Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood

(Not including usual link to Hive - as I don't want to encourage you to buy this book...)

This book has great reviews – not just on the cover, but online too – as I looked them up after I decided to stop reading it.

I rarely give up on a book, but in this case I didn't finish part 1 of 4. Why? Because I found it so misogynistic – we seemed to be following weak women who could only find their existence by reference to a great man.

Maybe if I had read on the book would have rebalanced that picture, but I really couldn't be bothered to put the effort in to find out.

In the weeks since my attempt at reading this, the media has been dominated by the stories of Harvey Weinstein and the associated sex scandals – which centre on the unhealthy power dynamics between men and women which have allowed men to get away with their actions for far too long – the same power dynamics that are uncritically depicted in Mrs Hemingway.

The Red House by Mark Haddon

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I read this on the same holiday as Notes from an Exhibition and in many ways a novel from the same stable. Exploring the layers of family life – the love and joy, the dysfunction and manipulation. Yet somehow to the same measure that Notes from an Exhibition felt safe the Red House was anything but.

I seemed to invest in this family (families) in a total way – not all of them were likable but they got under my skin. Their brokenness became a pain that I felt very personally – wishing, willing, them to be better people and confounded time and again that they weren’t.

Isn’t that a quality of family life, we hope that our beloved will live lives of shinning virtue – we set such high expectations that even the best fall short. And love is mostly about dealing with the gap between the two.

Haddon's writing of the children / young people is one of the strengths, these are rounded and full-bodied individuals. For a writer to give such authentic voices to a range of generations seems to be an unusual skill.

There is also a power in the fact that “nothing” happens – they have a week in a holiday cottage, some of them go for a walk, some a run, they visit some second-hand bookshops, and there is a thunderstorm. It is easy to keep the audience on the edge of their seats during an action moive, but to do the same when there is essentially no action at all is a real talent.

Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale

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Decided to read this as a follow up to watching Gale's “the Man in the Orange Shirt”.

While it was an enjoyable read, I had this strong sense of deja vu reading this book – I am not sure why this was.

Maybe I have read it before, but if I had my recall was not that strong, and it must have been before I started to blog about books.

Maybe it was something about the authenticity of the characters…

…or maybe, just maybe, this was actually fairly generic writing filled with standard tropes played together in the guise of creativity? The maverick artist mother, the strong and silence father, 3 children – one a big shot in London, one loyal and close to home, one off the map altogether.

I feel bad if offering that last possible conclusion seems to rip into the book – I enjoyed it, the ebb and flow of their lives were believable and engaging. The picture of Quaker life and worship was deeply appealing. But somehow it never surprised me, and never really moved me beyond the safe space of the observer.

I thought there would be Cake by Katharine Welby-Roberts

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Katharine offers a very personal and vulnerable account focused on practical advise about hope to cope better with the mix of depression, anxiety and self-doubt.

For me she perhaps talks about God too much although she is honest about the ways in which Church can be part of the problem when in theory it should be being part of the solution.

While I found it difficult to warm to this book it was really helpful in moving me another step along the journey to admitting that I have “anxiety” as a thing and that most of my current [gin-based] coping strategies are unhealthy.

In particular she introduced me to the concept of a “replay” - the concept is new to me but the experience isn't. I do that all the time – that I sometimes lie in bed and replay and beat myself up about things I did 20 years+ ago is not normal – and that acknowledgement is progress.

That I remember every failure and have forgotten every success – that I am driven by the desire not to end up looking stupid – ending up looking ridiculous because I am tongue-tied by the fear that what I would say would reveal my inner stupidity. I find small talk painful because of a belief that no-one would anything I say interesting so stand there silently at the edge of the circle.

Typhoon by Charles Cumming

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Picked up from the “new books” shelf in the Library despite its publication back in 2008.

Cumming is a writer is same school as Le Carré – the strength of the characters is what carries the plot, the ability to create worlds within worlds – layering the secrets one upon the other meaning that you are drawn forward seeking the full picture, each revelation pointing to the limits of knowledge. Questions about who is manipulating who abound, that one persons motives might be being used by another to completely different ends. As with Le Carré while creating a fiction there is an intense plausibility to the set up – he can believe that this is a tale only one step removed from reality.

To note that this was a great holiday read is not to disparage the quality of the writing – I will be looking out for his other novels now.

The Liturgy of Life by Ricky Manalo

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Of the books about worship I have recently read this was by far the most interesting, because despite the rhetoric of the others this was the only one that actually engages with “ordinary” peoples faith and practice.

