A "difference that makes a difference"

Belonging?

I recently had a brief email correspondence with Richard White.  Richard has long been one of my favourite bloggers and I miss his blog but enjoy what he writes at Dream. He always writes something that is imbued with encouragement and spiritual loyalty and ambition for our God.  I find my heart warms to him and I enjoy sharing his pilgrimage (even if only virtually together).

I mentioned in my email that I often read the Dream posts but, because I wasn't a part of the Dream set up in the North West, I didn't think it right to comment.  Richard's reply was typically generous, pointing out that openness was a core Dream Value (those are well worth reading by the way).

Now that got me thinking, if we're serious about creating fellowships that are strong on community, welcome and belonging... what part do boundaries play.  If I can not commit to or contribute to the physical life of that community in an ongoing manner, is it helpful to dip in and out?  We are all aware, I suspect, of the problems that boundaries cause in our world and daily life but do they also help create belonging and community as they ask more for participants than the dilettante's occasional visit?

hmmm, dunno.... gonna thing id over my cuppa tea an toast...

Learning, Community and the Body of Christ

Over at her place, Kathryn has been talking about holidays, Christian festivals, church attendance and then what it isthat we do that makes us church. Not a complex or tricky topic there then! :-) I've joined in the conversation (as Caroline Too, I always seem to be the second Caroline on every other blog, but not here! :-) This whole conversation reminded me of something that I've been wanting to write about but which, if I'm honest, I didn't quite know what to say.  But there we are; never fearing to tread where ignorance and a half baked idea beckon....

I've been reading Dallas Willard's book "The Divine Conspiracy" recently.  It's a terrific book although it badly need editing; by my estimate it has about 150 pages too many and Willard often loses his overall theme as he circles round a detail, but there we are ... he's a professor and I'm only a lecturer, so what do I know...

Anyway, I've just reached the chapter that I've been looking forward to most, On Being a Disciple or student of Jesus. It's here, I'm hoping, that he'll unpack his wonderful description of us Christians as being apprentices of Jesus. However, he starts the chapter by asserting that if we are disciples we must have a teacher.  He strongly assumes that for every learner there must be a teacher and so rests on a deeper assumption that learners are different and distinct to teachers. (I'm sure that he would retort that teachers can {should} be learners too but that is not my point here.)  What I disliked about this opening argument was the distinction between the role of teacher and learner.  It carried with it another assumption, that we are individual learners, that our learning is done individually, as an intra-psychic process (inside us so to speak).  If you start with that assumption learning becomes a process of transmitting knowledge, skilled practice and/or values from one person to another.  There are all sorts of pedagogical problems with that assumption but I want to focus on just one: the individualism.

Imagine a couple of people getting into a rowing boat, so that they could learn to row competitively.  I'm talking about those long racing boats you see at the Olympics or the annual boat race on the Thames.  The two friends paddle out to the middle of the river.  Then one of them starts to lengthen their stroke, they use their sliding seat, try to feather their blade (I do hope that I'm using the right terms, I can only go on what the commentators say! I've never rowed competitively). Whilst one of the rowers, tries to become a racing rower; the other just continues to paddle along, dipping their oar in the water, looking around at the scenery, enjoying the sights and sounds of the river.  I would suggest that the rower who is trying to develop their rowing skills will get nowhere until the other rower starts to take the learning seriously.

You see learning is a social process, it is not an individualistic process of acquiring fact or skills. Learning, and especially the learning involved in being a disciple of Jesus, is done together, in the body of Christ.  In our little vignette, it was not that the second rower was deliberately stopping the other learn. It was not a failure of teaching.  It was not that anything intentional was done.  Rather, it was just a crucial point: that we do not learn to become on our own.  We have to be a part of a learning community and our every action (from the most trivial to the most profound) will either help or hinder that discipleship.

There are things that I do that hinder others' learning.  For example, I'm quite good at explaining things and I'm very good with words.  I can, to my shame, be a formidable arguer.  If you are sitting in a room with me where you think that I may be wrong about something, I'm not an easy person to argue with.  Additionally, at my worst, I can be very good at giving the answer to problems or issues.  If the answer has been given what need is there to search (learn) for your own answer?  Most frustratingly for me, on the occasions when I'm thinking out loud, when I'm reaching toward an idea but still aware of the muddle in my mind, I can still sound as if I'm giving the answer.  So, sadly, unintentionally, I block the learning of others.

