The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

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There was a reference to this novel in a book I was reading recently, but I can't remember which or even what the context was, although I have a vauge feeling it was something to do with questions of faith and hypocrisy …

The novel is acclaimed, the edition I read merited a literary introduction. This acclaim is mostly to do with the “form” of the novel – Sylvia claimed that there was no plot. There is perhaps certain unifying themes but there is not a narrative arc – there is not real “beginning”, “middle”, or “end”.

While this might have been a radical move for a novel when published in the late 1940s, the ensemble cast of Nuns, who come in and out of focus as the mini-dramas of their individual lives rise and fall, has the character of a soap opera.

It is a good read, but I struggled to see what it was that makes it a notable work.

Parliament, The Biography by Chris Bryant

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In this first Volume, Bryant gives a very readable account of the evolution of our Parliament over around 500 years up until 1800 – with a great focus on the Commons.

What is particular about this account is that Bryant picks up the individuals – refusing to subscribe to those that see great overarching dynamics – and is especially critical of the so called Whig history. For Bryant there was nothing inevitable about the moves toward democracy – expediency and opportunist action have shaped our history.

Many of those that were key to move the role of Parliament forward did so only from self-interest – democracy appears to be the unintended consequence of varying and completing efforts to feather ones nest.

This might sound like a depressing analysis – that we are the product of grubby deals rather than lofty ideals – but I rather like the humanising effect, the story is that people matter, with all the complexity of personality and relationships that they bring with them.

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The second part brings us up until Margaret Thatcher's departure from No 10 (although Bryant does in fact refer to some recent developments). This second part is arrangement more thematically, with chapters on the way War, Women, and Alcohol, among others, have shaped developments in Parliament.

One interesting feature is the growth in the power of the Executive, mostly during the two world wars, and so a weakening of the influence of Parliament. The arrival of democracy, in the form of universal suffrage, largely coincided with the grip of the Executive tightening. Bryant makes the point that in the 19^th Century there were complaints about 150 or so Crown appointments (mostly sinecures) which gave the Monarch control over Parliament, these were abolished, yet now the Government has similar numbers, with an army of junior ministers and Parliament Private Secretaries – we have come full circle?

As with the first volume this is a highly readable account, rich telling the stories of individuals, with the continuing theme of evolution by accident rather than design.

Abraham and his Son by James Goodman

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To turn to a book sub-titled “The story of a story” with many of the ideas of Pádraig Ó Tuama's In the Shelter still fresh in my mind seemed a right move – so much of what Pádraig shares is about the power of story. That there is very little ability to understand the world, or our place within it, without attending to stories.

I think that Goodman gives us a really important book, you know that I read a lot and yet this is one of the few books which I think is actually transformative. It is 250 pages, by no means long, but packed full of ideas, it is so rich.

The story is that of Abraham's (almost) sacrifice of his son Isaac. It is about 19 verses of Genesis. A short story but a big story.

Isaac's question “Here is the fire and the wood but where is the sheep for the offering?” are for me some of the most harrowing words in scripture, words that haunt me.

I have wrestled with it mostly within the context of reflections on Good Friday, probably a typical Christian encounter with the story – and so to approach it with the (secular) Jewish starting point of Goodman was to come to it afresh.

If this was just a book about that one story it would be interesting, well worth reading, and I will go on later to reflect more on what it says about that story, but in many ways these 19 verses are just a case study for an exploration which can be applied to Scripture in general. That you can write this much (and this in fact is little more than the abstract of what has been written) about these verses is proof about the endlessly contestable nature of the meaning of Scripture. (And that is even after you have decided it is Scripture with a capital S).

One of the frustrations about the way the phrase “Bible-Believing” is monopolised as a self-description by a certain party within the Church it that is assumes that what it is to “believe” the Bible is a simple and easily defined thing. And one of the things that I am grateful to Goodman for is exploding that myth. He shows the astounding range of beliefs that have been held about just 19 verses, and from that you when you then think about the Bible as a whole the idea that there is “a” meaning that can be believed surely can not be countenanced.

But I also think Goodman offers an important challenge to many of those who would fall into a bracket of “liberals” and who have a tendency to ignore any passage of Scripture that is uncomfortable. The process of formation of texts and the delimiting of the canon of Scripture was clearly complex – but I think that if we want to maintain that any of Scripture is worth attending too, and of course there are plenty who would dismiss the lot, but if we think any of Scripture is worthwhile we have to deal with the whole. That doesn't mean that we treat it all equally, but we must have some kind of relationship with it all.

Which perhaps brings us back around to the particular story. At the heart of Goodman's search I think are two key questions; What kind of God would ask a man to sacrifice their Son? and, What kind of man would follow that command? There is no easy answer to either question...

As a Christian there is an echoing on John 3:16, here Abraham loved God so much he was willing to give his only Son, and in it there root of a third question, What kind of God sacrifices their Son on the Cross?

Many take issue with Stuart Townend's hymn, In Christ Alone, for the line “Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied”, refusing to accept the “wrath of God” as an explanation of the Cross. And some change the words so instead we sing “as Jesus died, The love of God was satisfied”. While I am personally doubtful about wrath (and the theology of penal substitution that it implies) I find I have even greater difficulty with the alternative – what are we to make of a Love that needs to be satisfied, needs to be satisfied by a brutal humiliating death?

There are parts of Goodman's book that bring you face to face with these questions and moments which made me question my faith. An uncomfortable experience, but not necessarily a negative one.

Like Jacob wrestling in the night with a man/angel/god we to must wrestle – and afterwards Jacob asks the man their name, but he doesn't get an answer. I think perhaps we live in a world that is too focused on answers – we have forgotten what it is to wrestle with unknowing.

One of the themes Goodman explores is the role (or absence) of Sarah in this story – she is a big character in most of the events of Abraham's life, a fellow traveller with him on his journey with God (some might suggest the Matriarchal character of Jewish identity might hint that Abraham was in fact a fellow traveller on her journey) . And so while women are under represented generally within the Bible, her absence here is particularly pronounced.

