Defective articles and the Love of God

I've been catching up on an unread bit of a Sunday paper, and found an interview with actor James McCardle. In the light of what I've been involved in recently, this struck me:

People who live a heteronormative life might feel they are free but until we life a life that includes equality of sexuality, gender, equality of class, equality of race then no-one is free.

There's no freedom at all unless there is freedom for all. I understand there have to be labels when there is still a fight to be had, but that shift has to be cultural and it's never going to work if you keep dividing people.

Yes, you say - or do you? Not yet, it seems, if you're a certain kind of church member. And it pains me, as a member of the church for the past 44 years, to have to say that. Especially after the relief many of us felt when my own denomination (and yes - that's another division) decided at last to remove the barriers to equal marriage in our churches. And then it came to deciding where these marriages would be celebrated.

I don't want to go into agonising detail of my latest discoveries - the how, the when. But I want to ask a question. What in God's name is going on in the minds of the people - and I think and pray that indeed they are a minority - who stand, grimly or miserably, in the way, barring the use of "their" church buildings for the celebration of a same-sex marriage?

"It's the word 'marriage'" they insist. It means a man and a woman."

I can think, as my mind flounders in the face of their intransigence, of two things that I didn't get the chance adequately to point out. The first is that such a meaning of the word is but one of four in the quite elderly Concise Oxford that I consulted. The second is that it's a word. Not the Word of God, whatever I believe that to be, just a word. A different word in all the languages of the world, from the close relations of the Latin languages to the intricacies of Russian ... and take a look at this, from an excellent blog:

The word «брак», of course, has another meaning in addition to “marriage”. Its second meaning is “defective articles, discards”. While some marriages do end up discarded, the two «брак»s are not linguistically related.

Language is fascinating, but if I were to enter into any such detail in conversation I'd be accused of being intimidatingly clever, far too fluent for my own good. But for anyone to bar the way to an equal sharing in the love of God in the poor house that we humans have built to gather so that we can feel we are together in sharing that love, for anyone to use a pathetic, human concept, expressed in language that humans have made in order to communicate with each other as an excuse to reserve that space for their own selfish use - is that of God? We don't even need to use language in our deepest communication with what we call God - God who knows the secret of our hearts...

So I'll put it simply:

Language is not of God.
Love is of God.

Proud to march with Pride

I'm no novice when it comes to marches, gatherings, protests and the like - from joining in a CND march when I was 16, the day after the fire that destroyed Glasgow's St Andrew's Halls (how do I remember that?) to organising marches in Dunoon in the 80s, picketing the pier at the American base on Holy Loch, marching through Clydebank, gathering in George Square; from producing a handful of protestors at Faslane to joining the huge anti-war march in Glasgow in the Blair era. I've walked miles in various linked causes, mostly in the rain. You'd think I might have had enough ...

But today I joined my first Pride march through Glasgow, as part of a group of Episcopalians stressing the point that there is a church where gay, transgender, bi and straight are welcomed, and where some of us are working for the day when anyone - of whatever sexual orientation - will be able to marry there if they want to. That's why I was there - a straight marcher among the most varied crowd I've ever been in - because the injustice of the current prevarication and and discrimination in church circles that means we're still wrangling over whether or not we'll join civil society in a bit of human decency.

What was it like? Well, to be honest, it was brilliant. I think a big part of it was the sheer exuberant joy of the thing. No-one seemed to be angry, resentful, pugnacious - though God knows many present must have had reason to be. The music, pumping from supermarket lorries bursting with people and sound-systems, was infectious (as long as you weren't standing right in front of it. Then it was merely deafening.) Dancing Queen at that volume? The Proclaimers? Great. Loved it. And as we marched from Glasgow Green through the city, people hung out of windows, took photos, waved, smiled. It was particularly gratifying when people clearly took photos of the banner shown above, gave the thumbs up, showed others that there was a real live priest in his black duds and all marching under a rainbow umbrella.

I wondered how it'd feel, being so much in the minority on this day, but to be honest it didn't feel like anything. I felt I was in a crowd of people, united in a common purpose. No-one could tell if I was straight or not; I couldn't have cared less. Everyone was friendly. It was a good place to be.

But it would have been lovely to have had one of our bishops marching beside me ...

Snuffing out the candles

 We are in the season of Epiphany. Today I took down the (moulting) tree, put the decorations back in the loft, looked out at the rain, noted that the gloom of early morning had moved imperceptibly into the gloom of early evening, and reflected. I reflected on the past fortnight or so, in which the raging energy brought on by the pronouncement of the Bishops (read back - the links are all there) had been dissipated in singing beautiful music and soothed by the magic of Christmas.