On other occasions, I can help learning.  Passing by someone at coffee, I ask how they are and listen as they talk out a problem. On other occasions, I have got enthusiastic about another friend's ideas and that enthusiasm has been the spur to try out something new. Then again, I've told stories that got someone thinking... or smiled at someone who was just about to give up... or irritated someone who mumbled to themselves, "I'll show her". It is often not my intentional actions or words that help people learn but just my presence, at a particular moment; my presence within the emerging relationship of me, them and God that allowed the learning-to-become to start, continue or accelerate.

We are social 'becomers'.  We are not self contained individuals.  We improvise our lives together, not on our own little stages.  The Xhosa word and concept, Ubuntu, captures this powerfully "I am through your".  This is not a nice, twee "wouldn't it be good if we could all get along", this is just the very nature of us, as created in the image of the Trinitarian God. 

And this, Kathryn, is what I think the church family is about.  and it is for this reason that I so oppose the practice of large gatherings, all facing in the same direction, all facing one or two people who direct our activities. It is also why I'm uncomfortable with the way we currently practise the eucharist in Anglican churches with its centring on the Priest. For in all this, we obstruct the transitory, fragmented, momentary interplay of people enacting learning together; provoking, stimulating, inviting, encouraging each other to do more, to travel a different road, to carry on, to ....

The Russian literary critic, Mikhail Bakhtin, wrote about how Dostoevsky's novels documented the development of a hero as they inter-played (improvised) with other characters.  These were, he suggested, polyphonic (many voiced) novels and at the centre of them, at the centre of the plot, at the centre of the development of the characters was carnival.  And in carnival the rules were dropped and, within some preset guidelines, people could explore and play at different roles. 

Now, don't exaggerate what I'm saying here.  I'm not saying that Christians should overthrow all rules. Rather, I am saying that we should design our moments of relating in ways that promote carnivalesque relations. These relations will not be structured around a preaching programme or a fixed set of liturgical actions.  Instead these relations should be typified by a concern to help the other in their pilgrimage, a desire to encourage, a concern for the other's safety if they're heading down a risky route, an experience of walking alongside, being available to catch your friend falls...  and none of these actions are promoted by the conventional church gathering around a single (monologic) set agenda.

One final word, for this post is already too long. I can almost hear some readers saying that many church goers would not accept the potential chaos that is implied in my ideas above. Many worshippers value a nice, ordered service. I agree.  But the correct response to that point is to ask how we could help such people move from that position or how we could provide for them as we move the overall tenor of church family life away.  It won't be easy and it's likely to be messy but it will, more accurately reflect the three year walk Jesus had with his disciples - sometimes fitting with the conventional ways in the synagogues, sometimes responding to the opportune prompting of a question or event but, for the most part, walking along the highways and byways of first century Palestine.

Good news for our age?

I was wondering today...

I do quite a lot of that...

anyway, as I say I was wondering... not very profoundly... but it was, I guess a demonstration that I'm still alive with some 'brain' activity

but I was wondering about what the good news would be for today

Could it be forgiveness of sins?  Well, I guess that's true but I fear that the world has so trivialised sin that that particular message doesn't ring very loud in the UK at the moment, (maybe it should, at a national level, as we see Iraq fall apart following our share of that ill fated invasion?)

Could it be life in all it's fullness?  Again, I think that's true but there seems such an attitude of eat, drink and be merry with such a strong marketing of sensation, adrenalin rush or celebrity as equalling fulfilment that the Christian message of fulfilment in Christ just won't resonate as very powerful or attractive.

[I think that resonate is a very important word here, because I'm not sure that the western world is very good at listening, appreciating or understanding at the moment.  Again, not very original here, but we live in an age of the sound-bite.  So we're looking for something that resonates or chimes with the age. Or we're looking for something poetic that will strike, move or point towards... but for goodness sake don't waste your time explaining....]

So back to my musings...