I write this just a day or two before it is Winchester's turn (along with Portsmouth and Salisbury Dioceses) to engage in the Church of England Shared Conversations about Sexuality. And this book speaks to that because much of the Conversations are not really about sex/sexuality but about our relationship with Scripture. Rather than bashing each other over the head with rival interpretations we need a bit more collective humility about what we can claim to know about the word of God (let alone the mind or will of God).

I have been sat here trying to think of a concluding remark, but I think the very nature of what Goodman shares is that the story of the story is open-ended and therefore rather than a conclusion all that you can offer is ...

In the Shelter by Pádraig Ó Tuama

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In this his latest book Pádraig shares some of the stories that go alongside his poems, when you hear him speak the poems are often the sort of punch line to a tale, an it is good to hear some of them again. But there is also a lot of more here, much of which deals with the pain of life.

There is so much that I could pick up on – I would be at risk of quotes the entire book – so here are just a few thoughts, perhaps at random, perhaps connected.

Among the quotes that stuck for me is “Whatever Jesus of Nazareth's death means, it doesn't mean something that can be written on a fridge magnet.” which speaks to the way the Church tends to reduce the complexity of God into manageable formula – but it also has the compact punch that would fit nicely on a fridge magnet, perhaps over a sun set or some other stock image.

There is a great richness in the idea of “story” for Pádraig, captured well as he writes “We are the stories we tell about ourselves and we are more than the stories we tell about ourselves. We fiction and fable our lives in order to tell of thing that are more than true and we lie – if only by omission – by reducing ourselves to mere facts.”

There are just a few poems included, and following on the theme of stories was “Returnings”

I see her, former colleague

in the baggage area of a

foreign airport.

Oh hi, she says,

looking awkwardly towards the

empty carousel.

Then she decides.

I hear you're gay now, she says.

Are you still a Christian?

Oh how will we tell this story?

She, to her friends, with

sadness, curiosity and prayers

for reorientation and returning.

Me, to mine, with sadness,

anger and prayers for

refocusing the lenses and returning.

And the anger was all mine,

but that question

was all about her.

Should we not just dance instead,

I should have said,

together turn a little waltz in

the chorus of our own bodies

while we wait and wait for something better

than the empty carousel of this question.

How will we tell this story?

How will I tell this story?

With sadness,

with practicings of little ballroom dances

while we wait, confidently,

for what is most important to be returned.

As with this poem, much of the wrestling within Pádraig's stories is on the fault lines of Christian and Sexual identities – and it was helpful to have him as a companion as I was trying to vote for General Synod, faced with a selection of candidates who would mostly draw the lines of faithfulness with me on the outside.

Among the irritants in their election addresses was the phrase “those experiencing same-sex attraction” and it took a while to work out some of the problems with it. One of the keys was Pádraig's reflection that in giving a group a (new) name you take power over them. I don't know any gay person who would describe themselves as experiencing same-sex attraction – I might say I fancy guys, but I would never say I experience same-sex attraction. Using this term takes away our self expression and tends towards dis-empowering and silencing the very people who are the centre of the debate.

And within this new name there are other moves at work. For example by not saying “people who are gay” but rather “people who experience same-sex attraction” you externalise the “problem”. As a category you move from “people who are...” say male, or black, or gay to “people who experience...” say headaches, delusions of grandeur, same-sex attraction. In so doing you open the door not only to fully embrace the “love the sinner, hate the sin” nonsense but also, more significantly, to the fact that “people who experience” something can generally become “people who used to experience” it. So what seems at first to be a value neutral descriptor suddenly becomes loaded with justifications for gay cures.

Last Call for the Dinning Car Edited by Michael Kerr

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I got this book out the library along with a number of guidebooks when we were planning our trip to Canada, so probably sometime in 2012, and have been dipping into it from time to time over the intervening years.

It is a miscellany of railway related writing that has appeared in the Telegraph over a century or more.

Some are charming snippets, comments on a particular historical moment in railway history.

Some are more traditional travelogues – but for example the pairing of different eras of journeys on the Orient Express, when it had gone to seed and in its current revival, play against each other for added interest.

While some of the more exotic journeys sound great adventures, such a crossing the Andes, most failed the test of suitability for holidays. Many had a little too much in common with Griff Rhys Jones' recent programmes “Africa by train” for which a better subtitle would have been “the continent's best rail-replacement bus journeys”!

Home Movies by Claire Jenkins

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I guess I have to begin by admitting a potential bias as Claire is an old school friend (although I think neither of us would dwell on the “old” part...) but thankfully I found this a book that does require rose-tinted glasses to review.

To apply intellectual rigour to the lightweight output of mainstream Hollywood is important as these are the movies that have a mass audience and as such these have far greater cultural influence than many films which would receive critical accolades.

It is perhaps no great surprise to find that Hollywood is ultimately culturally conservative, however it is interests to explore the ways in which moments of seeming diversity or progressive portrayals are in fact constrained.

Diversity is OK in Hollywood, as long as you are middle-class and in the long run fall into the basic pattern of the nuclear family. There are Black families, but they are firmly middle-class, there are Gay families, but not only are they also middle-class there is a strong binary gendering of the familial roles adopted by the partners. There are single-parents but their narrative resolution almost invariably the establishment of a relationship (very often with the other biological parent of their child).

Superficial differences are accepted but underlining these is conformity. And that message of conformity is all the more pervasive when clothed in trappings of diversity.

The Spiritual City by Philip Sheldrake

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There was much that I liked about this book, and it felt right to be reading it while I was in New York, in the context of a prime example of “the city” as we now encounter it.

While the arguments for taking the City seriously as Christians were well made what seemed to be missing was how to actually deal with the City of the 21^st Century. It is clear that many of the thinkers who used here lived in cities whose populations were counted in hundreds of thousand rather millions and scale is key to the functioning of communities. Also we have to take into account the differences between our infrastructure rich “western” cities and many of the vast cities in other parts of the world where significant proportions of their populations live without access to effective infrastructure, be that transport, sanitation, utilities etc, and therefore their participation in any common life of “the City” is difficult.