And I have been consolidating something I've known for a long time. It's a long time since I stopped thinking that the gospel accounts of the Nativity are literal truth, half a century or more since I realised that in fact the gospels are full of what a student of literature recognises as the hallmarks of a fictional account. (Think of all that direct speech, for starters). And over the years I've heard sermons that have, in their way, dealt with that - pointed out relevance, invited us to think. And I've thought.

Now, as the rain batters on my study window, I can see clearly what it does, all this magic. I don't care that the stories of the shepherds, the angels, the Magi (and Eliot's wonderful poem about them) - I don't care that they can't possibly be true in the way that it's true that I was born in Glasgow. I don't want them changed in any way, for they are perfect. They are perfect poems that contain a truth that inspires, and they are best absorbed as poems, enhanced by art and music and beauty.

And what does this truth inspire me to? I suppose in one way you could say that it inspired me to become a damned nuisance. It certainly knocked me off a comfortable path and set me climbing the spiritual equivalent of the Aonach Eagach, on a ridge walk that I'm still clambering along more than forty years later. It's exciting, it's bound only by trust and love and balance, and that's how I want it to remain.

What does not inspire is a set of rules. Dogma and authoritarianism aren't very thrilling either. Dry politicking within ecclesiastical structures leaves me cold, and people - men, usually - telling me what can and cannot be done because of history and prejudice will tend to set me off on yet another mountain, to sustain the metaphor.

So what about all the beauty and mystery and the stories that tell us of Love incarnate and inspire us to love justice and truth and our neighbours as ourselves? I can't imagine that our bishops, for example, haven't had a bit of that for themselves this Christmas. None of them, after all, is as old as I am - surely they're not blasé about the mysteries they dispense? Does none of it do something to rekindle the fire that, presumably, used to burn in them?

Because in the end, that 's what it does, this season we've just had. It rekindles a fire. Dangerous element, fire - but warming and wonderful. Gives you courage. Gives you passion. I have heard at least one of our bishops preach with passion - but a new image has just presented itself to me, and it seems horribly apt.

Bishop's mitre as candle snuffer.

Icon, anyone?

The Collection

I'm just back from doing the Christian Aid collection with my pal Mrs Heathbank. Because we are relatively lithe and active (I know, but that's church for you...) we undertake an area with a hill in it. On the very outskirts of town. This year's collection included not only the hill, and its strangely bleak little community in a new development which is unfinished and half empty, but also some new houses on the shore that we'd never visited before, so the afternoon promised some variety and a bit of interest.

In the event, there was much with which we were all too familiar. The people who had no money (it's Sunday). The man who said "I'm afraid I'm the only one in," and shut the door. The people who had already been given an envelope by their own church (come on, chaps, they're for door-to-door collections, you know - not for an easy way out for all concerned). Less familiar were  the lovely people who gave us these envelopes for our bag notwithstanding, and the people who invited us in for a chat regardless of our hiking boots (you go prepared for anything in this part of the world). Most annoying moment of the afternoon was reserved for four persistent and  very rude small boys who dogged our way round one group of houses making such a racket that we were sure the forewarned denizens of the place lay low as one man. It's the difficulty of remembering that I'm a Christian Aid collector and therefore must bite my tongue that really gets to me in these moments.

And then there were the dogs. I don't care for dogs. Fortunately Mrs H does, and fielded most of them. I had one great success in ordering one beast back into his house; it went, and its owner offered to hire me to complete the animal's training. I declined.

All this time it rained. Most of the time it was a fine, wetting drizzle, with occasional outbursts of something more substantial. As we trailed up the half-made road to the last houses in our patch, we reflected on how different it is doing this sort of thing in a city. I once helped a friend in a residential area of the Edinburgh suburbs; she did one side of the road and I did the other and the whole operation took us half an hour and yielded a heavy haul of filled envelopes. Where we collect in Dunoon, we have to reckon on at least two hours to get round our allocated houses, and will be lucky to have half the amount of the city collection. But I'm not complaining - not really. Except about the churches who make our journey a waste of time.

And next year I'd like it to be warm and sunny. Please?

Window on the future

Windows in the forest
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A highlight of the recent Fahrt to Barcelona was the visit to La Segrada Familia - the iconic, unfinished basilica which I first noticed while trying to text-wrap round an image of its towers for the school's entry in a newspaper competition. We ran a school trips section, and this particular photo taxed my fairly rudimentary skills with Pagemaker. But the jumble of towers and cranes seen from the streets of Barcelona give little indication of what is inside.

