Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey

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That there are 20 tabs in this book in indicative of the fact that I liked it!

For example she says…

“If our theology doesn’t shift and change over our lifetimes, then I have to wonder if we’re paying attention.”

“I had to learn that taking the Bible seriously doesn’t mean taking everything literally.” - I will save the rant about the Bible being too important to be taken literally, but if you ask nicely I can provide it offline.

In embracing questions she notes that Children question everything, but “They’re not asking to be cool or to push back on the establishment or to prove anyone wrong or to grind an axe or make a point… [they] ask because they want an answer.” I.e. we should never be afraid of questions…

And what are those questions… in response to an Old Testament story one of her children asks “Is God the bad guy in this one? Or the good guy?” The classical debate on the problem of evil expressed in a dozen words…

As the counter point to so much exuberance in the Church she says that she is “learning that it is okay to feel sad and to be angry, to long for rescue and redemption, to pray and shout and cry, to weep with those who weep.” A theme already notes by Kenda Creasy Dean, in so many Churches if you are sad you have no place.

The ability to speak of the criticality of faith, at the same time as being honest that the Church often is a barrier rather than an enabler of that faith is refreshing. Most Christian writers write from the starting point that the Church is a full and effective embodiment of the Kingdom of God. For those of us that have been damaged by the Church, it is really hard to take such writers seriously. Bessey offers us some balance...

Stations of the Soul by Joan Keogh

Copies can be ordered from Church House Bookshop...

I have an ongoing fascination with the Stations of the Cross, not just as a devotional practice but also as an artistic challenge. They require 14 imagines, working as a group and yet having individual integrity.

It was William Fairbanks Forest Stations, in the nave of Lincoln Cathedral, that got me hooked – they are a true masterpiece (or maybe masterpieces).

The booklet Stations of the Soul is perhaps unusual because both the imagines and the written reflections are provided by Joan Keogh.

Keogh has captured that balance of giving the Stations a common format but a distinct character – a welcome addition to a long tradition.

Waterfalls of Stars, My Ten Years on the Island of Skomer by Rosanne Alexander

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I found this book via a review in Planet Magazine, but I will be honest when it arrived at 350 pages of pretty small print I think I let out a sigh – was there really that much to say about 10 years spent on a tiny island? I share this because while I picked it up fairly reluctantly, having picked it up I found that I couldn’t put it down.

Rosanne’s arrival on the island is a bit of a scramble, including a shot gun wedding, and one is worried that this will turn out to be an epic of regret and frustration. But once on the island Rosanne rapidly falls in love with it.

She provides an account, a generally positive account, of isolation that is almost impossible today. They have no electricity, no phone, only brief radio communication via the Coastguard. Later wardens of Skomer now have electricity, connectivity. Does “keeping in touch” lessen or underscore the separation, possible loneliness – and does it provide a distraction from the deep connection with the island and its wildlife that was so central to the joy Rosanne found on the island.

There is a poetic quality to the descriptions of the island, the sea, the various animals, and the emotional responses Rosanne has to it all. She has real skill as a writer, the subject matter is rich but she draws you into its very heart.

She also has the lightness of touch to play on the humour of many situations, for example almost all the anecdotes involving Wellington the goat.

But throughout the account there are moments that will make you weep, such as the oil spills impact on the seals and sea birds, gut wrenching in the shared sense of helplessness, hopelessness. Or their recovery of the body of a drowned fisherman.

Alongside these are more intimate, but not less powerful, moments – when they have to re-home “The Raven”, an injured bird they had hoped to nurse back to health and a return to the wild, but it was not to be.

As they prepare his departure “He was extraordinarily quiet and well behaved as he was transferred to the small cage. Perhaps subdued would have been a better word. He was such an intelligent bird that I couldn’t help wondering how much he understood of what was happening.” and then “’Hello’ he said quietly, for the last time.” Hello was the only word The Raven had learned, that the moment of separation is marked with this incongruous word broke me. It probably doesn’t make sense quoted like this but in the flow of the account you are riding the ebb and flow of emotion with Rosanne.

And ultimately we come to their departure from Skomer, in a mirror to her arrival, it is forces beyond her control that determine the timing – she has time to say goodbye, but no choice over the need to say goodbye.

You are left with the sense of not having read about life on Skomer but having lived it. I don’t think there is high praise to give to a writer.

Regarding the Dead: Human Remains in the British Museum Ed. A Flecter, D Antoine, & JD Hill

Out of print but can be found on Amazon 

As “Research Publication” this is aimed at a scholarly / professional audience rather than the general reader.

The preface sates that “The motivation for publishing this book is to emphasize that for a museum of any size, it is important to separate out issues of repatriation or display from those of conservation, documentation and research in relation to human remains.”

The various chapters give a good coverage of “what to do” in terms of professional practice but I guess I was expecting a stronger engagement in the “why”.

This is touched only a little in Jody Joy’s chapter on bog bodies in the exploration of the difference between them and skeletons – but while there might be an instinctive emotional response to a body that is distinct to bones alone whether this should be carried over to an actual difference is treatment could have been explored more fully.

In the same chapter it is noted that surveys show that the overwhelming majority of visitors to the British Museum expect, and want, to see human remains on display. But how to display various types of human remains in ways the encourage a respectful encourage with them is a key challenge (perhaps even more so in the age of the selfie – is it ok to take a selfie with a skeleton, mummy, a bog body?).

For some of the more recent remains, especially those collected with colonial contexts, there is likely to be cultural continuity between the individuals whose remains the Museum holds and living communities and there is some exploration about how the values and wishes of those communities are incorporated into the way the remains are stored, displayed, and studied, including in some cases the decisions to “repatriate” the remains to communities. But beyond these examples there seemed to be little or no engagement with how the beliefs and values of the individuals whose remains the Museum holds might impact its practice, and the older the remains are the less of a factor this seems to become. There are some generalised notions of “respect”, of not objectifying the remains (but I am not sure how successful that is in reality), but are these enough?

Given the immense scientific and cultural value the study of human remains holds, it is absolutely right that Museum and other institutions have and make use of them, and this book is a welcome insight into the engagement with the challenges that bring, and maybe some of the philosophical questions I have pointed to above are outside its brief but I think they need to be wrestled with.