It is not owned by Hallmark, or Tescos, or Amazon.
You do not have to fill your house with expensive tat for it to be special. Or cover your house with flashing lights.
You do not have to eat your way through Marks and Spencer nor drink your way through Asda to feel as though it has been worth while.
In order to share it with family and friends, you do not need to load your credit card.
Gifts are not expensive mutual obligations- and they can be of huge value whilst still costing nothing.
Last year, we decided we wanted to do things differently at Christmas.
So we sent this letter to our friends and family-
Dear friends
Last year many of you bought us so many lovely things for Christmas. We are so grateful that you think so much of us that you would take the time to buy gifts.
We know that it is good to receive, and even better to give, but the most important thing to us is your friendship, and in this we are blessed.
But this year, we want to try to make Christmas a little bit different- for these reasons-
We have so much, and others so little
We think that the meaning of Christmas as a festival has been lost under all the commercial madness
Christmas can be so stressful for people- the pressure to shop and spend money at a time when things are very tight
We have talked about wanting to do something different, but have decided that it is now time to actually time to do something
So we would like to humbly suggest that you do not buy us gifts this year.
Some of you are very organised (and very kind,) so may already have bought things with us in mind. If so, it might be possible to give these things to other people, or if not- give them to us anyway!
If some of you would still like to give some kind of gift, then we are intending to make a collection for Oxfam- purchasing some ‘Oxfam unwrapped‘ gifts in the new year.
We really hope to find a way back to a more simple way of doing Christmas- and so most of the gifts we give this year will be things we have made, or commitments/promises. Please know that we think very highly of you, and hope that this Christmas is your best yet.
Love
Chris and Michaela
And our friends respected our decision. We had a lovely time, and ended up gathering some money that might have made a difference to some people whose relationship to the earth is more immediate.
It felt like a start.
Because our house was still full of stuff. Presents still loaded out our Christmas tree.
This was partialy because we have kids- and applying the above set of principles is a very different challenge when you are 9 years old.
It was also because it is so hard to step off the Christmas merry-go-round.
But this year, we are determined to try again. And in discussion with friends, it seems we are not alone.
The current state of the economy might push us in this direction- but this is not really about tightening belts because of macro economics- rather (for us least) it is about trying to find an alternative way to celebrate Christmas.
Because we really love Christmas- as a chance to share, laugh, love and wonder. But those words ‘the true meaning of Christmas’ are perhaps so over used that they are worn out. It is for you to decide what meaning the festival brings into your life, and the life of your friends and family, but the one thing that we might agree on is that Christmas is not about money. It is not about debt. It is not about over consumption.
We welcomed a new creature to our menagerie at the weekend- a Bantam chicken, courtesy of Freecycle. Chickens (like humans) are not good when isolated and alone- they need company, so the wonderful Freecycle in this instance acted as a kind of dating agency (in a platonic kind of way you understand.)
She came to us named Sugar, but we renamed her Bandit, as she proved to be rather tougher than our last surviving chicken. The first thing that chickens do when they meet each other (Also like we humans) is to jostle for position- to measure their worth in the pecking order of life.
Thankfully, after a few flying feathers and odd pecked eye, things have settled down to some kind of communality. Whether you could call it friendship I am not sure. I do not speak chicken.
Great discussion today on Radio 4’s ‘Start the week’– a debate between scientist (Dawkins and Lisa Randall) and the Chief Rabbi, Johnathan Sachs. You can listen again here if you missed it.
The debate was predictable in subject material- Dawkins expressing his logic-first model, and exorting us all to let go of our superstitious addiction to the supernatural and Sachs talking about the why questions rather than the how, and the truth and beauty we humans experience that is not understandable in a scientific way.
However, there was a respectfulness about the debate that I really enjoyed.
Sachs at one point talked about the wonder of a creator who creates a creative universe- I liked that.
