Dratted things creeping innumerable

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Gills become ears-nose-and-throaty things

The beginning of December is not a good time for a clerk in Holy Orders to be feeling unwell, but unwell is how I feel. Headache, gently throbbing ears and nose (not throat yet), slight unsteadiness when I stand, which has nothing to do with the glass of port that I may or may not have had last night. I know I’m not alone in these otorhinological symptoms, and they remind me of evolutionary consequences of the adoption of a terrestrial (as opposed to a marine) environment.

Innumerable

Innumerable

I muse on the wonders of creation in the form of bacteria and viruses responsible for these throbbing feelings. I wish the microbes no harm, though I wish they would do me no harm. You will doubtless recall from the ‘proper’ version (the old Prayer Book) of Psalm 104 that splendid phrase: ‘things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts’. I wonder if the psalmist would have been quite so up-beat if s/he had realised that things creeping innumerable can do us a lot of damage. It brings home to us that size is not everything. I could go on, but such zoological wanderings do nothing to alleviate the symptoms. The question is, should I commit murder by taking antimicrobials? Ah, the ethical dilemmas we face.

How do you want to be remembered?

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Grab life by the …

… so, boys and girls, following on from the previous post, let me ask: how do you want to be remembered?

In my days as an academic, I recall sitting on the Student Progress Committee (which was of course the student lack-of-progress committee). It was disheartening to hear a student who had failed to achieve a satisfactory standard say that he (more often a he than a she) had worked very hard. He could not seem to grasp that either he was not doing something effectively, or that he was personally or intellectually ill-suited to the course. It was much more refreshing to hear a student say that he was enjoying life too much to bother with anything as trivial as studying. (Let me say at this point that in my first year at University I managed only a third class result, so I know what I’m talking about. The really irritating people, of course, are those who do no work but yet come out with top marks. Or maybe it’s that they say they do no work …).

Anyhoo, extending this argument, given that Divine forgiveness is infinite (and the Bible says it is, so it must be true) and you’re going to be forgiven anyway, you might as well sin spectacularly, rather than commit some trifling little offence.  Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

‘Can he be serious?’ you may ask. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.  Martin Luther was presumably being serious when he wrote: ‘be a sinner, and let your sins be strong’ and went on to explain how this works. I won’t bore you with the explanation, but will say that one of the ways I read this is: be bold. Take risks. Be fearless. We will get some things wrong and some things will work out. Better surely to have given life your all than simply to have sat quivering in the corner through fear. Make the best of what you’ve got. If you’ve got it, flaunt it—so long as the it you have is intended as an agent of delight. We need to be ready to fail. Like a child learning to walk, long strides come from short stumbles.  Grab life by the little round things in your efforts to bring delight to the world.

Just as I dislike the almost universal replacement of  ‘can I help you?’ by ‘are you OK?’ and of ‘thank you’ by ‘cheers’, so I dislike hearing ‘take care’ used as a farewell. It’s not ‘take care’, it’s ‘take risks’.

I think that’s how I’d like to be remembered.

Judgement

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500px-Fra_Angelico_-_The_Last_Judgement_(Winged_Altar)_-_Google_Art_ProjectSermon for Advent Sunday 2012

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.

I talk about judgement today.

We wait for the coming of the Lord at Christmas. But the theme of Advent is more ominous than tidying up in expectation of the arrival of a guest. The theme is not simply preparing for the coming of the Lord at Christmas, but of preparing for the coming of the Lord at the end of time. We say ‘I believe … from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.’

Do we really believe that? Does this talk of judgement after death? Purgatory, in which we shall be cleansed, the dust beaten out of us like many of us used to beat the dust out of carpets? (Purgatory hasn’t been abolished … it’s limbo that was abolished). The trouble is that we’ve no evidence. Nobody has come back to tell us.

I think it trivializes heaven and hell and purgatory to think of them simply and solely as future states of reward and punishment. It leads to a score-keeping picture of a recording angel, like the school prefect standing by the school gate to see if we boys were wearing our caps as we trudged the mile or so in the rain from King Street bus stop. Bishop John Robinson said that heaven and hell were the same: ‘being with God for ever. For some that’s heaven, for some it’s hell.’ How does this fit with our ideas of heaven and hell?

I think we might look at judgement in a different way.

