You've Got Mail

It can't be argued that email has changed the way we share information.  It has changed the speed with which thoughts, ideas and messages can be transmitted, and it has also changed the way we communicate.  Instant of sending and instant reception of emails gives them an ephemeral quality, that contributes to their informality.  At the same time, their ephemeral nature is deceiving.  If you write a letter to someone it would take them some effort to pass on its contents, if they wished to do so.  At the very least they would have to take the time to show it to someone else; at its more complicated they would have to make copies of it and distribute them my mail.  Emails, on the other hand can be instantaneously forwarded to literally thousands of people with the press of a few keys!  It is for this reason that I am always surprised at how careless or sloppy people are with what they write in an email.  

A friend who works for a big city firm tells me that its general policy with emails is, don't send an email which you wouldn't want anyone and everyone to see. I think that as a rule of thumb it's a good one. The speed with which an email can be sent I find particularly frightening.  It can be written and sent in the heat of the moment. Never a good idea!  In my last job I made particular use of the draft folder.  More than once an email was sent to me that really p*ssed me off, and I found myself responding to it immediately.  I quickly learned that this is not the best of strategies.  Instead, I began writing the immediate response and setting it aside.  Just because we can instantly send emails doesn't mean we should.  Equally I've learned to take as much care in writing an email now as I do with writing a card or a letter.  Why not?  It still has my name at the bottom of it, and I wouldn't send even a quick written note with bad spelling and poor grammar.  Why should the speed of an email's execution and delivery mean that clarity and good form should be compromised?

There is no doubt that emails are an amazing piece of technology.  It has allowed for me to keep in touch with people I would not otherwise been able to do so; and to re-connect with others I had in fact lost touch with altogether. Applying for jobs and communicating with possible employers and search committees has been accomplished with a speed and simplicity impossible even 15 years ago.  I love using them, and find it odd when others do not or are unwilling to use them. (Someone actually told me that he was not 'on email' as a matter principle.  What the 'principle' was I wasn't really sure and didn't even bother to ask.  I just moved along).  But like all new technology, I think that we are still growing into it, and as we do the strategies of previous 'technologies' should not be altogether discarded.

Conscience and Chaos

We all knew that Rowan Williams was a liberal when appointed. The appointment was therefore the hope of us 'right thinkers' and the fear of the 'others'. His liberal position has been recently brought to the fore in the of form letters he wrote about eight years ago in which he stated, 'I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way compatible to marriage'; then went on to say that after 2 years of study and prayer this was his 'definitive conclusion' (see article). All of this seems now abandoned (or at least hidden) for the sake of 'unity'.

Reading and thinking through all this I was reminded of a passage from one of my favourite plays, Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. In a nutshell, it's the story of Thomas More who put his conscience before the pleasure of the king and died for it. Early on in the play Cardinal Wolsey suggests placing financial and political pressure on the Church to obtain for Henry VIII an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He asks Thomas More how he as a Councillor of England 'can obstruct these measures for the sake of your own private conscience'. More responds: 'Well...I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties...they lead their country by a short route to chaos.' What a powerful statement - beautifully written and insightfully observed. Had only the Archbishop paid heed to those words (he is undoubtedly familiar with the play) the situation might be different for him presently. Unfortunately, chaos has ensued in the Anglican Communion and we seem to be without anyone to whom we can actually look for guidance.

No doubt Rowan Williams is in an unenviable position, but certainly that position could be made somewhat better (at least personally) by the moral comfort of knowing he is standing up for his beliefs. By not doing so, he offers no real leadership while at the same simply hoping that the whole issue will resolve itself if he simply waits long enough. More and more voices are now rising for him to actually lead (see another article) and there is little knowing what will happen.

While More may have suffered death as a consequence of the times in which he lived, no one would see him as a victim of circumstance. By adhering to his conviction he at least suffered for for what he really believed, and is now revered by inheritors of both 'sides' of his contemporary division. Will the sentiment for Rowan Williams 500 years from today be the same?

The Seven-Year Itch

I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday on exactly the same date - and almost time - that I left it fifteen years ago.    The fact that I have come looking at the possibility of returning makes it all the more strange. It's often bandied about by ex-pats that the desire or opportunity to return 'home' comes in cycles of about seven years, so I am right on target I suppose.  As I sat through the flight, I wondered what living in the States again would mean practically. It's one thing to be nostalgic about 'home' when you are going for a visit, but quite another to be realistic about it when going with the possibility of actually returning.