He also said something about the Greek filter that many biblical texts have been through- a familiar theme to anyone who has read any Brian McLaren (the ‘Greco-Roman narrative’ that he describes so well in ‘A New Kind of Christianity’.) However Sachs approached this from a different angle.
He suggested that the Greek Language was the first one to be written left to right, and to contain vowels. Previously, writing was mostly right to left (apart from Chinese which went down.)
This is significant not just because of the left brain (analytical) right brain (instinctive/feelings) split that tends to characterise how we understand the hemispherical nature of our brains. It also asks questions about our theological lens.
Because the older languages lacked vowels, they could only be understood in context- their meaning was only understandable in the paragraph as opposed to the individual words.
So what? Well, when these earlier understandings were translated into the Greek, and then onwards into our modern languages, they were forced to take on a more concrete form- one in which every word is individual in meaning and application. Words that defined and legalised. Sacred words.
Words that try to contain God.
Kind of reminds me of this post– and this picture.
This is my contribution to Blog Action Day 2011…see here for more details.
The theme of this years action day is- food.
But I wanted to talk about land. And poverty. And I want to do this via a lesson from history, and using the voice of a dead poet. (What else would you expect?)
Because the land and food (and poverty) are rather linked- it is from the land that we are sustained.
Most of us have no connection to the land any longer. We westerners live in an artificial urbanised world, in which all provisions, all groceries, all produce, are available all year round no matter what the season- all courtesy of huge supermarket companies, and a fleet of containers, aircraft and road miles.
Increasingly, as the current economic dysentery is stirring the belly of capitalism, we are asking questions about how this insulation from the blood and dirt of food production might be making fools of all of us. It is resulting in a kind of sickness- in which we are addicted to instant, processed imitation food, in which taste has to be added chemically. We are getting fatter and more sclerotic with each mouthful, and once hooked, kicking the habit is near impossible.
Sure, there are dissenting voices- like shiny red apples in a burger bar. The slow food campaigners and those wonderful allotmenteers and land sharers- but despite the rising food costs and increasing poverty gap in the West, for many of us, these choices are about lifestyle, not necessity.
Most of the people in world have a different connection to the land- one of absolute dependency. If this connection is broken- they have a choice- starve, or become refugees. Either way, communities are broken and culture is scattered. The very stories of these people are submerged and silent.
Most news reports focus on drought, or war, or corruption as the cause of these events- and all of these things play their part. Mostly as symptoms rather than the cause however. I am not one for oversimplifying things as a rule, but the issue is really about-land.
Ownership of the land
Stewardship of the land
Access to the common land
Use of the raw materials from the land
I mentioned a lesson from history- and it concerns our own diaspora- sent out from these shores as a result of the greed of land owners and the separation of a whole culture from the land.
As I write this, I expect that many of you will be thinking of the Highland clearances. Lamented in story and song, so much so that something of it has entered into the consciousness of not only modern Scotland, but also into the new cultures spawned from this exodus- in the USA or Canada or Australia.
But this is not the story I want to remember. Rather it is another one, forced on communities the length and breadth of these islands over a period of around 200 years and known collectively as ‘The Enclosures’.
Battle was joined around the Tudor times- land owners started to make ‘improvements’ to the land- enclosing common pasture in order to grow cash crops in fields. Stripping away the ancient rights of those who lived hand-in-soil.
There were riots, and for a while economic circumstances preserved the status quo. But progress was unstoppable. Money was to be made.
And so through the 18th and 19th centuries, a whole series of ‘Inclosure Acts’ were passed by Parliament. These enclosed the common land, often to the benefit of the landowners, and compensated other land users with parcels of inferior land- which they had to enclose, or lose. Many could not afford to enclose, so lost.
Between 1700 and 1890 over 20% of the total land area of England and Wales enclosed by Acts of Parliament- of which 2 million acres were common lands.