The story of the Garden of Eden, fig leaves, choices, scrumping, talking reptiles etc, paints a picture. It is NOT a picture of what actually happened at the beginning of time. Rather, it’s a picture of what happens all the time. It’s a picture of what happens every day, as we make choices based on pride and arrogance and selfishness. Of what happens when we cover up the truth that is in us, when we hide behind fig leaves of pride and arrogance and selfishness – when we, in the words of Psalm 17, become inclosed in our own fat.

In a similar way, I think of Biblical statements about judgement and heaven and hell not as advance coverage of future life, but rather as basic truths of this present life, here and now. More eminent theologians than I say that they are not about what happens at the end of time, rather they express religious meanings of what happens all the time.

Jesus is on record as saying that he has not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is no punishment meted out by the school prefect. ‘Punishment’ is the inevitable and natural consequence of our action. Just as we make our own choices, as we must decide between God (the way of love) and Mammon (the way of this world) ourselves, so we must take the inevitable consequences of our choices. Back to the Garden of Eden. We need to take responsibility for our actions. Sin, if you like, includes punishment as a natural and inevitable consequence. In other words, sin does indeed bring punishment, but that punishment comes from sin itself—the alienation and disintegration that follow. Imagine doing something that hurts someone else. Afterwards, perhaps, you begin to wish you hadn’t done it. You begin to feel shame. Then your heart hardens, you begin to twist the story in your own head so that it becomes the victim’s fault. You start to fear reprisals. You walk around with your head down, your eyes averted, you refuse to look people full in the face, you are constantly alert, in case you are being followed, ‘watchful for demons’. Paranoia sets in. None of this is punishment from God. It’s punishment from ourselves, it’s the consequence of our action.

It is we who judge ourselves.

I have no idea about what, if anything, happens after death. As I say, nobody has come back to tell me. Yet, I have this feeling that there will be some sort of reckoning at some time. And the sort of reckoning that I think most terrifying is that in which I find myself gazing into a mirror. When I shall see not as in a glass (mirror) darkly, but clearly, face to face. When I see the consequences of my actions. When I look back at them and see what effect they had on others and on myself. Looking into that mirror is something that we do every day. It is we who judge ourselves. All the time, not at the end of time. Past, present and future rolled into one.

The Lord called Abraham and the patriarchs to live by the light of faith and to journey in hope. The Lord called the Prophets to warn that actions have consequences. The Lord called Mary to put aside what she might have wanted for the sake of humanity. The Lord calls us to do all this, and to take stock. The Advent Sunday collect ‘give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light’ draws upon the words of St Paul: 
’Now it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.’ 
There is some sense of urgency in this. The moment is critical because it depends on our decision now: do we, like Mary, say ‘let it be as you say’.

In the Litany we pray that we will be spared from ‘dying unprepared’ – that is, a death that comes before we have set right things that need to be set right. Here are some questions for us: What do we want to feel like when we’re on our deathbed? How do we want others to remember us? What do we need to do to set things right so that when we are confronted by that mirror and we see ourselves as we really are, we shall not be ashamed?

A Christian?

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Theology has to account for this

Earlier today, someone asked me what I thought it meant to be a Christian. Oddly enough, I’ve never been asked that before — at least, not quite so bluntly. I have views about how theology must fit the reality of our animal existence, and I will set them down in print when I have worked through some of the issues they raise. But for now, from a practical point of view, here’s what I think ‘being a Christian’ involves.

Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly.

Love your neighbour as yourself. This doesn’t mean letting my neighbour walk all over me. It doesn’t mean that I should approve of my neighbour evading responsibility for his or her own action or inaction any more than I should evade responsibility for mine. It means expecting of myself no less than I expect of others. It means expecting of others no more than I expect of myself. It also means:

  • Don’t do to others what I wouldn’t like them to do to me.
  • Condemn not that I be not condemned.
  • Examine the plank in my own eye before I even begin to comment on the speck in someone else’s.

