the role of a Church of England vicar in the contemporary world was like being a Hebrew prophet in antiquity. I said that I seriously doubted that. And despite the importance of being able to speak "prophetically" on occasion, it would be seriously misleading to expect clergy to function as "prophets" all the time. Years ago Bishop John Habgood once spoke about the relentless call on church leaders to "speak prophetically". He said that it's very hard to do when you can see several sides of the same question. I guess that "being prophetic" is all the more effective if we don't attempt it too often.
But Habgood's seeing many sides to the same question is precisely what wisdom is about. So in my Synod speech I offered a model for public ministry that I believed was closer to our contemporary reality. This could be found among the wise of ancient Israel. Here were men and women whose role was to reflect on our human experience, help us find our place in creation, discern God's presence in ordinary life, foster our capacity to "see into the life of things" and find meaning there, explore the joyful and sorrowful mysteries of life such as purpose, destiny, suffering and love, handle the ambiguities and paradoxes of life, and above all to, be led by wisdom into reverencing and loving the God who is "not far from any one of us" as St Paul put it in his sermon at Athens (Acts 17.16-34).
So my ordination addresses were based on wisdom texts that I believed spoke straightforwardly to the privileges and demands of ministry today. Solomon's prayer for wisdom at the outset of his reign, for example (1 Kings 3.3-15), or precepts for living and leading wisely in the first nine chapters of Proverbs, or wisdom-influenced stories of leadership in action like those of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) and David (2 Samuel 9-20, 1 Kings 1-2, the so-called "Court History" or "Succession Narrative"). And I drew on other wisdom writings to suggest how in preaching and pastoral ministry we bear witness to the central issues of human life that are common to our human race: suffering (Job and some of the Psalms), meaning and purpose (Ecclesiastes), love (Song of Songs).
After the Cardiff day, someone tweeted about what I'd tried to share. Not the drama of the edgy + prophetic, or busyness of the big personality charismatic leader, but priest as humble servant of Holy Wisdom. Yes. Which put succinctly what I was on about. I could have spoken at length about the danger, as I see it, of the romantic idea of the minister-as-hero: always energetically engaged in some grand projet (and being remembered for it), fixated by strategic plans, smart objectives and measurable outputs. It plays into the excitable culture which it's easy for the church to emulate (as it already has in some quarters), like Paul's Athenians loving anything that is new and different and that arouses us from our unacknowledged boredom with religion. I caricature of course. I'm all for thinking and planning ambitiously for the sake of the gospel. My concern is how the big, the dramatic and the busy can be better grounded in a proper Christian humility, better rooted in a contemplative, ancient and holy wisdom. I want to ask how we all learn to become, as the good jargon has it, reflective practitioners in the spirit of our great Anglican forebears.
Hebrew wisdom is full of both encouragements and warnings to those who lead. In my session on David, I drew attention to how the story gives us what Robert Alter calls "the most unflinching insight into the cruel processes of history and into human behaviour warped by the pursuit of power. And nowhere is the Bible’s astringent narrative economy, its ability to define characters and etch revelatory dialogue in a few telling strokes, more brilliantly deployed.” It shows “an unblinking and abidingly instructive knowingness about man as a political animal in all his contradictions and venality and all his susceptibility to the brutalisation and the seductions of exercising power.”
The beauty of the narrative is how it doesn't do the work for you of asking questions about your own leadership style and use (or abuse) of power. At the end of the session I set out the seven "Nolan Standards in Public Life" and invited my audience to lay it over the story of King David as a template by which to calibrate his performance. These are ethical values and virtues that should be required of anyone in a public role - monarchs, political leaders and elected representatives, educators, civil servants, business leaders and, yes, clergy and readers! Here's the list: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership-by-example.
I'm pretty confident that the author of Proverbs or the stories of Joseph and David would endorse that list. So having begun to understand the successes and failures of David's reign, his virtues and his flaws, we as ministers need to apply the same wisdom/Nolan template to our own careers too. This should be one of the tasks of the Church of England's programme of Ministry Development Review (MDR). This isn't about reviewing attainment targets or dwelling on past achievements and future objectives for their own sake. It needs to focus on how to promote development and growth in ministry, how to address precisely the leadership challenges posed in the story of David. I measure that not by success or failure, but by how far our progress as ministers is being informed and motivated by an underlying God-given wisdom.