Some of the thoughts that ran through my mind on the eleven hour plane ride seemed petty, and yet incredibly basic at that same time.  Perhaps surprisingly (or not so surprisingly), language figures large in my fears as I contemplate a move. For example (the glottal stop, notwithstanding), I have liked pronouncing my T's; so will I simply sink back to saying 'waded' for 'waited', and 'seeded' for 'seated'. Other pronunciations begged similar questions:  will 'I-say-ah' once again replace 'Isaiah' and 'shone' replace 'shawn'?  Still other questions loomed more profound.  In England there has always lingered for me the sense of being a stranger in a strange in a strange land.  Will that same feeling now continue (albeit in a different context) as I come back to the place where I was raised, but do not now fully understand.  For all my moaning about Britain (my friends there can witness to it), I recognise the extent to which Britain has shaped my present mind-set and world-view.  I recognise the extent to which I have become British.  In fact, my moaning itself is a sign of that (we Brits know it's one of our national pastimes).

The ex-pat 'seven year itch' is ultimately about nostalgia and about the fantasy that you can 'go back home'.  The truth is that going 'back home' is a physical and temporal impossibility.  Both you and home have changed, and 'going back home' in the way we usually think about it would not merely require air travel but time travel.  There is no going back home.  I am not the person I was fifteen years ago, and the US is not the country it was fifteen years - both for good and bad.  If I moved to the US now I would have to accept that it would not be substantially different than when I first moved to the UK.  It would simply begin the next chapter of my life, and I would have to begin that chapter from where I am right now: this odd conglomeration of cultures and pronunciations.  I would not be going back, I would be going on; and that is all that any of us can ever do.  Indeed, all we do is go on as life challenges and offers, and as we make our responses. Sometimes going on entails making responses with more dramatic repercussions; but whether dramatic or not, none of us can ever really stand still.  I find that an odd and exciting sort of comfort. 

'That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived'

The biggest problem I have with evangelical fundamentalism is that the image of God it presents and preaches is - quite simply - not a god worthy of human worship.  In fact, I can think of many, many very fallible and broken people who would demonstrate more kindness, more inclusivity and more compassion than a god who demands human sacrifice so that 'his' anger can be appeased, or who would send people to eternal punishment because they could not bring themselves to believe in 'him'.  A god who in Jesus teaches that I should forgive freely, but then demands that I jump through hoops so 'he' can bring 'himself' to forgive me is not only inconsistent, but hypocritical and  cruel. 

But then, evangelical fundamentalism rarely has the insight of the ages. Were its adherents more familiar with Christianity's great tradition they might have come across St Anselm (1039-1109) and his definition of God: 'That than which nothing greater can be conceived.'  In my narrow-minded limitedness I can conceive of a god more loving and more accepting - in effect greater - than that of evangelical fundamentalism, and so by definition their 'god' cannot be GOD; and I don't think that we should be afraid to say it.  If God needs defending it is from concepts and definitions unworthy of him/her.  Over 600 years after Anselm, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) wrote:  'It is better to have no opinion of God at all than such an one that is unworthy of him [sic]: for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely'* How often do we make statements of God which are actually unworthy of God?  How often to we dare to speak in God's name when what is really called for is silence, reflection and awe?

There is a spiritual arrogance in believing that we can possess - or worse still that we do possess - the whole truth of God; but arrogance is not the worst of it, rather the violence we can wreak on each other when we believe ourselves certain of the divine 'will'.  Our approach to God, I think, has always to be one of humility; one of 'faith seeking understanding' (to quote Anslem again).  I wonder how long it will take until we can stand before God in complete humility, and before the world in complete compassion? 

*I have to admit that I had to look up this word - contumely - and it means 'insolent or insulting language or treatment'; pretty powerful stuff.

Thinking Outside the Gauge

Gas/petrol prices are sky-rocketing.  Here in Britain they can be be as high as £1.20 per litre (that's almost $10.00 a gallon).  In the States it is considerably cheaper, but still outrageously beyond what people have been used to, with some areas paying up $4.50 per gallon.  I was speaking to a friend in the States and she told me reports were around that the oil companies were making record profits.  It was her opinion that the government should rein them in by forcing them to lower their prices.  I must admit that I had to disagree.  It isn't because I believe the government hasn't the right to regulate prices (actually, for me the jury is still out on that one), but because I would hope for a response that gets us out of playing the oil companies' game altogether.

For argument's sake, let us say that the government does begin to consider a programme of reining in the oil companies and their exorbitant profits. Surely, in order to avoid regulation, the oil executives will voluntarily lower prices.  However, we are still playing their game.  We are still thinking 'inside the gauge'.  Without a doubt prices would eventually rise again and the entire issue would again come up.  Much more helpful would be for the government to stop listening to the oil companies altogether and be incredibly serious about developing ways in which our need for them would be obsolete.  It would mean the government and people of countries doing something really courageous. It would probably mean they'd have to stop paying any attention to the oil lobbies and the well-being of oil companies. It would be a risk, but it would send a clear signal saying 'We are not playing by your rules anymore.  We are going to really do things differently. We are going to think and act "outside the gauge"'. With the their backs to the oil companies, governments could spend real time, money and effort in finding new and creative ways of making all our 21st century gizmos go; at the same time encouraging with genuine incentives those who develop new ways forward and those who step out of their comfort zones and make use of them. Don't deal with oil companies at all, simply leave with no customers.  Oil prices would come down pretty quickly, but then we just wouldn't care