And so the connection was broken. And a new kind of slavery was born- to the machines. On the back of this removal from the land, working people found themselves working in the factories of the land owners- and a new industrial age was born, with all its black shadows and shiny new product, from mechanised spinning and tin soldiers to i-pads and sports cars.
This is our history- that of Great Britain. It is a history of an enforced removal from the land, and a replacement of this with something else. And in doing this, we have lost all respect for the place that holds us. Economic necessities govern our food production, and those who still seek to make a living from the land are under incredible pressure.
The rest of us know little about food- for us, land is only important in as much as having a large driveway is a good measure of personal success.
This is not meant to be a rant against supermarkets, or the evils of capitalism. Rather it is an attempt to find again some connection to where we come from, and what still we look to feed, clothe and sustain us.
We might do this by planting some seeds, or finding out more about the origins of the food we eat. But I am a poet, so I look for connections through the stories and songs that emerge from who we were, and what we have become.
John Clare, our most remarkable poet of the English countryside, was born in the village of Helpston, Northamptonshire and raised as an agricultural labourer. Clare’s genius was his ability to observe and record the minutiae of English nature and every aspect rural life, at a time when enclosures were transforming the landscape and sweeping away centuries of traditional custom and labour.
Following great success with his first published poems (outselling even John Keats) Clare quickly became unfashionable, falling quickly into literary obscurity. The magnitude of Clare’s achievement and poetic genius was not fully appreciated until the recent publication of a first complete edition of his poetry, much of which had remained neglected in manuscript archives for 150 years. Now scholars worldwide regard him as one of our leading poets gradually affording the same status as reputed poet contemporaries such as William Wordsworth and S.T.Coleridge.
John Clare began as a poor labourer, cursed and blessed with the sensitivity of a poet- at a time when everything he knew was changing. He went mad, alienated by his gift and his broken connection with the land that he loved, living out his final years in an asylum.
And he wrote like this-
The Gipsy Camp
The snow falls deep; the Forest lies alone:
The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
The Gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow,
Beneath the oak, which breaks away the wind,
And bushes close, with snow like hovel warm:
There stinking mutton roasts upon the coals,
And the half roasted dog squats close and rubs,
Then feels the heat too strong and goes aloof;
He watches well, but none a bit can spare,
And vainly waits the morsel thrown away:
‘Tis thus they live – a picture to the place;
A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race.
But, back to the enclosures- here is another of his poems
Accursed Wealth
Oh who could see my dear green willows fall
What feeling heart but dropt a tear for all
Accursed wealth o’er bounding human laws
Of every evil thou remainst the cause
Victims of want those wretches such as me
Too truly lay their wretchedness to thee
Thou art the bar that keeps from being fed
And thine our loss of labour and of bread
Thou art the cause that levels every tree
And woods bow down to clear a way for thee
I first came across John Clare thanks to hearing Chris Wood’s song, ‘Mad John’- from the Album ‘Trespasser’.
Here is the only version of the song I could find. May the spirit of John Clare call us back to the land, and remind us to listen to the voices of the dispossessed wherever they may be heard.
This is the first of a series of post on worship music. My current working titles for he others include ‘Authenticity/Creativity’, ‘Transcendence’ , ‘Songs of community’ and ‘What is so special about singing anyway?’- hopefully these will emerge over the next few weeks. But in the meantime, here is a bit about my own journey, in which I have to acknowledge some rather negative aspects to my experience…
I have written before about my own previous encounters with worship music- the practice of which has been extremely important to me.
I started out singing in a church choir. I had a high pure voice as a boy, and sang solos in church. I learned to play piano, and church organ- earning some pocket money playing at weddings and funerals.
Later we discovered simple choruses- and during the late 70’s and early 80’s I started playing guitar. We played simple songs such as ‘We have come into this house’ and ‘Freely’, and were indebted to the songs of the ‘Fisherfolk’, whose music became the soundtrack to the Charismatic revival that swept through the Church of England. I still feel a strange nostalgia for the simplicity and ‘wholesomeness’ I remember from this time- and the music was a huge part of this.