While we were in New York we when to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which among its exhibitions would currently showing one on Architecture in Latin America from 1950s to 1980s. Its focus was on the planned urban developments, including its completely new Cities such as Brasilia. Much of this work seemed to run counter to the ideas that Sheldrake was putting forward. Urban planning of that era in the UK is generally derided and an equivalent exhibition for the UK would likely be dominated by a catalogue of grand follies and relief at visions that were never realised. This was not the tone of the MoMA exhibition – it seemed to be looking back with positivity.

One of the quotes I particularly liked follows on from this “Stories are more than descriptions. They take ownership of spaces, define boundaries, and create bridges between individuals. The narrative structure of local communities enables people to shape the world that surrounds them, rather than be passively controlled by it.” (p109) It is key that local communities have the opportunity to describe themselves – too often poorer communities find that it is only the (negative) descriptions of others that are given validity – we might recall the post-War “slum clearances”, where many now talk of the strength of the communities that was lost in the move to new housing estates and tower blocks – call it “slum clearance” or “destruction of community” the lens you use determines what you will see.

While another quote “Memory is redemptive in that only by handling the past constructively are we able effectively to shape the present and name a future that we may aspire to.” (p122) hints at the reason why much urban regeneration fails, too often it involves wiping the slate clean and trying to start completely afresh – leaving whatever is created soulless and without roots. Better to work with the past, being adaptive and reshaping.

Whatever the city is, it will always be a melting pot – however much those with “power” might try to regulate and sanitise the population there will be places beyond their reach – with so much life in the city there will always be some that is overlooked – and perhaps it is in those overlooked places that the greatest creativity is found.

A Welsh Dawn by Gareth Thomas

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Set in the 1950s I guess this counts as a historical novel, it is a coming of age story – coming of age both for some of the lead characters but also for the Welsh political consciousness.

It is a fictionalised account set in the firm context of real events, many of the figures that pass through the novel were real people, which sometimes has the effect of constraining storytelling – but not here the story is vivid and the drama of the different lives has real momentum. Also there is definite skill in maintaining the quality across an ensemble piece, following different lives and different generations.

There are symbolic elements, for example in the friendship between english monoglot Gwilym and welsh monoglot William their names (identities?) divergent to their language. But these rest lightly and are not over played.

It is a very Welsh novel – it pivots around the drowning of Tryweryn – an event that is key to understanding the Welsh (political) consciousness – an event that is unknown to “the English” which is perhaps part of its enduring pain. However this is no hagiography, that the Welsh political establishment is ineffectual in its efforts to influence Westminster is not simply blamed on the English side of the bargain. Even today we have to question why the devolution settlement leave Wales so far behind Scotland in status and benefits – if the Scots can secure concessions from Westminster why can't the Welsh?

But this is not just a “political” tale – it is also the story of young love, and of the complexities of middle-age relationships, and these human dramas are told with richness and authenticity. These are believable people, and people that you come to care about.

Travelling Inwards St Teresa's Interior Castle for Everyone by Elizabeth Ruth Obbard

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This is a small book, offering a simply presentation of St Teresa's image of the spiritual life as a journey into a Castle.

There is wisdom here, but perhaps at times the brevity of the account results in a lack of richness – some of the advice, while valid, can feel like a stark edict.

The accompanying cartoon illustrations have great charm and add a welcome sweetness to the whole.

The Changi Cross by Louise Cordingly

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This slime volume tells the tale of the Changi Cross, a brass Altar Cross made by British Prisoners of War after the fall of Singapore, and taken with the PoWs when they are moved to build the Thai-Burma Railway – aka the death railway.

It is also the tale of the ministry of Eric Cordingly, an Army Chaplain and PoW, told by his daughter.

The subtitle “A Symbol of Hope in the Shadow of Death” in many ways says it all – speaking both of the particular object, the Changi Cross, but also of the Cross in general – there was an immediacy of the Shadow for the PoWs but it is still there throughout life.

Also that part of the Cross is made of a shell casing has a certain echo – it was all they had to hand, and yet there seems to be some kind of message there.

I have long been drawn to military Chaplaincy, in it there is an acute expression of Christian service – that the Chaplain will forego the possibility of escape to remain with the men and women in their charge is very powerful, it is the essence of the cure of soul, the priest is bound to the people in ways that go beyond any other.

Babes and Sucklings by Janice B Scott

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A guess I should preface this with a spoiler alert, but to be honest the plot is so thin I am not sure that there is a great deal of point.

This is the second novel to feature the curate Polly Hewitt, and I think I read the first, but I don't seem to have blogged about it, maybe I felt unable to bring myself to relive the experience.

One of the things that puzzles me is that Scott is herself a priest and yet many of the basic details of Church life are inaccurate – and inaccurate in ways that seem to serve no narrative purpose. This, as a vicarage child, becomes very distracting although how much it would worry the general reader I don't know.

Also Polly Hewitt is an intensely irritating individual – that she without fail calls her lawyer Boyfriend “Babes” would for me be sufficient grounds for divorce. But also the Bishop tells her repeatedly “My door is always open, come to me at the first sign of trouble” - which she writes off as empty words – finally she realises they were genuine, and yet we are still left with the feeling the Bishop is the bad guy, rather than the conclusion that Polly is a bit of an idiot.

The plot is based around the juxtaposition of a new Vicar, with undiagnosed Asperger's, and a charming American who has also just moved to the village – then a child is abducted and everyone has to try to work out who is the paedophile. This much you learn from the blurb on the back cover. So long before the child is abducted, on the first encounter with the Owen the American you know he is going to be the paedophile. The only element of tension or suspense is wondering quiet how long it will take Polly to catch up.

It is one of those times when what is troubling is that the novel tackles “big” themes and issues but just can't carry the wait of them. It is all a bit Midsomer Murders – and I am not sure with this material that is good enough.