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am not an economist and what I am proposing here would be laughed out of an serious business person's office.  On the other hand,  spirituality I know, and I think spirituality does come into play here.  It is the spirituality of looking at events and situations with truly new eyes, instead of continuing to run faster and faster on the same treadmill thinking it will take us somewhere different.  I also know that the really great advances in history were as a result of people not simply doing things differently but thinking things differently.  It means thinking new rules and new ways.  I believe that as nations and as a species we will be facing many new challenges and issues in the coming years and old ways of doing things will simply not do. Thinking outside the box (or the gauge) will be will be make the difference between survival and extinction. 

You're Fired!

After a lot of cajoling, I finally watched (as much as I could stomach) of The Apprentice. I say 'as much as I could stomach' because I actually found my reaction to be visceral. The experience of watching it was for me so distasteful that it hit me at a gut level, and in groping for words to name my feelings, the only ones that I could come to were 'soul-wounding'. It simply cannot be good for the soul to watch people go at each other in such an in-human way, and in-human is the only way to describe it. We say no less about ancient gladiatorial games. The only difference seems to be suits rather than arms, but both are savage.  Why do we consider this entertainment?

This is more than simple competition.  It is a mixture of competitiveness and greed combined with an obsessional desire for celebrity status, and as such represents a new development in television programming. The Apprentice is only one example on television. There is Big Brother (and all its little off-shoots), as well as various singing/acting/dancing/cooking programmes which pit people against each other with some promise of wealth (if they 'win'), but no less the possibility of eventual celebrity-ism even if they 'lose'. These latter may not be as nasty or bitchy as The Apprentice or Big Brother but they do amount to the same.

The entire genre encourages an ugly form of individualism, while at the same time giving lip service to the benefits of 'teamwork'.  'Teamwork' is beneficial only in so far as an individual can use the efforts of the team to bolster her or his own position or highlight their own achievements.  There is nothing collaborative here, it is in fact a prostitution of 'teamwork', where working together is merely a means to a very personal and individual end.  When push comes to shove each person will do exactly that.

Perhaps it's me. I am not really competitive by nature and I remember that as a child I enjoyed playing games much more than winning them.  I just didn't care that much.  But, am I the only person that finds this all so inhumanely distasteful?

The Innocence of Youth?

Augustine, the 4th century bishop of Hippo in North Africa, wrote that 'the innocence of children is in the helplessness of their bodies, rather than any quality of soul.' Basically, he gives the lie to what we normally call the 'innocence' of children; that is, the idea that children are born pure and that it is only interaction with us corrupted, 'sinful' grown-ups which pollutes their innocence. What a load of rubbish!  The barest cursory incursion into a school playground - even among the youngest of children - will evidence their misguided idea that they are the centre of the universe. Please understand, I am not saying that this makes children evil or corrupt.  It is simply the way we are made, we are geared to self-preservation, usually manifested in selfishness. Socialisation, far from being a kind of destruction of some innate moral innocence, is rather the very means through which we encourage in children those aspects of the human person and human interaction which we most value and most appropriately call 'human'.  If we are fortunate this transition is undergone without too much pain and frustration, but it is unrealistic to think that the frustration which it necessarily entails can be avoided altogether.

The very human contest between self-centredness and growth into empathetic awareness of others and their needs, is today best exemplified in the debate over rights and responsibilities. Socially, we have created and encouraged an entire generation (or two) of people nit-pickingly aware of their rights (me, me, me), but with almost no sense of their responsibilities (others' needs or rights).  In schools, the demand that young people take real responsibility for their lives and actions is lost in the in the double-speak of modern education: 'behavioural targets', 'time-outs', 'learning contract'.  The entire process seems geared to protecting students from the real consequences of their myopic self-centredness, their inordinate obsession with their 'rights', in attempts to 'honour their innocence as children'.  This is only exacerbated by the fact that their parents have grown up under the same system, both educationally and socially, and developed an equally distorted sense of their 'rights', but with little sense of responsibility to others or the wider society, with little awareness of the rights of others.

All of this begs some questions.  How do we socialise children (and now many adults) into the awareness of a life and a world beyond their short-sighted perspective?  How do we best encourage people into a genuine and realistic balanced view of rights and responsibilities; into a healthy complement of self-centredness and other-centredness.  I am not completely sure, but I cannot imagine that either promoting romantic ideas of innocence or continually rescuing people from the consequences of their inordinate self-absorption will do it.

Ave Caesar!

