Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

FEAR is a four letter word

6th March 2007

One of those days today when I just don't seem to have got done a quarter of what I set out to do.  I should be at the Gifford lecture in Aberdeen, but I am stuck in Inverness.  Entirely my own fault, I ran out of energy - and decided to cut my losses and not trog over to hear Stephen Pattison speak.

My fault I ran out of energy?  Actually that's not quite true.  I've had loads on in the last couple of weeks - and today it caught up with me before I had a chance to catch up with it and sooth my inner fevered brow, as it were.  I simply ran out of steam at 16:00 or thereabouts and coasted into the siding of a dog covered bed and Radio 4  burbling in the background.  I woke up an hour or so later.  Dogs barking.  Food!

I like Stephen Pattison as a Practical Theologian.  I find him interesting and his approaches often challenging.  I was personally very engaged by his book - Shame.  I am sad I haven't had the space to connect.

I hate it when this happens - I feel I am less than I want to be.  I have to stop myself rubbing salt into the wound made by my beating up of my psyche.  I think it must be wonderful to be the sort of person who isn't haunted by their mistakes!  I long to be able, sometimes, to turn off my reflective self - and yet I know if I ever did - I would feel as though I was incomplete.   

I am blogging tonight as a means of regaining perspective.  True, I haven't achieved some of the key things I wanted to do - popping in to clergy chapter at the Cathedral and going to the Gifford lecture - but I have done other things which in their own way were of considerable significance.  I claimed the space I needed which just now feels right and good.

Humph.  No it does ... really.  Put the emotional beating up tools down and walk away from your psyche - Jane.

My feelings of dissatisfaction with myself are useful.  They sometimes need to be shut down when they become self-indulgent or counter-productive, but in this case they have been valuable.  I am grappling at the moment with the part that fear plays in my life; in everyone's lives. 

It has come up for me personally in the decision-making around what to do for the best in supporting our son.  It has come up professionally in my academic research as I explore the part fear plays in our religious choices and projections.  It is coming up vocationally and relationally.

I remember many years ago conducting the funeral of a young biker in Ipswich.  Sadly I hadn't known the person before his death in a road traffic accident, but I did get to know his parents pretty well in the weeks and months that followed the service.  The young man was laid to rest in his favourite t-shirt.  On the front it read "FEAR is a four letter word".

I slept this afternoon - out for the count - and when I woke up - the thought in my mind; the address I gave at his funeral was that LIFE is a four letter word too.

There's a lot flying around just now and the fearful side of my nature is inclined to grab at the gossamer-like anxious thoughts as they waft past and try to do the intellectual and emotional equivalent of containing them.  As easy as collecting feathers during a pillow fight!   My mature self remembers and rehearses how little I need to control in reality  - especially those things beyond my personal influence.

Our appointment with our son's psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse this morning is a case in point.  We were given a professional and timely reminder that some things we cannot influence or control.  Our son's schooling may, at some levels, be one of these things.  Others have to assess what can and cannot happen for him - just as I - in other contexts have to exercise professional expertise and insight when I assess and make recommendations.  It was painful to hear.  The urge to protect a vulnerable pre-teen from further pain and anxiety is powerful.  The urge to protect ourselves too - is a fundamental and real motivator.

But control is only useful when it brings about life-enhancing decisions.  In the case of my son's schooling the most life-enhancing choice is to explore possibilities that are presented with open hands, hearts and heads switched to information gathering rather than analytical overload!

The same is true in matters of spirituality.  Fear is a basic human response, but if it is our only response - or it dominates and feeds worry or anxiety - it is of little creative use. 

Fear is often well disguised in religious terms.  Some people will talk about a view of God; their theological insights and their prayer life as in some way proper because it follows accepted approaches and draws on well-honed traditions.  Others will argue that authentic responses are only ever achieved when we face our fears and abandon the areas that feel safe in our lives.

Over the years I have embraced both approaches and recognise that as with most things, reality, at least for me, is somewhere in between.  If a practice is undertaken because we are frightened of the consequences if we don't do it, then maybe there is a need for further reflection to understand what is driving us to choose what we are doing and our reasons for refusing to explore or encounter alternatives.  If something is done simply because we are feaful of the alternative and comfortable in our own well-structured world, then, again, I would guess it could be - and has been for me - very valuable to explore whether the sky really does fall in when I try something different!  So far it hasn't - at least only occasionally - and the angels eventually pin it up again!!!

