Melvin does Calvin…

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This morning Melvin Bragg’s programme ‘In our time’ discussed the life and influence of John Calvin, Protestant ‘guard dog’ of the reformation. You can listen again here.

Highly recommended for those of us who need to engage with some of the big theological ideas in bite sized chunks. And all the more important for those of us who perhaps stand as part of a new reformation.

It is all there- the passion, the seeking after the purity of truth distilled from correct study of the Bible, the desire to release people from what were regarded as empty superstitions fed by the Roman Catholic church.

But also the austere, sometimes brutal regime that emerged in Geneva around his teachings- the rigid inflixible and systematised faith. And the persecution of anyone who dared to hold a different view.

It also dealt quite well with the way that Calvin’s teaching fitted in with, and perhaps even inspired enlightenment thinking, and was able to spread and flourish via the new information technology of the printing press.

Oh- and the pre-destination thing.

Definitely worth a listen with a cup of coffee…

Football as litmus paper for prejudice?

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So did any of you see this story earlier?

It seems that comments by Tennis player Andy Murray have been taken to a T Shirt. In 2006, whilst being interviewed by a Daily Mail journalist (and I know that many of you might agree with me that those words may contain an inherent contradiction) Murray got himself in trouble as follows-

So, for the hard of thinking, let me state here that: I did the interview with Andy Murray and Tim Henman a couple of years back where Murray talked about ‘supporting whoever England were playing against’.

It was a clearly a sarcastic remark. He was responding to teasing from your columnist about Scotland’s absence from the 2006 World Cup and derisive laughter from the mischievous Henman.

It was reported in that context in this newspaper at the time and the exchange was run as a transcript.

A couple of days later a red-top got excited about the comments, lifted a couple of them into a ‘story’ that took on a life of its own and from there the truth was lost.

But the story has carried on.

The latest incarnation of this can be seen in the sale of these T-shirts-

These shirts are being sold as Football World Cup shirts. ABE stands of course, for ‘Anyone But England.’

The perhaps overly zealous policeman who reacted to the shirts appeared to have some concern that the shirts might foster and encourage racism- which is of course an offence.

At very least it appears to tap into wider popular prejudice and division between our neighbouring countries. Football has this way of being a conduit for all sorts of prejudice and base emotions- it is like a kind of religion without a moral code sometimes.

I know my own reaction to this- which is that I find this narrow sectarian stuff very depressing. I do not often feel the heat of prejudice personally, despite living in Scotland and having an English accent (although someone did call me a ‘white settle’r today- albeit with a smile.) I just think that most of us should just know better. The fostering and celebration of narrow judgemental views is never really victimless- there are always vulnerable people who suffer, if only kids in the playground. There is also the fear in me that these fires, once lit, might become conflagrations- if not in our generation, then perhaps in the next…

So- what do you think?

Making recovery real…

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To Oban today to a Scottish Recovery Network conference on the promotion of ‘recovery’ as a concept and driver for mental health services, and more importantly, for those of us who experience mental ill health.

It snowed, and so we were a bit worried about the drive, but in the end Audrey, Victoria and I got there and back with no trouble.

The challenge and critique brought to services by the change of thinking and shifts in power required to move towards a recovery based system (rather than an illness based system) has been the stuff of my working life for a while now. I have found that it has had the capacity to reignite my passion for the work that I do.

I have spoken about recovery before- here and here, but for those who have not come across the concept before, here is the definition from the SRN website–

“Recovery is being able to live a meaningful and satisfying life, as defined by each person, in the presence or absence of symptoms. It is about having control over and input into your own life. Each individual’s recovery, like his or her experience of the mental health problems or illness, is a unique and deeply personal process.”

It is about trying to stop expecting people to fit into hierarchical burearocratic structures, but rather shifting power from the institution to the individual. It is about creating opportunities for people to rediscover hope, and to re imagine what a fuller life might look like.

You could say that it is about the redemption business- the Jesus business. And where he is, I want to be near.

But lest you think that I am doing that familiar paid helper thing, and dividing the world into us (the professionals) and you (the recipients of our expertise) then let me confess that I too am in a process of recovery.

Or should I say sometimes I am.

Because we were asked today to consider what might contribute to our own ‘wellness’, and people gave the usual answers- love, relationships, long walks in the country, meaningful activity, meditation and rich ruby wine… But I was led once again to reflect on my own mercurial sense of wellbeing, and how fragile it was at times.

Because sometimes it seems as though I am merely a victim to unfolding circumstance. Things happen, and I have little control over them, nor my emotional reaction to them. Of course, this is not true. There are lots of things I do, or avoid doing that make me who I am.