Frighteningly fundamentalist Christians have always used the decline and fall of the Roman Empire as a stark warning to the 'god-less and immoral American Empire'. What with so many single-parent families and gay rights! Of course, I have never placed any stock in such comparisons; but recently I have begun to wonder if there may not be something to the comparison after all - not morally, but certainly politically. Today I listened to one of the best shows on radio - This American Life. The particular episode was entitled The Audacity of Government and it dealt with the far-reaching and increasing powers which the executive branch of the government of the United States (the President) was taking on. These were powers which up until now would have been unheard of, for example re-interpreting a one-hundred-year-old treaty so that the executive branch can intervene in and even change its present implementation. At the same time, I have been reading a book by Martin Goodman, Rome & Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. While the book is primarily about the relationship of the two great ancient cities, it also devotes some time to the rise of the caesars, especially showing how one person emerged as imperator through bit by bit chipping away at the ancient rights and duites of the Senate. Does this begin to sound familiar?

When a nation or people is or feels threatened by invasion, destruction or other calamity they look for someone who will protect and rescue them. Couple this with leaders who just might have god-complexes and the similarities between ancient Rome and the United States begin to emerge. From the crises that effected the rise of Julius Caesar, his subsequent murder and the jockeying for power among the triumvirate of Octavian, Lepidus and Marc Antony, there finally emerged someone who promised stability and peace, albeit a harsh one. He was Octavian, eventually Augsutus Caeser and later a god. He continued the work begun by his father Julius by aggrandising his power at the expense of the senatorial class. From his time until its fall, Rome and the empire were governed by sole rulers. Listening to the radio, it seemed I was hearing the same story only in a more modern context. The executive branch has not only taken over privileges that have never belonged to it, but also constructed readings of the Consitution so to increase powers it already had, claiming powers for the President which no other President has ever exercised. Some of this has been at the expense Congress' own powers. At the same it time it has done it all in such a way that no on is actually breaking the law, because it creates the laws to fit its needs.  

It is fortunate for the United States that there is a limit on terms of office. The present Chief Executive will certainly be gone by January. Yet, it must be borne in mind that the powers allocated to the office during his uncumbency remain as a threatening precedent. It will be up to the new incummbent to curb them.

The Burden of Speech

How often have you heard the phrase 'awkward silence'? The words alone send uncomfortable feelings through our minds and bodies, and we avoid that silence at all costs.  But, there is something worse, I think (for me, anyway); it is what I call the 'burden of speech'.  If the awkward silence is having nothing to say when we feel something should be said, the burden of speech is feeling the need to say something, when nothing needs saying at all.  So much of what passes for conversation or communication among us seems to be what a wiser age called 'idle chatter'.

This was recently all made palpably real for me as I spent the last four days or so on retreat in a convent of Benedictine sisters.  The blessed silence! The wonderful freedom of being able to pass someone in the hall or a corridor without having to enter into a discussion of inconsequentials, a simple smile being enough. Meal times were about eating, and when one was finished on could simply leave the table. There were no excuses to be made or sensibilities to assuage.  You could read a book in a sitting room full of other people, without being asked about its content or your reactions. Silence, not speech, was the paradigm and norm. Even in prayer the sisters relieved us of the burden of  speech by singing the prayers throughout the day as we allowed their chant to wash over us and to deepen us in our silence. 

Now, all of this may seem a kind of solipsistic indulgence, and yet I discovered that the silence made me more aware of others and their needs, not less.  When silence is the norm - at dinner, for example - you watch to see if the person next to you needs water or is looking for butter, and so you offer what they need without their having to ask.  Again, a smile or a nod serving as a 'thank you'.  In performing common tasks like washing up, you become aware of the other's space in a completely different way than usual. Being conscious of the need to avoid an unnecessary 'sorry', you move around the room with a heightened awareness of the other and where they are so as to not bump into them or get in their way.  Instead of telling the other where something is, you show them.  Instead of asking where something goes, you explore a little.  Of course, you can speak, but before you do the interior question is always 'Is it necessary?'

Now, I am willing to admit that this may all be a temperament thing, and that the freedom I discovered in laying down the 'burden of speech' would be to another a nightmare of 'awkward silences'.  However, I cannot help but reflect on our present culture's fear of silence and people's constant refuge into what can only be described as incessant, idle chatter.  In one the places I work, I witness it among young people as well as a fair amount of adults; and I am challenged by the questions: 'Does everything that comes into our heads, have to be expressed on our lips?'  'Is everything we seem almost compelled to say really worth listening to by another?'  'Are our words really about communication with the other, or actually about distancing the other as we assert our own fragile identity by creating sound waves?'

Personally, I felt relieved and blessed to be able to lay down the burden of speech, even if only for a time; but also to discover kindred spirits who like me felt nothing awkward about silences and who in silence were able to connect with each other in a rare and profound way. 