An Honest Life, Faithful and Gay by Geoffrey Hooper

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I was struck immediately by the title, An Honest Life, it is what I seek to live, but it seems that it is not something the Church actually supports. There have been moments when something other than an “honest” existence has been attractive, and I am increasingly troubled by, and for, my peers who seem to live within another state.

When Geoffrey talked of the gay cliques at King's it rang bells with me – not of my time at King's but afterwards when I was Chaplaincy Assistant at Keele, I recall hanging out with two students who were at that point in a closeted relationship with each other, so we made up a little gang, where our sexuality, while still unspoken, was acknowledged. There was a bond that came from this slightly illicit gathering, that you were part of it. As an aside, one of the Chaplains at Keele in order to try to move my exploration of vocation on arranged for me to visit Staggers, it was fun (until the almighty hang over from the gin), and one of the lessons I learnt was that being gay was not a problem, as long as you managed it in the right way.

While at Keele I also learnt how complicated it is trying manage a closeted life. I had come out back at Sixth Form, and as a student in Durham and at King's I had an open and active involvement in both Christian and gay scenes, without any real difficulties. Going to Keele the gay side of life somehow took a back seat, although there were people who knew I was gay, in part because my sister had been a student there and so there were people around who knew her and knew her brother was gay. But the experience of Keele, for me, was claustrophobic and I increasingly see that a key cause of that was living in the closet.

From Keele I went on to Bishop Grosseteste in Lincoln and as I went deeper into the formal exploration of vocation I found myself increasingly distancing myself from gay life, well from those aspects of gay life that might involve public acknowledgement – I didn't actually let the dust settle on my Gaydar profile...

I am not sure what the particular trigger was that made me take an “honest” look at what I was doing – it was partly that I am pretty rubbish at lying, I don't have the capacity to remember which lies I have told which people, it is all too much hard work and even after only a relatively few months of trying to juggle a “straight” front I was exhausted by it – but there was a moment of clarity when I saw the essential tragedy of so many of these “bachelor” Priests, the lace and the gin are all well and good but there comes a point when the brief encounters are not a substitute for love.

It was clear to me that there were only two choices, even in Lincoln with one of the most gay “friendly” Bishops, choices at least until you had safely got through selection, or possibly training, there was an idea that once you got a Dog Collar there might be more freedom, although I think I realised that there would always be some reason for deferring honesty, waiting till you had free-hold, waiting for that new job offer, waiting till you had won the trust of the parish...

Two choices, follow my vocation or be open about my sexuality and hold on to my sanity.

There then followed a few moments of bridge burning to put my sexuality out there, to irrevocably close the door of the closet from the outside - perhaps a rather dramatic metaphor – I was not prancing down the aisle of Lincoln Cathedral declaring my desires – no, it was little acts, perhaps no one really noticed but they were important to me, joining the local Changing Attitude group, going back to YLGC (Young Lesbian and Gay Christians), having a boyfriend that I talked about.

And I tried to find other routes to express the vocation, as the end of my contract approached I applied for every chaplaincy post I could find which didn't make ordination a prerequisite. There followed six months of unemployment, living back home with my parents, and just at the moment when I was start to acknowledge I was stuck in Chester and should try to get a life there (and as I did I think there was even the potential for a relationship with a lovely guy on horizon), God decided the lesson in humility had been endured long enough, and an admin job in Southampton was offered.

On the first night in Southampton, as I got into the sleeping bag on the floor of the hurriedly found, unfurnished, flat I will admit that I was scared that this move was going to be a total disaster – but in the days, weeks, years that have followed there have been so many signs that have told me that this is where God has called me, placed me. I am blessed with a full and stimulating life and a loving relationship, but there are times when there is a yearning, there is an unfilled hole left by that “abandoned” vocation (even if there are probably a great deal more frequent times when I reflect that I had a lucky escape).

Within our parish we have experimented with lay worship leaders, but I had to stand back from it because to be leading the people in worship created a state of turmoil, a taste of a calling and yet only underlining the void between me and the fullness of its expression. I also find attending the ordinations of friends can be a little painful, like the spurned ex-girlfriend at a wedding, I am on the verge of standing at a vital moment and declaring “but it should have been ME!”.

In some ways I am thankful that Winchester has such a conservative Bishop (I realise I am the only one) because it means that there is no temptation toward compromise or collusion, the would be no nudge-nudge, no supportive in private as long as you keep your head down, keep it unofficial, and avoid speaking out against the Church. There would only be a “no”. It a funny sort of way I take this as one of the signs that I am in the right place.

But there are others for whom I worry. There was a young man I knew through the gay group in Durham, (my friends knew him as “Cute Chad's Fresher”), and one Sunday I ended up sitting with him at the Eucharist at the Cathedral and then going for coffee – over which he talked about his “chosen profession” - which was a little cryptic, but clearly ordination. He is now a priest, we are friends on Facebook, although in reality only acquaintances (that coffee had, in various ways, a more profound effect on me that is seems it had on him), and so the content I see via Facebook is I assume for general consumption, I am part of no inner circle – and so because I saw his fancy dress outfit for the Pride Parade I imagine, at least in theory, his Bishop saw it too.

But there are others, some days my Facebook wall seems to be exclusively made up of the antics of gay priests, and you are left wondering what conclusion you are supposes to make, or not make, that their holiday photos seems to always include that same “friend”.

It is this group of my peers that troubles me, they must have been faced with the same questions during the process of testing vocation as I was, in many ways the vocation process has increasingly shone a spot light on sexuality and therefore to be gay and pass through it involves ever more gymnastics. This is a group that are making the choice to play that game, in a way that I don't think is true for earlier cohorts – those who were ordained when to be gay in society generally require a certain amount of management of identity, when the idea of same-sex marriage was a fantasy, or when Issues in Human Sexuality was written and it's the authors thought the Church was on a journey – and in its wake you might have thought any compromise you had to make would have been temporary...