I'm used to gloom and relative silence inside the ecclesiastical buildings I've visited (there are many). Not here. Strangely, it was not the bedlam of workmen who have to make the interior ready for the Papal visit in November that made the greatest impression. It was the light - a pale, greenish/pinkish glow that suggested a mystery beyond the merely holy - the mystery of life itself. The columns are organic in their construction, arching up like great trees to split into smaller branches and then into leaf-like fans supporting the ceiling. They seem to be in no recognisable pattern, and yet nothing seems out of place. The flow of stone is elegant and natural, and the light from windows - stained glass or otherwise - permeates the space from hundreds of openings. We were told of plans to fill some of the light-apertures with coloured glass - I think the accompanying photo shows how this might look (at the top of the pillar in the middle ground)

Outside, I was aware of the contrast between the sculptures round the door we had entered by and the ones on the Passion Façade by which we left. The older are of conventional style, though placed among Gaudi's fantastically melting stonework as in a gigantic dripping candle. On the Passion façade, however, Subirach's sculpture is starkly modern, almost cubist in appearance, and intensely powerful, as the road to the Cross is depicted as an upward path on the Western side of the building. Some of the detail escaped me in the bright midday sun - I only noticed the women covering their faces when I looked at the photos I had taken.

If it does indeed take another 20 years for this amazing building to be completed, it is unlikely that I shall see it. But even as it is, Gaudi's vision has transformed my idea of what a church can be. I shall never be satisfied again!

For Country Parsons everywhere ...

I read this the other day, an extract from A Country Parson by George Herbert. I thought it might be an amusing reminder to the incumbent of our own country charge. Plus ça change .. and all that.

The Country Parson hath a special care of his church that all things there be decent and befitting his Name by which it is called. Therefore first he takes order that all things be in good repair; as walls plastered, windows glazed, floor paved, seats whole, firm and uniform, especially that the pulpit, and desk, and communion table and font be as they ought, for those great duties that are performed in them.

Secondly, that the church be swept and kept clean without dust of cobwebs, and at great festivals strawed and stuck with boughs and perfumed with incense.

Thirdly, that there be fit and proper texts of Scripture everywhere painted, and that all the painting be grave and reverend, not with light colours or foolish antics.

Fourthly, that all the books appointed by authority be there, and those not torn or fouled, but whole and clean and well bound; and that there be a fitting and sightly communion cloth of fine linen, with an handsome and seemly carpet of good and costly stuff or cloth, and all kept sweet and clean in a strong and decent chest with a chalice and cover, and a stoop or flagon; and a basin for alms and offerings, besides which he hath a poor-man’s box conveniently sited to receive the charity of well-minded people, and to lay up treasure for the sick and needy.

And all this he doth, not as out of necessity, but as desiring to keep the middle way between superstition and slovenliness.

A poem and a church

Llananno church
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A highlight of last week's wandering round tiny deserted Welsh churches was a visit to the church of St Anno, Llananno church. We almost drove past it, despite our hosts' knowing it was there - the road runs above the little river valley it sits in, and the sign was facing the wrong way and half obscured in a hedge. The special thing for me was the association with the poet R.S.Thomas, who wrote a poem about this church - a hand-written copy is displayed on the wall just inside the door.
"I often call there" he begins,

"in a gesture
of independence of the speeding
traffic I am a part
of".

I don't know how many people seek out the church precisely for this connection, but it was apparent that there were no regular services held there. The door was open, the grass around it had been cut, but there was little sign of life other than some slightly drooping flowers on the altar - "brownish now", to go back to Larkin. But behind the altar, through the plain glass of the large East window, a huge tree in full leaf seemed to suggest a great life force embracing this quiet place, so that the whole place seemed full of it.

There Thomas felt he came

"face to face,
with no intermediary
between me and God"

and recalled the delicate light which entered his soul.

The whole poem can be found in Thomas' Collected Poems (p3.304), or you can read it here. I realise now how much of the poetry I love was shaped by such places - and how enhanced my understanding has been by my visit to this one. Why didn't I think of a school trip...?

Chopping and changing

Rood screen
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I've already blogged about our visit to this tiny church of St Ellwye, Llandieu, Telgarth, but I want to revisit the experience briefly. The photo here - rather fuzzy, as my phone isn't up to dim interiors - shows the mediaeval rood-screen typical of many of the churches we visited, truncated at its right-hand end to accomodate a small pulpit. This reflected the change in emphasis in worship after the Reformation, when preaching assumed a greater importance, but the result is visually lopsided and aesthetically upsetting. And as the church is now disused, of course, there seems even less reason for such architectural vandalism.