Where fear is useful is as a barometer for our inner well-being.  The person who is rigid and can do no other than to assert the rightness of their approach and ignore or ridicule another as a consequence is a fear-driven person.  I catch myself as that person when I start to imagine the darker consequences of not meeting the needs of my son.  Or imagine that I have a monopoly on insightfulness. 

A person who is caught, like a rabbit in the headlights, when aspects of their world are hostile or challenging is being seduced into thinking fear is reasonable and acceptable.  I can be that person when I have to make a big decision for myself - or let myself off the hook.  I find it much easier to be generous towards others than towards myself. 

When fear stops a person taking other perspectives and value-systems seriously - and teases a person into denying the truth - fear is gaining the upper hand.  I have been that person when I have met people who I feel are bullies or who I believe are denying the dignity of others.  I have allowed my projection on to them become the whole truth about them. 

Fear which makes a person pause, reflect and be-friend the hurt, pain or anxiety - is a healing and life-giving prompt to be welcomed and delighted in.

I have a card by my desk which I read as I start each new manuscript or major project.

"What would you attenpt to do if you knew you could not fail?"

I would live creatively with fear - embracing her and welcoming her promptings as if she were my best friend in the world.

As Helen Keller wrote:

"Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing at all."

Passionate Vocations and Pebbles

5th March 2007

Another weekend teaching on the residential component of the training course for those preparing for authorised Christian ministry.  The monastery were wonderfully welcoming despite being cocooned in scaffolding and busy with many guests.  Good soup, humour, gentle interest and practical concern made me feel welcomed, wanted and an appreciated visitor.  I took a copy of our Spirituality Module for the Guestmaster who had requested it after looking through it at our last residential.  Encouraging to think that despite our differences, Roman Catholics can be interested in Anglican approaches to spirituality - and vice-versa.  I wish we could have met and talked with the Roman Catholic Deacons in residence for their own course - past experience tells me we would have had much in common. 

These times, when we gather in community as a learning group, are periods of palpable spiritual and emotional growth for us all as we exchange our stories, challenge one another's current thinking, and embrace emotional and intellectual growth.

The business of preparing candidates for life-long ministry in the service of the Church is a very inexact science.  Although facts must be accrued and good practice assimilated, ultimately it is an alchemeic process.  A blending in intense conditions; connecting, honing, questioning, reflecting and being held accountable by others.

This weekend has been no exception.  We explored and meditated within a mini Lent.  We used pebbles gathered from the shore to become transitional objects onto which we placed our burden - the worries or anxieties we were ready to give up to God.  As the weekend progressed, we laid our pebble in a basket and we were invited to take a highly polished, smaller stone away with us, to home.  A symbol of future hope; of transformation; a physical manifestation of a prayerful desire that the burden we had off-loaded on to the pebble will be resolved by God, and that we will be moved along on our own individual pilgrimages.

I had the very great honour of returning the burden-filled pebbles to the sea.  As I carried them down to the shore this morning they felt like the sacred remains of the thoughts and prayers of our shared weekend.  It was a profound and moving moment when, as the high tide approached, I stood at the water's edge and threw each stone, in turn, into the sea.

These stones carry the secrets of your servants' hearts.  We return them to the elements that have held and honed them in the certain hope that you are present in our hearts and minds encouraging us to choose, always, the path of Life.  Amen.

I was caught by the symbolism.  A bright, glorious day.  The scent of Spring in the air, surely a good few weeks too early for its own good, but clear and true never the less.  New life in the air resonating with what we trust we will feel in our hearts.  The hope of all that is to come.

I had much to be thankful for this weekend, so found that, unusually for me, as one of life's talented worriers, I did not have a specific burden to give to my God or invest in my pebble.  This is as much a compliment to those who organised the worship as anything else.  Considerable care was taken that as a visually-impaired tutor, I would have everything I needed to participate and feel comfortable.  I was in celebratory mode as a consequence - it is not often I am so freed to worship.  I often have a sense, as many disabled people do, of being a part of someone else's burden - as they care for me.  Thank you, worship creators, for so gently and quietly making sure I was facilitated and included.  I travelled light - in the literal and metaphorical pebble department all weekend as a consequence.