I then spent 15 years as part of a large independent church in the north of England- in which my major contribution was musical. I eventually became the leader of the music team. We made a journey through all the waves of new church music that emerged- at first it was all sourced via new songbooks- which would come out every now and then- but later the machine that poured out songs (mostly from America) used many different portals- books, CD’s and increasingly, the internet. Vineyard soft rock worship was something we constantly imitated- although the shiny happy Hillsongs worship always left me a bit cold.
Following a move to Scotland, I continued to lead worship- now in a small Baptist church. Through connections there, I also became slightly itinerant- leading worship in the USA, Europe and for some different events in Scotland.
Then I stopped.
I found it increasingly difficult to sustain any kind of passion for this kind of worship. It had become so formulaic and anchored within a narrow world view- based on set of core assumptions that were all-dominant even if rarely spoken. I was increasingly finding myself at odds with these assumptions, which were grounded in a particular American Evangelicalism.
Then there was the place of this kind of worship at the centre of all of our services. At first, worship music was all about FREEDOM- it was the means by which we escaped ritualistic liturgy and ‘made room for the Spirit.’ Except the longer we did this, the more liturgical and rigid we became. The formula went something like this-
Open service with a time of ‘praise’-
Upbeat high energy praise songs. However, there were (and presumably still are) far fewer exuberant praise songs than quieter ones, so we tended to do the same 10-15 or so over and over, after which typically the kids will leave for Sunday School, and we hear notices.
Time of ‘worship’
We then have more singing- quieter songs now which worship leaders try to theme slightly, with a nod towards the coming sermon. In my experience, we often talked about worship being about a much broader thing than just music, but in practice other artistic forms of collective worship had little part in our services. The odd bit of drama, or music/power points. Possibly a bit of dance. The job of the worship leader here is to generate some intensity and expectancy as we prepared to hear the preaching of Gods word- mainly by singing songs.
The sermon
Teaching within this tradition is of paramount importance. We talk of being ‘fed’ by this teaching, and skillful preachers were the top of the tree in terms of status. The very best preaching has this goal of creating a climax– you could call it a spiritual/emotional crisis- during which the congregation is expected to ‘make a response’. This might mean coming forward for prayer for healing and deliverance. The public nature of these crises is valued as some kind of statement before man and God, but I have long wondered whether it might also serve the purpose of measurable ‘success’ of the peaching.
And while all this happens, the music has a vital role again- ecstatic, emotional love songs to Jesus. Matching/creating/heightening the emotion of the event. A benign manipulation of our emotions in the name of Jesus.
The sending out
The last part of the service was about commissioning the congregation to go out into the world, changed by their encounter with God in the service. Songs tend to be more martial, triumphalist and perhaps more hymn-like.
All of this can be energising and vibrant- it can also be very ego-centric for those of us on the stage.
That is not to say that all this has no value- but I think we greatly exaggerated it. People were challenged and even changed in these services, but most were not- they were just caught up in the weekly merry go round. I once heard these services described as like a weekly wedding with the same couple getting married each time. And me, the wedding singer.
About 5 years ago I decided that I could do it this no more. The ‘crisis point’ of services seemed to me increasingly to be manufactured and divorced from the reality of the lives of the people present. At worst it became a religious show- a pep-me-up for the dwindling faithful. The particular context I was part of did not make this easier as there was also a surface dishonesty about levels of conflict and political in fighting.
There were other reasons why I walked away- firstly, theological ones. I found myself adventuring into new ideas, questioning and rediscovering aspects of my faith- and the Evangelical assumptions of many of the songs I had previously used became very difficult to sing. They tended to be strange quasi-erotic love songs to Jesus, or triumphalist war songs for the army of God. They use the Bible as source material- but only parts of the Bible that come pre-packaged by Evangelical assumptions.