Could the good news be about personal fulfilment?  Similar to the previous point and one of the themes of Pete Ward's "Liquid Church".  I'm not sure here, for some this might work, a sort of spiritual life long learning... but the danger here is that I'm not sure, in the end, if the good news is about us choosing; rather it's about our being chosen...

so, there I was wondering and not getting very far, when I read Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

ah yes, in a world confronting Global Warming seriously for the first time - just as we all refuse to reduce our consumption

and in world that's steadily heading to war between the West and China (over scarce resources)

and in a world where you only need one nutter to blow a city or a telecoms or some such apart

in a world where it seems all about now for we dare not look at the future...

yep, a message of hope seems powerful, not quite sure at the moment how to shout, sing or live it but hope, that'll do.

Rubbing each other up the wrong way

When I lived in Coventry, I had two friends.  One was called Do, the other was called About.  They never could get along with each other.

Connecting

Once upon a time a plug met a socket.  The plug was a two, round pin sort of plug and the socket was designed for three square pins.  There was no connection.

Learning as 'Maybe'

Here comes a seriously 'half baked' post... more thoughtful speculation than informed scholarship.. and I think that this might be the first of a series..

I have a thing about the word ought as in "you ought to be praying more/giving more/doing less" or "I ought to give up chocolate so that I lose weight".  My problem is, and I think that I've posted about this before, that ought is the least powerful word in the English Language.  I know what I ought to do; I just struggle to do it.  Knowing what I ought to do doesn't seem to help me much in changing what I do do.

And yet, ought dominates much of our secular learning and Christian sermons (I won't credit those with any notion of learning being attached to them - pah, sermon, pah ... wash your mouth out, Caroline - get the idea that I don't like sermons?  Maybe, I'll post about them, that'll piss off the preacher guys who visit the blog - look guys, I like you it's sermons that I don't like)

oh sorry, rant over ... I'll get back to the post now

I wonder if, possibly at a tacit level, we tend to think that discipleship (learning) is about becoming the person we ought to be?  Lurking in there is an assumption that there is a 'real' us that we're spoiling at the moment, that we're falling short of.  It sounds persuasive doesn't it?  It carries a sense of sin, repentance and redemption (once we start on the journey of becoming the person we ought to be).  My trouble with this is that I don't think that it's a Christian idea at all.  I think that it grows more out of the humanistic psychology that was fashionable in the fifties and sixties and still hangs around below the surface of much of the 'softer' approaches to management, education and psychotherapy.  A key theme in this perspective is that there is an authentic us. Furthermore, it continues, much of our social life restricts our potential to live that authentic life, so that we develop unhealthy (not-authentic) life strategies.  At a surface level it's an attractive view on life and human development.

There are, however, some problems with it.  Large amongst which looms the word ought. It's not not a very visible word, for humanistic psychology prides itself on being non-directive.  But the reason that the surface actions can be non-directive is that the assumptions include that ought rules our lives as we strive towards our authentic selves, who we ought to be.

But Christians worship an infinite God.  We are apprentices to an infinite God.  We are infused and transformed by an infinite God.  Tell me, how can we restrict our development and growth in that context to ONE AND ONLY ONE authentic us? 

Life walking alongside that God is full of maybes, any of which might be delightful, exciting, fearful, risky...  Who we might become, and what we might become includes an infinite number of possibilities.  There is no ought about it, there are only maybes and if that's the case then the actions we do to help people learn will change and, of course,

There is no ought about that either, there are only maybes!

Castaways

My friend Jim spent a few years on the Island of Contro Lesautres, which is just off the coast of Francophone West Africa.  On this Island lived two tribes who were in continual conflict with each other.  The Askaz lived in the hill country to the north whilst the Gettas lived to the south of the central swamps.  For, quite possibly, millennia these two tribes had been separated by the geography of the island and had developed quite differently.  Only the advent of modern transport systems had brought them into contact in a way that had led to the current conflict. Jim, an anthropologist, went there on a research project.

The Askash culture was formal and ceremonial; relationships were governed by polite requests.  Jim had had to learn the strict Askash social etiquette of Request in order to be able to understand and be understood.  The Gettas, on the other hand, were more straight forward. There was no hiding of feelings or intent behind formality or apparent civility.  They just took what they could, it was accepted that those who were weaker had less and a lower place in the pecking order.  Mitigating this 'law of the Jungle', Jim told me, were unwritten responsibilities of the strong to provide for the weak. This did not mean any form of equality but families were very strong and looked after each other; gangs were bound by strict, perhaps frightening, codes of sharing.