And:

  • Don’t compete for the best places at parties.
  • Pray in secret not for show. Indeed, don’t do anything for show.
  • Openness — let your light so shine  …  as a city on a hill, a lamp on a stand.
  •  Watch for the signs of the times. Use your nous. To stand in front of an oncoming car expecting it not to hit me is stupid. Newton’s first law of motion still holds (he thought his most important role in life was as a Biblical Scholar).
  • Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no — anything else is evil. (What about diplomacy?)
  • Do not treat people with partiality, for God is no respecter of persons … you have one Father and you are all sisters and brothers. Everyone. Not just members of your family, your tribe, your race, your denomination, your opinion. Everyone. Including those who hate you.
  • Love one another as I have loved you. Thankfully, loving does not have to mean liking.

I fall short on them all. I’m human therefore I make mistakes. The psychological authenticity of Jesus’ message sustains me—sometimes only just—in my priestly role. I suppose what this role boils down to is: encouraging people to confront reality by living in the present (e-ternity, ec-stasis), free from the burden of the past (forgiveness), feet planted on the ground (humility), eyes and mind looking all round and beyond (others and otherness). Some of the doctrine we’ve inherited was written by and for a pre-mediaeval view of the universe. Some of it reflects the pyschological obsession of the writer. Some of it has passed its sell-by date. Much of it is poetic imagery. Nearly all of it expresses deep psychological truths.

The questioner asked me a second question: do I believe every word when I say the Creed. What a question. Watch this space.

The world is as it is

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The Astronomer Royal

The British Astronomer Royal points out here that the sun has been shining for over 4 billion years, and has over 6 billion to go before it explodes and earth is vapourized. If you represent earth’s lifetime by a single year January to December, the 21st century is a quarter of a second in June. We are less than halfway through the process of evolution. Whatever creatures witness the demise of the solar system will be as different from us as we are from bacteria. We are still, he says, at the beginning of the emergence of intelligence in the cosmos. The last three centuries have seen acceleration in (probably) human-induced changes in the planet’s environment. Some species become extinct, new ones will evolve. Humans like us may or may not survive, but will certainly evolve.

I remember at primary school (Langwathby C of E since you ask) standing in the playground, Settle-Carlisle railway to my left, and thinking that life on another planet does not necessarily mean life as we know it. And I still think that. We have haemoglobin to carry oxygen in the blood, octopuses have other stuff for the same purpose – and they are on the same planet. The creature in Alien that grew in John Hurt’s belly (yes, yes, I know it was only a story) had acid in its blood vessels. Our thinking is altogether too selfish, too human-obsessed. Things could be otherwise. We are like pimples on the backside of the cosmos. Hurricanes, earthquakes, wind and rain come and go. The earth will cleanse itself. For those that accept the notion of God, ‘God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year’. For those that don’t, the laws of nature are doing the what-comes-naturally. In the context of evolution, this has interesting theological implications. It’s not over yet.

Make the most of what you’ve got when you’ve got it, because you might not have it much longer. Live each day as ‘twere thy last. In an earlier post here I wrote about a ‘good death’. One of my more elderly (in years but not in mind) parishioners told me that her idea of a good death was slipping off a stool with a glass of Jameson’s in her hand. This has interesting theological implications too. Raise your glasses. The standard Anglican response to any difficult issue has much to commend it: ‘Let’s have another glass of sherry‘. Or whiskey.

No point moaning

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Christmas trees in supermarkets already. Butchered carols assail our ears in butchery sections. ‘Isn’t it terrible to have Christmas things so early. We have Easter bunnies right after Christmas, and Christmas is upon us as soon as the schools are back. What’s the world coming to?’ It seems to escape their notice that the reason they went to the supermarkets in the first place was to do their planning-for-Christmas shopping. Here I am already planning Carol Services, thinking about readers and music and how to involve the community. I wouldn’t dream of criticizing others for milking Christmas and Easter since that’s exactly what I do. On the odd occasion that I go to supermarkets with Christmas carol muzak, I thank the Lord for being deaf.

I hear that some clergy deplore the disappearance of Advent. Do they imagine that their darling flocks prepare for Christmas by a strict Advent discipline of penitence and reflection? Perhaps they think this is what goes on in Lent too. With the pressure of modern life, child rearing, jobs, bills to be paid, creaky joints etc, I think if you manage to make church most weeks, you’re doing pretty well in preparing for Christmas. I try to keep Sunday mornings in Advent as Advent services. Patriarchs, prophets, John Baptist, Mary. (Can anyone tell me the point of Jesse trees? Where do people keep all the bits and pieces for the rest of the year? And do they remember where they put them last year?)

