Tag Archives: resurrection

Chapter 15: the seasons during which Alleluia is chanted

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The Alleluia is to be sung with the psalms and responsories from Easter Sunday until Pentecost

Is it Hallelujah or Alleluia?

This chapter is very timely as we begin Holy Week. St. Benedict is discussing the use of the Alleluia chant within the prayers of the community and it might seem, to some of you, of little importance as to whether we are able to say ‘alleluia’ at some times and not at others. At worst this seems to be legislative for no reason and we should be able to say it at anytime. This is true but, for St. Benedict and the Western Church, there is a reason which can be helpful.

The question of the traditional liturgical customs is a litmus test within Christian circles; one which can become petty and pointless very quickly. For one tradition liturgical seasons, cycles, formulas and customs are of no use and arbitrary and we should be set free to respond to the Spirit in the way we see fit. For the other end of the spectrum liturgical guidelines are helpful as they lead us through a rhythm of the year which, when our feelings and natural instincts let us down we can be held within a framework by the grace of God. As with most things it comes down to intention and approach. The liturgical traditions of the church were set out for very important reasons and were there to help guide and protect the Church from every fresh wind of teaching. They are, however, like the Law of Moses; designed to be helpful but can easily suffocate and destroy if not treated properly.

In this day and age with electricity giving us extended working light, preserving food well beyond their natural seasons, we have little to no appreciation of seasons. This is particularly true of food, work and weather. We have done well in the developed world of being able to control our environment and it is possible to get what we want, when we want it and in the way that we want it. There is no sense of being restricted by external influences. When these restrictions impinge on our lives it frustrates us; when we can’t get the item of food we want, when we are unable to work when we want and when we are unable to travel to the places we want.

The world, however, relies on the season to give balance, to give rain when it’s needed and sun. Creation is a delicate system which has worked since well before humanity learnt how to manipulate it. The pre-industrial humanity were very sensitive to times and seasons and set their lives by the creation around them. They were in tune with it and were able to steward the world in a sustainable and natural way. In recent decades, with the effect that civilisation has had on the environment we are looking to reinstate this ‘eco’ agenda. The difficulty comes when it effects us, when it impacts our lives and it costs us. We don’t want our desires to be restrained; this doesn’t make us happy and surely that is what we want, to be happy!

Liturgical seasons are the same. They are there to force us to be sensitive to the ebb and flow of life. The book of Ecclesiastes names this,

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

There is a time to celebrate and there are times to be penitent. If we only followed what we felt and thought, with our limited understanding of our inner life, then we would be probed to fall heavily into personal preference. The liturgical structures defend us from that. They correct us. They give us a balanced diet, room for rest and work and appreciation for all spiritual weathers.

So, for the matter at hand; Hallelujah/Alleluia means ‘Praise the Lord.’ It was left untranslated by the early Christians and was understood to be one way to remain connected to the Jewish faith from which they came from. As the New Testament texts (the gospels and the letters) and it reached people with little to no understanding of the Hebrew language it was finally transliterated. Greek has no ‘h’ equivalent and so that letter was dropped creating Allelujah. It then evolved, when translated from the Greek into Latin to Alleluia.
Of course we can ‘Praise the Lord’ whenever we want to. In fact the Psalms tell us to do so! The Psalms also encourage us to do the opposite, to challenge and rail against God. There are times when we need to experience the times when we can’t ‘Praise the Lord’; we need to enter into times of experiencing the perceived absence of God to better appreciate our need for Him. For St. Benedict, ‘Alleluia’ is not used through Lent, a time when we are called to reflect on our human natures, the darkness that exists in our world and so, when Easter morning arrives, we drink in the Allleluias for we have thrusted for them for forty days.

But, as I said before, like most things, this custom can become suffocating and restrictive. That which meant to bring life and a roundness to our spiritual life, can easily become death to it. Jesus’ issues with the Pharisees was not that they were completely wrong, indeed he says of them,

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

The issue was that they were too cautious and protective. Issues of fasting, sabbath, healing that Jesus locked horns with them over, all of them came down to freedom within the framework. The rules and guidelines are there to enable us to be safe but free. If we cast them off then we are vulnerable to the whims of our temptable spirits.

Reflection

As a priest in a parish, I see it as my role to watch the edges of the Christian community, not as a patrol guard but as an advisor. To look out for those who get hurt in the wide open fields beyond God’s Kingdom and to bring them into safety. To remind people who stray beyond the boundaries the sustenance and blessings of that which they are leaving. Ultimately to bridge that fringe as a point of connection.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the Church should have rigid edges, barriers and walls. I see the Church as centred rather than edged. This is best explained by a short parable:

The Kingdom of God is like a manager coming to check on one of his farms. The farmer who ran the property and kept the sheep welcomes the manager to the homestead and gives him the freedom to look around and to assess the health of the flock and take an inventory.

You are free to explore the acres of land and bring back your report of what you see and find.

The manager sets out to walk the grounds that sprawl into the horizon. He explores the land that is marked on the map as belonging to the farmer, he checks the quality of the grass and he counts sheep. Having not fallen asleep after such an exercise he makes random spot checks on the quality of the meat and the health of the animals.

What he views is very good and he is impressed with the farmers care and clearly profitable oversight of his treasures. The sheep are healthy, happy and safe, the grass and grounds are well kept and free of chemicals. After a long day he returns to the farmhouse to meet with the farmer.

It’s all very impressive.

The manager says,

The sheep are healthy and you have many ready for market. There is one thing, which troubles me… You don’t have any fences. Your land is just spread far and wide and there’s no visible demarcation to the neighbouring farmers’ lands. How do you keep all your sheep together and close by?

The farmer replies,

I dig very deep wells.

As an ordained person I am to be the sign of connection between the local expression of the Body of Christ and the national, global and historical Church. I am to keep us rooted in the faith, passed down from generation and generations; a faith which has been shaped by the wisdom and experience of the ages passed. This is not always a comfortable place or role to play but it is a cost. Yes, traditions must be tested but I deny the temptation to flee or reject the framework when it doesn’t please me or gets me what I want. Yes, I speak from a privileged position of being a white, male, middle class in a historically powerful, often oppressive, nation. So I turn to the church of the liberation movement who, as far as I can read, are strict observers of tradition and find the joy and freedom within the strength of the Apostolic faith based on the creeds and formularies of the Church.

Tradition acts as the deep wells, tried and tested in many contexts. They are not the water, but the channels through which we plunge to access the Living Water, Jesus Christ. I find it comforting to know that no matter how I’m feeling, how weak or broken I am I can go to the wells and find water. Our job, as the Church locally, is to carry people too far from the water to the wells and help them to drink.

Living Water, flow. Burst through the concrete tunnels we hide you in and protect ourselves from your flood with. For the places where we restrict unnecessarily, have mercy on us and reveal yourself.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Fleeing to No-Man’s Land

bf_logo_brownI have had the privilege of being welcomed into a community over the last year which has had an ongoing and deeply transformative impact on me and my vocation as an ordained priest. The community are mainly in their twenties and would, at a cursory glance, be classified as ‘arty’ intellectual types, although this is not entirely true; not that they are not either of those things but that which unites this group isn’t those two general categories. It is only in the last month or so that I have begun to grasp the ‘charism’, the ‘je ne sais qua’, of Burning Fences.