And they tend to be American, arising from the cult of the super worship leader- a strange cool guy (mostly male) who has an expensive guitar. His music only finds wider release if he is marketable, and hopefully photogenic. Then the music goes into a highly profitable (but not necessarily prophetable) machine, which spews out visuals, CD’s and sheet music for the whole band. All worship leaders have their favourite super worship leader. We aspire to be like them, and to make music that is a second rate version of their music.
Secondly, I was discovering other forms of worship that I could connect to in a different way- both older forms of worship (from a contemplative tradition) and also new forms of ‘alternative worship’, which had more in common with performance art that with praise and worship as I had used to understand it.
I am a few years down the line now though- and have been involved in many a prayer room, curated worship space or wilderness meditation event. These experiences are very precious to me, in my on going attempts to reach towards God, and to offer my worship.
But I still love to sing. Gatherings with friends still often involve getting out some of the range of instruments our family have accumulated. And within my community (Aoradh) we still sing when we gather from time to time. What I have however, are a set of open questions that I am still working through-
Where are the songs of lament, of thanksgiving, of hope, of brokenness, of joy, of doubt, that fit this new context?
What songs are counter cultural- challenging the idolatry of the consumer driven unsustainable way of life our churches are embedded within?
This new context- what songs might collectively release us towards a different kind of mission? Encourage us to seek after justice, truth, beauty- and when we find it, to sustain it?
If these songs are the cultural carriers of our theology- then what of our faith do we want to celebrate? How do we move towards songs that are more open, less reductionistic, more comfortable with mystery and less concerned with the promulgation of fake certainty?
Where are the songs of community- not of individuality- all of that personalised spirituality from the God of success?
Are there different kinds of songs needed for small community contexts?
Why do we need to sing the songs of the machine- how can we encourage local expressions emerging out of community?
What of the old is still usable? From the 1560s or the 1960s?
I long for poetry- deep and honest lyrics. I am sick of the same old sacred rhymes- grace/face, love/above, sing/bring. We can do so much better.
I long for music that carries emotion, not just a steady tune. Where are the solo instruments, and the complex rhythms and harmonies? I am so tired of soft rock.
Is all this just because I am looking for something new, something trendy? Am I overreacting?
So, the journey continues- think I will go and get my guitar…
M and I are just back from a lovely couple of days in Edinburgh- I had to attend a meeting about mental health improvement (which was actually really interesting- might say more about this later) and so we took the opportunity to go together and spend some time in the City.
And we found ourselves drawn like hungry creatures to the great honey pot of culture that can be encountered in Edinburgh. We spent ages in bookshops, music stores- and more interestingly, in art galleries.
You enter the exhibition through a space filled by three crucified figures- the power of which are simply inescapable.
Then you enter a series of galleries full of art inspired by the words of the King James Bible. They are astonishing- huge collages of explosions of images- disturbing combinations and all sorts of mysterious weirdness.
This is the only exhibition I have ever been to where people walk round with tears running down their faces.
My favourite were a series of collages of heaven- in 4 seasons, juxtaposed with grotesque collages of hell, set in lots of cities. As Michaela pointed out- the heaven images were not nearly as powerful- mostly just lots of folk in happy activity- but the contrast with the hellish ones was electric.
Michaela’s favourite was a nativity scene- this does not begin to do it justice-
The other thing that you encounter in the exhibition are two heads- one of the Devil, and one of Jesus, made of matches, which are then burned.
The interesting question is whether such powerful religious art could ONLY be done by someone who is not religious? Could a Christian make art as powerful as this about the Christian story?
A few years ago I found myself in the middle of one of those internet ‘spats’- you know the sort- a discussion forum kind of thing that becomes increasingly acrimonious and strangely hurtful.
It was a surprise for several reasons- firstly the discussion ranged across several different Christian sites, and a FB group which I had set up in an attempt to make connections around ‘emerging church’ types of issues. You would have thought that Christians would know better than argue about doctrine and practice wouldn’t you?
