dis/enchanted

 

There are no gods in Christopher Nolan’s retelling of The Odyssey, only dis/belief in the Greek gods, expressed as attribution for (e.g.) storms, wishful thinking, or guilt-induced hallucinations.

One of the tensions of the film is that between those who still believe, those who don’t believe, and those who wrestle with a deconstruction of what they have believed (passing through disenchantment with the world, to disenchantment with the self, before, at the end, the hope of re-enchantment).

A central theme is how common belief in Zeus’ Law—the codified rules for hosts and guests—has actually held civilization together; and that with the loss of belief in the god who holds mortals to account on the basis of that code, so the code itself is defied, and so civilisation itself falls into a dark age.

A disenchanted world leads to disenchantment with the world. Though Nolan holds out the possibility of re-enchantment that may lie beyond first reaching the point of disenchantment with ourselves, our presumption.

At St Nicholas’ Church we are running through a summer sermon series on the Psalms, and today we are exploring Psalm 19 (text below).

It is a psalm that proclaims the world is, in fact, enchanted.

Beginning with an enchanted creation, which we may experience not as unbearable judgement but as gift, the bard goes on to extol God’s Law as the thing that sustains and renews all that we might enjoy—again, as gift—before turning to address the presumptuousness that so easily leads us into disenchantment.

This is a film, and a psalm, for our disenchanted times. The gift of the church to such a time as this is re-enchantment.

Psalm 19

God’s Glory in Creation and the Law

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 The heavens are telling the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens
and its circuit to the end of them,
and nothing is hid from its heat.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can detect one’s own errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless
and innocent of great transgression.

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

 

xenia

 

In the ancient world, hospitality towards strangers was incredibly important—and, therefore, highly codified, or ritualised. Such rituals provided a framework for transforming strangers into friends, created networks of shared resources, and helped to provide loose social cohesion (or alliances) between communities across significant geographic distances.

The Greek concept of ‘xenia’ placed certain obligations on both host and guest. If a stranger, on a journey, turned up at your door, you were obliged to offer them a bath; food and drink; to not ask too many questions about them, and none at all until they had eaten; perhaps to present them with gifts; and even to provide safe escort on the next leg of their journey. Guests were obliged not to be a burden to their host; not to repay hospitality with dishonour; to tell stories of the outside world (this was an important part of the code); and to reciprocate hospitality should their host turn up at their door at a future date. Indeed, this reciprocal obligation extended to the children and grandchildren of parties who had shared xenia.

Xenia was rooted in and upheld by the belief that Zeus, and also Athena, were patrons to all and any traveller on a journey—that travellers were under their protection —and that to treat a stranger badly would incur the wrath of the gods.

Any version or telling of ‘The Odyssey’ records several instances of Xenia, extended and received, and violated—by both hosts and guests. Much of what takes place is understood within this framework. For example, Aeolus, ruler of the winds, extends hospitality (as required and expected) to Odysseus and his men, which includes giving Odysseus the gift of a bag containing the wind that will carry him home (gift; safe escort to next destination). But when, within sight of Ithaca’s shore, Odysseus’ men open the bag, and the escaping wind blows them all the way back to Aeolus from whence they had come, he refuses to help them a second time, assuming that, in fact, Odysseus must have incurred the wrath of the gods (freeing Aeolus from obligation).

There is a parallel stranger-hospitality code in ancient Judaism, which dates back at least to Abraham (broadly-speaking a contemporary of Homer) who entertained three angels in human form—and perhaps even earlier to oral traditions of angels walking the earth and fathering giants and heroes by human women.

Both Jewish and Greek hospitality codes feed into early Christian hospitality codes. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds her recipients not to neglect showing hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some have entertained angels unawares. And, of course, all the letters that form much of the New Testament, such as the letters written by Paul and his travelling companions, were written, sent, and received under xenia expectations.

Jesus himself made the treatment of strangers, according to hospitality codes expectations, the basis on which the surrounding nations of the ancient world would be judged (the parable of the sheep and the goats).

My own society has lost sight of hospitality codes (perhaps because it has lost sight of a belief in any gods who might protect strangers and travellers) and has become fearful of strangers. Not only strangers who look different from ourselves, whose skin is dark, but indeed anyone not already personally known to us who might turn up at our door unannounced. We increasingly put signs on our doors saying that a long list of strangers are not welcome. And we have a now endemic health crisis of isolation, which takes a huge toll on our wellbeing. I live in a city where hospitality generally does not extend beyond the extended family, which leaves us exposed to isolation when extended family moves away.

What might a stranger-guest-hospitality code look like today?

