The Night Lives on by Walter Lord

The Night Lives on

I have had this book on my shelf for at least 13 year (ie since it was published) how it is only now living in Southampton and with the centenary of the Titanic disaster fast approaching that I have got around to reading it.

Southampton's relationship with the Titanic is a strange one, perhaps no more strange that the global obsession with Titanic, just more intense.  We are busy building a new museum dedicated to the Titanic - hopefully the it will be ready for the all important April anniversay - the council promise it will be open on time, however the builders haven't promised it will be finished. It is a shame that this one ship can eclipse the rest of Southampton's history (not even just its maritime history) - surely tourists should be more interested in the city's link to the Mayflower a vessel famous for go one better than Titanic and getting all the way to America, or the Flying Boats which opened the way to mass airtravel, or the Spitfire - but it is clear that they aren't.

Walter Lord does in places reflect on the nature of the obsession with the Titanic and how the story so fixed in our minds came into existence.  There is a lot of myth busting in this book - repeatedly he shows that while we can not be sure exactly what did happen the one thing we are sure did not happen was what you saw in the films (even the films that have come after this book).  It brings to mind the Greenbelt event by Ikon "you know the one about the Titanic - it was made up!"

The book, writing shortly after she was found, is also interesting in the exploration of the various attempts to find the Titanic and the schemes to raise her, what drove these mad ideas to often gain a level of credibility.  And I found another connection, one of the great schemer Douglas Woolley was from Baldock where I was living when I first got this book - a fact I didn't know at the time.

A book that was worth the wait...

Treasures of Heaven at the British Museum

Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe

This is really about the exhibition more than the book - although the book is lavishly illustrated and at 250+ large format pages justifies the price tag.

Relics are one of those things within Christianity which became a bête noire for reformers and within Catholic circles remain a bit of a sore spot - while the Church still teaches their validity most Catholic would rather talk about something else.  And so it is interesting that the British Museum decided to put on such an exhibition, in step with the National Gallery's The Sacred Made Real a year or so ago, - is it a token of our secularisation that we can now look upon these relics and objectively consider their historical importance as we do the Museum's Eypgtian Mummies and Witch-Doctors Masks. 


Most of the Reliquaries were empty but a significant number were not and this means that the experience of the exhibition had two distinct layers for me. For the most part those reliquaries that were empty just sparked the usual thoughts of craftsmanship, or the changing fashions, all the things 'art' is meant to do for you. But those where the relic was in place triggered a different set of responses - the first and most challenging was about whether one thought the relic real.  Most of the reliquaries contained a part of the True Cross, but the ubiquity of fragments of the True Cross in Medieval Europe was one of the great scandals that brought down the whole culture of relics. If I was in the presence of a part of the True Cross then it could not be anything other than profound but if I was in the presence of a fabrication then I would hardly bear to look upon it.  The trouble is that there is not, at least as a Catholic, a straight line between the genuine and the fake.  You never knowingly buy a fake and in the context of a faith that believes Sunday by Sunday that bread and wine are transformed one should not dismiss the possibility that generations of sincere devotion and prayer could turn a sliver of old tea chest into the 'True Cross'. And so I looked upon the tiny scrap of wood, knowing that specialists would tell me the tree it comes from could never grow in Jerusalem and this tree in particular grew a thousand plus year after Christ had died, and couldn't help but be humbled because in every way that mattered it was the tree on which my Lord had died for me. 

This is why many Catholics would rather change the subject than be drawn to take a position, not because  they disagree with the Church's claim of validity nor that they disagree with Science's evidence of impossibility, but because they understand that it is only by first believing that holding these two views simultaneously becomes even remotely plausible.  And all our mission action plans tell us that we have to come up with something better than remote plausibility.