I have come to realise that this gathering on a Wednesday night is a place between. What I mean by that is, it is a space which exists in no-man’s land between many human cultures, traditions, institutions and philosophies. Many are ‘de-churched’, meaning they have opted out of the church system. This does not automatically mean they have no faith in Jesus, but they are definite in their questions of institutional religion. Others are ‘de-society-ed’, meaning they have opted out of social institutions including politics, economic models and/or cultural pressures.

Whilst some are exiting church due to lack of a tangible truth to the statements trotted off each week, others are dismissive of social powers for the same reason. Capitalism: failed. Democracy: broken. Hierarchy: oppressive. Education system: stifling. In our community these things, at best, do nothing for us, at worst are an abuse. Church has hurt many of us and society has not done much better. We are all ‘de-something’, ‘post-something else’ and ‘anti-the other’ but…

We find joy.

a3257979419_10Before I stumbled through the doors one cold December night, this community had been meeting, singing and telling stories for a year or more. They had produced a CD of songs which they had developed entitled ‘Of Anthem and Ashes’. The images that were resonating with them then and remain reverberating through our times together are phoenix like resurrections; songs sung in the rubble, new plants breaking through concrete. These images have always resonated with me and it’s why I know I am a ‘fence burner’.

What’s unique, in my experience, with Burning Fences is we are not just angry rebels without a cause. I felt, at first, our position was always, first and foremost, against but now I appreciate that our primary position is for; it’s for joy, hope, faith, creative and transformative actions of love. We are for justice. We are for freedom. We are for foolishness. We stand up for singing and fairytales and we stand proclaiming the truth that we find in them; a truth higher than the ones incarcerated in creedal dogmas and policies from committees.

What unites us is not the borders we’ve crossed to get to Burning Fences, its the central tenants which have drawn us closer. It is not that we are all ‘de-churched’ or ‘post-capitalism’ or ‘anti-establishment’ it’s that we are dreamers singing songs from ages past with the fresh melody of our eternal youth.

We struggle to define ourselves, not because we cannot tell you what we do or why we do it (although we may amble around some wording) it’s because we don’t believe in definitions. Definitions limit and control; they create an object that is to be studied and understood. We, I think, want to rather express. Expressions manifest and present; they allow the subject to be encountered, however fleetingly. Groups and communities always get to a point where they organize. It’s at this point where a small death occurs. That which was new, organic, growing, evolving becomes marked and measured. It’s a necessary part of all groups some would say, but, I wonder, is it as necessary as we think?

Organization contains mechanistic tendencies, structures which are intentionally built to ensure all parties are protected and held. Organization does an important job of mediating between subjectivity of members and individuals can devolve responsibilities to the processes and structures put in place. The alternative, I want to tentatively suggest, is the organism.

Organisms are natural and, in some respects, self-evolving and responsive to environment. Organisms exist in constant fragility and transient ways and yet can endure much. The church has traditionally been associated with organic images; a body, a family, a vine, a tree. Ferdinand Tönnies articulates a possible contrast between these two models which he describes as ‘organic communities’ and ‘associative societies’,

…one can distinguish between ideal types of organic and associative social structures. A person is born into an organic social structure, or grows into it; by contrast, a person freely joins an associative social structure. The former is a ‘living organism’ whose parts depend on the whole organism and are determined by it; the latter is ‘a mechanical aggregate and artifact’ composed of individual parts. The former is thus enduring, the latter transient. In short, organic social structures are communities of being, while associative social structures are alliances for a specific purpose. (Miroslav Volf, ‘After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity’ (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998) p. 179)

concrete2The times when Church is most frustrating, for me, is in the ‘necessary organization’. What  irks me is the lack of convincing Biblical precedent. The Temple system failed and yet here we are in the 21st century rebuilding it. I get it, organic is messy and uncontrollable, unpredictable but it’s how the world functions. We human beings are devastating when we control and tinker with the organic creation. We’ve tried to organize the world and what we discover is we’re trapped in boxes which do not fit nor encourage us to flourish in the ways in which we should.

Take growth as one example:

Organizations grow but only when there is intentional distribution of resources in that area. Resources are limited and so constant supervision and analysis is required in order to maintain a healthy growth and balance with the repercussions growth brings (increase need for supporting the numbers and the work.) Growth is a task which is done. The temptation is also to continue to grow; to grow beyond the organisation’s means. When is the right time to stop growing? There is no reason to stop.

Organisms grow naturally; plants, animals, people. We do not need constant monitoring and an understanding of how it works we just do it. Yes, in order to remain alive we need protection from certain things but that’s not changing growth that just ensure an environment within which to grow. The purpose and identity of organisms can change and adapt, it’s inherent within the classification. It will be what it will be. Growth is not an intentional task its a natural process. Once it has reached a maturity the growth will inevitably slow down and settle into an identity (which still has freedom to develop) but even mature organisms continue to grow cells and reproduce.

Death is indeed part of the natural cycle of things but, like organisms there’s a continuity of energy from one thing to another and there is reproduction to ensure species continues. With the Christian tradition and narrative death is not to be feared. Despite us all passing through death, at the end we will all rise and live in resurrection glory (but that’s for another time.)plant-growing-through-crack-in-concrete

Burning Fences is an organism. It is one that understands itself as an evolving entity but not vacuuous of identity. Growth is occurring in different ways without us spending resources and monitoring to ensure that it continues because growth is a by-product of being. We have flirted over the last few months with basic organization but I am increasingly convinced that what this ‘Fresh Expression’ is doing, along with many others, is challenging the organizational model of church and society and telling the story of the church as organic. We are not the concrete instituition holding Man together and discovering we’re suffocating him instead. We are the plant life that persists in growing between the rubble of those falling idols.

As an ordained priest I do not want to be a manager. I do not want to be a systems analyst. I want to be one part of a network, a rhizome, of organic life that is fertile, naturally beautiful and expressing newness in the face of decay. I want to welcome the tired, weary, breathless, thirsty people as they run from the crumbling world into no-man’s land and host the party of endurance beyond death and decay. To feed them with nourishing bread and breathe new life into them. I want to tell the story of the world through the lens of a Creator who redeems and endures; coming and leading a people into the wilderness to find miraculous bread falling from the sky.

Burn those fences. Break down the walls and flock to the well where the water never dries up and to a table where the bread falls from heaven.

keno charis: ruptured for you (a liturgy for Burning Fences)

(Burning Fences is a small community based in York which is exploring how to sing a new song in the rubble of an old world. I led this as an evening exploring the Trinity for my
fellow ‘sparrows’.)

People enter a small upper room above the city. there is a low table and cushions surrounding it.

On the low table are three bowls each with a question by it and there’s a chalice and plate set up. People are invited to write on scraps of paper responses to the following questions and put them into one of three bowls:

What is your ultimate question?

What is your biggest doubt?

What is missing?

When all are settled drinks for the evening are ordered. This often individualistic action is challenged with the following, seemingly restrictive commands: Everyone is to be responsible for one drink order, it cannot be their own. They, therefore, must take responsibility for another’s order. That other person cannot be the one who is responsible for their own order; the two must find a third who then links to another group…

The evening begins when the drinks order is sent downstairs.

Three people begin by reading the following,

Person 1: In an upper room, not unlike this one, the Lord stood amongst friends and shared.

Person 2: In another upper room, not unlike this one, the Lord stood amongst friends and breathed.

Person 3: In a third upper room, not unlike this one, the Lord stood amongst friends and transformed.