 

mirror

 

Elon Musk has said that he will produce a telling of the Odyssey that is more historically accurate and better than Christopher Nolan’s. For this, he has been laughed out of court—how can a myth be historically accurate!? But the scorn misses the point, as much as Musk does, albeit for different reasons. A myth is a story that transcends its original context. It survives because we can employ it to explore the issues we are facing, in our time and place. And what we think those issues are depends on our perspective. Depends on how the story relates to other stories we have been told.

In Homer’s ‘The Odyssey,’ Odysseus undertakes no voyage of discovery, no soul-searching. He is utterly deceitful in his dealings with everyone, including the men he leads, every last one of whom died, sooner or later, on account of his hubris. He is serially unfaithful to his wife. He is vainglorious. He lacks wisdom and never learns any. He returns home, eventually, unchanged.

Whether we see Odysseus—in whatever telling of the story—as hero, villain, or antihero; as exemplar or dire warning; says little about the absent king of Ithaca, and a great deal about us. This has been the case at least since the Romans retold the Greek sources, if not from the beginning.

Whether you believe that Others are coming to steal what is rightfully yours, or wrestle with the guilt that your own actions have left a scar on the lives of Others, you will be able to fashion this story in your likeness.

The Odyssey of Musk is less problematised than that of Nolan, and in one historical sense less problematic. That we find ourselves at a stalemate fighting over the text is, perhaps, ironic. The battle may eventually be won, one way or another, by deception; and the victor will need to live with the consequences as much as the loser.

As with every myth, this is a story for our times.

 

happy ever after?

 

Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ has a happy-ever-after ending, of sorts. But in ‘Theogany,’ Homer’s contemporary Hesiod gives Odysseus a different ending.

Here, Circe bears sons fathered by Odysseus. Eventually, after Odysseus has returned home to Ithaca and been reunited with his wife Penelope, and their son, Telemachus, Circe informs her youngest son, Telegonus, of his father’s identity. Telegonus travels to Ithaca in search of his father, who is away at war (again), but, on discovering this, Telegonus sets about in a rage. Odysseus returns, confronts him, and Telegonus, not knowing who stands before him, kills his father with a poison-tipped spear, given him by his mother for protection.

Telegonus goes on to reveal his identity to Penelope and his half-brother Telemachus. Together, they sail to Circe with Odysseus’ corpse, and he is buried on her island. Circe grants her son, her lover’s son, and her lover’s widow the gift of immortality. On the advice of Athena, Circe married her lover’s son, Telemachus; and Penelope marries Telegonus, her husband’s son by his lover.

It is messy.

And there is no happy-ever-after. Even immortality cannot secure that.

Whether we get a happy ending or not is, perhaps, always a matter of perspective, certainly rather than wish-fulfilment or rushing to wrap the narrative up.

We cannot escape the consequences of our actions. We can, perhaps, together, make and maintain peace. We can rebuild a life, though not one we can control as it impacts the lives of others.

Our stories—which may be told at our funeral if not before—can be told from a variety of perspectives; some more positive than others. We ought to try to listen to whatever story is offered, even those we find hard to hear—especially those we find hard to hear—as they contain an element of common ground we have fought over.

 

pigs

 

In ‘The Odyssey’ Book X, Odysseus lands on the island of the ‘polypharmakos’ (one who weaves many drugs into potions) Circe, who lives in exile without a father, or brother, or male guardian to protect her.

Seeing smoke rising from her chimney, some of Odysseus’ crew set out to investigate. Coming close to her hall, they are drawn by her singing, as she sits and weaves at her giant loom. All but one enter her hall, whereupon she bids them eat and drink drug-infused fare, and then transforms them into pigs, and corrals them in her sties.

This is a pre-emptive defence, based on years of ships’ crews landing, coming to her door, revealing in their eyes intention to take first her body, and then her treasured possessions, for themselves (see Virgil’s ‘Aeneid,’ Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’—and, for a beautiful modern retelling of Circe’s story, see Madeline Miller’s ‘Circe’).

Informed of their fate by the one more wary sailor, and both instructed and protected by the god Hermes, Odysseus confronts Circe and forces her to return his crew to human form.

In Christopher Nolan’s new big screen adaptation, she does so saying, hauntingly, ‘Return to your disguise, Return to your disguise.’

(For a contrasting view, Plutarch’s ‘Moralia’ (Book XII, 67) contains ‘Beasts are Rational’ (Bruta animalia ratione uti) in which Circe permits Odysseus to have a conversation with Gryllus, a fellow-Greek transformed into the body of a pig while retaining the mind of a man, in which Gryllus argues that his life is happier in his present state, and that pigs are more noble than men.)