It is perhaps more like one of those slow unfolding accidents, that give you chance to react and minimise the inevitable impact- which is nonetheless still painful and shocking.

Of course there is such blessing in this journey of mine too- and I am so grateful that I do not walk alone.

So by way of celebrating these continuing outbreaks of redemption, almost in spite of my own ability to miss them- I offer you this lovely poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins-

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

The canoe is back…

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Today, one week after my recent adventure, I took a trip over to Bute.

It was a lovely day- very cold, but full of sunshine. As ever- the camera travelled with me…

During lunch, I visited the local Coastguard office, to fetch my canoe. There was some confusion as to who had the key- it turned out that the lock up that the canoe was in was actually used by a former member of the coastguard to store his scaffolding. This is Argyll after all.

Eventually a very nice man turned up with a large bunch of keys, and what he called a ‘universal key’ in the form of a large hacksaw. The universal key was not needed, as the first actual key opened the padlock, and I was reunited with an old, battered and rather well travelled green canoe.

It was good to see it again. We have some more adventuring to do.

But for now, lets go home.

I make the local newspaper…

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Gulp- my recent little swim made front page of the Dunoon observer.

Here is a photo someone took- I am out of view behind the police launch.

Michaela and I took a trip down to the west bay this morning. We went to see David Torrance, the man who raised the alarm, and said thanks. He seems a really nice guy, and I will be forever in his debt. He was in the right place, at the right time, and did the right things.

We then went round to the Rock Cafe for breakfast, and stood watching the sun sparkling on the sea around the Gantock Rocks. It is a lovely cold sunny day today. I looked a where I entered the water and marvelled at how far I swam.

I do not plan to repeat it.

Life twists and turns…

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I was out today for a short walk. I am still weak as a kitten, so I did not go far- just a little stroll above Loch Eck- which was under a thin skeen of ice from one side to the other…

My friend Simon treated me to lunch and a pint at the Whistlefield inn, and I found myself reflecting on the fact that we stayed at the Whistlefield lodges the first time we ever came to Scotland, 19 years ago. It has been quite a journey.

I have been getting through some of the emotional stuff after my recent trauma. I had a few flashbulb memory images that kept flashing into my minds eye- wheeling seagulls above my head, and the chimney stack I navigated my swim by. These things are settling down as they always do, and today I deliberately wore the clothes I took my swim in.

Next week I will fetch back my canoe, which washed up on the island of Bute, 10 miles or so down the Clyde. I believe that it is undamaged! I will then need to take a wee paddle… no doubt as far as the rope that Michaela ties me to will let me go!

Our horizons shrink so small. I am determined that mine will stretch far still- although I will be more careful in the reaching after them!

Life will still have its twists and turns. And there is so much beauty in the day we walk through…

Imperfection…

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I read this today- and loved it;

Question of the Day: How does one incorporate imperfection?

In a Navajo rug there is always one clear imperfection woven into the pattern. And interestingly enough, this is precisely where the Spirit moves in and out of the rug! The Semitic mind, the Eastern mind (which, by the way, Jesus would have been much closer to) understands perfection in precisely that way. The East is much more comfortable with paradox, mystery, and non-dual thinking than the Western mind which is formed by Greek logic.

Perfection is not the elimination of imperfection, as we think. Divine perfection is, in fact, the ability to recognize, forgive, and include imperfection!—just as God does with all of us. Only in this way can we find the beautiful and hidden wholeness of God underneath the passing human show. It is the gift of non-dual thinking and seeing, which itself is a gift of love, suffering, and grace. In fact, this is the radical grace that grounds all holy seeing and doing.

Richard Rohr, February 2010


In which I discover a lot more about the ebb and flow of life…

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Well friends. What a day.

It is now 12.40 am- and I am downstairs after a wee snooze, but with a mind too busy to sleep any more. So- I turn to this weblog, my old friend for getting stuff out of my head, and into- who knows where.

Some of you will know that I made the news this afternoon– I am fine now- just very sore and feeling foolish/thankful/tearful and very very loved. I am very aware of all the stick I am going to get over the next few weeks, but I am also carried by the wishes and prayers of friends and family.

What happened?

Well I went for a canoe trip this afternoon. It was calm and not too cold, and I have been hankering to be out on the water for a few days. Today I went on my own, as no-one else was daft enough to come with me. Our 16 foot open canoe is too big really for one person, but I have paddled it for years, and have never been in any major trouble before.