St Patrick's Day

Today is 17 March, but it is NOT St Patrick's Day! Today is Monday in Holy Week. No feast or saints' days which fall during Holy Week or during Easter week may be celebrated. Major feasts must be 'transferred' to a day beyond Easter week. If they are small commemorations of saints they are simply dropped that year. In most countries, liturgically St Patrick's Day is one of those small commemorations. However, in Ireland it is not only a major feast, but also a public (bank) holiday, so this caused some problems. The public holiday could not be moved and the Church had to transfer the feast of St Patrick to a day at least two weeks after its date of March 17th. The Church decided instead to move it forward to the 15th, moving it as close as possible to the civic holiday. England also has had a similar shift. This is the first year that in many schools the Easter holidays really are spring holidays and do not coincide with Holy Week and Easter Week. Of course, schools are off on Good Friday and Easter Monday (both are bank holidays), but the actual break is in the middle of April.

What we are witnessing is a divorce of a 'marriage' forged in the Middle Ages. What we are witnessing is the divorce of the civic calendar from the ecclesiastical one. For over one thousand years, the ecclesiastical calendar was the civic calendar, and civic events informed the church's year. They were inseparable; and now they are separating.  No doubt, vestiges of the union will remain always marking the civic calendar, not unlike the months of July and August hearkening back to long dead emperors the connection to which few people now remember; but for the most part the divide between them will widen. To all of this I say a resounding 'Hurrah!' It is only one more sign that we are beginning to live in a post-Christian age.  

Again, 'Hurrah', I say; not because a post-Christian age will mark the end of Christianity, but because it just may begin the dawn of a Christianity that brings with it no social boons or perks - not even 'calendrical' priority.  It may begin the dawn of a  Christianity which is not at the heart of power, control, or privilege; in fact, a Christianity so 'powerless' that for evangelism and mission it must resort to simply living the gospel. Ironically enough, it would be a Christianity far more familiar to St Patrick!

Your Weakness is Your Power

I have spent this weekend in Bruges in Belgium. Bruges (or more correctly, Brugge), a world heritage sight, is one the most perfectly preserved medieval towns, complete with a relic of the Holy Blood of Christ (www.holyblood.com). From the mid 14th to the early 17th centuries it was one of the wealthiest towns in Western Europe. Producing rich traders and merchants specialising all all minds of goods, it attracted the finest artists of the time: Memling, Van Eyck, Petrus Christus.  Their works still adorn the churches and museums of the city. However, an unsuccessful revolt sometime in the 16th century against their Hapsburg masters, guaranteed them their place as a considerable backwater. Loss of trade, favour and monopolies meant that time stood still.  However in the long run it was the city's greatest blessing, as it made for a place untouched by the subsequent centuries..  Few of the buildings are from a period after the 1650's.  Cobbled streets, stone vaulted porticoes, hidden little gardens and picturesque canals all beautifully survive. Its loss of power and prestige was the best fortune that could have happened for its future inhabitants and the rest of the world.

Reflecting on this, and  still thinking about my trip to Washington DC, I was reminded how this same dynamic was true of the American War of Independence.  During the war, the young country lamented that it did not have the trappings and structures of its adversary; for example, a distinct capital city or an established military hierarchy. However, both these 'deficiencies' proved to be some of their strongest assets in the winning the war.  The fact that their was no city specifically considered a 'capital' meant that should the British capture Philadelphia where the Continental Congress was meeting they could simply move somewhere else, without the loss of the morale that the capture of a capital city signifies in a war. The British did indeed capture Philadelphia at one point in the war, and the government simply moved to New York.  Equally the lack of an established military hierarchy meant the people rose in the ranks purely by merit, instead of class, money or nepotism.  Again, that which was considered drawbacks turned out to be blessings.

Perhaps, the corollary for us as individuals is all too obvious, but I will nevertheless make the point.  Sometimes, that which we may consider our greatest weakness may just be that which will will be our salvation, that which will open up for us opportunities which we could not have really imagined or compassed.  Personally, at present, I am finding that difficult to believe, but still I keep trusting in it.  I keep trusting in it because I have for a long time been converted to the cosmic economy of paradox. The economy of paradox is the profound reality that truth is most profoundly discovered in paradox: do you want to really live, then learn to die;  do you want to receive, then learn to give.  The fact that our perceived weaknesses may eventually turn out to be our glory, is only part of that cosmic economy.  From where I stand now, I simply hope it does not take as long to manifest itself as it did for Bruges, or with the struggle and loss of life that it did for the American republic. 

The 'Junk' of a Nation

Of all the sights and monuments there are to see in Washington DC, I was particularly excited about the Smithsonian Museum of American History only to find that it was closed for refurbishment until 2008. Fortunately, a small selection of its artifacts were on display at the Air and Space Museum.  So, I dragged my friend Ronan along to the small collection of about 150 pieces.  Although small, the exhibit was wide-ranging, with pieces as diverse as Abraham Lincoln's hat, an original box of Crayola crayons, the Greensboro luncheon counter, and the laptop used by Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Throughout the exhibit there were audible and excited exclamations: 'Oh, look it's...'; 'Wow, do you remember...?; 'I've seen lots of pictures of it, but seeing it for real is completely different.' One woman stood by her daughter explaining the courage of the suffragettes as they looked at a pin commemorating those who had been imprisoned in the campaign for women's right to vote. Another had a good laugh as she and her friend spotted Minnie Pearl's hat, remembering the comedienne's antics.  One man was fascinated by the imposing stature of George Washington and the diminutive frame of Andrew Jackson, each evidenced by their respective military coats on display.