Narrator: Tonight we’re going to explore a mystery through three stories of upper rooms. Three and yet one. It’s one story but three points. It’s three ideas that make up one narrative. Three parts to this one mystery…

Story 1. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, the prophet rabbi Jesus sat amongst friends. They would meet regularly and share stories, questions, songs. There was no pattern, no formula, no entry requirement, just a desire. It was not a shared ideology or philosophy that bound them together but a shared desire… to know what it was about this rabbi who had chosen to be with them.

Despite their doubts, despairs, disillusionment, they desired, above all, to discover. To discover a way to be free. Self help, private thoughts, individualism had led to self imprisonment and they were tired of being alone. They were like sparrows desiring a hedge to call home.

Liturgy of the Sparrows

We are the sparrows who are claiming back the hedges.

Response: We are the sparrows that will not be satisfied with twigs.

We are the sparrows that are crying out for our hedges.

Response: We are the sparrows that are weary from singing lonely songs.

In our hedge, where we feel safe again,

Response: we seek our social life back, and the sooner the better.

In our hedge, where we talk things over,

Response: we make decisions, laugh if we want to and sing.

This is our story, this is our song,

and we’ll live it till it’s our reality.

A song about home is shared.

Narrator: Story 1. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, the prophet rabbi Jesus showed them how to be a holy community…

The narrator gets a bowl and pours warm water into it. He invites someone to have their hands washed. The act of hand washing is a more culturally applicable version of foot washing in the near east culture of Jesus. There’s an element of cleansing and preparation for food as well as retaining the intimacy of foot washing. As the narrator washes the other’s hands he says,

You have to let me wash your hands in order for me to show you love. If you refused I would not be able to show you my care for you. Allowing me to bless you with this gift is a gift to me. You have allowed me to have a relationship with you. Thank you.

The narrator passes out bowls of water and invites others to sit and receive from one another. 

During all of this music is played.

When all have been washed one has left and returned with food and the drinks. Each member should pay more attention for another’s drinks than their own. All are invited to eat.

Who’d like to tell a story of a time when have you felt closest to someone else?

A time of storytelling.

Story 2. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner of the city, the friends sat. Huddled together in fear. Bereft. Present in body only. Absent in other respect. They had lost. Lost their nerve. Lost the fight. Lost the will. Lost Him. The prophet. Their rabbi.

He had said to them, when he was in the upper room, that he would give everything he had; he would give his life for them. He would not withdraw from the consequences of his love for them. He would be taken and drained of life. He would allow it to happen. He chose to allow it to happen. He chose to allow all people to do what they desired most because he loved.

And now he’s gone. They had lost. The thing that had brought them all together; the person who had called them to each other had left. They had hoped it was forever but he had disappointed. A vacuum now existed in their midst like empty plates where once was food. An absence where once was presence.

A song about loss is shared.

Story 2. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner of the city, the friends sat and embraced the abyss with all their questions:

One of the bowls that contains the responses to the question ‘What is your ultimate question?’ is passed round and the answers are read out.

The friends sat and embraced the abyss with all their doubts.

The other bowl with the responses to the question ‘What is your biggest doubt?’ is passed round and the answers read out.

The friends sat and embraced the abyss with all their emptiness and lack.

People are invited to read out the responses to the question ‘What is missing?’ from the third bowl.

Story 2. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, the prophet rabbi Jesus appeared to his friends. That which was lost had been returned but now a paradox… the friends still felt an absence but it felt like a presence beyond all presences; richer more fuller presence. It was like the last time he was with them but there was a deeper reality to him, to them.

He had been emptied; given all of himself. He who had said that he was God. God had given all things to him and he freely gave it all away to show them how much he loved them. His generosity knew no bounds. He had given everything, even his very self. Now he was back amongst them and showed that He was, in some way, unknowable to them, mysteriously, he was God, eternal, abundant source of all things, of life itself.

“Now do you see?” he said “All that I have I give to you… and I have a lot. I want to be emptied, again and again of all I have so that you have. All that you’re missing I give to you but the real trick is to discover that life is found when you empty of ‘having’ and satisfy the other’s need.”

“God gave to me,” he said “I give to you, but I can’t stay with you in bodily form, it’s too limited. I will return to my home and send to you the key to the Divine store cupboard. He will come and grant you access to the gifts but do not hold onto them for they, like manna in the wilderness will rot if kept in your grasp. Give, give away, give until you have nothing left and your hand will be refilled.”

“This is the secret to community. Each giving until they have nothing but, of course, this dynamic generosity creates from nothing. This is how the universe was built; generous, abundant, emptying love; love that seeks to have nothing so the other will have everything. God the Father showed His love for me by giving me the whole cosmos and more besides he continues to give until there is nothing left to give, when space and time has run out and beyond that. I showed my love to him by giving all I could and I still give… And now I give to you and call you to live with us, participate.”

“You’re all interested in what makes good human community? Humans are made in the image of God and when you live as if that were true, your actions and lives sing of eternity. You’ve dreamt of a place, a way of living that feels like the home you’ve always desired? I have considered your niche needs, disjointed designs and contradictory commands of communal contentment and this is what I offer; an urban landscape sprawling out to scenes of symbiotic existence; spaces of intimacy seeming epic. Small spaces stretch out into space unimaginable.”

“In the centre of this city is a stream sourced from a singular washing space where you can willingly wash away the weeping water from your eyes; wash away all the lies which twist distort and chastise; wash away the pain of missed goodbyes, the long held hurt when a loved one dies, all that contributes to our cries, from the inexpressible silent sighs to the African skin crawling with flies, the countless millions caught in disguise to those imaginations that devise instruments of torture that lead to our demise.

This washing water has supplies for all generations to surmise, from the one who accepts to the one who denies, yes, all are asked to step in and be baptized.”

As the friends looked at the Great Designer’s two dimensional doodles depicting detailed designs for districts of dreams; they were transported from 2D to 3D and they stood at the heart of this great project, this divine concept of collaborated dreams of home. As they scanned the scene with their senses searing with celestial resplendence, they saw it was their terrestrial city with its burnt out building bordered up, barren, broken, brittle skeletons, shells of second rate, suppressed statements of habitations, empty, abandoned, bereft of life. This vacuous void is all they’d envisioned, their vital improvements to the divine construction.

“All these buildings won’t be obstructions.” the rabbi said as He pointed to the destruction. “All of you will be part of this production; we’ll need some more. Can you get introductions? It won’t work if we resort to abductions but paint a portrait of perpetual seduction; Lilting lullabies of love. Meandering melodies of mercy. Holistic harmonies of hope. This is how we will win people to our cause. Sing to them simply of the Son who was sent to your city to speak out against injustice, racist hostility and stubborn statuses. “Sacrifice self” He said. Die to all you think defines, distinguishes, differentiate and divides. Die to all that makes you think ‘me’. That’s not how you are to be, its ‘we’, you see, us constantly, lovingly, eternally relating looking out celebratorily at creation, the manifestation of Our imagination which speaks of salvation. Stand against temptation. Participate in incarnation. Join Our nation.”

They were still in that upper room but now it seemed foreign. The rabbi was gone and they were free. They felt… called, with all creation, to participate in a Divine dance, dwelling with Him, deliberately drawing and deliberating over the debilitated definitions of themselves.