So I paddled along the shore past Dunoon, and out towards the Gantock rocks, just off Dunoon pier. There are usually a few seals there, and I planned a quick look, then either back up the coast, or if the tide was too tough, then in to the shore, and a walk home to return with the car for the canoe.

But off the Gantocks, the tide tipped me over.

How it happened, I am not fully sure- I turned slightly across the flow, and because my canoe was not well balanced (having only me in) it was enough to flip me, and I was in the water, and in trouble.

I was able to function quite well. I tried flipping the canoe, and bailing, but failed. I tried riding th upturned canoe towards the shore, but the tide would have made this impossible. Iconsidered swimming to the Gantocks, but the way the tide was swirling, I am not sure I would have made it. I took the decision to leave the canoe, and swim. I am still not sure this was the right thing to do.

But I set off, swimming to shore. The challenge of this can be understood from looking at this map. The Gantocks are about 400M from the pier and breakwater, but as the tide was sending me down stream, I was then level with the west bay, which put land around a kilometre away.  .

I set out, aware that cold was my enemy, needing to keep going, but getting weaker- very reliant on my buoyancy aid. I occassionaly shouted to try to let people know where I was- but was not sure that anyone had seen me. I think I was in the water between 30 mins and an hour.

I almost made shore. I was perhaps 100-200 M away- still moving, but very tired- when suddenly I was hit by the down wash from a Sea King helicopter.  That was scary. It was like trying to swim in a tornado. I turned and saw the police launch, and assumed that they would drag me in, and I would be shipped to Dunoon cold and shame faced. But the next thing was that I saw a winch man in the water next to me, strapping me into a hoist, and felt myself being lifted up in to the chopper.

They pulled me in- and I could not move. I was hyperventilating, more from the shock of finding myself the centre of so much attention. But I realised too just how tired I was, and how incredibly cold.

They told me, despite my protests, that they were taking me to hospital in Glasgow. I was just desperate to let Michaela know I was OK, but they said that was a job for later.

So I arrived at the big hospital in Glasgow, and found myself shivering uncontrollably. My core temperature had dropped to 32 degrees- which would be classed as mild hypothermia. Considering the length of time I was in the water, in February, this is remarkable.

They stripped me and struggled to find veins to pump in warm saline, and covered me in a perforated plastic sheet through which they pumped warm air. The aim was to raise my temperature by one degree an hour. I shivered like a man suffering shell shock, but it worked.

And eventually I got in touch with Michaela, and when they had flushed enough of the lactic acid out of my system, she came to fetch me, with our friend Maggy, leaving the kids with other friends Andy and Angela.

It is so good to be home.

I now need to sleep. But I have been re-reading my earlier post. It is full of irony I think!

What kept me safe? Sure, I have a good layer of insulation- and I did not panic, but did what needed to be done to get my self out of trouble. And some kind soul saw me, and phoned 999.

Michaela told me that she had a flash back to early this morning, before the kids went to school. As they crowded into the bed to wish me happy birthday, she had a sudden feeling that something bad was going to happen to me. She prayed.

Now I know- this sounds a bit fanciful. Why would God save me, but not the young boy who died falling through a snow cornice in the Cairgorm mountains today? is this just spiritualising after the event?

I do not know, all I know is that I am grateful.

And in the ebbing of tide, I felt for a while the ebbing of life. And I am grateful that now it still flows strong in me.

And wondering- what next Lord? What next? Because I am on his time. I always was.

Happy birthday to me!

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So- today I am 43. Thanks so much to those who have sent wishes/cards/presents! I am a man blessed.

I share a birthday with some of my friends- Nick, Stacey and Stewart. And aparently Kim Jong-il, North Korean dictator. So best wishes to them all. I am not expecting a card from Kim.

And for those of a certain age-

(I was reading recently that tests have shown that kids who grew up watching Sesame Street out perform kids that did not in key indicators. I did not watch it as a child unfortunately- my mum thought that TV sent brains soft.)

Michaela and the kids bought me a days sea kayaking tuition! Which to some might mean they are trying to get rid of me- but I know better. It is something I have wanted to do for years. Can’t wait!

What will this year bring?

My friend Maggy gave me a book of Celtic daily prayer– and I read this-

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide, and resist the terror of it’s ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity- in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Lord Help me now to unclutter my life

To organise myself in the direction of simplicity

Lord teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change rather than fearing it

Lord I give you these stirrings inside of me

I give you my discontent

I give you my restlessness

I give you my doubt

I give you my despair

I give to you all the longings I hold inside

Help me to listen for those signs of change, of growth; to listen seriously and follow where they lead

Through the breathtaking empty space of the open door…

Amen, amen.