So what do my cohort say about the value of “truth” in the Church, I will admit I look on them with bitterness, their collusion is one of the brakes on change. There are some that draw parallels between the journey toward the ordination of women and the, open, ordination of gay, lesbian, bi, etc. people. But the parallels collapse because the pressure that forced the change for women was the witness of those women would were called but not ordained banging on the door demanding access. There are effectively no gay witnesses, they have all slipped in through the door, and the last thing they will do is raise their voice to demand access for others for fear that instead they will be ejected. Their collusion is what ensures the continuing denial of honesty in the Church.

But I also worry about them as people, what is life really like for them, I might at times throw stones that they are having their cake and eating it – but are they, I somehow doubt it. I think there is rather more cake on my side of the fence. How do we make a different kind of Church that would allow them an honest life without wreaking their existence in the process? Maybe it is all omelettes and broken eggs. My trouble is that I am not really an activist, I am not one to man the barricades, I prefer to quietly get on with living my own life but I still hold these worries in my heart as I struggle to do anything about them.

The Keys of Babylon by Robert Minhinnnick

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This is a skilful collection of stories, about identity and dislocation.

The nature of the dislocation varies from character to character – some it is the result of physical moves of geographic, others it comes in more subtle ways.

These are richly told, as you would expect of a writer of the calibre of Minhinnick, while each people gets just 10 to 20 pages I felt you experienced them as fully rounded – in the way that you sometimes, albeit rarely, meet someone and almost instantly they become an “old friend”.

Maybe there is a particular attraction in this kind of narrative, where we walk with a gathering of people whose common bond is that they are in different ways “misfits”, for those of us who have always been somewhat ill at ease about our place in society.

Beyond Consolation by John Waters

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I found myself struggling to decide what I thought about this book, I went through moments when I found it profound and insightful, but also others when I can only say I found it trite.

The book begins powerfully with its engagement with Nuala O'Faolain radio interview where she admits that she is terrified of death (a death that was fast approaching her due to inoperable terminal illness). But not only did she admit to fear but also despair which was a blight on that life that remained to her. Rather than living every last day “to the full” she was in an abyss.

It is in the face of this darkness that Waters proposes that the only rational response is hope, and perhaps there is too big a jump from the darkness to the hope. But this is really only a spring board for him to then go on to explore what he understands by “rational”.

This way of looking at the “rational” is summed up in the following quote:

“Reason belongs not just to the head, to logic and proof, but to the heart also, to the fruits of experience, to feeling, intuition, instinct. When we recognise this, faith becomes not merely reasonable, but an acknowledgement of what is – expecting nothing, postponing nothing, ascribing nothing to chance. Our culture's prevailing reduction of reason leads us to deconstruct not just out beliefs but also our capacity to trust and hope.” (page 212)

I think the trouble was there was something about his rhetorical style that grated with me, because these conclusions are very much my own thinking.

For example, I couldn't agree more with this next quote:

“Many religious people annoy me tremendously with their pat assumptions about what the idea of my believing implies. I resit with every fibre of my being the clubbability of what is called faith, and the sense believers often give off that all this is obvious. To me it is not obvious. To me, in the culture I must live in, the idea that there is no God is more 'obvious' that the idea that there is. But this is my problem: this answer does not satisfy me, at any level of my humanity.” (page 214)

Certainly despite being an active Church member I am aware that actually there is a significant part of me that is deeply distrustful of “religious people” - I think this is because we tend to wear are piety on our sheaves while we hide our doubts. I expect that most other people would read me as much in that way when I think that is rarely how I feel inside – “barely believing” is usually about as certain as I get.

Finally I will share another quote, it is I think an image of life:

“Imagine yourself in an old, disused building, perhaps the ruin of a church. You are looking around when you hear a noise overhead. You look up and see, flying among the rafters, a bird. He has blundered in from outside, perhaps through a broken window, and now cannot get out. You watch him for a while. Sometimes, he flies about, seemingly without a pattern, swooping low into the belly of the building. Sometimes he rests, looking about him curiously. Sometimes he tries to get back outside, making lunges at the light he sees blinking through the cracks in the roof. Then he reverts to flying. In the end he gets away, perhaps through an open door, and is gone.” (Page 224)

However, while I like this image, our existence here is but a shadow, there is a world beyond where we will soar – but it is not a particularly hopeful image, is life only so much aimless flapping about?

Remember Me To All by Loe, Barker, Brady, Cox, and Webb

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This is the Archaeological Monograph of the recovery and identification of a group of soldiers who fought in the Battle of Fromelles in 1916. As such it is a formal and academic publication rather than a “popular” account.

The application of Archaeological methods to what is in Archaeological term a recent set of remains is interesting, as it the ways that techniques used in the recovery of mass graves as part of investigations of war crimes are applied to what is from that sphere a more historic setting.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect is that the project was undertaken at all – it is made very clear that the primary aim is to provide identification before reburial (in a newly created war cemetery) of as many of the soldiers as possible. And other historical or archaeological research goals are only addressed to the extent that relevant information is provided by this primary aim.

But why 90 years after the battle did the Australian Army feel the need to expend such resources on the identification – all those involved would have been presumed dead, (for most the Germans had collected identifying articles from the fallen soldiers at the time, therefore their death had been confirmed even if their bodies had not been located at again at the end of the war) - what was the benefit this late in the day of providing a new burial?

It is clear that although in many ways distant the First World War remains present – the Centenary has brought it to the forefront of many minds, but it was never really that far from our thoughts. There must now be few sons and daughters of the Fallen, but there are still relations who are conscious of a loss – and perhaps the feeling of loss endures all the more for those who mourned one whose body was not found. For the Australian families even of those who had an identified grave the idea of visiting it must until the last couple of decades have been remote – yet was there a comfort in knowing it was there, a comfort denied those for whom there was no grave.

And so fresh graves and restored identifies were provided.

One of the oddities, given the project was all about identification, was that this monograph treats all the findings with anonymity – in part because the process of formal confirmation of the identities was ongoing at the time of writing, but also because there seemed to be the application of the same standards of confidentiality to the medical histories of the soldiers as would be afforded to a living individual.