For my UK readers all this may make little sense.  For Ronan, while admitting there were some interesting items, others seemed to him just pieces of junk.  In one sense, I agreed.  The exhibit felt like going through the nation's attic, and to an extent the stuff was junk: Archie Bunker's tatty old chair, a pair of old (albeit original) Levi 501's, the stump of a tree riddled with bullets from a Civil War battle.  However, it is the junk that defines a people.  It is artifacts such as these that connect Americans to each other, and which witness to our collective experience as a people. Whatever our individual feelings may be about the current and the coming Presidents, we all reverence the first one as 'Father of the Country'.  We know about his honesty in admitting to chopping down the cherry tree and his courage in crossing the Delaware River.  Looking at the desk on which Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence, there is hardly an American who cannot recite 'we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'  We also know how those words resounded down through the our history on the lips of heroes like Lincoln and King. This little desk is not just a piece of 18th century furniture, but a symbol of what we believe ourselves to be at our best.   The script from MGM's The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's ruby slippers are not just movie memorabilia, but symbols for Americans of what it means to dream and what it means to find home.  As such, they reference an experience which, since the film debuted, no American has escaped. All this 'junk' — through a collective history in our schools, but also through our recreation, films, music and television — have given us our national identity.

As Britain struggles with the idea of a national identity it would behove her to remember that she cannot create one out of thin air, and that a national identity once disdained is almost impossible to recover.  A real national identity arises from the little things of communal experience that reveal to us not only what we value, but also remind us of what we most should strive for by recalling our founding narrative and principles.  I know that I will most likely never see the people at that exhibit again, but also know that I am connected to them through a common story, and that is what a national identity means.

Risky Business

For the first time here, I want to write about a gospel story. Last Sunday's gospel reading was the temptation of Christ in the desert, and it is one my favourite stories.  It is, on account of its incredible psychological depth and insight.  The 'accuser' (Satan) tempts Christ with the archetypal challenges which being human presents.  'You are hungry.  Make stones into bread.'  That is, fill yourself with that which doesn't really satisfy; for immediate gratification.  'Everything is yours if you will worship me.'  That is, sell out and get everything you ever (thought) you wanted. However, recently the one that has been most interesting to me is the second one:  'throw yourself down from the height of the Temple; God surely will save you.'  That is, you are special, you are protected, you are indestructible;  death does not apply to you.  For human beings in general, I think that this particular temptation is really about our unwillingness to face our mortality. Working with young people, I have realised that this has another dimension that applies particularly to the young - their sense that the normal rules of risk do not apply to them; and many have willingly admitted to me that they regularly take risks they know to be dangerous because they don't believe anything terrible will really happen to them.

Most of them will undoubtedly grow out of that phase.  But, I am left wondering if the reverse is any better - to take no risks at all. Unfortunately, that is the place many of us end up in as we get older.  I recently saw the movie The Princess Diaries, and in it the heroine's dead father leaves her a powerful verbal legacy:  'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important  than fear. The brave may not live for ever, but the cautious do not live at all.'  Life without risk is not really living;  and so both young and old are captured by the same question, seen from different ends of the spectrum:  the discerning of what is worthy of risk. For Jesus, throwing himself off the pinnacle of Temple for a dare wasn't; but, throwing over the tables of the moneychangers and sellers in the Temple was.

In my first blog entry I mentioned that I might just pose more questions than offer answers.  Well, here is the first truly open-ended piece.  Each person has to negotiate the level of risk with which she or he is willing to live.  Each person has to navigate for him or her self a personal path between recklessness and stagnation.

Taking the 'Shame & Blame of it'

Pictured here on the left is one of a series of murals which adorns the House of Representatives in the Massachusetts State House. The series is called 'Milestones on the Road to Freedom in Massachusetts'. This one particularly, is called 'The Dawn of Tolerance in Massachusetts: Public Repentance of Judge Samuel Sewall for His Action in the Witchcraft Trials.'  The title refers, of course, to the Salem witchcraft trials which took place in colonial Massachusetts in the last decade of the 17th century.  Of all the Judges involved, only Samuel Sewall made public apology without qualification. Others certainly took responsibility and expressed regret; but only Judge Sewall publicly took the  'Blame & Shame of it' without offering explanation of extenuating circumstances.  In short, he simply apologised.  

