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.

Eugenics

 I have just finished reading the book Superior by Angela Saini, and heard her talk at Greenbelt, covering the same areas. It is a superb book, but also it is frightening.

What I found really interesting is that it helps to join up all sorts of related areas - starting from racism, something that we see more and more in the world.

Now I should say that that, until recently, I thought eugenics ideas had die out in the middle of last century, at or after the second world war - for reasons that are clear as I explore the meaning of eugenics. I was wrong, and that was disturbing.

Now - what is eugenics? Well, it is (simplisticly speaking) the idea that we should be breeding humans to produce the very best of humanity, in a similar way that we breed our farm animals to produce the very best. This was a result of the ideas of evolution initially produced by Darwin, and the term was created by Francis Galton, a relative of Darwin (I should point out that Darwin himself did not support the idea).

What is interesting is that, for the early part of the 20th century, these ideas were broadly acceptable and discussed openly. Selective breeding, producing humans as good as is possible, seemed like a good idea. Until, of course, Adolf Hitler adopted the idea and sought to eliminate all those who were not "good enough". Most of the movement died out after that, but no entirely.

The problem with eugenics is not actually Hitler. The problem is far deeper than that - the problem is that to pursue such a plan, you need to define what the best humans are. And this is where the problems really start.

The root of race was the division of people into what were random racial categories - all based on skin colour - I am reminded of the Sunday School song:

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white
....

Hang on - yes that is it - the four racial groups - red (native Americans), yellow (Orientals), White (European) and black (Anyone with dark skin - African, Indian, native Australian). There are two fundamental problems with this:

Firstly, this division by skin colour is completely unscientific. In particular, the range of those who are covered under "Black" is a huge range, comprising many different skin colours and many unrelated people. There is as much difference across that range as there is between any two skin colours, speaking biologically. If you are wanting to divide people by their biological origins, skin colour is a very poor proxy - and the more we explore and discover about DNA relationships, the more we realise that there is no proxy, not way of dividing people. When it comes down to it, we are all the same, we all share the same DNA structures.

It is also the case that those in England - as an example - are almost certainly descended from people whose skin was dark. Of course, people in the UK are all immigrants from somewhere - none of us are "native" - the islands have been invaded from the North and the South, and the people here are mixtures of a range of peoples. Of many different skin colours as well - and all sorts of eye colours and hair colours and other genetic properties. We are a wild mix.

Secondly, of course, the racial groups were put into a heirarchy. Unsurpisingly, the whites were at the top - for no obvious reason, except that we were the ones making the lists. The heirarchy was mainly about "how like white Europeans are these people".

What continued to strike me was that the way we divide people is always biased. We argue about IQ tests - but these are not universal. They have to be adjusted for different cultures, and over time. an IQ score is not an eternal value (and the average for any cultural groups is, by definition, 100 - it only measures your position compared to the average). Often we talk about the scientific advances and technology that we in the west have made - ignoring the fact that these are not universal indicators of "success". Because we value these things over others - over an appreciation of nature or of community - we claim these to show that "we" are better than "them".

And so eugenics - in the various forms it crops up in neoliberal discourse - is ALWAYS a vile and disgusting concept, always a power thing, seeking to put "me" as being worthy of living and "them" as not. And the divisions that a eugenics mindset generates - races - are putely social ideas, with no actual basis in any sort of fact. We are all one race, we are all human. Those who seek to claim otherwise will have none of my time.

The Labour Files

I finally got around to watching these - they are available on Youtube (1, 2, 3, 4) and I felt that there was something needed saying.

For those who don't know, this is a series of 4 programmes from Al Jazeera revealing details of papers leaked form the labour party. In particular, they relate to the antisemitism claims around Jeremy Corbyn and many others.

It is worth bearing in mind that Al Jazeera is a Quatari owned and driven news organisation, that will have its own biases and reasons for promoting specific ideas and issues. It should not be considererd truly independent, although it has proven itself over the last few years to be a reliable news source.And the material presented here does reflect what others have said about the party.

At the same time, I am trying to be as generous as possible towards the leadership and senior members of the party - give them the benefit of the doubt, if I can.

After watching the first two episodes, I had learned a lot. Which is always good! In particular, there is a very complex issue around what "anti-semitism" means. In practice, there are two definitions that are used by different groups:

1. Any criticism of or negative action towards Jews or the Jewish state, for any reason.

2. Criticism or negative action toward Jews simply for their Jewishness.

In the gap between these, there is Zionism. This is the belief that Israel has a right to their historical national boundaries, and should be permitted to enforce these at any cost.

It is in this Zionist stance that becomes really challenging, not least because there are many Christian groups who would argue for this position. And a Zionist position will tend to make people use the first definition of anti-semitism above.

I, of course, do note agree with this position. I lean towards the latter. And - just for clarification - these are not intended as formal definitions, just expressions of the dividing issue. If you want more details, then there is a lot of material online about the IHRA definition and examples, which are at the heart of the Labour party disputes. The basic working definition is fine for me, but the examples include any criticism of Israels Zionist desires, and that is where I would disagree.

Still with me? Well done. Now the problems with Corbyn (and many others) was that he was definitively NOT anti-semitic according to version 2, the one I agree with. However, he was opposed to the Zionism of the Israeli state, and this brought the allegations on his head. Because there were parts of the party - driven, eventually, by Keir Starmer, who wanted to adopt the IHRA definition in total.

If I am generous, it may be that they saw a definition by a well respected international group, and believed that this is what should be adopted. That such a declaration would be the clearest and most uncontraversial definition ("uncontraversial" and "anti-semitism" in one concept is not something that is ever going to work). The generous answer is that this was simple naivety by Starmer and his supporters.

Except that I do not believe that Starmer is that stupid. I would totally believe it of the leadership of the Conservative party, that they would naively accept something like this without any real idea what it was about, but I don't think Starmer is made of the same stuff at all.

Which means he is an explicit supporter of Zionism, and was seeking to root out any opponents from the party. Which meant rooting out the left-wing from the party.

This takes a different turn in the last two episodes. What we see here is explicit and systematic bullying from the leadership of the party, desperate to win votes, power and influence. And to win this at any cost, it would seem. By eliminating the political left from the party, they were hoping to win the votes from the centre right - and, if some comments are to be believed, keep most of the left because they have nowhere else to go. Which is the arrogance of the party.

And yet, this is where I try to be generous and broaden my horizons. And consider that the station may have more problems where it has evidence of issues with anti-islamic behaviour (whereas the Tory party loves Muslims, of course, as long as they are not seeking access to this county and they have oil).

But this is not necessarily positive, because what I see is that both of the major parties have the same problem - they are desperate for votes at any cost, and seek power for their own purposes. There is a core problem in our political systems, that the voting system does not hold the parties to account. In the end, they both seek to get votes to put them in power. But they do not want to use their power for the good of the people, but for their own benefit.

Yes, this has been presented explicitly in the Labour party, but this is not a Labour party problem. This is a problem with the system, the entire political infrastructure in this country. Until we change this more fundamentally and radically, nothing will really change.

The Labour Files have revealed something very dark in the party, but the party is actually reflecting a wider problem in the political state that we are in