Saadi says:

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer.

Or, my personal favourite as a stubborn beastie of significant proportions who believes in the power of encouragement:

By a sweet tongue and kindness, you can drag an elephant with a hair.

Manuscripts, decorating and life changing decisions

26th February 2007

Massive decisions hang in the air today.  We are so very worried about our son and his school.  Do we go and pick him up?  Do we watch and wait?  Last night's powerful drama (BBC 1 Recovery) starring David Tennant was a timely reminder of the implications of brain abnormality - and how easy it is to misunderstand or even demonise the person who has different mental processes.  We are deciding, but we haven't made a final decision yet.  We agree about what we don't want to happen.  We just can't yet see how to work things through fully.  Whatever.  The decision will be emotionally costly for us all.  My husband will talk to the professionals and see if between them they can reframe; discover some way through our son's difficulties; some way forward that we can have confidence in.

I have had some brilliant news from one of the publishers I sent a manuscript to a while back.  It was a sample section from a novel I have begun to work up.  The publisher was incredibly encouraging.  She was positive, even if she can't publish.  I am following up her leads - and suddenly feel hopeful about one day realising the dream of seeing a full length creative piece published.

We have been doing some of the practical preparations for a busier time later in the Spring when The Sanctuary will become more actively used.  I have been painting the cloakroom.  I am not brilliant at DIY - but I find painting and decorating quite relaxing.  My mind seems to calm and find a more relaxed rhythm when there's a wall to cover.  I love seeing a room transform - even if it is the loo (now changed from a very pale blue to burgundy).  The next job will be to take out the Utility Room units and redecorate this space.  This will tidy up an area which tends to suffer quite a lot of 'abuse' with a house full of dogs, mud and recently a leak!  I haven't tiled for years - so my next test will be to see if I can tile without resorting to some language unbecoming a Clerk in Holy Orders.

I am reading for the spirituality and children with psychiatric difficulties manuscript I am working on at present.  I'm ploughing my way through a heavy tome about Promoting Emotional Well-being.  It raises some fascinating issues about how health and social work professionals prevent mental ill health.

For fun, I am learning new songs for Lent.  Old songs - but new to me - from The Courage to Say No - created by John Bell and Graham Maule from the Iona Community.  I love them.  They speak to the realities of our life at the moment - certainly.

Dreams, Discernment, Belonging and "Bruce Almighty"

23rd February 2007

I had a recurring dream last night. 

The first memory is a smell.  I don't often smell in dreams, I don't think, but I am sure I did in this one.  It's the smell of Tooting Market in South London, as I remember it as a child in the early 1970's.  Rotting vegetables, Asian and Carribean spices, and the pungent, chemical smell of the shoe mender.  In the dream it felt as though I was in very familiar territory and I was pleased to be back.  I enjoyed looking at various stalls.  I can remember one with batik and brass tea light holders.  Another loaded with cheap jewellery - which had existed in reality.  There were lots of tassles.  (Freud would have a field day.)

As I walk round the market I'm aware that some stalls have moved from their usual, familiar places.  This is fine.  I am quite pleased they are still there though.  Don't know why. I think I would have been sad if they had gone.  Then I start to look for something.

The picture changes.  I set off purposefully and suddenly new routes open up.  The first new row of stalls I find quite exciting.  I didn't know that was there, how brilliant feeling.  Gradually, no matter which way I turn, I feel I am in unfamiliar territory.  None of it in this version of the dream is threatening - just a little disconcerting.  I wasn't expecting to find so many new twists and turns.  I woke up too soon.  I was intrigued, I wanted to know what was round the corner.

My husband wonders if it isn't about what's going on inside me - but more about my thoughts concerning external things.  I recognise, just as I did in the dream, the familiar things - how to start off - but not the out-working of where I go with what is available to me.  At the moment there is no clear line or ultimate finish. 

This is a fascinating interpretation and makes sense to me.  At various times in our lives we need to discern our next step in life.  Discernment is a toughie.  When is it just a question of my ego/will wanting something - and wilfully seeking it - and when is it a process of discerning the will of God/our deeper soul-centredness; the part which best reflects our divine spark - made in God's image?

