Bringer of Peace?

 Listening to the Proms, and Holsts Planets suite - a piece I love - it always strikes me as fascinating that Venus is "The Bringer of Peace" - it was viewed as such in his time, because it looks so peaceful and calm from Earth.

But the exploration of the planet since then have shown that it is one of the most violent, inhopsitable planets we could imagine, and definitely not peaceful in any sense. And it made me wonder about the Quaker testimony of Peace - whether, a times, it can be like this - peace on the outside, but covering (rather than hiding, or ignoring) anger and frustration. Or maybe that was just me.

This morning, sitting in the St Albans Quaker Peace garden (where we had our worship), I was struck by these ideas in a different way.

There are 4 testimonies (or maybe 7 - we couldn't totally agree on this!) indicated there:

Peace

Simplicity and Sustainability

Truth and Integrity

Equality and Justice

Sometimes these are in apparent tension with each other. It is hard to focus on Equality, with Integrity, and not feel like punching some of those on the political right. Seeing Bob Vylan recently, where he made the point that they were not "pacifist punks" - they would fight for many of hte same things that we as Quakers would believe in, but also not only want to punch a Nazi or two, but actually do it.

And yes, the Peace testimony has been one of the important ones for us and for me. It is something of ritical importance for us to hold. In a world where one of the responses to not getting what you want it violence and rioting, to hold to a belief in peace is even more important. But - and I think this is also vital - in a world where truth no longer seems to be the starting point for so many, holding to Truth and Integrity is also critical. In a world where people have to fight for Equality and Justice not just once, but find it is taken away from them, and they need to fight for it all over again, it is important to see these battles as vitally important.

Peace is - as much as anything - a belief, a claim, that violence is not the answer. I would wholeheartedly concur with this. But sometimes, when another party has started wit hviolence - with doing violence to others, physically or agaisnt their humanity, their rights, their personhood, I wonder if the only way to peace is to be prepared to let some of the intense violence of Venus erupt. Because Venus is only apparently peaceful because of this. Sometimes, violence is the only language people speak. And speaking in this, for the purposes of Justice and Integrity may well be the only viable way forward.

But then, what do I know?

wierd vs normal

 Earlier this week, I saw a posting on social media that had a bunch of drag queens (some picture were from the Olympics but not sure if they all were) with the label "Weird". And a picture - stock library picture - of 2 parents and 2 children - boy and girl - in a grassy field, with a label "Normal".

 I was - as you might guess - angry but couldn't take images or respond as it disappeared quickly. So I thought I would explore it here.

Firstly, I should clarify that I am in the UK, and this was almost certainly a US-centred group. So my responses are from the UK perspective. But in the UK, we have had pantomine for decades - I have no idea how far back the tradition goes in the UK in anything like the modern form. In pantomime, the leading boy is always played by a woman, and the dame is always played by a man. Dressed in drag. And this is tranditional childrens entertainment.

The idea of men dressing as women for entertainment has a long and wide background. And this is a Europe-wide tradition, in various forms, and some aspect of this has been inherent in the theatre tradition for centuries. It is normal as entertainment, and that is what drag queens still do.

OK, that is one side. But what really struck me was the idea that a "typical nuclear family" - husband, wife, son daughter - could be considered "normal". So in the 1950/60/70 it was the promoted ideal model for family. The term is earlier than that, but not a lot, and even then, it refers to parents and their children, whatever, together. But it is only a century old as an idea.

But I was born in the early 60s and so grew up in the time when this was promoted, and yet I grew up in a household with 3 generation, up to 6 people, and far too many boys. I knew families who fitted this ideal, but also many families who were different is various ways - it was most definitely not "normal".

And historically, it has not been the normal way to be - in fact, it would be considered very wierd and abnormal for much of the history in the UK and wider in Europe. The idea of multi-generational families, of families units that include other relations, of single parent families is widespread and accepted across a lot of Europe. And wider than this narrow western concept - in other non-western cultures, the "nuclear family" is a peculiar abberation, an oddity that whould not be supported.

 And let us not forget also childless couples - sufficiently common throuhgout history and throughout cultures - or unmarried people who are also far more common than we would like to admit. These are "normal" especially as they did, on occasions, find themselves on the wrong end of public opinion and the patriarchal capitalist society.

Now it is true that gay couples as such are a relatively new phenomena, because they are allowed now to be married, and adopt as a couple (or for one of a lesbian couple to have a child). In truth, these are more formalised now than they used to be. More visible. But in many cases, different, non-traditional child rearing has been common for centuries - it is normal.