Jacob's Ladder by Henery Gee

Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome

Gee takes us from Aristotle right to the edge of current research into the Genome in a very readable style.  It is interesting that in some ways his project echoes that of the Revd Kendall which I was reading in parallel with this book, as both organise vast periods of history into a fundamentally coherent story.  As well as the science there is great interest in the way in which theories competed for acceptance, and how despite Darwin's celebrated status his ideas did not come out of nowhere and were not really there widely accepted at the time, and it was only with the much later establishment of genetics as the mode of variation that his ideas of natural selection were about to win the day. 

For me it was the first part of the book with its historical focus that was most interesting, the second part that explained the current theories of genetic was informative but not so engaging.  It was interesting to learn about the importance of networks within the genome and how allows the relatively small (albeit c.35K) number of genes to determine the seemingly infinite variety of human existence.

Gee concludes the book looking to the future and the possibilities of human manipulation of our own genome - he paints a stark picture in which we are meddling in something we do not fully understand - in particular we are no where near understanding what it is that give human's their 'humanity' and so we run the risk of creating more perfect physical bodies but disrupting the network so that we create super human zombies who lack "the spark of humanity" as Gee puts it.

Finally on p250 out of 251 you get a reference to Jacob's Ladder - he has titled the book after it so you think it must be important - yet it is oblique in the vision God promises Jacob that his descendents will inherit the ground on which he sleeps - so Gee asks the question "But does this licence extend to becoming angels ourselves?" Yet this does not seem to fit with the biblical text at all - for a start God's promise is local, it is a promise of the land of Israel not a general one, and how does possession of the land imply mastery such that we can remake ourselves.  God seems always to set limits, for example after the Flood he extends Adam's permission to feed on plants to animals - yet he tell Noah "I will demand an accounting from every animal".  I realise that I am making a mountain out of a mole hill in terms of the content of the book but Gee did use Jacob's Ladder as the title implying somehow he thinks this point runs through the whole - and I would largely agree with the point it is just an odd choice of metaphor.

A Short History of the Church of England by the Revd J F Kendall

I picked up this book published in 1910 for the local Oxfam shop mainly because it is "Illustrated with direct colour photographs taken at the Church Pageant" showing the delightful Edwardian fantasy in which Notables dressed up and reacted the major scenes of the history of the Church in the Bishop of  London's Garden at Fulham.

As a 'history' Kendall account is of limited merit, however as a window on to the mind of an Edwardian Churchman and as a treatise in defense of "that middle yet catholic position which is the glory of Anglicanism" it is insightful and engaging.

We learn from Kendall that the Church of England existed first as an independent National expression of the Catholic faith - but this independence was sold down the river in the early middle ages by the political expediency of Kings needing the assistance of Popes to secure their position against internal or external rivals coupled with bungling or self-interested Archbishops.

Therefore when we get to Henry VIII, Kendall shows that the throwing off the supremacy of the Pope was not a revolution but a restoration of the English Church's former and true identity - and the 1549 English Prayer book a suppression of medieval additions in favour of a purified Catholic worship. It was the action of Puritans after the death of Henry that broke with Catholic doctrine, only to be restored by Elizabeth, and then again in 1662 following further Puritan spoiling.  The Act of Toleration is significant to Kendall as while it ends generations of destructive religious conflict it is an admission that the National Church could not hold within itself all the [Christian] people of the nation. 

It would be interesting to learn what Kendall made of disestablishment in Wales and the debacle of the 1928 Prayer Book neither would have helped his case.  And I think he would have his work seriously cut out to paint today's Church of England as either the National Church or the authentic English expression of Catholic faith - but maybe a man would could read a thousand years of history as building inevitably to the Oxford Movement would be up to that task.

Greenbelt 2011 - Padraig O Tuama on Our Lady of Greenbelt

Padraig O Tuama is one of my favourite Greenbelt speaker - coming originally for Cork he his the most beautiful soft Irish accents and honestly I would go and listen to him if he was reading the telephone directory.  It is therefore an extra special treat that what he actually has to say is delightful too.

This talk on Our Lady of Greenbelt should be compulsory listening for anyone who thinks that either Mary can be sidelined or that devotion to Mary is corrupt and should be suppressed.