Within myself I listen hard to the rhythms of my inner dialoguing but I have also learnt over the years with some gifted spiritual directors - and life experience - that I must also listen to the message behind the words and images; listen to silence, when words and pictures, colours, memories, feelings - cease.

Discernment for me is partly about energy.  If an aspiration saps my energy or appears to wear me down, then I question why I am forcing myself on.  Is it a question of how I am approaching the task?  Am I setting my self-expectation too high and constantly beating myself up when I don't achieve my own exacting (impossible?) standards?  When energy loss is derived from within me and the way I re-run my own inner scripts about myself and how I imagine (often wholly inaccurately) how others see me, then it is time to re-frame not only the task - but my self-sabotaging techniques.  The energy loss is not caused by the inappropriateness of the occupation but the methods I am utilising when I approach it.  Often, once I leave out the inner dialogue (that sounds like a particularly over-bearing school mistress) from my head - I suddenly find I not only have an energy surge (not another name in this case for a hot flush) but also a clearer vision of how I want to go on.

There's a different kind of energy loss which is caused because the choice is inappropriate - and is, in essence, life-sapping.  Matthew Fox, a contemporary writer in Creation Spirituality, talks a great deal about making life choices which are essentially life-enhancing.  The opposite is something which is death-promoting - which encourages me, at the deepest levels to be insensitive, shut down, uncaring, manipulative and destructive. 

As I've got older I have learnt to identify some of what psychotherapists would describe as my drivers - the prompts deep in my psyche - learnt in my earliest years from carers and family.  These are very different for each of us.  One of drivers, having been born a thalidomide baby, growing up and being normalised in mainstream education, has been a deep-seated desire to belong.  Many people share a similar need.  When I make a choice which encourages a sense of belonging, promoting self-regard and acceptance, I know I am making a choice which will bring me life.  If I love myself - I can give love and life to others - but not always quite so open-handedly when this self acceptance is not in place.  Equally, if I choose paths which result in a sense of alienation or marginalisation - I am feeding an image of myself first planted in my head probably by the playground taunts of the bullies at infants school.  Of course, as an adult I can over-ride the impact of the connections that not-belonging has left on the child Jane, but I can only do this at a conscious level; the resonance remains - although thankfully less powerfully present in my adult self than in my child or teenage form.

Discernment, if it is about energy, is also about the divine interplay with God.

I don't have a strongly interventionist view of the Creator as my personal care assistant einsuring I make it across the road (actually, that would put Rainbow, my guide dog, out of a job).  I do see the process of claiming insight into the Divine Purpose as lying in the space where words cease and my mind is less cluttered.

I watched the movie Bruce Almighty with my 12 year old the other evening - a film he recommended.  The story concerns a man who becomes so self-pitying that he challenges God to engage with him - directly.  God hands his (in this case it is a he - but he was black and a very gentle, humorous sort of a god) power over to Bruce.  Just like all good Miracle Plays, Parables and Myths - Bruce spends quite a lot of the movie abusing his new powers to achieve his own rather dubious ends.

Bruce eventually returns to God in desperation when he decides, because he is in overload, to simply say yes to all the prayers everyone asks him to answer.  The consequences are disastrous and Bruce is taken by God to see some of the outcomes.  God admits, and I paraphrase, Now you understand about Free Will.  I have to deal with this all the time.

I don't believe in a God (and I collected this quote years ago and keep it in my commonplace book - but can't now attribute it) who is my personal superhero:

"There is something exquisitely luxurious about room service in a hotel.  All you have to do is pick up a telephone and somebody is ready and waiting to bring you breakfast, lunch, dinner ... whatever your heart desires ... That's the concept that some of us have of prayer.  We have created God in the image of the divine bellhop.  Prayer for us is the ultimate room service, wrought by direct dialing.  Furthermore no tipping, and everything is charged to the great credit card in the sky..."

I believe in a God who speaks through my deepest heart's desires and through the wisdom and insights of others.  I hold on fiercely to the belief that God's incarnation was that God is with us - not God is with me.  So, for me, an important part of discernment is to quieten the voices in my head who insist they all know best; to address my fears and deepest longings, and then - because only then can I honestly say I am being truly open-handed and attentive - to listen to the insights, perceptions, wisdom and hopes of those who share the pilgrimage of faith and life,

Watching our son struggle

22nd February 2007

One of our brood has special needs.  He is at residential school.  He hates it.  During all the years we have delighted in him and been challenged by him, I have never felt quite so helpless as I do now. 