In the latest biography of Sewall, Judge Sewall's Apology, Richard Francis writes that 'for all of us, it's difficult to say we're sorry. An apology means repudiating an aspect of our past selves; in a way it's like a suicide.'  I could not agree more.  An apology is a kind of death; a death not only to some aspect of our past selves, but also to the images of our constructed selves which we project to those around us and which we work so hard to maintain almost at any cost. Apologising is so difficult for human beings, that we hardly ever do it.  There may be the passing almost conditioned, 'sorry'; or there may be the more seemingly heartfelt apology which is then followed very quickly with some reason, some mitigating circumstance, which we use to explain our actions and thereby diminish our responsibility.  However, real apologies are rare. Our instinctive unwillingness to really offer apology, coupled with a particular brand of social determinism prevalent today - 'there is a reason beyond my control for my actions' - makes genuine apology in our society even more elusive.

Ultimately, apology is about seeing ourselves for who we really are and taking responsibility. It is about admitting that the actions I take or have taken are mine and mine alone.  A genuine apology offers no extenuating circumstances, not even 'it seemed to me the right thing to do at that time.'  It says simply, 'I'm sorry.'  For the most part, any qualification beyond an apology seems a way of saying, 'but it wasn't really my fault because.....'  These observations may appear harsh, but it can't be denied that it is this kind of unequivocal apology that gains from us the greatest admiration, namely because of its unadorned integrity  After all, no murals commemorate the 'apologies' of the other Salem witch trial judges.

Harry the King

If you travel to Disneyland Paris (see my previous blog entry) by rail (as I did), the Eurostar trip is a themed attraction in itself. The problem is you never know what the theme will be until you are well on your way. For Ronan and me, the trip out could certainly be termed the 'Rude-People-With-Their-Oversized-Baggage' ride — loads of people shoving their way to the doors before the train even stops. Then when it actually does, blocking the doors with their baggage for a good five minutes. Lovely! And so considerate of others.

The theme of the return trip is usually predictable. Full of exhausted and yet completely hyped-up children, I would call it 'It's a Smalls World from Hell'. It has no international flavour (although I sometimes think Kent should be a foreign country), but plenty of under-sized 'persons' who have been convinced that the world — canal boats, trains and all — revolves around them. There was the 8 year-old* who the moment she sat down said, 'Daddy, I'm bored. What can I do?' Luckily, she found something to do; that was, fight with her 3 year-old sister for most of the journey. Then there was the 3 year-old across the aisle from me who swung on the arm of her seat so much, that she finally fell and banged her head pretty badly, judging from the screams she produced. At which point, her mother took her in her arms, cuddled her and soothed her 'ouchie'. Why this woman could not make her daughter stop swinging on the arm rest in the first place, is beyond me. Perhaps it's simply easier and more rewarding to say 'there, there' after the fact, than to say 'no' to begin with. But by far the most interesting of our fellow 'passengers' was Harry. Now, Harry must have been about four years old, and I know Harry's name because every ten minutes I heard someone in his party say, 'Sit down, Harry.' or "Harry, dear, why don't you sit down?' or 'Let's all sit down, Harry, shall we?' Never once did Harry sit down. He stood by his seat (which was right in front of mine); he walked up and down the aisle; he poked his finger into the face of the girl across the aisle, who had by then recovered from her 'ouchie'. But, sitting down, or listening to anything his minders said, seemed to be completely outside of Harry's abilities; and it seemed beyond their abilities or willingness to simply pick Harry up and plant his little bottom on the seat.

I got to thinking what things must be like at home. Harry must be an utter tyrant. How many times do his parents/carers have to tell him to sit down, eat his food, pick up his toys, play nicely, not pull the dog's tail, not use the crayolas on the nice new wallpaper? But more than that, how does little Harry ever know he has done something wrong? How does he ever learn to deal with the frustration which comes when we don't get our own way? And I wonder what prevents the adults in Harry's life from keeping appropriate boundaries and from confronting Harry's behaviour? I have known for a long time that we are producing an entire generation of people who have been so 'affirmed', that they will never be able to deal effectively with the real disappointment that comes from having their desires denied, or from being plainly and unquestionably wrong. Hopefully, someone will help Harry to realise that he is the centre only of his small world, before the big world teaches it to him the hard way.

*Please note, all ages are a reasonable guess. Sometimes you just can't tell. I have seen 45 year-olds behave as if they were 6.

Yo Ho! The Pirates Aren't PC

Thanks to my friend Ronan, I was at Disneyland Paris last weekend for my birthday. It's a great park, incredibly beautifully thought-out and detailed, and with so much space that the original Magic Kingdom in Anaheim would be dwarfed. (However, please understand, the Anaheim park is still the best!)