Judas by Damian Walford Davies

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Judas is a powerful point for reflection. This collection of poems plays with the many emotions that are found within his life. Some recall clearly identifiable moments in the Gospels, other more oblique.

Here is an example:

Anointing

It would have fetched

a ransom, but he let her

smash the alabaster jar

and daub him

till his hair was seek.

and the whole house rash

with musk. All I smelt

was ready cash dispersing

from his oil-slick flesh.

When she bent

to smear his feet, I lost it -

slapped the potsherd

from her hand.

He shot up, shimmering.

Foreheads locked, we synched

our breath. It was kissing,

almost. I think

I was the first to break.

Flannery O'Connor's Complete Stories

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There was a small reference to one of Flannery O'Connor's stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, and in particular the line “She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” - although I can't remember the context of the reference now...

O'Connor writes about the American South, writing, mainly, during the 1950s & 1960s, what were at the time broadly contemporary tales. As such many of her characters have attitudes about race that are totally unacceptable to modern ears, but O'Connor gives them voice only for them to pour ridicule onto themselves.

I found that while the these stories are short I was not able to read more than a couple at a time, in part because the writing is dense and rich, but also because the central characters are often far from likeable. She observes human nature so well, but it is the bitterness and small mindedness that comes to the fore.

This is mostly the context for their racism, they seek any small “advantage” on which to claim superiority – they will equal take the tiny distinctions of class, what makes them “respectable” or a cut above the masses.

While these are stories of a different era, and many of the distinctions that are important to the characters have faded into irrelevance (although perhaps that it is less than certain in the case of race), the mindset endures, the distinctions may have changed but people still find plenty of ways to reassure themselves that they are better than the rest.

There is a powerful authenticity about the characters, and I think that is what makes them a challenging read – if they were more outlandish caricatures then you could stand back and laugh. But instead O'Connor draws you in, holds up a mirror to society, and it is perhaps a little too close for comfort.

There is often a moral to the tale, but while there is lesson set before them the characters seem only occasionally to learn from it. Redemption is a pretty rare commodity in O'Connor's world – and maybe it is the painful truth that it is rare in our world too...

Until Our Blood is Dry by Kit Habianic

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The Miners Strike is a moment filled with such passion that it needs, deserves, fiction of the highest quality in order to stand by its own inherent power.

It also remains a divisive moment – the way its shadow falls across the current contest for leadership of the Labour party is but one expression of that. And to be able to address it without taking sides is not easy. Habianic is not writing a political account, and yet this is one of those subjects where any comment is political.

It is a story of a mining community – it is a “grass roots” vision of the time of the strike. Both the Government and the Union Leaders are remote from this narrative – their battle and the battle for, and within, this community while they co-exist seem to essentially to be separate.

It tries to bear honest witness to those within that community who find themselves on both sides – the strikers and the “scabs”. It gives an insight into why some of those within that community did not strike, their motivation is not selfish, they believed it was the only way to save the pit, and to save the community (this is given as the genuine the motivation of the local management – any cynical manipulation of the strike is ascribed significantly higher up the chain of command). While others are subjected to blackmail, one to avoid disclosure of his sexuality – in a mid-80s mining community better a scab than a poof?

All of this provides a rich and vivid backdrop for what is at heart a Romeo and Juliet tale – which might sound like a criticism but it is not intended that way. It is a tale of love, there is the central couple, “Red” and “Scrapper”, but they are surrounded by others, relationships under pressure, relationships crumbing under pressure and relationships at best almost surviving. None of these are fairy tales, they are authentic, messy, hard tales of love – love that endures and love that just is not enough.

It is a novel that managed to get under my skin – it is a couple of months since I finished it and yet it is still very fresh in my mind.

To End All Wars – The Graphic anthology of The First World War

It can be found on Amazon 

This collection, sold in aid of Medecins Sans Frontieres, tells a wide range of stories from the First World War.

There is something about the use of the “Graphic Novel”, or comic strip, format that creates a different kind of engagement with what is in many respects familiar material. Also the fact that there are many different contributors, and so the visual styles of the stories varies also helps to heighten the immediacy of the encounter.

These are short stories, but in most there is still a significant depth of characterisation. The is an energy to the stories that draws you into the centre of the action.

The majority of the stories focus on participants from the “Allied” side of the conflict, however this is a non-partisan collection, and when the focus is on a “German” story it is included on equal terms.

There is a strong anti-war (or at least anti-this-war) message throughout the collection. The First World War is seen as wasteful, and the leaders on both sides are shown as fools – it is very much in the “lions lead by donkeys” school of thought. Published in 2014, the introduction makes it clear that it is a deliberate counter narrative to the mythologising of the First World War that is currently surrounding much of the commemoration of its centenary. As such it would whole heartedly reject the views Gordon Corrigan advanced in “Mud, Blood and Poppycock” (which I read in Dec 2014).

But as with so much in life I tend to the view that the “truth” is somewhere in the middle – I certainly found so of Corrigan's attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of the Military Establishment were over stating the evidence, but there was much that he argued that seemed valid. In the same way I would I subscribe to the majority of the narrative here in “To End All Wars” - but again there were times when you got the feeling that facts were being shoehorned into an agenda.

While in terms of content there was no great revelation here, I think the mode and medium of the presentation make this deserving of a part on the ever more crowded shelf of First World War narratives.

Being Christian by Rowan Williams

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This is a short but punchy book, the kind of thing that Rowan Williams does so well. There is a poetic sensibility to his writing, which captures the beauty of the ideas he is exploring.

Although it is split into chapters on Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, and Prayer I found that it is the Eucharist that seems to run through it all as the unify thread. It is an understanding of the Eucharist that has the riches of the sacramental understandings that come from the “Catholic” traditions but with the simplicity and accessibility that come perhaps more readily from “Reformed” traditions. It is always a “both/and” approach that appeals to me.

At one point I thought his words could easily be used as the liturgical invitation to Communion:

Come... “not because we are doing well, but because we are doing badly. Not because we have arrived, but because we are travelling. Not because we are right, but because we are confused... Not because we are divine, but because we are human. Not because we are full, but because we are hungry.”