"Priest as humble servant of Holy Wisdom." In Greek, that is Hagia Sophia, elided by ancient Christian readers of the Hebrew Bible with the Holy Spirit who is the Comforter, Teacher and Advocate. I gave another set of ordination addresses last year on the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus that is sung at all ordinations of priests in the famous seventeenth century version of John Cosin in the Book of Common Prayer: Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire. You can read that as a prayer to, and for, Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom. What better hymn to sing, what better prayer to offer as we serve God in this sacred vocation of bearing witness to grace and truth in the name of the church?
I wrote a book a decade ago on precisely this theme. Wisdom and Ministry (SPCK, 2008) was an elaboration of ordination retreat addresses I'd already given in the Diocese of Durham. My focus on wisdom in relation to public ministry had been prompted a few years earlier when the Church of England draft revised ordination rites were presented to the General Synod. I made a speech about the readings from the Hebrew Bible that were proposed for ordinations. All of them, I recall, were drawn from the Prophets: call-narratives like Isaiah's "Here am I: send me" (Isaiah 6. 1-8), and Jeremiah's "I have put my words in your mouth" (Jeremiah 1.4-12), or passages that affirm the prophet's vocation, like the Isaiah passage quoted by Jesus in St Luke, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me" (Isaiah 61.1-3).
Now these are all great texts, I told the Synod. But invariably to read passages such as these at ordinations suggested that the role of a Church of England vicar in the contemporary world was like being a Hebrew prophet in antiquity. I said that I seriously doubted that. And despite the importance of being able to speak "prophetically" on occasion, it would be seriously misleading to expect clergy to function as "prophets" all the time. Years ago Bishop John Habgood once spoke about the relentless call on church leaders to "speak prophetically". He said that it's very hard to do when you can see several sides of the same question. I guess that "being prophetic" is all the more effective if we don't attempt it too often.
But Habgood's seeing many sides to the same question is precisely what wisdom is about. So in my Synod speech I offered a model for public ministry that I believed was closer to our contemporary reality. This could be found among the wise of ancient Israel. Here were men and women whose role was to reflect on our human experience, help us find our place in creation, discern God's presence in ordinary life, foster our capacity to "see into the life of things" and find meaning there, explore the joyful and sorrowful mysteries of life such as purpose, destiny, suffering and love, handle the ambiguities and paradoxes of life, and above all to, be led by wisdom into reverencing and loving the God who is "not far from any one of us" as St Paul put it in his sermon at Athens (Acts 17.16-34).
So my ordination addresses were based on wisdom texts that I believed spoke straightforwardly to the privileges and demands of ministry today. Solomon's prayer for wisdom at the outset of his reign, for example (1 Kings 3.3-15), or precepts for living and leading wisely in the first nine chapters of Proverbs, or wisdom-influenced stories of leadership in action like those of Joseph (Genesis 37-50) and David (2 Samuel 9-20, 1 Kings 1-2, the so-called "Court History" or "Succession Narrative"). And I drew on other wisdom writings to suggest how in preaching and pastoral ministry we bear witness to the central issues of human life that are common to our human race: suffering (Job and some of the Psalms), meaning and purpose (Ecclesiastes), love (Song of Songs).
After the Cardiff day, someone tweeted about what I'd tried to share. Not the drama of the edgy + prophetic, or busyness of the big personality charismatic leader, but priest as humble servant of Holy Wisdom. Yes. Which put succinctly what I was on about. I could have spoken at length about the danger, as I see it, of the romantic idea of the minister-as-hero: always energetically engaged in some grand projet (and being remembered for it), fixated by strategic plans, smart objectives and measurable outputs. It plays into the excitable culture which it's easy for the church to emulate (as it already has in some quarters), like Paul's Athenians loving anything that is new and different and that arouses us from our unacknowledged boredom with religion. I caricature of course. I'm all for thinking and planning ambitiously for the sake of the gospel. My concern is how the big, the dramatic and the busy can be better grounded in a proper Christian humility, better rooted in a contemplative, ancient and holy wisdom. I want to ask how we all learn to become, as the good jargon has it, reflective practitioners in the spirit of our great Anglican forebears.