This divine creativity is now innate and it is to participate in a state where every breath is to create because the truth is we, humans can do nothing, we are pathetic, we are fragile, fragmented, foolish and frail. If it was down to us failure would frame our every fumbled attempts at life. But God doesn’t limit His giving of good gifts generously gathering His grace getting offspring and giving, blessing them with boundless benefaction and the ability to beautify the broken, black globe we abide in.

Creativity is the choice to catch the vision of His passionate parade of perpetual pleasure as He paints pictures in the palette of the sky and proclaims praises powerfully in proud oaks. Problem solving, parenthood, pottery, plumbing, all is creative in Papa’s production.

Do we care too much on product and not on process? Capitalism capturing our capability in creation. Yes, creativity is innate, equally distributed, designated, dished out. If we decide to delegate in this divine dynamism we decide to die for it is participation with His soul saving Spirit that gives life. Creativity is cooperating with our curiosity in creation, creating collaborations in community, making mutual memories made in mirth and misery shared. Stories singing through souls, sewing us, sculpting us, shaping us, scripting us into the narrative of the non-conforming Nazarene whose never-ending life and love lulls us into lucid lovers and alighting a light in our hearts, little wisps of wonder wilting the winter inside. All of us part of the process to paint the playground, perform the eternal play and promote partnership in people un-praised but packed with potential.

A song of hope and community is shared.

Story 3. In a tight, cramped, claustrophobic space, in a darkened corner above the city, Simon, who they called ‘Peter’, one of the group was stood amongst outcasts. This foreign group had not been a part of the original group of sparrows in that first upper room. They had gathered from elsewhere but he saw in them that sparrow song. He stood amongst them and remembered the night he had sat with the prophet rabbi Jesus and he had showed them God, divine community, love unadulterated and emptying of gift. Peter stood and spoke, he modelled love as he had known it, pure, from the heart of God Himself. The group were sparrows in a hedge; just for a moment. They sang, they laughed, they shared, they lived the life of communal God right in front of him.

I have shared my stories. I share them till I am empty, bereft.

Keno Charis means ‘emptying of gift’. It is the mystery at the heart of the Trinity; God in community, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; each one giving to the other attempting to be empty of all they possess in order that the other has more but in some mysterious way this creates more. God, the source of all things trying pass on all of it is the secret to life. When we live and participate in this activity we are caught in the basis of life itself and we experience God. Trinity. The Communal heart of creation from the Creator.

Liturgy of the empty and healed

Person 1: I have my music,

I give it to you,

I give it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 2: I have my thoughts,

I give them to you,

I give them till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 3: I have my words,

I give them to you,

I give them till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 4: I have my voice,

I give it to you,

I give it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 5: I have my heart,

I give it to you,

I give it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

Person 6: I have my identity,

I share it with you,

I share it till I’m empty.

Response: We thank you. We love you till you heal.

One member of the group leads the following to close,

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone:

Response: my hope comes from Him.

We come this night to the Father,
We come this night to the Son,
We come this night to the Holy Spirit powerful:

Response: We come this night to God.

The Sacred Three
to save
to shield
to surround
the hearth
the home
this night
and every night.

Keep Your people, Lord,
in the arms of Your embrace.

Response: Shelter them under Your wings.

Be their light in darkness.

Response: Be their hope in distress.

Be their calm in anxiety.

Response: Be strength in their weakness.

Be their comfort in pain.

Response: Be their song in the night.

In peace will we lie down, for it is You, O Lord,

Response: You alone who makes us to rest secure.

In The Rubble We Will Sing

20133118111695840_8This morning I woke to the news of the government drafting legislation for three person IVF treatment to allow parents to protect babies from defective mitochondria which leaves them ‘starved of energy, resulting in muscle weakness, blindness, heart failure and death in the most extreme cases’ (BBC News page) by having the DNA from a third party used in the creation of their child. This opens up a vast set of issues on the very nature of life, family, society, etc. After this item there followed the news that surgeons’ individual performance is to be publicised to enable to help patients make informed decisions. This too holds so many much much larger questions about our lack of trust, social contracts, etc. These items come on the back of the issue of gay marriage, banking reform, energy sources, etc.

The Western world is in turmoil. There is no denying that. Change is in the air and most, if not all, people are feeling unsettled, chaotic and scared. The world is always changing; look at Heraclitus (Greek philosopher of 5th century B.C.) who is famous for saying

You never step into the same river twice.

What is scary for me (trying as best as I can to take an overview) is how lost we all are. I use the word ‘lost’ deliberately and I use the word ‘we’ with equal seriousness.

We are lost because we have no direction or rather we have no shared direction when it comes to ethcial discussions. There is an ever-increasing number of options and subjective choice as to which direction we should take that no one view can be held as better or worse than another. This is the fruit of individualism and subjectivity. I have been saying it for so long I’m tired of hearing myself say it. We have got a culture where “What I think and feel is right because it’s what I think and feel.” This unquestioning subjectivity of reality leads to a break down of society. Descartes has a lot to answer for!

We are lost in an ethical abyss with no firm footing or basis by which to discern right from wrong. Our laws and government no longer know how to speak ‘truth’ because ‘truth’ is not shared or agreed upon. The legal system now just protects us individuals from hurting other individuals by our holy, sanctified individuval lives. And we are surprised by the rise in loneliness, depression, a deep seated experience of isolation from fellow human beings, relationships hard to find and sustain and the language we use is so fluid that any meaningful expression is lost and misunderstood. At the heart of this is the current discussion on marriage. This is the sole, most important issue which is unlocking all other issues.

I am seeing this ethical debate on the nature of marriage (both the contents and the way in which it was undertaken) as a piece of dynamite ready to explode the constructs already teetering on their foundations. I say this because it cuts to the core of our discomfort and uncertainties; identity, society, trust, relationships, love, truth, the place and reality of un-tangible concepts within our society, etc. Again (and I really mean AGAIN!) I am not putting a value on either view of the outcome of this particular debate. I do not want to add to that discussion. I am trying to see the underlying issues at work and discuss those.

All around us is wobbling. We are unsure that what we’ve built our lives on is a firm and secure as we first hoped. Then this piece of dynamite is placed along side the cracks already forming and it is blown.

It feels that, in search of freedom we have become enslaved to our own feelings, emotions. Beliefs are based on hunches and gut reactions rather than wisdom.

Wisdom. Where are you, Wisdom? We have built our replica of you and parade it about while you silently watch on from the wings. We make this pathetic imitation dance and move and are deceived into think that it lives but it is but a puppet representation of your life and being.

When will we learn that this individualism and self-seeking, self-constructed framework of society is a sham of the most dangerous and destructive kind?

We have no ethics because we no longer understand the most important fact that lies, unrecognised at the core of our existence: human beings are imperfect, unknowing, ignorant fools. Each and every one of us is skewed in our perception of reality. We are drunk, hazed over with our inner selfishness. Even me. I am guilty of that most hideous of crimes: self-delusion, pride even in my own self-disgust. I am trapped and imprisoned in my own ego. My ego lashes out defensively and subtly twists all I see and do into ‘right-ness’, justifications of thoughts, ideas, policies. My ego distorts, degrades and destroys reality for self-protection. That is why I use ‘we’! I stand in the dock and am guilty!

We. We are lost. Lost in this pathetic state of life. Once the explosion happens and all comes down, as it will and should what will we do?