He struggles to understand other people; to make emotional connections and empathise.  It is hard when we sense his desolation and confusion.  But we know that no matter how much we long to keep him safe and make things better for him, part of his current process is important, valuable and will, please God, help him engage, somehow, with the wider world and a greater variety of people - even if he also learns some very hard lessons about how harsh and cruel some children can be. 

It is a complex agenda when we offer love and care.  I sometimes find it hard, just as I do right now, to separate my own discomfort from my son's anxiety and an objective look at his current and future needs.

He feels he is being bullied and brutalised at his present school.  He feels isolated and counter to the prevailing say it with your fists rather than with words culture.  My husband and I are very clear that this cannot and will not continue.  Something will have to give before he surrenders and gives up on himself.

But I worry that it is our discomfort rather than his on-going anxiety which is the dominant feeling. It is incredibly hard to watch another suffer and not be able to step in and, at the very least, transform the dynamic.

We are trying to give this placement time (but we both feel this is fast running out).  We rehearse a belief that the processes of the school must be OK - it's a school for heaven's sake - it should meet standards, shouldn't it?  We are trying to understand their procedures; and hardest of all, trust their judgement in the day to day matters of his life. 

Everything in my head is screaming that we should be at the school - and scooping him up to whisk him home.  Keep him safe.  If we are not nurtured and valued for who we are we are significantly less than we could be.

We are worried that more damage will be caused than good achieved, but we are trying to trust the judgement of all the varied professionals involved.  In a sense we are experiencing a child-like helplessness. 

We know our son needs specialised educational provision - and we know such provision does not exist locally to where we live - but this is education in the school of hard knocks - literally.  We should be able to do so much better for the most vulnerable young in our society, surely?

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

When the dust has settled,

What will there be to remember?

That I worried too much?

Laughed far too little?

Procrastinated with fear?

Clung to shame when forgiveness was given.

From dust I came.

When the dust has settled,

The mark of the cross on the forehead of my life;

I long to be recalled

For dancing as the sun goes down,

sharing the time of day with roses in full bloom.

Living life in the moment for the shear love

Of all that is shared, given and Divined.

To dust I shall return.

Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday

Pancakes!

There is a God.

Red Stole Arrives!

The most wonderful gift arrived today.  A red stole for St. Columba's Chapel - here at Alturlie.  It has the most beautiful celtic crosses.

It is a symbol of Ordination.

Palm Sunday will soon be upon us and I will delight in wearing it.

Jubilate Deo - and thank you to the giver.

The words of Dinah Maria Mullock Craik:

Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort - of feeling safe with a person,

Having neither to weigh thoughts

Nor measure words -

but pour them all out - just as they are,

chaff and grain together - certain that the faithful hand

Will take and shift them -

keep what is worth keeping -

and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

Homosexuality - The Bishops Discuss

15^th February 2007

Homosexuality – Trying to understand – O Lord help my unbelief

Rowan Williams has the unenviable task of attempting some kind of shuttle diplomacy between the fractured groupings of Bishops who have gathered in Tanzania.  With his colleagues, he will discern what the consequences will be for a Province who has chosen to consecrate an openly practising homosexual priest as one of their Bishops.  Some say this meeting will be seen in the future as significant in similar ways to the Council of Nicea in 325.  A moment where one view triumphs and another becomes firmly unorthodox and wholly unacceptable to the Church.  This would be a retrogressive step if ever there was one in my view – but then I believe in compromise. 

For much of secular society homosexuality is seen as a non-issue – a matter of personal preference and little more.  Many must wonder what all the fuss is about. 

The Church, particularly the Anglican Church, has always taken a different view. 

There have been a vast array of opinions throughout the many Provinces.  But a common mind has never been achieved.  Much has evolved gently and with little spoken and nothing being drawn attention to.  Homosexuals have been ordained and have been amongst our most gifted and insightful colleagues but they have often been forced to lead discrete lives or into embracing celibacy – a vocational gift – not a realistic emotionally fulfilling choice for a person who cannot generously embrace it. 

In recent years, whatever one’s views about Bishop Robinson’s election, it has taken the discussion firmly from the speculative into the ground-breaking.