Hebrew wisdom is full of both encouragements and warnings to those who lead. In my session on David, I drew attention to how the story gives us what Robert Alter calls "the most unflinching insight into the cruel processes of history and into human behaviour warped by the pursuit of power. And nowhere is the Bible’s astringent narrative economy, its ability to define characters and etch revelatory dialogue in a few telling strokes, more brilliantly deployed.” It shows “an unblinking and abidingly instructive knowingness about man as a political animal in all his contradictions and venality and all his susceptibility to the brutalisation and the seductions of exercising power.”
The beauty of the narrative is how it doesn't do the work for you of asking questions about your own leadership style and use (or abuse) of power. At the end of the session I set out the seven "Nolan Standards in Public Life" and invited my audience to lay it over the story of King David as a template by which to calibrate his performance. These are ethical values and virtues that should be required of anyone in a public role - monarchs, political leaders and elected representatives, educators, civil servants, business leaders and, yes, clergy and readers! Here's the list: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership-by-example.
I'm pretty confident that the author of Proverbs or the stories of Joseph and David would endorse that list. So having begun to understand the successes and failures of David's reign, his virtues and his flaws, we as ministers need to apply the same wisdom/Nolan template to our own careers too. This should be one of the tasks of the Church of England's programme of Ministry Development Review (MDR). This isn't about reviewing attainment targets or dwelling on past achievements and future objectives for their own sake. It needs to focus on how to promote development and growth in ministry, how to address precisely the leadership challenges posed in the story of David. I measure that not by success or failure, but by how far our progress as ministers is being informed and motivated by an underlying God-given wisdom.
"Priest as humble servant of Holy Wisdom." In Greek, that is Hagia Sophia, elided by ancient Christian readers of the Hebrew Bible with the Holy Spirit who is the Comforter, Teacher and Advocate. I gave another set of ordination addresses last year on the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus that is sung at all ordinations of priests in the famous seventeenth century version of John Cosin in the Book of Common Prayer: Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire. You can read that as a prayer to, and for, Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom. What better hymn to sing, what better prayer to offer as we serve God in this sacred vocation of bearing witness to grace and truth in the name of the church?
Monday 10 September 2018
"Normal People"
Sometimes a book stays with you long after you've turned over the final page and put it down (or in this case, turned off my tablet). You know that through the miracle we call reading, something alive has burrowed deep inside you, or to change the metaphor, has laid down layers of memory and experience that you will go on quarrying in time to come.
I've just finished reading Normal People by the Irish novelist Sally Rooney. It was only published this month and I've read it already - it's oddly satisfying to be ahead of the curve for once. She is still only in her twenties, yet this novel which has received rave reviews flew straight on to this year's Man Booker longlist. It's a virtuoso performance by any standards: compelling, fluent and wise beyond the novelist's tender years. You feel she knows about human life, knows about the ups and downs of human relationships, knows about the complexity of every human heart.
Rooney's story concerns two school friends, Connell and Marianne. They are both bright. She is privileged, wealthy and mercurial, unsure of herself and un-streetwise. He is from a more modest background, is principled, good looking and confident. From school days in rural Ireland, the tale brings us to Trinity College Dublin and their lives as students. Their relationship eddies round love and sex (there is a lot of sex), then out again back to a "mere" friendship, yet suffused with post-romantic longings that are always pulling them back into each others' gravitational fields. You know that like satellites locked into a resonant orbit, they will always be facing each other. It's impossible that either of them will ever look away more than momentarily. The puzzlement and pain of never-quite-realised longings are familiar to anyone who's ever been in love. Perhaps I mean anyone who's ever lived.
That's it, really. There's not much plot. There doesn't need to be, for the drama lies in the emotional lives of the two principal protagonists. I mentioned the central part sex plays in the story. The other big theme is power. Other people are drawn into the circle of their relationship - their families, and friends, and they inevitably distort and at times upset the delicate emotional equilibrium that Marianne and Connell are unknowingly establishing for themselves. I use the continuous present tense there because the theme of the novel is that attaining the right balance of power between them is a work in progress. It always will be.