Manalo's, writing in an USA Roman Catholic context, starting point is concern that since Vatican II the emphasis on the people's participation in the Mass has also devalued and marginalised a range on other formal and informal liturgical practices.

He takes the term Liturgy of Life from Peter C. Phan who defined it as the “universal experiences of God and mystical encounters with God's grace in the midst of everyday” - which prompts Manalo to realise that “the Eucharist is not so much the source and centre of my life or the church's life; God is.” This might seem blindingly obvious, yet how much of the church's practice denies this truth. As someone coming firmly from a Eucharistic tradition, who will find every reason to oppose the introduction of a non-Eucharistic service, I have for a number of years had this itch that using the Eucharist as the metaphor for every Christian activity is unhelpful.

He points out that “There is a general assumption that individuals commit ' to an entire, single package of beliefs and practices of an official religion,' when, in fact, many people come to negotiate a variety of religious and spiritual practices...” - how many people have you meet who explain that they would like to be a Christian but they can't believe in such and such random dogma – and you are like - OMG you think any of us believe that? I often find that those outside the church take our doctrines far more seriously than we ourselves ever would do.

But Manalo is also helpful in pointing to the ways in which there are a whole range of “religious” practices that are not directly related to going to church, and therefore the assumption that the decline in church attendance also marks a decline in religious disposition / an increase in rationality is without foundation.

I go to church because of my faith, I don't have faith because I go to church. But one of the wisest thinks I have read is Manalo's quote from Irene Duller, a born and bred but perhaps is many people's eye border-line lapsed catholic, she defines 'church' as “a place that you know God is there. While God can be everywhere, sometimes I'm not present. So it's kind of like that calibration: I'm here; God's here. God is everywhere but sometimes you need to be present to actually feel it. But I think factually, God is everywhere. You could find God anywhere.”

You could find God anywhere, but generally you don't – you need something to frame the encounter, to make you pay attention. The Eucharist is a powerful opportunity for encounter with the Lord, but it is not unique, just as Thomas and Paul had authentic but totally distinct encounters with the risen Lord, so the Eucharist is only one form of encounter. Never let us think that our Tabernacles can contain out God, he who burst from the tomb knows no boundaries – every-time we set a limit on his love he burst out and expanses our imagination.

One of the people Manalo interviews is Helen Rosario, (key stats, 87, widow, Filipina) whose house is full of icons – and I if I can work out how to add pictures to this blog, I will show you that I am not so far behind...

Radical Sending by D Prentiss and F Lowe

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Another book about how to enhance the missionary character of the Church.

Despite agreeing with the fundamental point of Prentiss & Lowe's argument – that Church is a place from which you go out, not a place in which you huddle for warm and comfort I struggled to engage with the book.

They use the metaphor of a church as a “base camp” - it is not a bad image, but they work it thread bare... They are best when they are quoting others...

For example the Lutheran pastor and educator Dwight DuBois who reflects that “This [the equipping of church members] doesn't need to be another program, something “more” that people can, should, or ought to do. As one theologian in the missional church movement said, our task is to 'guide people to identify God's calling, to recognize the gifts and opportunities they have, to provide them with the biblical and theological training to incarnate the gospel in their particular fields, and then to commission them to that ministry.”

That is to say, you equip people to be witnesses in their existing “secular” contexts, rather than framing “vocation” in terms of full- or part-time “ministry”. In the Winchester Diocese this might be a Bishop's Commission in secular employment?

Because, quoting DuBois again, “Pastors are not called to get people to assist them with their ministry; rather, the pastor is called to assist the people, the laity, with their ministry both in the church and in the world.”

Key to the idea of “radical sending” includes an emphasis of the liturgical dismissal – the words “go to love and serve the Lord” are for Prentiss and Lowe perhaps the most important of the whole liturgy, and if pressed to select just one word, they would undoubtedly choose “go”...

This is all to the good, but we have to ask if our practice actually affirms this dynamic? In the Church of England, at least, these powerful words sending us out into the world are generally preceded by an exhortation to “stay” for tea/coffee and fellowship. This might entirely undermine the intention to the liturgical sending out of the people – but even without the coffee how many people would go from Church to radical mission in the world, when it is Sunday lunchtime and there is a roast waiting for them at home?

They also quote Teresa of Avila, words that really spoke to me, and I will reproduce, but allow them to speak for themselves...

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use thoase gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.