I guess most reflective Anglicans will have a strong sense of what should happen next.  I am no exception.  Like many I have reflected on this from a number of perspectives.

Stephen Sykes in a doctrinal classic The Integrity of Anglicanism reminds us that the Anglican methodological approach is to relate scripture, tradition and reason.  This allows for a degree of ambiguity and diversity; an acceptance that all three of these ‘components’ are open to interpretation and are held in dynamic relationship with each other.

Homosexuality is rarely explored in The Bible.  When it is raised, it is never, with the exception of Leviticus 18 & 20 the dominant theme of the passage.  Today’s Church is looking at these texts teleographically; we are hampered by our own socialisation, cultural conditioning and expectations as we attempt to reinterpret texts in  ways which hold meaning within a contemporary context. 

The essence of many of the disagreements around whether homosexuality is a God-given expression of humanness in a diverse creation – or an abomination which draws people away from God’s ways – is down to how willing we are to read texts as culturally and contextually specific or whether we believe they are always, and without exception universalisable.

Biblical references are, without exception, hostile towards homosexuality, although emotionally fulfilling same sex friendships are celebrated and honoured (cf Jonathan and David).  Genesis 18,the story of Sodom and Gomorrah sets the tone.  Is this passage indicating that homosexual behaviour is sinful and in some way at the heart of the horrific disruption of natural order outlined in the story?  Or is it a passage teaching about the abuses of customs and the role of an hospitable host?  If this latter ‘reading’ is plausible, then the references to homosexuality in the text become incidental.  John Boswell in Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality offers this interpretation:

There was no word in classical Hebrew or Greek for ‘homosexual’ and there is no evidence to suggest that either ‘kadeshin’ or the ‘harsenokoitai’ of the New Testament were gay people … these words merely designated types of prostitutes.

There is some biblical evidence to support Boswell’s view.  If we compare Judges 19 with Genesis 19, it appears the main concern is the flouting of the normal rules of hospitality (David Brown, Choices: Ethics and the Christian).

Leviticus 18 & 20 present a summary of the Hebrew Law concerning homosexuality.  Taken at face value homosexuality is a prohibited practice.  We, as 21^st c., Christians have to consider two things in relation to this dictum:

To what extent is this prohibition contextually bound?  Does the New Testament Gospel present any kind of mitigation, reinterpretation or further illumination of the Hebrew Law?

The Gospel writers per se offer little direct insight to the Church on this subject.  Some argue that this is, in itself significant – could it be that the writers of the time did not think homosexuality was in any way significant to the practice of Christianity?  Clearly they had much to say about heterosexual relationships, disability, gender, social order and even racial concerns, Could it be that homosexuality posed no threat to the emerging religious teaching/order?

Paul is often cited as anti-homosexual.  He does provide a list of people who are, he believes, excluded from the Kingdom of God.  1 Corinthians 6.9-11 lists the immoral and sexual perverts as excluded.  Putting this list in context – it is part of a much longer railing against the Corinthian Church as a whole.  He has heard that the Corinthians have interpreted Christian freedom as meaning that because they are redeemed they are free to behave however they want.  Paul suggests that they have to re-think this for the sake of the Church and live a life which suggests that they are living in Christ.  Liberty is not sexual promiscuity and sexual deviation does not automatically mean homosexual.

In 1 Timothy 1.8-11 homosexuals are seen as in complete breach of the Law.  Homosexual acts are identified as contrary to the teaching of the early Church.  This is a clear, but isolated example when practising homosexuals are challenged as presenting behaviour other than as God through Christ would have us be.  Can this one text be used as a foundation for a sustainable pastoral, spiritual and ecclesiological position today – knowing what we know regarding genetic, psychological and social development?

One of the more illuminating passages which is often cited as referring to homosexuality is Romans 1.18-32.  Is Paul making a point here about the relationship between Gentiles and God – that the unrighteoused are subject to the wrath of God or is this subtly loaded with a sexual behaviour message?  In the text Paul argues that instead of honouring God through all that is revealed in creation, gentiles have chosen idolatory thus corrupting the message of God and the worship of God.  God has shown his anger by creating a disordered existence – and this includes unnatural sexual behaviour.