Secondly I was surprised how difficult I found the discussion. Insulated by cyber-space and in discussion with people I did not really know, I was still vulnerable. I think this was because I was so hungry for connection at the time, and the end result was the opposite of this. It felt like such an opportunity lost.
And finally because I felt something that I carried as a strength (my commitment to social justice) came under direct attack.
The issue raised was the ‘Emerging Church is middle class’ one. The evidence for this was that it tended to attract white, male, professional Christian malcontents, who lived in the suburbs.
Mixed in with this was a bit of a issue of funding- it was suggested at the time that the resources released to and by these groups tended to go no-where near the disenfranchised and marginalised parts of our society.
One of the protagonists was part of a church planting movement, whom I will not name, but clearly was fired with a passion for urban outreach, which for him meant moving out of the suburbs to live and witness in the city amongst the people in the greatest poverty and the greatest need. I admired and was challenged by his zeal, but pointed out that this was not the only way that the emerging church communities might engage with their context. I listed some of the ways that my own community tried to do this-
1. Many of us worked within caring professions- social work, community work, youth work.
2. Several of us where unable to work for health reasons, but still volunteered in LINK clubs, charity shops, community action.
3. Our group itself was made up of a fairly broad spectrum of people- several with acute MH problems, others in later years, and our activities were certainly not heavy on resources- everything we did was on a shoestring.
4. And we looked for partnerships with other community groups all the time- locating what we did in the middle of our town, not out in the comfortable outskirts (if indeed there are any!)
I also talked about the nature of living and working in rural/small town Scotland- the hidden poverty and stigmatising that can be part of such places- and how suggesting that poverty only existed in cities was rather silly.
None of this cut any ice. From his point of view, I think that social work was part of the problem, certainly not the solution, and all the rest was justification for not doing what Jesus wants us to do- which was to move to the city and work with the poor.
I think in some ways, I kind of agree with him. The comfortable life we live in Dunoon is a far cry from inner city streets. The question of how this integrates with a trying to live as followers of Jesus has exercised my thoughts constantly.
And no-one is a harsher critic of Social Work than I am- even though to blame my profession for poverty makes as much sense as blaming the police for crime, or ambulance drivers for car accidents.
But the fact is, I am here. My kids are here. My friends and my community are here. The measure of the life we live is how we might seek to live out lives full of Grace wherever we find ourselves.
And we should be careful about imposing our own passions and our calling on others. I wonder how things have gone for my friend. I genuinely hope that they have gone well, and that good has been done in situations of real need. But my experience has been that wisdom comes with miles travelled- and a few failures/successes along the way.
The discussion is ancient history now but the reason I am raking it up again is because of a newspaper report I read today about my little town. Mortality and poverty rates are the third worst for any area across the whole of the Scottish Highland area. Only the Merkinch area of Inverness and Alness, south Wick have poorer measures. I sort of knew this instinctively, but it is still a surprise to see it confirmed by wider measures.
The picture of the whole county is similarly challenging- 18000 of the 60,000 people of Argyll and Bute live in poverty, and our take home pay is 9% less than the national average.
In the mix are high levels of alcohol abuse. Reports from the courts in our local paper are almost all alcohol related.
All this means that inequalities in health have worsened- those in poverty are likely to suffer poorer health than 10 years ago- and these people are also more vulnerable in the current economic climate, as public services are squeezed, and low paid jobs become more competitive.
How do you do anything about this? What combination of micro and macro interventions might begin to change it all? Whole reports have been written about all this (remember the Black report?)
It is never easy- but for sure, one important component is the heart and strength of the communities we are part of. The wellbeing we experience through connection and shared purpose and meaning. The learning of tolerance and respect despite all the usually opponents to these things.
We do not have all the answers- I am no Messiah, but this sounds to me like a calling. A Jesus kind of calling…
this fragile tent 