But I wonder how it was at the time when the alteration was made. Was there the equivalent of a vestry committee, arguing over the structural alterations? Did someone ask what was more important: beauty or The Word? Or were all consumed with such reforming zeal that they merely bashed on, and anyone who had regrets kept these to himself for fear of seeming too papist? However it was done, the alterations are now themselves ancient, and the disagreements long forgotten. This was a silent, powerful space, deserted by all but the bats and a sense of the holy made all the stronger by the lack of domestication which had tamed a more cared-for church (like St Bilo's, seen later in the day and pictured in the earlier blog post).

And this, of course, is where Larkin comes in - again!

Ancient things

Wales - the bit near us anyway - is full of tiny, ancient churches. This one is St Bilo's Church, Llanfilo, and is obviously very much loved and cared for. The mediaeval rood screen inside sags to the right; we learned that recent subsidence meant that the north-east wall had to be pinned, but didn't know if the two were related. Prince Charles seems to have paid a flying visit last month, presumably in his Prince of Wales mode.

Earlier in the day, when the sun had still to reappear and the wind was discouraging, we ate our picnic in the porch of another tiny, mediaeval church : the Church of St Ellwye, Llandieu, Telgarth, at the foot of the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons national park. This church was a sad contrast to St Bilo's, looked after only by the Friends of Friendless Churches and used only once a year. Sheep wandered among the toppled gravestones, and bat droppings littered the porch floor. There were remarkable traces of mediaeval painting on the walls, including one of Adam and Eve and The Tree of Life of which only their feet and legs remained; I'll post more photos when I'm back at my own computer. I even forgot my camera on this trip - the pics are from my phone.

Having bodyswerved Matins as our Sunday worship, we said some prayers and sang "Come Holy Ghost" in St Ellwye's - so perhaps we doubled the worship in this place for this year. It was another of these Celtic thin places - a special place on a grey, quiet morning.

And then the sun came out.

There came both ice and snow ....

A snowy morning in NY lacks the luminosity of the same weather in Scotland. Perhaps being on the 24th floor makes a difference – halfway into the clouds, really. I peer down at St Bartholomew’s dome and the yellow taxis crawling along the white street and realise that there is still stuff falling – the dreaded “frozen rain” of the forecast. It lands in little hard lumps on the window ledge and stays there. Obviously no rise in the temperature, then.

Fearful of venturing too far in streets turned suddenly lethal, we plan a circuit of interesting places within sliding distance. St Patrick’s Cathedral is huge, warm and atmospheric. There are huddled bundles on some of the pews; they may be praying but are almost certainly there for a heat. No-one disturbs them. St Bartholomew’s, the Episcopal church below our window, is dark and strangely unappealing, though we find the restaurant in their “Great Hall” at just the right time. They serve fries in flowerpots, but I manage to avoid temptation. The red tiled path outside by now is suicidally slippy and we clamber instead over the lateral moraines of cleared snow. We visit the Museum of Modern Art – a huge Anglepoise lamp appeals – and hear a wonderful choral Evensong in St Thomas’, Fifth Avenue. This last is a bonus: I have mistaken our direction and we end up outside the church five minutes before the service.

By this time the pavements (sorry – sidewalks) have been cleared perhaps half a dozen times. The precipitation has ceased (in other words the frozen rain, hail and snow are no longer timesharing) and the sky is clearing as darkness falls. Where the clearing has been most efficient, it is impossible to cross the road without braving either a deep pool of brown slush or a mountain of frozen stuff. The less favoured roads are covered in a soupy mixture of slush and salt, through which the traffic slithers and honks. Pedestrians – rather like Glaswegians – jaywalk at every crossroads, cursing in a variety of languages as the soup closes over their shoes. They are shod in every manner of footwear from wellies to stilettos. Businessmen and fur-clad women vie with Rohan-wearing tourists (us) for the shallows. I have never seen so many fur coats – don’t know if this is because I live in the sticks or if it’s an American thing.

We dine out again. It is Valentine’s Day and the hotel is very busy. We brace ourselves for the after-dark cold and make our way along Lexington to find a family-run Italian recommended by the concierge. It is excellent and very atmospheric, with an air of triumph as if we had all braved something just to be there. By the time we leave, it is colder than ever – 17 degrees Fahrenheit, someone says. The slush is freezing again, and there are gangs of men on small tractor-like machines pushing it into piles. Some are shovelling. They don’t seem to be wearing hats – I seem to have had mine glued to my head all day. I haven’t been so cold since I was a child – that hot-eared, dry-skinned, frozen feet feeling.

I no longer want to crack the windows in the hotel.