I think there is also an important theme about not getting to decide who are travelling companions are, which must be wisdom from his truculent times at Canterbury – but also honesty that this stuff is easy to say but harder to live – for example he recalls that “ the transforming effect of looking at other Christians as people whose company God wants, is – by the look of things – still sinking in for a lot of Christians, and taking rather a long time...”

One hopes that we will continue to receive these gifts from Rowan Williams pen for many years to come.

The Time of the Angels by Iris Murdoch

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This was referenced in another book I recently read, and as it is a while since I last read any Murdoch I decided to get it out from the library.

This tale has most of the classic Murdoch elements, there is a lot on angst-ridden struggling with identity, the pressures of society's expectations colliding with the (mostly sexual) desires of the various characters.

All this was good, and made for an enjoyable read, but compared with some of her true classics, such as The Bell, this didn't quiet spark to the same level of intensity. But that is as much a compliment of her other works as it is any criticism of this one.

Time and Relative Dimensions in Faith Edited by Crome & McGrath

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There is still often a tendency to dismiss television as a serious medium, but this is clearly foolish – it is a powerful cultural phenomenon – it holds the greatest audience, even with the increasing numbers of channels and new competition for attention with social media.

Therefore it is right to reflect on Dr Who, it has a long running place in many British hearts, and when it speaks of matters of faith it speaks to far greater numbers than the Church.

As a collection of essays some spoke to me, others didn't (in part because I have not really seen much “classic” Dr Who, it was taken off the air just at the point when I reached the age to start watching).

Some of the most interesting reflections were those that compared the treatments of faith in different eras of Dr Who. There have been subtle and yet profound shifts – it is clear that the most recent stories have a much less comfortable relationship with faith – and yet ideas about the power of belief remain core to many of the narratives, but that power is as often corrupt as it is life affirming.

The status of the Doctor is clearly another key point to examine – there are times when there is a strong Messianic role placed on the Doctor, often by others but at times the Doctor seems to position himself in this way. This relationship is unresolved – as so many questions within Dr Who tend to be.

I am no Dr Who fanatic but I was still able to engage with these essays and find much of interest.

Growing Up to Be a Child by Peter Sidebotham

I couldn't find it on Hive but it is available on Amazon 

While agreeing with the overall point being made, that we should engage more deeply with Jesus' instruction to “become like a little child”, the book itself is rather odd.

I think the first issue is that it is one of those books where once you have got the point it is trying to make there is little further to engage with, and therefore if you are predisposed to agree with it you quickly get the feeling that the point is being laboured.

Also this was written, we are told, as personal reflection from a father to his daughter on the point of her going off to University, and yet there is very little personal or particular about it, other that the occasional awkward insertion of “my darling daughter” as a term of address to the reader at the opening of a point of discussion.

The book is strong in describing the characteristics of children as various stages of their development, and how we can see these characteristics as positive models for our relationship with God. However what is less clear is what these characteristics would actually look like in the context of adult life, or the transposition between for example a baby's need of its mother's milk to our need of the spiritual nourishment from God through the Scriptures feels a little predictable and flat.

I kind of want to me more positive about this book that I feel able, the ideas attests to are ones I would want to celebrate, but their expression here is a little limited.

The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell

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With Bernard Cornwell you are getting a consistent product. There is a rich collection of characters and plenty of action.

This Anglo-Saxon tale had a lot in common with his Arthurian trilogy with I read as a teenager.

You are taken to a plausible world, although I am not sure how far it would past muster with historians. There is much in it with feels like a very modern dynamic – gender politics, and religious diversity – as with the Arthurian trilogy our central hero is a Pagan living in an increasingly Christianised society, and somewhat raging against the coming of Christendom – is this a mirror to us is Christendom now appears to be fading.

It kept me suitably engrossed to past the flight to New York – and that was all I was asking of it so it is a success.

The Rice Paper Diaries By Francesca Rhydderch

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This is a tale told with great authenticity, told with 5 distinct voices and yet successfully forming a single whole.

The backdrop of the tale is the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, it is a tale about identity rather than a dramatised history lesson about the Japanese occupation, but clearly one of the ways in which it unlocks the identities is through the disruptive transposition of Hong Kong's “British” ruling elite into interned enemy aliens. Although there is clearly some level of suffering as a result of internment this is not a tale of horrors, such as characterised the Japanese treatment of PoWs, it is a tale about the subtleties of the exercise of power rather than brutalities.

That the central “British” characters are Welsh adds an extra layering to the complexity of identity – and the experience of Mari, Hong Kong born, of the return “home” to Wales tells us of an important dynamic within the colonial experience – there was within it an expansive understanding of what it was to be “British”. That “home” was a place that she had never been, and a place that she never really seems to fit in is effectively conveyed.

It is also a tale about the challenges of family life – in a number of different configurations – and again it is very real – these are people that you can believe in and can easily share in their experiences, their joys and also their sorrows.

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guidrgis and Missing: Three Days in Jerusalem by Sonia Falaschi-Ray

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I am considering these two works together as I happened to read them one after the other in the midst of Lent, this timing was, at least consciously, accidental – but clearly they speak into that season.

With the Last Days of Judas Iscariot the effect of reading the text of a play is of course distinct to the experience one would get attending a performance.

It is a play set somewhere in the anterooms of heaven, in a courtroom where the eternity destination is considered. It echoes with the words of the prayer of King's College London, which we said daily in Chapel, in which we remembered the “strict and solemn account which we must one day give before the judgement-seat of Christ”, although perhaps the courtroom of this play is not quiet the set up the authors of that prayer had in mind.

The play deals with an appeal hearing against the eternal damnation of Judas. Consideration of the fate of Judas is a powerful proxy for the wider question of the nature of God's love and mercy. Most of our traditional understandings of Judas' fate would appear to place him beyond the reach of God's love and mercy – but this is a scandalous conclusion, as if true then the God we believe to be infinite is in fact finite and the ramifications of this can quickly be an unravelling of anything worth believing in. But it is not actually that simple to grant Judas mercy, because then we risk creating a dynamic in which actions have no consequences, which don't seem right either.