And I think I want to draw attention to the setting - family day out in the outdoors. Well, in the society today, that is not "normal" - parents are so often working long hours and long weeks. Children are so driven to clubs and sports and activities - finding a chance to be all togehter and spend a day out is not "normal" - it is a treat. It is a rarity. Assuming your kids atually want to spend time outside, and not on their electronica or watching TV. I mean, the biggest chance of getting the entire family in a field together is going to a music festival, and catching that brief moment before they all go off.

Now, just before I go - how does this relate in any way to Quakers - because that is a driving context behind this blog. Well, there is a relevane. In that we have never saught to fit into the normative social structures. When people have told us "this is societies normal, do this" the response in some areas has always been "no". And this is because - or maybe because of this - we embrace the huge range of people, celebrate the diversity of humanity.

Because that is normal.

The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting

This is a review of a book by Evanna Lynch. Evanna is best known as Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter movies.

A review comment on the cover describes the book as "Magical storytelling", and I have real problems with this description. It is not magical in any sense - it is gritty and real. And the "story" - looking at it as a properly plotted piece of work - has all sorts of problems. So I really don't think this description works.

I would also like to point out that the character of Luna Lovegood - and her portrayal by Evanna - is one of the most enduring of the Harry Potter series. She really deserves her own book.

Having said that - this book is extraordinary, and is without doubt my book of the year. Evanna is telling primarily of her struggles with anorexia, and is telling her story from deep inside.  Which makes it an intensely personal, but amazingly relateable and true book.

So often, we read stories of people with mental health issues that are told from outside. Sometimes, they will step out of their struggles to relate as they think they are seen by others. Or they are telling from a position after they have recovered, and are remembering back.

Evanna doesn't do this. She tells her story of being in a urgent, radical care facility, not in practical terms, but how it felt to her, how she responded to this (not well). She talks of her time filming the movies in an almost distracted way, because her focus is on her feelings about her mental health problems. This was her absolute dream job, and yet she tells of it as a nervous young girl and her constant inferiority complex, not as the most exciting time she could ever have.

She talks honestly about how her "recovery" - where she was not longer considered in a critical condition, and was doing her ideal job - from the very real position in her head that she was not "cured". There was a narrative that Harry Potter saved her from her anorexia, and she is clear that this is a mistaken perspective. She was starting the recovery process from her most life-threatening state, but she was still anorexic - in a mental health way, if not in a weight way.

And this is the most insightful aspects of this book. That mental health problems don't go away when you get your dream job. When you get a partner. When you appear on Dancing with the Stars (why did we not sign her up in the UK to Strictly?). Through all of this, she was still ill, she was still struggling with the inner voice chiding her, telling her off, demeaning her. The healing is ongoing. She seems, but the end, to be in a much better place. But it is not over - it is unlikely ever to be completely over for her.

But another critical aspect of her writing is the deep insights of the mental health side of anorexia. It is not just about getting someone to eat - that is the physical part of it. But without resolving the mental aspect, this will never be a solution. The person may no longer "look" ill, and we may believe we have therefore resolved their eating problem. But if the inner voice is still there, it will reappear in some form or other. Dealing with the inner person - the mental part of the illness - is the only way to help a person come to a better place.

Evanna is incredibly honest about this. By the end, she is not looking back and saying "Oh, that was a difficult time, but I am over that now". She is saying "This recovery, and this recovery from recovery, is ongoing". It is a fearful place to leave her - she is an incredible person through all of this, and when I saw her on Between the Covers (which is where I heard about the book), she seemed happy and lively. But this is an outside view, not an inside one. She is, I am sure, still struggling with these demons.

In the end, this is my (tenuous) justification for including this on a Quaker-focussed blog. Because Evanna tells us to look inside, not outside. To see a person not just from what they present, but from where they are inside their own heads. That is so often a more intensely challenging place to see someone from. But it is also a true picture.

The book of Job

 So I have been reading the book recently, and it struck me how rarely the book as a whole is considered. A few choice passges are sometimes referred to, and some basic overviews are addressed. But there are, I realised as I read it, some important messages.

So I think it is important to understand that the story is just that - a story, a parable, if you want, with a moral or purpose. Things like children and livestock were seen as an indication of wealth - so replacing 7 children by another 14 is perfectly valid (however callous this seems to us). All the characters are simply playing a part in a larger story.

So, what of the story? Well a good 35 chapters of the book are Job and his "friends" discussing righteousness. This is the first area that I find really interesting. Because what is clear here is that Job being critical of God - saying that God is unjust and unfair (which is true) is perfetly reasonable.

His friends were all arguing that Job must have comitted some sin to suffer like this. This view is that suffering is always and inevitably the result of sin. Which is interesting, because I have heard similar arguments far more recently. The idea that if you are struggling, unhappy, suffering than you must need to repent of something is still proclaimed.