The problems arose from the two tribes' total incomprehension of the other's way of life.  To the Gettas, Askash ways were elitist and arrogant. "They look down on us" said one Getta gang-boss to Jim and the Askaz were appalled by the aggressive, almost perpetually angry ways of the Getta gangs.  Jim, perhaps because he was English, tended to find the Askaz easier to work with. He told me that there had been times when he was scared and intimidated by in-your-face ways of the Gettas.  There was not subtlety to the Gettas, they just demanded or took. There were no explanations, no reasons given, no attempt at persuasion. If they didn't get what they wanted first time, they would just push and push until they got their way or sensed that they had lost.  There was no compromise with Gettas and, especially when gangs were involved, a conflict could escalate quickly as other gang members crowded around. Talk was not so much about meaning as about volume and intensity.  On more than one occasion, Jim told of fearful screaming riots over quite trivial issues. If you stood your ground and refused to give in, then you had to be prepared to fight, but if you held your ground and your 'opponent' gave in first then you had won.

Much of the conflict between the two tribes centred over the one thing they had in common; the pursuit of control.  For both tribes, to be able to control others was what counted as leadership.  The Askaz achieved control by persuasion and intrigue; the Gettas by assertion and aggression.  Jim found this shared pursuit of control thoroughly unattractive in both tribes.  Following the end of colonial rule, the two tribes (of about equal size) had struggled for control of the unified island nation.  It was not a pretty or safe place to live, Jim told me.  Control switched between the two tribes, perhaps the Askaz (with better connections to the wealth of the ex colonial power) had longer on top but this made the struggle all the more bitter.  The two tribes could find no way of connecting with each other, they could find no way of understanding each other and gradually the mutual contempt, hatred and fear increased.

Strangely, as an aside, both tribes spoke in awe of a semi-mythical race that had once lived in the central lowlands and who had managed to live at peace with both tribes.  These people were called the Gheevas. They had died out, nobody knew exactly when or how.  Both the Askaz and the Gettas told stories of Gheevan grace and generosity and claimed to be the inheritors of the Gheevas' beauty and majesty.  The Askaz talked about how they were peaceful and made no forceful demands upon others whilst the Gettas pointed to their sharing, close community and open honesty.

Jim used to captivate me with stories of these three tribes. The myths of the Gheevas, in particular, intrigued me.  "How?" I asked.  Jim just shrugged his shoulders.  "Do you think that the Askaz and the Gettas will ever be able to heal their differences?" I would ask.  Jim always shook his head sadly, "No, I don't think so."

In amidst... the management of life...

I teach management and I have a real problem with the subject that I 'teach'. 

You see, we management teahers have a whole load of prescriptions and best practices that we recommend to anyone who wants to learn how to be a manager, The trouble is that these prescriptions frequently don't work.  So, over the years, we've developed ever more simple ways of encoding what we (claim to) know.  there are 7 'S's, 5 'P's, 4'P's, I don't know how many 5-steps, 4-steps etc. etc and the number of 2 by 2 matrices that reduce our complex world to four boxes along two axes is legion.  The trouble is that these still don't work.

This all makes management a very oppressive subject.  Because the majority of managers I meet, want to do a good job and know, in their heart of hearts, they're not succeeding.  "But we've told you how to do it" says the management theorist... the logical conclusion is that, given the very simple and easy to follow prescriptions of management books, there can only be two conclusions about my manager friends.  They are either fools or knaves. There's no way round it.  They are either too foolish to follow the 5 steps etc etc or they do not want to do the job well.

Now management is difficult and no amount of management books giving simple one-minute or 5 step answers stops management being difficult.  So, consequently, management is the most ignored subject I know.  "Oh that's all very well in theory" every one says, "but in the real world..."

The problem is that management theory tells us how we ought to act.  It tells us what we ought to do.  And, if we had the time and if we were able to think about it carefully I'm absolutely sure that we would all do what we ought to do.  The trouble is we are always in amidst of the chaos of life, there isn't the time to think, let alone do, what we ought to do. 

we ought to listen to what peope say before giving them the right answer (sorry a little sarcasm slipped in there before I could stop it)

we ought to empower others and delegate to them

we ought to analyse the business environment ( a strange phrase that basically means looking around us in a terribly businesslike way)

etc etc

the trouble is that the people we should listen to hurt us or speak rubbish, they let us down by not doing what they say and the world is far too damn complicated for us to analyes.  We're in amidst a complex world and the ways we have of learning how to live in it all assume that we have the time to think before acting and I'm afraid that we don't for we are in amidst the rush of life and too long a pause will see us miss the moment...