It had strong echos of a talk Nicola Slee gave on her Book of Mary as both Padraig and Nicola were trying to rescue Mary from the sanitised and perfected imagine the Church too often uses in place of the real woman Mary was.

Padraig drawing on his Irish Catholic childhood began with a poem about Mary turning up as a parish rosary group and explored with gentle comedy how the group would react.  This was a jumping off point for a number of themes. One was the issue of Mary's Virginity, he challenged the conflation of virginity with purity.  Being a virgin has limited at best use as a predictor of someones purity or holiness.  He also challenged the public ownership of another's sexuality that calling her 'The Virgin Mary' involves - this is also true of the old fashioned term 'consecrated virgin' for a Nun, why make the primary designator of somebody in fact the one thing they are not doing.  As a Gay man he also points to the dangers when the Church decides that it is entitled to know and discuss and judge the private sexually lives of some of its members (and the Church has always hypocritically only been interested in 'some' of its members sex lives).

Padraig also addressed the 4 major doctrines of the Catholic Church concerning Mary, highlighting that the truth that each attests to (when properly expressed) is a truth not primarily about Mary but about Christ.  Although when it comes to the Assumption of Mary he express the view that it was perhaps unfortunate that this had been raised (only in 1950) to the status of an infallible dogma - however it has a long and venerable history in the Church and in itself should not be the flash point of division between Catholics and Protestants that it so often is. 


Coming home I found the Walsingham Review on the doormat, and Walsingham is often the home of the wrong sort of devotion to Mary and so it was refreshing to find Bishop Lindsay Urwin using the imaginative writings of Erasmus to make a point not a million miles away from Padraig. Erasmus has Mary say "You shall not turn me out unless you turn my Son out too, whom I hold in my arms.  I won't be pulled away from him.  You shall either throw us both out or leave us both unless you have in mind to have a Church without a Christ." - This is a Mary full of bile, the Mary who remained at the foot of the cross while future apostles ran away, the Mary when encountered as a real person rather than a porcelain doll who tells us of depths of humanity and so of Christ.

Greenbelt 2011 - Andrew Tate - Outerspace - Jo Swinney

Monday began with Andrew Tate talking under the title "All families are psychotic" - a great title for a talk that turned out to be about something else - he, tying in with the overall theme of the festival,  focused much more on the idea of 'home' in literature. I have made a talk my Andrew a feature of Greenbelt over the last couple of years, he is an engaging speaker and ranges widely over both literary classics and more 'popular' output including significant reference to The Simpsons.  It is interesting to hear about themes you never noticed in books you have read.  There is also a sort of game of literary bingo - to see how many of the countless books he touches upon you have read (or even heard of), occasionally as you look round at the audience all nodding knowingly at the obscurest of references and you are sure that they are all liars. 

After this I went to the Outerspace Communion service, it perhaps like the Catholic Mass appeals to me partly for its ordinariness - there is no great radicalism in the liturgy.  There must have been a little over 150 people there, and it is great to be able to share uncomplicated, unqualified, worship together with such a group of Gay, Lesbian, and Trans people.

From there I had to run to catch next session which was  Jo Swinney talking about depression - she spoke fairly briefly and then people were invited to share thoughts and experiences of which there were lots. Some were heart and/or gut wrenching others.  Many pick up on the anecdote Jo had shared of people at Church wanting to know if she was better because they had prayed for her - this is not only deeply insensitive but betrays a complete misunderstanding of the nature of healing ministries, what is intriguing is what it is about depression that allows people to ask the question which you somehow can't imagine being posed to a cancer sufferer.  It was quiet an intense session and of all the things to do at Greenbelt probably left me with the most things to think about, to wrestle with.