Firstly, I suggest, acknowledge our weakness, our shortcomings, the ethical mess we are in. To admit the devastation around us. To pick up the pieces of rubble and weep over the brokenness. To silence all voices and to stand in the reverential place of pure and painful humility.

After this we must sing sombre songs of lament. In this place of seeing ourselves as the pathetic creatures we can become we must sing a song of sorrow from our hearts with the tears of truth streaming down our faces. Allow the melody of a minor key to stir us into deeper reality and begin to experience a healing. This healing cannot come from any human source for all those fountains are corrupted and diseased; what comes from them is the fruit of a poisoned tree. No. This healing is found by those who enter this place of reality with humility and fear, reverence and care. Its source is a fearful and un-nameable place which we all would rather forget and push to one side but its reality is sure. We have buried this source with our humanistic, concrete-like concepts of progress and intellect. It is been stopped by force by us. Silently and subtly we have continued to block it up with small incremental steps and we did it all in the name of ‘liberty’ and happiness. Now all our constructs are rubble, the plug has been freed and the pure waters can be drunk from again.

Finally, I want to shout, in the silence, after the songs of lament, confession, sorrow and disgust there is a space to, together, open our eyes. In the cracks of the devastation where the water of healing, life and hope trickles fresh, new things are growing. We recognise them but have lost their names. None of us will dare move in case we trample on the young buds sprouting. The purer ones of us, the ones well versed in lamentation and self-surrender, they will move first and welcome the new arrivals on our landscape. They will smile and will speak first, naming them afresh and reminding us of their beauty and truth. We will hear it; some recalling quicker than others and we will finally share the story of reality.

At the moment this is not and never can be possible in the way we are progressing now. We are blind to the truth and we are doomed together.

Mark’s Gospel: The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God

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This lent, Acomb Parish Church and I have been exploring the gospel of Mark in our Sunday morning services and in our home group material. The sermon series has been entitled ‘Who Do You Say That I Am?’ taken from the important verse at the heart of this gospel (Mark 8:29). Each week we’ve been looking at different ‘faces’ of Jesus; Jesus the radical, the teacher, the miracle worker, the healer, the messiah, the prophet king and now we get to the final week, the final day: Easter Day.

I’ve been aware, as we traveled through Mark’s gospel, of some strange and confusing parts of Mark’s account of Jesus. In my role as author of the daily reflections that have been published on Twitter and Facebook I’ve needed to do lots of studying on the text and I’ve needed to wrestle with those moments when you need to stop and re-read what Mark has just suggested or said; The Syrophoenician woman, the ‘loaves’, the spitting, the fig tree and many more. There’s a lot that could be said about these and I’ve wanted, through our daily reflections, to invite and encourage us, as a church, to explore and investigate, to come to some conclusions for ourselves or rather feel comfortable to ask the questions and ‘go deeper’ (a theme we’ve adopted for the year). There has been one major theme that has stood out to me through the reading and exploring of Mark which I feel is very important for us, at this time:

Who does Jesus think He is?

One question that members of my church have been asking me through out the series has been, ‘Why does Jesus tell people to not talk about what they have seen or experienced?’

This, in scholarly circles, is called ‘the messianic secret’ but I feel this may not be exactly right…

If we look at the verses where Jesus explicitly commands people not tell anyone they seem to come after major revelations of who he is. Particularly important, I feel, is the times of exorcism when the impure spirit is wanting to tell people who Jesus is. Have a quick look at all the examples, Mark 1:34, 43, 2:12, 5:43, 7:36, 8:30, 9:9. After chapter 9 Jesus seems to stop telling people to be silent and Mark 9:9 is the transfiguration which is the beginning of the story towards Jerusalem and Jesus’ crucifixion.

This is important. In fact I think it is from Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem itself, on a day we celebrate as ‘Palm Sunday’, that things start to change.

Up until this point we’ve seen a very human Jesus. Yes, he’s able to do special things (healing, miracles, teaching with authority, exorcisms, etc.) but these were not unique. Around this time there were others who were great teachers, others who healed, others who performed ‘miracles’, others who were hailed as the messiah. These ‘faces’ that we’ve been seeing are special but they are not unique to Jesus; they merely tell us that he was a very special human being.

This is where what I’ve been understanding comes into focus. People in Britain are very happy for Jesus to be called a ‘special human being’; “he was a great teacher”, “a prophet” , “a ‘miracle worker’ what ever that means” and Peter, in Mark 8:29 calls Jesus the messiah and he is praised by Jesus as receiving a revelation from God but then, quick as a flash, Peter begins to define what he means by ‘messiah’ and it reverts back to the staple understanding; “the messiah is a human sent by God”… but it was too human for Jesus.

On Palm Sunday Jesus walks into Jerusalem and he is happy for people to hail him their king. Why? Well because Jesus is now focused on revealing who he is and all other titles can disappear. What the crowd meant when they hailed him king is very different from what Jesus is about the reveal himself to be. Even the ‘king’ term is human.

You see, Mark has been hinting at a face of Jesus which has kept eluding the disciples, the crowds and the Pharisees and has alluded us a church up until this week. We, in our sermons, have been talking about Peter’s answer to the question ‘Who do you say that I am?’ We, as Christians, feel like the answer to that question is ‘You are the messiah, the Christ.’ But what do we mean by that and how quickly do we fall back on Peter’s next sentence which is aggressively shut down by Jesus?

Holy week shows, slowly and precisely, Jesus stripping back all the faces and titles and handing over the human parts of who he is to reveal himself as something altogether unique.

Good Friday is the final step as Jesus finds the strength to withstand all the mental, emotional and physical strain that being crucified as an innocent man would put him under. He does this all silently and without the typical human response of, “it’s not fair.” “I’m innocent.” He allows it all to happen. How did he, a mere human being, stay focussed on his task? You see, not even crucifixion is unique; hundreds, if not thousands, of humans were crucified and many of them did so without shouting out their innocence (usually because they knew their guilt).

The Pharisees and Pilate want Jesus to be the radical but Jesus refuses to speak.

Pilate claims him a King and Jesus shuns the title.

On the cross Jesus’ radical teaching of destroying the temple, thrown back at him (Mark 15:29-30). Jesus’ miracles and healings, thrown back at him (Mark 15:30). His messiahship, his kingship, all thrown back at him (Mark 15:31). But as Jesus hangs on the cross a centurion (famously played by John Wayne), who has seen countless crucifixions and death says something which reminds us of the very first verse of Mark’s gospel and some words which have eluded us…

Surely this man was the Son of God!

On Easter Day, Resurrection Day, Jesus reveals himself as the Son of God. For it is only God who can raise people from the dead. This is what’s truly unique about Jesus; not that He was human but that he was divine! It is through this lens that the whole gospel changes from being just some stories about a human being trying to be good and do good things into God coming to earth and dying on a cross. What’s unique about Jesus isn’t what he did but who he was at his very core. God made man. Good Friday makes sense only if we understand Jesus as God. No human being could do what Jesus did on Good Friday; I don’t mean die, nor die a painful death but the very fact that it reveals that God is willing to die to enter into death to defeat it like He did in the resurrection.

No other message is worth celebrating. Jesus’ humanity is only important if it is tangled up in his divinity. Jesus is the Son of God… go now and re read the gospel telling yourself that at each moment.

Breaking the Silence?

After a break of about four months I thought I might re-start a discipline of blogging. I took a break for a number of reasons: I was writing and constructing a book which took up a lot of my head space. Once that was finalised I had to pick up all the thinking and processing I missed out on for creative worship events at college and then, after that, pick up on all the theological and academic head gymnastics involved in reading and writing for essays on a number subjects!