We know what we ought to do but ought is a powerless word that can not be found in amidst the hurly burly of life and we are left with little else to go on..

Now, I've listened to many sermons in my life,  many of them very good and interesting.  They have all told me what I ought to do....

Holocaust

A while ago I watched a programme about the Holocaust and Auschwitz.  I was left overwhelmed; I could not comprehend; I could not empathise with those who had been through that horror I could only scream inside.  I feel nervous as a Christian, born long after the 39-45 war, contributing to Holocaust Memorial Day. How could I possibly understand?  How can I avoid insensitivity? I can only grieve and scream.  A poem:

Stand in our midst Lord
stand in our midst
the cross be between us
stand in our midst

The murderous darkness
hidden within
stand in our midst Lord
no light on that hill

Stand in our midst, Lord
dying Jew on a cross
raised up by the mighty
the conquering force

Stand in our midst Lord
allow us to see
the murderous darkness;
give us to grieve

Stand in our midst Lord
the crucified lamb
the suffering servant
the so despised man

Stand in our midst Lord
don’t let us now turn
from the brand on your forearm
and your brothers who burn

Stand in our midst Lord
forbid us to say
that we have any answer
save be it to see
your death within Auschwitz
as you stand in our midst.

What shall we learn? V

... that community is not about shared values

From the late 80s and into the 90s there was a trend in management thought that 'Shared Values' were a central part of an organisation's sense of purpose and ability to organise and work as one.  This was a period when Organisation Culture was a 'big thing' to management academics, gurus and consultants (the latter two groups earning considerable amounts of money from this trend).  There was something quite seductive about it all.  Instead of management control we were offered shared values.  Peter's and Waterman talked about "tight/loose control" suggesting that if you had a tight control on certain core values then you could be more laissez-faire about other details.  There are times that I feel church families want a similar view of church; that we might have our differences but we share certain, core values.

If only life were as easy as that.

I'm afraid that we are in community with people with whom we have very little in common.  From Tim Lahaye and the terrifying evangelly-babies of America all the way to Don Cupitt, from Christian Voice to 'Forward in Faith' or 'Sea of Faith' .  We are kind-of, sort-of in community with so many people with whom we disagree profoundly.  With some of these people it is difficult to find what I share, with others I know what I share and (quite frankly) I wish that I didn't!  So how can I be in community with such people?  Are there no boundaries?

Boundaries sound so static.

Perhaps another, more helpful(?) term would be, paths?

As I head towards (well, I hope it's towards, sometimes I wonder) a life of following and imitating Christ; am I stumbling on the same path as another?  We may not describe that path in similar ways, we might even think that different routes look attractive but we are kind-of, sort-of trying to head Christwards and we are brothers and sisters.  And I will try to avoid doing or saying anything that puts a thistle patch between our hands on the path - it's damn difficult to reach out and steady another walker if there's a great gorse bush between you!

Now that path analogy has it's limitations of course, might we not be at different stages of that path?  NO! that is to make the path too human, too much like a physical path. That creates another way of separating us from our differences-within-family.  I really dislike Fowler's 'stages of faith' (as I've had it explained to me through Alan Jamieson's "A Churchless Faith").  However much to play around with the words and insert caveats; it encourages an arrogance within those who are at a more (a so-called more) advanced stage!  and I'm blowed that I can see the justification for that arrogance!  No, with all our differences we are on the same path, at the same moment within 'reach' of each other.

and that is why it's all so hard

and that is why we need to learn how to be one yet diverse, how to be diverse without being hierarchical and how to be at ease in our distinction without creating boundaries.

and I don't know about you; that just seems to be incredibly difficult, but I think that we've got to learn how...

So what are we going to learn?  I don't know! (Well of course I don't - If I did know then I wouldn't need to learn!) Well no, actually, if I did know I'd still need to learn to live that new life in community.  You see when I said WE  had to learn; I did mean we (not you!). Do you think you could help me learn?

Tomorrow, I'll try to blog about some of the ways we could go about learning to ether-in-difference.