Returning to an image I have used in a previous blog of feeling as though I am learning 'to walk' again emotionally, I have been struck how in the last few days my thirst for knowledge, and to engage my brain has 'switched on' again. I feel like a neurological sponge soaking up everything I can get my hands on. I have indulged in reading The Independent on Sunday pretty much cover to cover - although I skipped the sports pages - my medication isn't that good.
I am urgently wanting to catch-up and tune in with the world I have largely ignored or misplaced in recent months. The energy is there once more to read, evaluate and hold information. I am able to concentrate for reasonable periods too - a couple of hours at a stretch.
The temptation has been to read uncritically in an attempt to satisfy a brain which is waking up and hungry for information. Instead I have tried to savour rather than gorge; examine rather than empathise.
The media have been full of analysis of Archbishop Rowan's comments on muslim law. Those not baying for his resignation seem to have suddenly become terribly conformist in their understanding of the English Legal System.
When I first read his edited comments, my first thought was "Poor man, this is a classic out-of-context commotion." On reflection I wonder if Archbishop Rowan is choosing to play an uncharacteristically political game on the advice of colleagues. As things are going, British politics, reflecting society in general, is moving towards an increasingly secular model to interpret it's core values and beliefs. By raising issues in an apparently open-handed way about the rights of an ally in maintaining a society based on religious values, could the Archbishop be testing the credibility of what might be perceived as a much less controversial concept later down the line, of maintaining a Christian value system as paramount to the root identity of this country's culture and self-understanding? In a sense his comments have asked us to think deeply about who we are and how we wish to be understood by others including those who have chosen to make the UK their home.
Our responses have been varied and perhaps, not unexpectedly largely defensive of the status quo. Muslims, paticularly those in the media and politics are anxious to stress their liberated existence in terms of westernised understandings of freedom. Christians are either apologising for their awfully bright Archbishop - how patronising is that? Or denouncing his views and calling for his resignation. As so often happens when someone with authority rather than power speaks out, he causes knee jerk reactions and the shoring up of exisiting power-bases. Only time will tell whether religious groups alongside political and faith leaders can stand back and look at the essentially commonsense question the Archbishop is inviting us all to address - Are there ways which can be enshrined respectfully in our legal system of showing, as a society, how much we actually honour the diversity which characterises 21st century British culture? And, would this enhance a sense of trust, social cohesion, respect and even a reduction in fundamentalist views if this occured?
All that some of my brothers and sisters in Christ can think about right now is how to humiliate our Archbishop further at Synod. Shame on all of us.
I didn't go consciously into my desert meditation today - but enjoyed all the articles and information I gathered from the paper. How tempting it has been to want to get back involbed in all this. It is my world and my responsibility too. I have sat tight and practised standing back. Reading made me sad - aware of how at odds I felt from the pages on fashion and the lists of all the things I need to buy or do to have a perfect Valentine's Day. I felt ancient and very dull, when did I turn into a grumpy old woman advocating simplicity and seeing nothing in the emptiness of spending money (except on fluffies - living and not the must have fashion accessories I am supposed to buy for them). Then I read the quotations in British Unintelligence in The Independent on Sunday:
Q: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which jungle-swinging character clad only in a loincloth, did he play?
A: Jesus.
I have so much catching up to do - it's unreal!
Thought:
In a world where facts are woven into Chinese whispers to create their own mythologies and symbolism; what place does simplicity have? What place has the prophet who dares to name and challenge?
What place for the person who can answer the question on The Weakest Link "What was Gandhi's first name?" with "Goosey, Goosey."
"You are the weakest link, Archbishop, Goodbye" is far too easy.
"You are leading us to face our shared reality in community, Archbishop, is much harder - but fits the facts a tad better.
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