On a Kindle or tablet, you never quite know how much of the book you've read and how many pages are left (unless you obsess about the percentages, and the hours and minutes at the foot of the page). Last night I'd reached the end of what I'd assumed was a chapter. It turned out to be the end of the novel. I was stopped in my tracks and had to read the final page again. Here it is. I don't need to warn about spoilers because in this book, there is no risk of there being any.
She closes her eyes. He probably won't come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift, and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They've done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I'll always be here. You know that.
All writers pay close attention to how their books begin and end. This last page reads as if it has been effortlessly written. But I know enough about writing to suspect that this kind of prose, this carefully imagined stream-of-consciousness, is hard-won. The unpretentious ordinariness of it is precisely what you marvel at. In the hands of someone who knows how to write, ordinary words are transmuted into the verbal equivalent of gold. It's as if each of them is a little sacrament of meaning that, taken together, accumulate into something precious and unforgettable. There are a few writers who can achieve this degree of purity, but not many. Chekhov comes to mind. In some ways, Rooney's writing reminded me of John Williams' beautiful novel Stoner that only achieved fame when it was reissued nearly forty years after it was written. For the sheer elegance of its writing, its capacity to do extraordinary things with ordinary language, it's a tour de force. But both books are so modest, so unassuming that you wouldn't suspect you were holding a masterpiece in your hands until you thought about it.
But the genius of Rooney's final page is that this is precisely that it isn't a last word. I spoke about a work in progress. You could say that this novel has been left unfinished, because that is the only way in which in this case, the novelist could lay down her pen and leave us with a sense of satisfaction that the narrative has to go on. It would be an easy trope to comment that it has to go on in us who read it (though all great literature has something of that imperative about it). It would be too calculated to say, in effect: "Right, dear reader. I've done my bit. Now over to you". But insofar as we genuinely care about the characters, always a good test, the novel does require us to do some "work" of our own if we are to come away enriched and rewarded. Perhaps what makes this novel one of those we won't forget is that it poses so many universal questions about life, love and longing. That final sentence, I'll always be here. You know that. That's precisely not a full stop at the end. A whole lifetime of change and chance lies hidden in that tiny period. You close the book. But you go on pondering. And you find that what you're thinking about is not only them but us, you and me and the people we have loved.
The title Normal People is one way entirely accurate, for Marianne and Connell are ordinary people like us. In another way it's deceptive, no doubt in an intended way. For what the novel achieves is to open our eyes to how extraordinary even the "normal" becomes when it is lit up for us. I think this would be one of my theological responses to the novel. Yes, there is a lot in it about the nature of relationship, what happens between human beings, what is implicitly covenanted and endures, what is fleeting and belongs to the moment. The book cleverly plays with these two characteristics and through a skilful counterpoint between them, keeps you guessing (even beyond the final page?) what the true nature of this relationship will turn out to be.
One way of describing theology is as a lens to help us read human life in the light of faith in God. We learn to make connections, look beneath the surface, ask the right questions, live in a more reflective way. Normal People is one of those books whose very theological innocence unwittingly makes it profoundly theological, if that means being stimulated to ask fundamental questions of meaning, purpose and destiny. It's precisely in the alleged uneventfulness of ordinary life that dramas of ultimate significance get played out in every human heart. Which is why I unhesitatingly put this novel at the top of my "best books" of 2018 - so far....
I've just finished reading Normal People by the Irish novelist Sally Rooney. It was only published this month and I've read it already - it's oddly satisfying to be ahead of the curve for once. She is still only in her twenties, yet this novel which has received rave reviews flew straight on to this year's Man Booker longlist. It's a virtuoso performance by any standards: compelling, fluent and wise beyond the novelist's tender years. You feel she knows about human life, knows about the ups and downs of human relationships, knows about the complexity of every human heart.