Greenbelt 2011 - Accord - Brain McLaren - Jim Cotter

After a very enjoyable mug of tea in the sunshine Sunday evening began in true Anglican style with Choral Evensong. It was sung for us by Accord who promised Evensong with a twist - if you come expecting this to be some kind of radical in your face re rendering then you would have been somewhat disappointed.  The main twist was that the Magnificat was sung with words other than Crammer's and to the tune of Amazing Grace.  The other twist was the Choir members were conducting the service in its entirety, which included one of them giving a Provisional Blessing at the end.  There isn't anything wrong with that as such, Evensong can and often is conducted by members of the Laity, but the lack of someone acting as a minister separate from the Choir blurred the boundary between Divine Service and a Concert.  Also given that there was a small handful of Priests there (and that is just the ones known personally to me) it seems a missed opportunity to have given a Provisional Blessing rather than wheeling one of them out to give the Blessing.

After Evensong I went to hear Brian McLaren on Naked Spirituality - I am not sure exactly what I was expecting, perhaps a Christian retelling of Gok Wan's How to Look Good Naked. I arrived to to find the Big Top full to it 3200 capacity and not a lover of crowds I hovered at the edge and reversed judgement.  He began and it became clear what was on offer was a fairly straight forward reworking not of Gok Wan but of Fowler's stages of faith development, admittedly Brain was only going to give us 4 compared with Fowler's 7.  Also there didn't seem to be anything particular to commend the title 'Spiritual' and so half way through stage 1 I left.

Jim Cotter has produced a collection of RS Thomas's poems accompanied with a DVD in which Jim reads the poems against the backdrop of the places RS Thomas was writing about. The session, which was a viewing of parts of the DVD, was hosted by Jim's two collaborators in the project as Jim himself was unable to attend due to ill health - clearly a major disappointment for many there who hoped the Venerable Cotter's shadow might fall across them. There was a gentleness about the coming together of RS Thomas' words and the images of the Llyn - images of the Llyn, as noted in the DVD, in uncharacteristically sunny and tranquil moments.  Missing the wildness of the land you also tended to miss the ragged layer of RS's poetry.  He is a complex man and his place in Welsh literary and cultural life is contested, encounters with RS Thomas should never be simple - you have to contend with the man, with the words, with those who claim him as a hero and those who denounce his as the epitome of every cultural wrong. I would need to spend more time with Jim's collection to really find if it is part of the complex journey.      

Greenbelt 2011 - Communion - Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies - Michael Mitton

On Sunday morning the programme is cleared to allow everyone to go to a massive 'Communion' at the mainstage.  The Communion, in my experience divides Greenbelter into two groups - those who feel obliged to go and those who don't.  For those of us in the second group this is time better spent catching up on sleep, allowing all the experiences of the weekend so far to settle in the brain, time to wonder aimlessly and get a coffee.  I struggle to recall anyone every talking about the Communion as their highlight of the weekend.  The major problem is that it is an "Ecumenical" celebration of the worse kind - not a celebration rooted in one tradition but open to all, but a celebration denuded of any thing that might offend, it is traditionless, soulless.
As I wondered contentedly this year I overheard one sentence of the service - the leader explained "and now we break the bread - and one of the things that we remember is that Jesus died for us.." - this set me off on a rant 'one of the things' - ONE OF THE THINGS - the moment of fraction is the moment of Jesus' death, of the earthquake, of the ripping of the temple curtain, for me a moment of singular meaning.  I will happily to admit this might be a particular theology of the Eucharist, but the problem with the Greenbelt Communion is that it is based on the belief that we can ignore the differences but leaves it bringing ten thousand people together either to do their own thing or to do nothing at all.  

With the Communion over the programme restarted and I managed to get myself in the right place at the right time for Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies . I was at Van Mildert in Durham with Harry and from the first night on the corridor as he played Brown Eye Girl there was always an anarchic joyfulness about him but there was always a slight worry that graduation would bring a pin-striped suit and a job in the city.  While it did that to many of the great rebels I knew in Durham, Harry is just the same as he always was.  It was great to be in the packed venue, packed with people and packed with joy - Harry and his Wellies are one of my favourite bands - they are full of life, characterful without affectation.