Is context important here?  The argument Paul presents if offered within a wider theological argument.  From our point of view a lot depends on how we choose to interpret physis – nature.  Sherin Bailey in Homosexuality and the Western Tradition and John Boswell in Christianity, Tolerance and Homosexuality suggest that nature could refer to heterosexuals who have chosen to act against their true orientation and engaged in homosexual practices.  The more common reading of this passage is to suggest that Paul sees homosexuality as a departure from the natural order of creation.  Paul appeals to a reading of the created order which sees human beings as created - male and female - with sexual activity as primarily a means of procreation rather than as an expression of love and emotional maturity.

Both of these views are rehearsed today.  If Paul’s comments are intended to be an unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality then we can begin to appreciate just what a tough task is before the Primates of the Church in Tanzania.  Is this interpretation acceptable to us and credible to us today?  Is Paul’s statement a once and for all condemnation?  Does it carry the same weight as it would if it were uttered by Jesus?  Why have we disregarded many other probibitions in The Bible –the eating of shellfish; wearing hats in Church and so on – but this one is irrevocable.  How have we managed to re-claimed the centrality of women in the Gospel story and yet we are prepared to stigmatise another group in society?

St. Valentine's Day, Oban and the Primates of the Church Meet

14^th February 2007

St. Valentines Day

Favourite Valentine’s card from The Interesting Thoughts of Edward Monkton range:

Big picture of a love heart with the words Somebody thinks I’m gorgeous written underneath.

Followed by the words:

Cut this out and stick it on your HEAD – then everyone will know what I think of you*

*But please don’t blame me if you get some funny looks.  People can be WEIRD you know.

I am just setting off for Oban – by car.  A wonderful treat as my husband is driving and my son has come for the ride.  The lure of the latest computer game was almost too great for him (and me)!  It’s a surprisingly bright and still day – at least on the East Coast.

I feel as though this is a pilgrimage day – although rather a cushy number in the car.  We all have expectations.  I am off to meet a colleague to plan a lecture in May.  A colleague I have known for years but in a different world.  I am looking forward to touching base.  My husband and son will disgorge Rainbow, my guide dog and me at our destination and travel on to view Dunstaffnage Castle.  We will meet up later and no doubt share news of our respective afternoons.

Work that doesn’t feel like work is always the best work to have, but we aren’t all so fortunate.  Sitting in the car typing this on the laptop feels like bliss – with the odd peak at breath-taking scenery all about me. 

I was struck this morning, hearing the latest reports on the radio that some of my brothers and sisters in Christ in the Anglican Communion are in for a period of demanding discernment as the Primates of the Anglican Communion gather.  Not comfortable work and likely to cause hurt and misunderstanding whatever the outcomes.  They are meeting in Tanzania this week to discuss what is to become of the Anglican Communion. 

Anglicans all feared we would divide some years ago over the Ordination of women.  Remarkably, some would say providentially, we held it together with varying provisions being rolled out for those who felt that they could not adhere for reasons of ecclesiology and conscience to the admission of women into the priesthood.  A further moment of division emerged as the legislation came into being which permitted women to be elected Bishop.  Now we face the challenge that may shatter us. Our Bishops must discern the most authentic and efficacious way forward.

The election of the first openly homosexual Bishop, living with his partner, in the USA caused a storm of controversy.  African and Asian Provinces called foul – and the Church of England saw it pretty much as an own goal.  It has had a much wider impact than I suspect those who sought the election of Gene Robinson could ever have envisaged.

As a Christian I cannot believe that the intention in Bishop Robinson’s elections was to cause schism.  I suspect the majority of those who supported him saw his election as a profoundly just moment when the Church could claim significantly more authenticity than it had done before.  I suspect they believed it was prophetic gesture that would ultimately bring healing to the Church.  The actual impact has been, in the short term at least, quite other.

I am utterly supportive of a vision of the Church as welcoming all people irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation or disability to its ranks both as members of the denomination and as authorised ministers.  But, and this is a big but, I do believe we are a Church which places significant emphasis on our corporate nature across cultural, social and economic divides.  If one part of the Body of Christ acts unilaterally over an issue which has been discussed widely and is known to be highly controversial and divisive, then the rest of the Communion is right to take time to reflect on how it must proceed from this point; what the consequences will be.

We are at variance with each other.  Just because it feels as though we have been here before over other issues does not mean we can ride the rapids with relatively little damage this time.