So here we are and what is it we have to talk about?

I guess this is an appropriate topic of conversation for me to consider after a period of digital silence; where does one begin breaking the silence with an expression?

In the digital space, if we can in fact talk of it as a ‘space’, silence as ‘nothingness’ is achievable, much more so than in the physical/ ‘real’ world. For those who know me only as the character behind the words on this site will believe me to have either ceased to exist or, at least, paused; frozen in time and this space we share. The truth is I never ceased to exist; I merely existed in a different form.

Silence in the physical world is often thought of, primarily, from speaking. If one speaks of another as ‘being silent’ they mean the other has stopped talking but, as many of us know, expression is only fractionally dependent on spoken words, there’s body language, facial expression, etc.. There’s also the strange phenomenon of the ‘not-saying’ saying much more; the sub text or the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’!

In the theatre world, particularly the physical theatre genre, there’s a theory, cited by Jacques LeCoq, which states all expression must begin from ‘silence’. This silence involves, as much as possible, both vocal silence and physical silence. The vocal silence is achievable but the physical is more complex. As physical beings we say something by just possessing space. If I stand before you I will communicate something, my existence, for a basic example.

How do we silence our physical expression?

LeCoq outlines a process of the ‘neutral mask’, establishing an homogenous physicality by acknowledging our individual idiosyncrasies and attempting to put them aside aqnd thus achieving a form of silence from self-expression (the expression of one’s self). The silencing of our physical expression,however, is, one must admit, impossible. LeCoq’s neutral mask, therefore, is achieving silence of self-expression and so true silence is a desire never to be achieved.

Here’s the rub; the theatre world has to conclude that we can never create ex nihilo (out of nothing). We are always reshaping what is already there. I have spoken before (see ‘An Idea! (part II)’ post) about the human being’s inability to ‘create’ in the same way as God created (bara in the Hebrew). Our expressions stem from the past for we are all caught in the continuum of space and time and we cannot transcend that.

So from the attempt of silence comes an understanding of, first, the present and then, naturally, the past; what has caused this moment to exist. We can dwell for eternity in the past but there is a spiritual discipline of forcing ourselves forward again into the present. The difficulty is we often push too hard and end up landing in the potential future (see ‘The Futre Doesn’t Exist/Everybody’s Free‘ post). The present is ‘tense’; a delicate balance between past and future. In this tension, creative energy begins but it is not creative in the sense of beginning something new but rather a shaping of what is already there.

What’s being hinted at here? I’m currently striving towards a theory which unites an emergent monist view of the human being with a belief in a ‘spiritual’ God or, if this is not possible, proposing, by discovering the lack of unity in these thoughts, a deeper understanding of an incarnated God.

I am not totally sold on an emergent monistic view which states that there is no ‘soul’ but rather a mind which has emerged from complex physical process of protons, neurons, etc.. The reason is because of its implications on our view of resurrection and of the ‘spiritual realm’. I am, however, uncomfortable with a dualistic view of the world because of it’s implications on our view of ourselves. My view is that dualism, naturally, leads one to view the self as, in some way, separate from the physical person and that the ‘true self’ is a static or distinct entity existing prior to the body and, therefore, not connected with the physical world. The incarnation leads me to consider the entanglement of self in with the physical and that God’s plan was never to create this world for us to visit only to return to ‘the homeland’ but to create a world for us to inhabit fully.

From the place of ‘attempted-silence’ an expression is made of past, present and potential future colliding. The vista opens up again and the unity of the cosmos is understood and questioned simultaneously. Let us dwell together in this place to contemplate and develop together.

(Read my digi-disciple posts on this topic, 28th of each month, and look forward to my contribution to Transpositions’ symposium on Art, Embodiment and the Digital)

Deadly Theatre Deadly Worship?

I’m aware I haven’t written about theatre for a long time so I want to unpick some thoughts I’m currently wrestling with as I continue the long process of writing the book ‘God of the Gods’.

My placement this year has been focused on being in a ‘creative’ community and seeing what one might look like. (You can follow the placement through the ‘Theatre Church’ stream by searching this site.) My reflections have concentrated on the capitalist mentality that flows through both the process of theatre and our understanding of Christian community. I have written extensively on this theory but thought I might share aspects of it as it relates to thoughts on theatre from the man himself, Peter Brook.

The act of creating a piece of theatre should be a journey of discovery for all involved. The current economic climate, however, forces the focus away from the search for discovery to a mechanical, predictable process aimed at achieving the highest income for the lowest cost.

A producer, who holds the finances, in order to increase that potential investment, funds a startup productions in the hope of building both a portfolio, artistic clout and financial capital to further that aim. In order to gain the most income they need to produce a sellable product, something popular and so they invite ‘creative’ directors and/or writers to invent a concept or write a script that will meet those criteria. These ‘creatives’ are therefore conditioned to develop concepts or write scripts to pitch to a producer who decides whether it will make a return on their investment. Theatre is, therefore, often driven by the marketability of the product rather than the necessity of the expression itself. The creative act is done by a solo agent and is completed before the pitch is made in order that a clear ‘vision’ is communicated to the financier. The process to construct the product must be planned carefully in order that it is the most successful (success being both how well it embodies the original concept and the amount of people who consume it.) Auditions are held to get the right people for the right job/role. Actors are tested and interviewed to see who has the right skills to undertake the role in the shortest period of time. Rehearsals are characteristically one sided. Directors ensure that the actors are doing what needs to be done to create the product as the director/writer see it. The actors ask for clarification and performing the role as prescribed and not participating in a journey of discovery; they’re cogs in a machine.

Peter Brook notes,

…a theatre where a play for economic reasons rehearses for no more than three weeks is crippled at the outset. Time is not the be-all and end-all; it is not impossible to get an astonishing result in three weeks…But this is rare… No experimenting can take place, and no real artistic risks are possible. (Peter Brook, The Empty Space)

‘Deadly Theatre’, as Brook calls it, is one that lacks life. This, he suggests, is not as easily discerned as you might expect. For something dead can be dressed up to look alive like the lifeless puppet manipulated to imitate life. Can our Churches experiment? Can they, what theatre practitioners call, ‘play’? Can they take real ‘artistic’ risk? I’d argue ‘no’. If every Sunday, or what ever day the community worships, is a ‘performance’ to lure in seekers then there is no space for risk. If something ‘fails’ then it will impact potential clients. If we can begin to call the seeker-friendly service a performance then our ‘rehearsal time’ is one week! Brook continues,

The artistic consequences are severe. Broadway is not a jungle, it is a machine into which a great many parts snugly interlock. Yet each of these parts is brutalized; it has been deformed to fit and function smoothly… In such conditions there is rarely the quiet and security in which anyone may dare expose himself. I mean the true un spectacular intimacy that long work and true confidence in other people brings about – in Broadway, a crude gesture of self-exposure is easy to come by, but this has nothing to do with the subtle, sensitive interrelation between people confidently working together. (Peter Brook, The Empty Space)

This kind of theatre is like a disease spreading through our culture. The big West-End musicals are all veneer with no substance of necessary expressions of human beings. Audiences are fooled into thinking that the more jolly, colorful and expensive the design the more ‘theatrical’ it is. No one questions this shallow performance style which has seeped into classic works such as Shakespeare making words that have so much potential life become boring. We have all become accustomed to it and so no longer crave the pure, life giving theatrical art.