The play is funny, the courtroom receives a range of characters, biblical, historical, fictional, most of whom are hamming it up for laughs, I enjoyed it, but if I am honest I didn't actually find much substance in it – until suddenly, toward the end, the tone changes, and perhaps the power of what happens next hits home in part from its juxtaposition with the fluff of the preceding bulk of the play.

We get an encounter between Jesus and Judas, there is intense anger – Judas is angry, unable to bear Jesus' words of kindness – there is some subtle use of biblical images, Jesus asks Judas to “feed my lambs” - words from the Gospel when Jesus restores Peter after his denial. But Judas slips away, back into a “catatonic state” - Jesus pleads “Please love me, Judas.” and you want to weep at Judas' response “I can't.”. The plays concluding action is Jesus washing the comatosed Judas' feet – a sign that even in the midst of our ongoing rejection Jesus will continue to love us.

Meanwhile, “Missing” plays with the interesting comparison between the 3 days that the boy Jesus was “lost” in Jerusalem (following a family passover visit to the city) and the 3 days between crucifixion and resurrection. The idea is interesting but I am not sure that the execution is entirely successful.

At moments Falaschi-Ray is highly imaginative in fleshing out the stories, especially with the childhood tale where the Gospel account is hardly even a sketch, and yet there were also a number of times where the narrative becomes clunky in order to shoe horn it into the biblical structure. Also I didn't actually feel the connections that were made between the two stories were particularly interesting – mostly it seems in the childhood tale we were just being given elaborate back stories to fairly insignificant details of the Gospel accounts of the Passion. We are also given a “plausible” scenario for the legend of Jesus' visit to England – which personally I found distracted from my ability to invest in the narrative.

The second part of the book, exploring the Passion, is more successful, and this success, such as it is, is largely independent of its pairing with the earlier part. The account of the Harrowing of Hell (somehow appropriately Chapter 13) gives we have another meeting of Jesus and Judas – but the moment of forgiveness is a little too easy...

“'Of course I forgive you. However, I can't help the fact that throughout the future you're going to have a really rubbish reputation.'

Judas smiled through his tears; at least Yeshua hadn't lost his sense of humour.”

There is something authentic that I like about the idea of Jesus making a quip like this at such a moment, but after the gut wrenching encounter of “the Last Days” it simply isn't enough.

And so after considering this two works where do we get to in relation to that central question about the love and mercy of God – both show God's desire for Judas, they reject any notion that there is a limit to love. However I think “Missing” is in danger of losing sight of consequences – it is just a little too tidy whereas “the Last Days” success is in showing that even with God's infinite love forgiveness is not easy. We can probably all think of times when someone we love has stretched our capacity to love them to the limit, some may even have times when their capacity was broken. Maybe it doesn't make sense to talk of stretching God's limitless love to the limit – but if ever that idea is intelligible it is within the encounter in “the Last Days” - and that seems the only way to reconcile our understanding of Judas.

Finding God in a Holy Place by Chris Cook

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This is an excellent book about the wonderful place that is Durham Cathedral. Yet it is not just about Durham Cathedral, the approach to encountering a place as holy is transferable, to other Cathedrals, to Churches large and small, indeed to any place which you choose to stop and seek an encounter.

Durham Cathedral is a familiar place to me, I was not just a student in Durham but also a regular worshipper at the Cathedral. It was at the Cathedral, mainly via Choral Evensong, that I established for myself the habit of regular worship. I am sure that this familiarity adds to the richness of the encounter I have with this book, for as Chris Cook draws different themes out of the various spaces of the Cathedral, I have a vivid memory of those spaces. However I do not think that familiarity with Durham is essential to make this book “useful”.

Durham is used as a case study, but most of the ideas are not tied to it as such. The first two chapters, “Finding a Holy Place” and “Finding God in a Holy Place”, are a “generic” introduction, and then the following chapters move through various spaces within the Cathedral. The reflections on some of the spaces are more transferable, for example those in the Nave can without any effort be read across to similar spaces elsewhere, but others perhaps need a little more work. For example, Cook gives a chapter over to the Feretory, the space around the tomb of St Cuthbert. While other Cathedrals have the remains of shrines, and some, such as St Alban's, are more complete that Cuthbert's, the space of the Feretory has a very particular character. It is a small and intimate room, a quality intensified by its setting within the vastness of the Cathedral. There will be equivalent spaces elsewhere but you may need to think a little harder in order to see the connection.

I particularly liked the reflections on the Galilee Chapel, it is my favourite part of the Cathedral, it has a character that it unlike the rest of the building – its columns are light and delicate in contrast to the solid and steadfast ones of the nave. It has the feel of spaces of the east – perhaps Orthodox, perhaps even a mosque, perhaps a contested space of Andalusia. As Cook writes “The Galilee Chapel is an ambiguous and paradoxical place.” It is usually fairly empty, overlooked by tourists. There is no one overriding focus to the Chapel, the different spaces within in interact. It is the place of Bebe's tomb, great scholar but also at times a little creative with the truth, a good storyteller, I think a afternoon spend in the sun shine listening to him spin a yarn would pass very quickly by.

The one aspect of the reflections which I didn't perhaps share was Cook's thoughts on the statue of Van Mildert, the last of the Prince Bishops, the founder of Durham University, and most importantly the namesake of my beloved college. I understand Cook's reaction to the cold marble of the statue, but I couldn't pass by without going and touching Van Mildert's shoe – the statue is raised so as you reach out the shoe is just at patting height - knowing Mildert was there in the Cathedral was a token of belonging. I think I found the same later in Lincoln, working and living at Bishop Grosseteste College (now University), there was a special nod of recognition when passing the Bishop's tomb, tucked away in the corner of a transept.

This is a delight of a book, I definitely enjoyed revisiting Durham in my mind, but always there are many good techniques for enriching my approach to other places that I visit.