Rooney's story concerns two school friends, Connell and Marianne. They are both bright. She is privileged, wealthy and mercurial, unsure of herself and un-streetwise. He is from a more modest background, is principled, good looking and confident. From school days in rural Ireland, the tale brings us to Trinity College Dublin and their lives as students. Their relationship eddies round love and sex (there is a lot of sex), then out again back to a "mere" friendship, yet suffused with post-romantic longings that are always pulling them back into each others' gravitational fields. You know that like satellites locked into a resonant orbit, they will always be facing each other. It's impossible that either of them will ever look away more than momentarily. The puzzlement and pain of never-quite-realised longings are familiar to anyone who's ever been in love. Perhaps I mean anyone who's ever lived.
That's it, really. There's not much plot. There doesn't need to be, for the drama lies in the emotional lives of the two principal protagonists. I mentioned the central part sex plays in the story. The other big theme is power. Other people are drawn into the circle of their relationship - their families, and friends, and they inevitably distort and at times upset the delicate emotional equilibrium that Marianne and Connell are unknowingly establishing for themselves. I use the continuous present tense there because the theme of the novel is that attaining the right balance of power between them is a work in progress. It always will be.
On a Kindle or tablet, you never quite know how much of the book you've read and how many pages are left (unless you obsess about the percentages, and the hours and minutes at the foot of the page). Last night I'd reached the end of what I'd assumed was a chapter. It turned out to be the end of the novel. I was stopped in my tracks and had to read the final page again. Here it is. I don't need to warn about spoilers because in this book, there is no risk of there being any.
She closes her eyes. He probably won't come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift, and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They've done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I'll always be here. You know that.
All writers pay close attention to how their books begin and end. This last page reads as if it has been effortlessly written. But I know enough about writing to suspect that this kind of prose, this carefully imagined stream-of-consciousness, is hard-won. The unpretentious ordinariness of it is precisely what you marvel at. In the hands of someone who knows how to write, ordinary words are transmuted into the verbal equivalent of gold. It's as if each of them is a little sacrament of meaning that, taken together, accumulate into something precious and unforgettable. There are a few writers who can achieve this degree of purity, but not many. Chekhov comes to mind. In some ways, Rooney's writing reminded me of John Williams' beautiful novel Stoner that only achieved fame when it was reissued nearly forty years after it was written. For the sheer elegance of its writing, its capacity to do extraordinary things with ordinary language, it's a tour de force. But both books are so modest, so unassuming that you wouldn't suspect you were holding a masterpiece in your hands until you thought about it.
But the genius of Rooney's final page is that this is precisely that it isn't a last word. I spoke about a work in progress. You could say that this novel has been left unfinished, because that is the only way in which in this case, the novelist could lay down her pen and leave us with a sense of satisfaction that the narrative has to go on. It would be an easy trope to comment that it has to go on in us who read it (though all great literature has something of that imperative about it). It would be too calculated to say, in effect: "Right, dear reader. I've done my bit. Now over to you". But insofar as we genuinely care about the characters, always a good test, the novel does require us to do some "work" of our own if we are to come away enriched and rewarded. Perhaps what makes this novel one of those we won't forget is that it poses so many universal questions about life, love and longing. That final sentence, I'll always be here. You know that. That's precisely not a full stop at the end. A whole lifetime of change and chance lies hidden in that tiny period. You close the book. But you go on pondering. And you find that what you're thinking about is not only them but us, you and me and the people we have loved.
The title Normal People is one way entirely accurate, for Marianne and Connell are ordinary people like us. In another way it's deceptive, no doubt in an intended way. For what the novel achieves is to open our eyes to how extraordinary even the "normal" becomes when it is lit up for us. I think this would be one of my theological responses to the novel. Yes, there is a lot in it about the nature of relationship, what happens between human beings, what is implicitly covenanted and endures, what is fleeting and belongs to the moment. The book cleverly plays with these two characteristics and through a skilful counterpoint between them, keeps you guessing (even beyond the final page?) what the true nature of this relationship will turn out to be.
One way of describing theology is as a lens to help us read human life in the light of faith in God. We learn to make connections, look beneath the surface, ask the right questions, live in a more reflective way. Normal People is one of those books whose very theological innocence unwittingly makes it profoundly theological, if that means being stimulated to ask fundamental questions of meaning, purpose and destiny. It's precisely in the alleged uneventfulness of ordinary life that dramas of ultimate significance get played out in every human heart. Which is why I unhesitatingly put this novel at the top of my "best books" of 2018 - so far....
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