The world is as it is. If we don’t like it, we can try to change it, move somewhere where things are better, or accept it. If we don’t like the effect of supermarkets on communities, or the way they treat their suppliers, what are we going to do about it? Moaning is pointless. If we want our pension funds (hollow laughter) to support us in the future, we need to be careful about attacking the commercial concerns in which the funds are invested. When I was silly enough to have a romantic view of what church was about, I used to think that it must be lovely to be a monk, free from worldly hassle. Then I got to know some monastic communities. They are as full of tension and squabbles as life out here, with the added joy of living cheek-by-jowl. No wonder monks are so often guest speakers elsewhere. One of them told me that religious communities consist of people who can’t hack the real world. Maybe the church is too: some young idealistic ordinands seem to think that all they need is the knowledge that Jesus loves them. Parochial life as an ordained minister will soon test that.

Are we going to try to change the world? Bankers’ bonuses, political corruption, cronyism, begrudgery. These are just extreme forms of things that affect us all, the demons of avarice, of envy, and that which incites us to seek the approval of others whose approval is not worth having. Even so, I can’t help feeling that ‘something must be done’ as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. (Rambling Rector bucks the trend here: every job change over the last decade has resulted in a pay reduction.) I wonder—seriously—about Gandhi’s idea of calling for days of prayer and fasting. The fact that some may call them national strikes is neither here nor there.

Thinking mammals

Aside

Rector at prayer

Maryborough school students are impressive. I went in this morning for the usual Friday assembly, and was commandeered to talk to infants about bones, a topic that was exercising them today. After we’d named some bones, and felt them, the conversation went something like this:

me: why do you think we need bones
them: to make us stiff
me: what would happen if we didn’t have any
them: we’d be like jelly
me: do you know any creatures that are like jelly?
them: jellyfish
me: and why don’t they need bones?
them: they float in water.

Smart infants, aren’t they? With the whole school, the conversation developed.

me: if bones make us stiff, how do we move?
them: joints and muscles
me: and why do we need to move?
them: to look for food.

Spot on, eh? And when I asked them why babies cried, they said ‘for food’. That’s why communication developed in my humble opinion (though SWMBO says my opinion is never humble).

me: can you think why moving would be hard if we didn’t have bones and muscles?
them: gravity.

And there, boys and girls, you have it in a nutshell. Impressive, huh?

The theme of the assembly was food, so we discussed different sorts of food: fruit, veg, cow, pig, sheep, octopus, squid, fish, crab. Even worms. Some of them told me about carbohydrates which moved us on to carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Some of them knew that methane was found in farts (the young ones had left by this stage, but I expect someone will complain). Some of them knew about cartilage and bone. The seniors told me we were mammals, and they knew that meant that mothers produce milk. Oh, the joys of being surrounded by people not yet disconnected from the earth. I told them that the milk-producing organ is the mammary gland. Presumably that’s why mothers are mammies, though I didn’t say that. The other thing I didn’t say was that the reason we move and seek food is in order to reproduce. That’s for secondary school pupils. What has this to do with church? Answer: everything. Work it out yourself.

Memories and tombs

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Use it or lose it

November is a dark kind of month. Dark memories, dark nights, dark moods if you have seasonal affective disorder, the end of the church year, waiting for the light to dawn. Remembrance, memory, memorial, tomb. Mnema. When we retreat into memories of times past, we can get stuck—entombed—there. Like a black hole that sucks everything into it, we start to live in the tomb of memory with the door closed, living in the distant past, unable to look outward. Dementia. Locked away. That’s what happens to some people as they age and lose function in part of the brain that deals with recent memory. It’s as if the only part of the memory that functions is the long-ago memory. That’s what happens to some people who chose not to let go of the past, and who seem to rejoice in dredging up past grievances. Remembrance ceremonies in November remind us how destructive humans can be when we act on pride and the will to control others. I hope they can also point how constructive can be our resolve to make the world a more delightful place when we replace the desire for revenge with the desire for love. And I don’t mean soppy, emotional love. I mean proper love that’s hard work, caring, sharing, working, enduring. Replacing me-me-me with us-us-us. When we let go of the past and open the tomb of memory, resentments of the past fly away. Rolling away the stone that entombs us in our memories enables resurrection and new life. Roll on!