As I write, the UK is effectively at war with Libya. We are told it is to ‘deliver’ the people from an oppressive regime. Since we are not at war in Bahrain, I suppose we must assume that the Bahraini regime is not oppressive. That does not seem to be what the Bahrainis think. In my previous life I spent some time in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. I was not over impressed by the liberty I encountered in Saudi: women prohibited from driving; women spat at for not having faces covered; shopkeepers in trouble for trading during prayer times; religious police beating women’s ankles with sticks if bare skin is showing. If we deliver Libyans from oppression, why not Bahrainis and Saudis too? The answer is a three-letter word, oil. It drips and trickles over the sensibilities of our politicians to produce a bar of hypocrisy. And we are expected to swallow it. Consider a few vignettes. (1) You live under a regime that imprisons and tortures your relatives because they disagree with those in charge, and say so. (2) You work for an organisation that presents circumstances to the advantage of those in charge, and belittles or ignores your experience. (3) You are mature in years and live alone. You are distressed by the begging letters, the hard-sell language, the appeals to emotion and better nature, the manipulative tone suggesting that by not responding you are cruel and inhuman. (4) You are angry that, despite the recklessness and financial impropriety of the last few years, you are still being shafted by banks and bankers, your taxes funding their bonuses.

What have all these in common? The answer is the abuse of power. The powerful dumping on the powerless. It can be amusing to say there’s no point in having power if you don’t abuse it and yes, I hope only for a laugh, I’ve said it myself. But the more power we have, the more responsibility that comes with it. The abuse of power stems always from the abuser’s need to bolster up her or his ego, to disguise the fear and barrenness within. And when we abuse someone else, we stop growing and harm ourselves. Miss Havisham wrapped herself in the cocoon of grief, living the same day over and over again, in the dark, and infecting Estella. The witch in Hansel and Gretel wants to consume the children rather than let them grow free. How many children suffer abuse like this from parents who can’t let them go? Gollum, obsessed by the ring of power that perverts him and all around him. We retreat into these self-generated enclosures, living behind the gates that insulate us from the world. In the words of Psalm 17, ‘they are inclosed in their own fat: and their mouth speaketh proud things’. We put on masks that hide our true selves. We make ourselves feel good by ignoring the truth and thus harming others.

To reach resurrection (Easter), we must pass through crucifixion (Good Friday). We take up our crosses and deny ourselves. This is not self-flagellation and making ourselves miserable. It is that we must break out of the cocoon of our enclosed self-obsessedness by confronting our fears and accepting them, loving those parts of ourselves that we try to cover with egocentric behaviour. Pulling down the walls that money can buy. This is the way to eternal life, what Christ called the Kingdom of God—nothing to do with life after death, everything to do with quality of life here and now. The Kingdom is experienced when we acknowledge the futility of egotism and all the things that we allow the ego to build around us. ‘My Kingdom’, said Jesus, ‘is not of this world’. It is an inner kingdom. In order to enter that kingdom we might try to rid ourselves of these spiritual cosmetics to become naked before the Divine.

This is taking up your cross: recognising the props for what they are. This is laying down yourself, laying down ego. This is spiritual nakedness. This enables the butterfly of resurrection to escape into the stratosphere. ‘Made like him, like him we rise’. And when we do, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

We have no power. We are powerless. We are absolutely dependent upon the Divine (laws of nature if you like). This means being like children – or rather, as unlike suspicious adults as it is possible to be. We need shed the skins of suspicion that have grown up around us as a result of the experiences of this imperfect world. We emerge from the cocoon lighter, less encumbered, more lovely, more delightful and more delighting. Easter is liberation – salvation – spiritual nakedness. Happy nakedness!

Spring is sprung, de grass is riz, I wonder where dem boidies is? Dem boids is on de wing. Ain’t dat absoid? De wing is on de boid.

Profound poetry for this time of year. Days are lengthening, and len(g)t(h) gives us Lent. Time for a spiritual detox, a spiritual spring clean. Get rid of what you don’t need any more. What don’t I need any more? It’s funny how I repeat behaviour from my childhood, behaviour that was necessary and productive then, but has outlived its usefulness and is counterproductive now. If I have any defects at all, one of them might be related to this. I could profitably use Lent to resolve to explore the reasons why I react to certain situations in the way that I do. I need to learn to stand outside myself, as it were, off centre, on the edge. I learnt long ago that the view is better from the edge, and it’s easier to see the big picture when standing on the edge that it is when one is in the middle of the crowd. I’m going to try to remember to stand outside myself and observe what is going on in my mind before I react to circumstances that try my patience. And there are many.

I am struck once again by the randomness and unpredictability of life. The hip joints that misbehave. The sun-spots that threaten to disturb our communication systems. The despots of the middle East that get their comeuppance—with heaven-knows-what consequences for the oil supply that feeds our lifestyles. The movements of the earth’s crust that devastate cities. The diseases and other natural events that disturb our lives. We never know when the cells in our bodies will start to behave differently and begin to multiply unchecked. We never know when the bacteria that live in our guts helping us to digest food will find their way to places where they cause trouble. Coping with uncertainty is part of life. We can’t change the past and we can’t control the future. Some people imagine that illness or disasters are brought about by ‘God’ as a punishment. Are they really so egotistical as to think that God plans his activities around their actions? The beginning of Luke 13 is a text that should be wheeled out when people spout this self-absorbed rubbish. Luke tells us that there’s nothing about what happens to us that speaks of God’s judgement. Rather, the point is that life is unpredictable – tragedies occur, in this case brought about by an oppressive governor (Egypt? Bahrain? Libya?) but they say nothing about God. Punishment: no. Consequences of choices: yes.

In the same Biblical text Jesus speaks of the value of manure as fertilizer. Some commentaries go so far as to suggest that Jesus—shock, horror—had a sense of humour. Let me tell you, girls and boys, how deeply satisfying this is to someone like me whose sense of humour extends well into the scatological. When I am confronted by someone laying down the law, I find few things more comforting than imagining that person on the throne of a morning. I spent 30 years earning my keep by teaching anatomy, with my hand in body parts that other hands don’t reach, and any of you involved in politics, especially Church politics, will know how important it is to be able to dodge flying dung. Manure is the product of digestion, the residue of what we take in. Manure is a fertilizer. The baobab tree needs Elephant dung for germination. Rowan berries and others need to go through the gut of a bird to help them germinate. To put this in a psychological context, you might say that we can let the manure of our experiences provide the fertilizer for personal growth.

So this is my suggestion for Lent: let’s take time to use the residue of our experiences and learn from them, allowing them to fertilize growth within us. We might be able to shed old ways of doing things, old ways of thinking, when we see that they have become unnecessary and possibly counterproductive. Like a snake shedding its old skin as it grows, or the pupation of larva to adult. There’s no point in making ourselves miserable by giving up stuff we like: Lent has nothing to do with being gloomy. It’s about letting go of what we no longer need. Happy Lent!

And the product of shedding our old skins …

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free, ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be out delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Joseph Brackett 1797-1882