Something that pleasantly surprised me which I had not noticed on my previous visits is that the Pirates of the Caribbean have not been PC'd up. For those of you not as mad about Disneyland as I and some of my friends (you know who you are, Ange), that means that the pirates are still chasing the women after the bride sale scene. Confused? Let me explain. In the original ride there a scene in which the pirates after entering the town and kidnapping the mayor, hold a 'bride' auction, selling the townswomen to the highest bidder. In the following scene there were various scenarios of the pirates chasing the women, and one wimpy pirate being chased by an amorously inclined fat (it was un-PC so I can simply say 'fat') woman. About 15 years ago there was a re-vamp of the ride and the women now had trays of food in their hands. From this we were supposed to conjecture that the men weren't chasing the women, they were chasing the food. Gluttony was clearly more acceptable than lust. On my latest visit, I noticed that these scenarios had again been changed and now the women are chasing the men, who are themselves now carrying the plates of food, the inference being that they are attempting to steal it. Again, stealing and looting is more acceptable than lust and even gluttony. (Maybe the rising obesity among Americans had something to do with this.) In Paris not only do the pirates still chase the women, but two new scenes are added: one in shadow-play where two pirates pull and shove at a women as they fight over her; in the other two audio-animatronic pirates carry on a sword fight to win a particular women who stands by crying. Lust is still d'accord.

As an ex-pat you get a particularly outsider's perspective on your home country, because you see it both through the eyes of the foreigner, but with the upbringing of the native. Living in the UK, one aspect of American culture which has become blatantly clear to me is that for Americans sex is the great bugbear which it is simply is not for Europeans For example, when the Clinton/Lewinski affair occurred the French could not get their heads round why it was such a big issue — French politicians are expected to have mistresses. On the other hand, Europeans tend to find Americans' obsession and over-consumption of food particularly — how shall I say it? — distasteful. Europeans relished Super-Size Me not only as a indictment of the America's fast-food industry, but as a satire on America's gluttonous eating habits. So, for Americans, the pirates could not possibly be chasing the women! What message would we be sending out? Chasing food is alright. It's what you would expect. But chasing the women is beyond the pale. For Europeans, it just isn't an issue and chasing the food would be rather non-sensical (as I am sure that it is to some of the Disney die-hards — we know who we are, don't we Ange?).

You Gotta Have Friends

Last week I met with two friends that I have known for years. The first I have known since the first month that I moved to London in 1993, the other for almost ten years. To add to that my friend Michele was visiting from the States over Christmas. Michele and I figure that we have known each other now for almost 20 years, and 15 years of that have been with our living thousands of miles apart. With all this, it is no surprise I have been thinking about friendships, particularly how I am beginning more and more to prefer the company of old friends, than the work and effort which developing new friendships entails. There was a time when forming new friendships held a great excitement for, but that feeling has considerably waned.  It is now so pleasantly comfortable to be with people who have known me and whom I have known for a long time. With them there is no need to re-tell my life story, or explain the various roads (and cul-de-sacs) I have walked.

No one's life is a straight line; and the older we get the more paths and detours we have taken. What is wonderful about old friends is that they have been there walking alongside most of them and so their knowledge of them is first-hand.  They do not need to have related the narrative which develops out of interpreted retrospection. For the most part they were eye-witnesses. Years of knowing one another has given us 'long-distance' vision.  We know the real difficulties which life has thrown into the way of our of individual lives, and hopefully can be more forgiving of each other's foibles, and idiosyncrasies - the  particular ways in which the vicissitudes of life have shaped us and damaged us.  Long-distance vision also gives the authority to point out how the other has changed — for good or for ill; and because there is love, to do so in with kindness and charity.

So, to you who are my long-term friends - you know who you are: 'Thanks'.  I am who I am because of you.  Contnue being loving, honest and compassionate - and saving me from telling over and over the complicated story of my life

Women of Passion

If you have not heard of TED Talks, I highly recommend checking out their website (www.ted.com).  TED is an organisation that holds an annual conference and asks some of the most brilliant thinkers of our time to 'give the talk of their lives' in under 18 minutes.  One of the most recent ones posted on their website was by the Chilean novelist, Isabel Allende.  I am not ashamed to say: it moved me to tears.  She spoke with passion about passion - her passion for the medium of story (which is 'truer than truth') and her passionate feelings about being involved in the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy. She spoke with power and conviction also about her commitment to feminism and the need for a continued awareness of women's issues globally.  I am loathe to repeat here long parts of her talk but some facts bare highlighting: 80% of all refugees and displaced persons are women or children, women do 2/3 of the world's labour, but own less than 1% of the world's assets, they are paid less if paid at all.  They are still in many parts of the world forced into marriage, forced into pregnancy, abused, raped and killed with impunity.  She wonders what kind of world could be created if women were truly liberated, truly empowered.  Being 51% of the world's population, empowering them, she say, would 'change everything.'

I also heard another woman speak in the past week.  She was the Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. She did not speak about feminism, but she spoke with a quiet and calm passion about the community over which she presides and its commitment to justice, dialogue and transparency.  I have no doubt that the election of Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop is the kind of empowerment for women to which Allende was alluding, the kind of empowerment which can 'change everything', and which will undoubtedly prove to be a great blessing for the Church.