In churches, regular congregations have become accustomed to the lifeless worship that is dressed up to imitate life. These imitations take on may forms depending on a particular tradition. The pentecostal inspired charismatic services need only to increase the volume and emphasize the rhythm to bring on their ‘spiritual’ highs. Watchman Nee says,

We have heard people say that…the moment they hear the sound of the organ and the voice of singing their spirits are immediately released to God’s presence. Indeed, such a thing does happen. But are they really being brought to the presence of God? Can people’s spirits be released and drawn closer to God by a little attraction such as this? Is this God’s way? (Watchman Nee, The Latent Power of the Soul)

What are we aiming for in community? In Christian community I’d suggest that we are aiming to share the fruit of the Spirit in the character of Christ to be reconciled to God and one another. In our worship, therefore, we need to be praying and living in the power of the Spirit. That Spirit will then go out from us to the others and unite us all together and bring us resurrection life; life that will not end. In theatre community I’d suggest the aim is similar. We are looking for a life that inspires each person to express themselves in a communal expression. Our self expressions can be affirmed as holding ‘truth’ by inspiring something within the whole community. Thus, that which is life to the individual participant is shared and encourages the other to experience life themselves. How do we discern whether a piece of theatre or an act of worship has ‘life-giving life’? Watchman Nee distinguishes between the life of the soul and the life-giving life of the Spirit,

“The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor 15:45)… The soul is alive. It has its life, therefore it enables man to do all sorts of things…The spirit, however, is able to give life to others and cause them to live… “It is the spirit,” says the Lord, ‘that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63) (Watchman Nee, The Latent Power of the Soul)

Here it is important to state, one can perform a piece of theatre with life but it stops at self expression if it does not hold life-giving life or that which brings life to the observer/ the rest of the community. We are not searching for self expression but self expression within communal expression.

Christian community should pay attention to Brook’s warnings to theatre. We must discern carefully whether our self expressions don’t stop at the self but give life to others. We must be careful that our worship is not resuscitating our dead bodies for a moment but rather giving resurrected life. We can achieve this, I’m beginning to believe, by ‘playing’ constantly, feeling comfortable with others to experiment and to reject crude self expressions and aim for the self expression within communal expression that marks life-giving life to all. Feeling comfortable with others can only be achieved if we create space for vulnerability and commitment to community as a verb and not as a noun.

Theatre Church (part X)

I sat in Sanctuary 21 tonight waiting for the time set for the big introduction to this ‘thing’ that has been playing through my mind since Christmas to arrive. As the time ticked by and it got closer to the start, the big cloud of doubt floated into the space and hovered over me. “What if no one comes?” “What am I doing?” Throughout this all I remained optimistic “People said they’d come.” “This is clearly a need in this theatre community.” “People are excited about it.” The event was scheduled to begin at 6.45pm. Fifteen minutes after this time one person walked through the door.

Ministry training does not prepare you for this. One person! There are two responses to this fact; one, be positive or two, be disappointed. If you’re positive there’s plenty of Scripture that talks about persecution, the hard walk of faithful discipleship but then again, there’s of equal balance Scripture telling of God’s blessing to those who are faithful. I have spoken in the past about how to face disappointment and justifying reality til the metaphorical cows come home. This is not a time, while it is still raw and fresh, to justify what God is doing (or not doing). But I think it’s important to talk about failure.

In our church we hear success stories all the time, it’s not good for publicity or authority if we fail. Despite our deep understanding that for every good idea there are an average of 8 not so good ones. We push, as leaders and visionaries, our connection with God’s vision and God’s plans. In order to have the authority to lead a community one needs to have the discernment of God’s will and dream dreams and see visions. The truth is, we are not immune from spiritual confusion. But if I am to model authenticity then I need to tell the stories of failures or misguided vision as well as success and ‘wins’.

To be a pioneer is to take risks; to see an opportunity and to resolutely pursue it. I have taken a risk and it hasn’t worked so what is the response?

Return to the original, basic call.

What was it that God put on my heart that drove me to pursue this opportunity? My passion to connect with those involved in the theatre community, to offer them an opportunity to explore who they are and discover their creative voice; to give them a place where they can truly express who they are based on a knowledge of themselves.

Has that call changed? Is that not what is being asked of me now? No. That call is still there. What, therefore, is the next step? To continue and persevere with this idea or to change tact? Two interesting reflections; one, if I think back to my time in Byker (see ‘Death and Resurrection’ post) I am reminded of the power of continued presence in the face of so much temporary incarnations (quangos, consultants,etc) The second reflection is one that I want to explore in more detail and extends my reflections on the Cathedral Event that I’m apart of (see ‘Theatre Church (part VIII b)’ post).

In both the church and the theatre world the majority of thinkers and commentators would agree that to be product focussed stunts the exploration and deep reflection on culture and social movements. Both parties would bemoan the emphasis on being activity driven rather than the existence as good in and of itself. In the theatre, as the funding is cut, companies don’t have the luxury to explore, to research and develop ideas. There is no space, time or finances to allow the artists to explore, discover new things. Peter Brook suggests this replication, churning out products that are safe and driven by success, is ‘deadly’ and most people would agree. In the church, as we discover that creating a weekly event/service is sucking all our time and resources and distracts us from being community together, we speak about the ideal of being process, relationship based. The truth is, however, that processes, relationships, explorations cannot be measured. It is part of our capitalists’ mindset that if it has no profit, measurable success then it is worthless.

Success is measured on product shown, assets, ‘what have you got to show for this?’ The worth of something must be measured. Fresh Expressions are trying to counter this thinking but we can’t fight free from it. My latest experience would be measured as failure. If someone had invested in it then I would have failed and now would be the time to lessen the losses and salvage something from it. I want to shout from the rooftops “This is worth it! I have risked something, stuck my neck out and now I know what would happen!” To butcher a quote from Ernest Hemingway,

‘Only those who are prepared to go too far can possibly know how far they can go.’

I want to stay true to my call to process. To resolutely pursue this call to process, relationship and swim against the current of the capitalism that is a part of both church and theatre. I want to own my disappointment, yes, but to continue to explore the call put upon me. But how do you incarnate the importance of process in a world of product?

Well, like the Cathedral event, work with the current in order to subvert it. Sell a product in order to achieve a process and get people to explore and discover the benefits of the process. It’s a paradox that we exiles need to live in. In order to be counter cultural we need to be in the culture. To show the alternative we need to shine a light on the weakness of the option. Daniel, when in Babylon, lived the good Babylonian life and it was within this that he showed of the alternative way of life or the Pauline model, to become a Jew for the Jews, a
Gentile for the Gentiles all in order to show them the way of Jesus.

Connected with this is some thoughts on Fresh Expressions which were sparked by a fascinating conversation with Paul Burbridge from Riding Lights Theatre Company I had last weekend. He suggested the reason a theatre company cannot be church is down to the need for it to be inclusive of all people. If you limit the membership to those that understand theatre then it cannot be broad and inclusive. This is a very fair point. What makes a ‘theatre church’ church? Inclusion of those from all walks of life. Fresh Expressions need to embrace this inclusivity and not be limited to ‘skater church’, ‘curry church’, etc. Community must be defined by that which unites people in a group. These ‘expressions’ (skater, theatre, curry, etc.) gather people round something that makes them distinct but in order for them to mature into full expressions of church there needs to be deconstruction of that which excludes others.

