This
is the second of John Waters books I have read, and once again I
struggled as for the most part I find him long winded and self
indulgent – bit in the midst of that there are moments of insight –
pearls within the silt.
There
were moments of interest, like when he talks about as an adult
starting to pray, and how he knelt to pray – while recognising that
there isn't any “need” to kneel to pray he found “It began to
suggest itself as important for me to have this different posture, if
only to distinguish the procedure and mark it as having at least as
much significance as eating and sleeping.” (p99) In our current
laissez-faire
liturgical culture I think we miss out of sharing this reality with
people. For me to kneel for the Confession, and then, after the
Absolution, to stand for the Gloria is not empty ritual habit, it is
a bodily enactment of a transition from being weighed down with the
burden of sin to standing in a state of grace before the Lord. I
would not insist that everyone need to adopt the posture, but I think
we should share the ways in which deliberate posture can enrich the
encounter, the liturgy is not just words you say, but can be
expressed with your body, with the whole of your being. (perhaps the
“hands in the air” brigade need to owe up to that fact that they
equally subscribe to this...).
The
other theme I found important was his reflection on the shift, within
Irish society but applicable to most of the West, from a society
shaped by Christian faith to one without a coherent common moral
framework. He writes, “Nor can a society successfully remain
agnostic in the way an individual may seem to. The unbelieving
individual, in a broadly believing society, can function well by
availing himself of the slipstream and buffering provided by the
faith of others … [but] an overwhelmingly unbelieving society, once
it exhausts the imaginative possibilities of money and other
freedoms, is doomed to a form of collective depression.” (p171)
He
talks about our reaction against the faith, and constraints, of our
parents – but worries about what will become of the next generation
– the children of the “faithless” will have no reference point
to frame their morals or identity. This is based on the assumption
that most of those brought up “within the Church” when they leave
continue with a “Christianity-Lite” moral framework. We might
recognise
this from UK census data, where the percentage identifying as
Christian far outweighs those who participate in “Church”. What
is our common bond as a society? – in the shadow of the EU
referendum you might have thought that this would be central to the
public debate – but the question of what sort of country we want to
be has barely been mentioned.
And
then he particularly speaks to me when he speaks of alcohol...
“My
problem derived from the fact that I needed alcohol in order to be
even a shadow of a sociable human being. On the surface I was simply
a young man who had perhaps become over-exuberant in his indulgence
in the bottle... [but what I learnt] after I stopped drinking was the
ubiquitousness of fear in my life. Without knowing it, I had been
afraid of everything: meeting people, conversation, waking up in the
morning … work, responsibilities, police officers... I was afraid
of big things and small things.... Drink cured all that, or, to be
absolutely precise, I was relieved from all this fear when I had
taken drink.” (p75)
Sometimes
it is hard to look in a mirror, but it is also hard to know how to
respond. Self awareness doesn't actually take you that far. I know
that there are lots of situations that make me anxious, and one of
the reasons I tend to drink is to take that anxiety away – it is
partly the chemical relief, but it is equally psychosomatic – just
knowing I have had a drink I somehow go into the room more confident.
It is not an issue one can “fix” but there are perhaps strategies
to manage it more effectively. It is also an issue of habits, a
drink goes along with an activity, and it is hard to break that link
(eg drinking on the long
train
journey,
drinking when you are cooking dinner, drinking when you get in from
PCC, I probably shouldn't try to list all the activities which I
accompany with a drink!) and
the individual drinks are not the problem it is the cumulative
effect...
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