And it is still wrong.

Which is (one of) the point(s) of the story. Linking righteosness to divine blessing is a fundamental mistake. God will bless who he will, and with withhold from who he will.

As Job says (in one of the quotes so often taken out of the context) "The Lord gives and The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" - he had it right.

So when people tell you that the answer to your problem is to get "right with God", point them to Job.

But there is a second aspect that struck me completely anew this time. This is the response from God. Now, I should point out that this "response" is a typical approach in wisdom writing by not actually answering the question even slightly. What it is normally considered to be doing is telling Job that he has no right to question a God who has made everything.

But I read it differently this time. To me, it was saying "do you - humanity - have the slightest understnading of how the world works. Of how all of nature is interconnected, of how 'Gaia' (if you want) operates to manage itself? If not, how can you seriously onsider that you know why things happen to people?"

This really struck me because it is becoming abundantly lear that we have no idea whatsoever of the impact of what we do, and of how the world as a whole operates. We are causing rampant climate collapse, and we seem not to care. We are destroying our planet without understanding a billionth of what it does.

So how can we pretend to be "gods", to be so good, so righteous? How ome we claim to be the "most intelligent beings on the earth" when we are the only one wrecking it?

There is a lot of depth and meaning in this book. So often it is portrayed in a simplistic way, or a summary form that leaves aside all of the meaning. But it does speak to our modern world, I think. To a world that still consists of humans, and so - as with all of the wisdom books - a world that still needs this wosdom.

Brain hemispheres

 So I have been reading The Master and his Emmisary by Iain McGilchrist. It is a fascinating insight into the world we are in.

I would suggest that everyone should read it, but it is 450 dense pages of fairly academic writing, so I thought I would explain some of the ideas that I have got from it here - and how it relates to my faith. I do not underestimate how challengeing that is.

One critical and core aspects of this writing is his total rejection of the popular left-brain/right-brain division. The idea that people are either left-brained and logical, analytical or right-brained and creative or artistic does not have any support in the neurology community because it is invalid as an idea.

However, he does discuss in depth the role of the diffferent hemispheres, and especially the difference in people who are primarily dominated by one or other. This is different, because everyone uses both hemispheres and the interaction between them is how we come to conclusions and decisions. People are much more variable that this, and the division into a simple binary is far too simplistic.

People are often either left- or right-hemisphere dominant. This is not the same as left- and right-brained, but there can be an overlap. The dominance is not a binary split, but it is a focus or driver, and both halves of the brain work together in all people. The dominance issue comes about because the two hemispheres picture the world in different ways - in incompatible ways (as McGilchrist points out and will be touched on later). The dominance is which perspective on reality is most prominant for an individual.

What I find fascinating is the cultural impact of hemisphere dominance.

As an example: Biblical Hebrew does not have vowels or spaces between the words, and is read from right to left. For all sorts of reasons, this is a right-hemisphere-dominant approach. Because the writing is not entirely deterministic - it is entirely possible to interpret the writing in more than one way. And all of those ways are valid.

When the writing is translated into Greek or Latin - and thence to English - these languages are left-hemisphere-dominant languages. This means that the cultural understanding and interpretation of the words is different (and significantly different, because the entire cultural paradigm is different).

In fact, the world at the time of the Old testament being written was very different. Those who were writing (that is, those who were literate) would tend to be the right-dominant people, but the world and the species were less split between left and right. But since then, we can see times in history - especially European history - where one or the other has become culturally dominant. So, as an example, the Rennaissance was a time when the right-dominant people were widely accepted and the cultural flourishing that epitomises this time is an example of right-hemisphere-dominant people.

The reformation was - although being driven by right-dominant - was strongly influenced by left-dominant people. What we saw then was a more legalistic approach to matters of faith and creativity.

There are plenty of examples throughout history. But there are two important conclusions that he comes to:

1. Left hemisphere dominant people have many signs of schizophrenia

2. Left hemisphere dominant people have been in charge since the start of the industrial revolution.

meaning, that we are in a society that is wrong-headed. In fact, he makes it clear that the correct functioning of the brain is for both hemispheres to be working together. Anything else is wrong. And a society that is dominated by left-hemisphere people is one that will not function well.

How does this relate to Quakers (if at all)? Well I think the Quaker model is more right-hemisphere-friendly than left. The basic acceptance of "the Divine" or "the numinous" is more right focussed. The rejection of structure and rules and social norms is also indicative of a more right-dominant approach. But we also have our rules and organisation and traditions, so there is clearly left-hemisphere involvement.

But, maybe more than anything, it is the fact that Quakers do not accept the society we are in today, the capitalist, militarist, consumerist society that is so beloved of the left-dominant.