Now on a roll of right places and right times I heard Michael Mitton . The talk was called "The homing instinct" and while I enjoyed listening to him, he has the voice of  Nicholas Parsons, I will be honest as say that I can't really remember the content of the talk - maybe I will have to download it from the Greenbelt website and listen again!

 

Greenbelt 2011 - Ikon

Giving Ikon a post of their own because I thought their 'event' was fabulous - ‘Based On A True Story’.
They bring together music, poetry, prose, movement, costume into a total immersive experience - you are lost in the encounter. And yet some of the power is that they don't take it too seriously - and are willing to puncture an intense moment with a witty twist or yet a cheap pun.

Ikon have a reputation for a certain level of shock value - one Greenbelt event, I am told, included a prolonged sequence in which a Bible was torn page from page (perhaps it is a game to see if you can break that Greenbelt liberal - find the spot where they turn Pharisee and draw a line) - but this event was not in your face in quiet the same way and yet it was full of challenge.

It opened with the following:

Every Story Is Made Up

Every story is made up. Have you read ‘The BFG’? Roald Dahl? Yeah, it was made up. It’s a good story though. Every story is made up. Did you ever hear the one about the Moon Landing? 1969, man on the moon and all that. Yeah, it was made up. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. But the story you know is just a story that was made up. Just words… about an event. And I bet Neil Armstrong has a different story to you. It’s a good story though.

This really was 'the' point of the event - and as I have said I am a good post-modernist and so it is a point that falls easily into my ears.  When this is applied to conflicts it becomes an opportunity for liberation - Ikon applied to their native Belfast - conflicts, particularly those between neighbours, find much of their energy because the two sides tell different stories about the same event.  Greenbelt always has a lot going on about Palestine - and there is a conflict between people who have been telling stories for thousands of years and the power of the stories overwhelms any attempt to get to 'facts' or 'truth'. What is needed is a way to acknowledge that stories can be inreconsilable even when they speak of the very same event.

Greenbelt 2011 - London Catholic Worker - Keith Skene - Luke Bretherton

Saturday at Greenbelt started with a bit of a fail as I turned up a full 24 hours early for Harry Bird and the Rubber Wellies only to have a second fail a couple of hours latter finding myself 24 hours early for Michael Mitton at which point I finally got the hand of the programme!

So the proper start of the day was Catholic Mass offered by London Catholic Worker an unreconstructed socialist expression.  This throw back to the politics and fashions of the last Seventies when encountered in the midst of Yummy Mummy liberalism of Greenbelt is quiet a tonic perhaps teaching us that things should be rough around the edges. After giving the chalices to the Eucharistic Ministers Fr Martin noticed a lack of Purificators and had to search in a brightly coloured satual from which he eventually retrieved some crumpled cloths which after inspecting for stains were felt suitable - and I thought back to Blesséd and knew if there had to be a choice it was the London Catholic Worker that I would choose.      

Next I found my way to a talk by Keith Skene who was speaking about "tribalism versus diversity" - he was an engaging speak and great example of the richness that we gain when people break out of their academic silo and speak across disciplines (well expect when their name is Dawkins!). Using his background in biology he illuminated a key discrepancy in the Darwinian theory of evolution - that while Darwin states that competition drives evolution research now shows that it is those times when competition drops (eg mass extinctions) when evolution going into over drive.  Having shown in biology competition does not occupy the role of positive driver usually credited it he asked he same question of human society and almost left it hanging in the air - avoiding pushing the metaphor to breaking point.

I then took up the role of groupie and went to hear Luke Bretherton who was one of the co-leader of the  MA I took at Kings a few years ago and was pleased to find several of my fellow students had also wound there way to the master's feet.  It was amazing to see him in jeans and t-shirt rather than the terrible cord suits that accompanied him to our classes and yet the energy was just as intense - carrying you along even when you have lost the plot of the talk struggling to keep up with the vast historical sweep he deploys to explain the present moment.