It’s a paradox that one must define and sell the product in order to show that it’s not about the product; to show people that it’s the process of belonging that is more important than the product that you belong to.

Death and Resurrection

I decided to train at Durham, not because of the beautiful and inspiring cathedral nor the excellent theological and academic study programme but because I wanted to go into a rough, working class setting and show myself how much of a spoilt middle class boy that I am; hence why I find myself nearing the end of my time in Byker, one of the most deprived areas of the country. I chose Byker as my Mission Study Block because of the reasons above. I knew nothing of the place itself except of the famous TV programme that spawned Ant and Dec.

As my colleagues and I walk around the estate and hear stories of community breakdown and regeneration project after regeneration project I am struck by how comfortable I feel here. Admittedly we are walking around during the day in the glorious sunshine but I’ve met some members of the residents here and they all seem nice enough. I would like to visit at night and walk the streets to see how the place changes but at the moment I don’t hear horror stories of rough neighbourhoods, I hear stories of isolated, disillusioned and disposed individuals trying to escape the situation they find themselves. Byker is a place where you get dumped; either as an asylum seeker or as one of the people who are not needed by society anymore.

The history of this estate is long and complicated but here’s my basic understanding of it:

It grew in the industrial revolution as the centre of the glass industry. All the accommodation was built to house the workers of the factories and the subsequent industry that filled Tyneside. Byker became a place where families grew up living together, everyone knowing everyone else; a real working class community. As time went on and industry came and went the housing began to look and feel dated and so it was decided that a revamp was in order. People moved out of their houses and the place was knocked down and the terrace houses were replaced. It was done in stages and people were moved and removed and, by the end of the last set of building works, the community was, as you can imagine, dispersed. Some returned but many couldn’t afford the new housing or didn’t want to uproot again. The housing became home to the only people who could afford them; those on benefits. The community was subject to many concepts and consultations from council and committees. Plans were thrown at these people but funding and planning permission all slipped through. What is left now is an area where no one has any hope, probably because they’ve had them broken so many times, where no one knows if they belong here because it’s not clear what ‘here’ is.

As the six students from Cranmer walk and talk lots of things are coming through and it wouldn’t be right for me to try and voice them all at once (I wouldn’t know how to sew them all together anyhow!) But one thing for me seems clear…

This is a place that needs a new story and I think we can find it in an old one. The story speaks of death and resurrection.

Parallel to my time in Byker I have continued to read ‘Organic community’ by Josef Myers. At almost every meeting and conversation I’m reminded of Myers thoughts on how communities are built and sustained and I’m struck by how much Byker has been failed by those who believed they were creating community. The councillors came into Byker with grand plans and ideas of how Byker should exist in post-industrial age. What’s the problem with that?

Some quotes from ‘Organic Community’ may help,

‘people are not primarily looking to co operate with our plan for their lives.’

‘Organic community is not a product, not an end result. Organic community – belonging – is a process… it is not the product of community that we are looking for. It is the process of belonging that we long for.’

We love to fix things, don’t we? Why? I suggest we are all scared of failure. We idolise success, we are told, again and again, that we need to reach excellence, personal bests and achievements. If you don’t attain what you set out to do then you are weak and dependant on those who have. Our society is structured so that those who succeed give support to those who haven’t ‘made it’.

The situation in Byker is so complicated I can’t go into it all now but the impression I get is that the rebuilding and all the subsequent regeneration projects that have taken place have been master plans of fixing the ‘issues’ of Byker. Good willed people trying to bring life to this community by papering over cracks and thrusting false hope into a community hungry for some light.

‘Dying to live’

This is the phrase that’s been buzzing round my head as I reflect on the situation in Byker. What follows is only an impression and my reflections. To believe that i have the answer is foolish and naive but I have been hearing and seeing some profound things and I’d like to share them in the hope that they may be of some help.

The church of St Michael’s is a group of people who have moved from their building to a shop front and they don’t know whether they’ll ever return to the empty shell on the hill and if they do what happens to the shop front? How can they invest in a space they don’t know if they’re keeping? The church of St Anthony’s is a group of people who find themselves in a ‘fortress’, fenced in and separate from an evolving resident community not willing to let go of relatively superficial factors. What are they holding on to and why? These are communities that need to embrace death, knowing trusting in God who has conquered death!

This imagery of death and resurrection is everywhere.

The church of St Martin’s has experienced a death of their building; it has been taken down, every brick, and replaced by a community centre which doubles up as a worship space. A wonderful concept but this has come with some great heart ache. This community experienced a death of an old way of identifying themselves. They are now in a new stage. I feel like God is leading them through death into resurrection hope.

St Michael’s are in an Easter Saturday moment. All around them is uncertainty and ‘death’; death of a building, of their identity, of cohesion. The last thing they need is human beings giving them a metaphorical plaster to ‘make it better’. They need God’s power to bring about resurrection. They need to be reminded that in God we have hope and it is only in trusting in Him that His power is made perfect in weakness.

The Byker community, at large, needs to hear this story as well. That, in Christ, death is a victory, that it is only Christ who can turn failure into hope. Unfortunately, as I look around Byker, I see death and then human beings trying to imitate resurrection. John Sadler, vicar at St Michael’s, suggested that ‘regeneration’ is like ‘resurrection’ and I would agree with him. The impression I get, however, is that this ‘resurrection’ plan is more the work of man than of God. Yes, God will use it but I don’t feel the power that brought Christ back from the dead is at work in some for the regeneration work that is going on. At St Martin’s there is a tangible hope in and around the ‘St Martin’s Centre’ and I put it down to the faith of their new Centre manager and the relationship she has with the vicar. This partnership, a long with the congregation there, are actively seeking God’s power to bring resurrection to this community. At Kid’s Kabin, in Walker, Catholic nuns pray and discern God’s will seeking to follow where He leads them, knowing that it is only this way that will bring new life. I have seen in other areas well meaning people try and create new life without God. Yes they have some success but there lacks any meaningful hope. What they produce is resuscitation not resurrection… temporary not eternal.

What is it Byker needs? Real Hope. How will they find this? I believe in modelling the gospel message of resurrection. “Show us Christ risen again!” We show them through real new life like the one modelled in Kids Kabin and proclaim God’s marvellous works. We show them community centres like St Martin’s when God has brought about real powerful resurrection in community.

Byker needs to be helped to embrace death, in its many forms, and be shown hope of resurrection. The Church in Byker needs to be reminded of resurrection hope, the heart of our faith. They need to be encouraged to remember what we have to offer that no one else does, eternal life in resurrection hope.

This isn’t the most clear and concise explanation but I hope you can hear my excitement for this area. I know God has the power to breathe life into Byker. I have seen His power working but I also can feel darkness trying to get in.

I pray for the Christian community in Byker for the courage to stand up and proclaim from the rooftops and in every alley way of the estate,

“Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!”

A Brief Explanation (part IV)

On placement in Byker, Newcastle at the moment and having lots of questions buzzing around my head about ministry in Urban contexts but not yet got clear reflections on what’s happening and or need of input from others…yet!

Some topics of particular interest: Death and Resurrection of communities, how we as Christians can model death as a path to resurrection hope, the similarities of pastoral questions of ‘when do you change from praying for healing and life to guiding someone to death?’ to community leadership.

Watch this space