How small is your god?

Isaiah 40

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 

It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.  

He brings the princes to nothing;
He makes the judges of the earth useless.

 

This is written in the context of carving wooden gods, but it addresses a problem that was throughout the time of Israel - that their vision of the divine was always too small. Whether this was as small as a wooden doll or as small as the people of Israel, they always made God too small.

This passage ways that we are like grasshoppers. That sounds demeaning, but what I get from it is that we all look the same to the divine. Not pink, brown, rich or poor. And the "princes" and "judges" comment means that being PM or being on benefits doesn't matter from the divine perspective.

Our God is not the God of us. Of Quakers or Anglicans or Methodists or westerners or Africans or - whoever. This perspective is that the divine is for all humanity, every one of us. Even - especially - those who we disagree with.

Perspective is important - actually, in my reading of the Bible, so much is about perspective. That we - people - so often don't see things from the right perspective, we usually see the world and the divine-with-the-world far too small, far too local. We cannot see from the divine persepctive, but we need to understand that that is the right one to have. And to acknowledge that our perspective is - always - too small.

Should I stay or should I go?

 I have recently finished reading Brian McLarens book, "Should I Stay Christian?" This is a really fantastic book, very unlike any other I have read in the same vein. This is a review, but also a reflection on my response to it.

There are a few reasons why this book is much better than most that attempt to address why people want to leave Christianity. Firstly, There is the deliberate order that the book is written in. He starts by saying "No", then "Yes" and finally "How" - which means that he starts by facing the real problems with the faith from the start. So many other books start by explaining how good Christianity is, before then addressing some issues.

This leaves open the very real possibility that some people will read the first part, decide that there is no point in any more, and decide to leave. Against this risk, it clears the air of the problems, because he is clearly prepared to deal with them face on.

The second reason is that he doesn't use straw men to attack - like so often. I am sure you have seen the same (Richard Dawkins has a trendancy to do this) - where they dismiss problems that they have made up, that do not actually reflect the problems that most people have. McLaren addresses real problems, fundamental to Christianity, and explains why these should be good reasons for leaving.

This leads to the third reason for his book being so good - that he is totally accepting that people may come to the conclusion that Christianity is of no value and should be abandoned. If that is where you get to, he is quite accepting of that. The reasons to stay are also very open and genuine, none of the often seen reasons like "Because it is self obviously correct" or "Because you will burn in hell if you leave".

And maybe the best part of the book is the "how" section, because this considers the reality that people who stay will probably need to adjust their relationship to the church and their faith. In many ways, this is critical, because people who stay after having seriously considered leaving will need to adjust and change their relationship. It cannot stay the same.

It was many years ago now that I abandoned the term evangelical. What is peculiar is that my beliefs and faith have nuanced and modified, but are still very much in the realm of Evangelical Christianity, but I rejected the term because most of those using it were not people I had anything in common with. The political right who are hate preachers had taken the term and I had no desire to be associated with them. This was mainly in the US, groups like Westboro Baptist Church, but many others and others in the UK that associated themselves with these ideas. So I rejected the label.

Of late in the UK, we have seen all sorts of groups using the "Christian" label and promoting ideas that I cannot associate with. Examples include Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre - they were roundly criticised in the Alfie Evans case. Also senior politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg, who claims and promotes his form of Christianity, but whose actions are not ones I consider compatible with my faith.

The problem with my initial position - that they are not Christian - is not a valid position to take. This suffers from the No True Scotsman fallacy, but also I have no desire to try to define what is Christian and what isn't. It is far too much responsibility and it is not what I want to do. So I accept that the label is one I am becoming less and less comfortable with.

So here it is: it may be that those who claim the title with views that I cannot accept are right. I have no problems with them claiming that their Christianity is right. But I want nothing to do with them or that faith, so I can dismiss the title of Christian. If they are Christian, I am not.

McLaren talks about stages of faith. Simplicity;Complexity;Perplexity;Harmony. I think, especially since I joined the Quakers, I am finding myself more into the Harmony stage. The stage where there is an acceptance of things. I am not there yet, but am embracing this more and more. My understanding of faith - my faith, and what it means, and what the nature of divinity is - is changing, in flux. Maybe flux is not right - that implies that it will settle to something new, and I am not sure it will. I think it is uncertain and will remain uncertain.

But it is still what I used to consider Christian. I would still accept the creeds, even though I might not want to say them, not least because words are insufficient. But I have no wish to associate myself with those who preach and practice hate, whatever name they claim. So for now, maybe, I am a Quaker, a person of faith, a seeker of truth. The names matter less now than they did. The truth is the important thing.