(An aside: I have written elsewhere about the wider parallels between ‘Odyssey’ chapter X and ‘Luke’ chapter 8.)

In ‘Journey to the West’ the General of the Heavenly Navy-soldiers, or marine commandoes, is thrown out of heaven for drunkenly attempting to seduce the moon goddess. Falling to earth to be (re-)incarnated, he lands in a well for watering pigs, and takes on a monstrous half-human, half-pig form. Many years later, this lazy, gluttonous, lustful being encounters the personification of Mercy, and is given the name Zhu Bajie, or Pig Awakened to Abstinence—that is, to the power and ability to exercise self-control.

Both stories, one 3,000 years old from Greece, the other 500 years old from China (though each sits within traditions that weave them into both earlier and later texts) employ zoomorphism to explore the shadow personality we try to hide; the true, or noble, form of a healthily integrated life; and the possibility of transformation—in either direction. Neither story arises within a Christian context, but both speak to the Christian concepts of vices—including lust, gluttony, and laziness—and virtues—including chastity, temperance and diligence.

Appetite is common to humans and other animals. To become fully human is not to transcend appetite but to learn mastery—leadership, captaincy—over our appetites, which can make for good companions but sometimes make unwise choices (such as Odysseus’ men letting the wind that had carried them to within sight of home out of the bag, blowing them back from where they had come, before they arrive at Circe’s shore). There is a nobility to this, that does not arise from status among men (or pigs) but is inherent to every creature—human, pig, otherwise (so, at the end of the ‘Journey to the West,’ Zhu Bajie, who has not yet fully embraced the virtues of Abstinence, is not given back his divine form but remains half-human, half-pig, and is restored to the lower, earth-bound, rank of Cleaner of the Altars).

We are also more than capable of debasing ourselves and becoming what we are not (whether or not pigs are more noble than humans; whether or not men make very good pigs). Of needing to be saved from our own actions, or intentions—even unacted on—by Mercy intervening to protect others and to send us into an experience of desolation and of consolation—of coming to the full, terrible, consequences of our lostness, and to the re-orienting, re-conferring promise of grace, that points us towards the homecoming we long for, and strengthens us for the still-long and at times arduous journey it will take to get there.

Every culture has to wrestle with such things. And every tradition—including faith traditions—has a framework for this work.

Where have you seen yourself, with newfound clarity, for less-than fully human?

And where have you experienced the intervention of Mercy, to restore you to humanity?

What practices have you found helpful in engaging with this process?

 

zoomorphism

 

The west window at St Nicholas Church, Sunderland depicts Jesus on the throne of heaven, surrounded by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are traditionally depicted as a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

I am thinking about the representation of human character, and of the transformation of character, through animals (zoomorphism.

In the sixteenth-century Chinese epic Journey to the West, the monk Tang Sanzang is accompanied on a pilgrimage by the Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to Emptiness); the pig demon, Zhu Bajie (Pig awakened to Abstinence; also known as Zhu Wuneng, Pig awakened to Power, or Ability), formerly general of the Heavenly navy, disgraced for attempting to seduce the goddess of the Moon; the fish demon Sha Wujing (Sand awakened to Purity), formerly bodyguard and attendant to the Jade emperor, disgraced for breaking the Queen Mother’s crystal cup; and the dragon prince transformed into a white horse, Bai Longma, disgraced for setting fire to a pearl gifted by the Jade emperor.

These represent different shadow aspects of human character—avarice (the attempt to fill internal emptiness by hoarding knowledge) (I am a Monkey); lust, gluttony; anger; pride, ambition—which are transformed, through self-inflicted suffering (a desolating experience) and then being shown Mercy (a consoling experience), into enlightened characteristics of wisdom; companionship; purity; and service to others. Each character receives a measure of reward, though the pig demon remains a work-in-progress by the end of the tale.

In my own faith tradition, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John accompany Jesus in the forms of a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle.

Matthew is also known as Levi, the tax collector. He has chosen a path in life that places him outside of the community, considered a sinner, one to be shunned. He has chosen to gamble on his own skills to survive, believing that he will get farther alone (or, at least, in the company of like-minded others) than in the matrix of community. When Jesus finds him, he is alone, sitting in his tax booth. Yet Jesus calls him out from there, back into community—into a community, the Twelve, that explicitly harks back to the family of Israel. It is only in community that our humanity is given form. So, Matthew composes his account of the life of Jesus in a five-fold structure that mirrors the five books of the Torah, the account of a people, often unfaithful to one another, shaped, together, by divine instruction.

Mark is cowardly. We first meet him as a young man (albeit unnamed) who wriggles out of his clothes to run away naked from the scene of Jesus’ arrest. We meet him again running away from accompanying Paul and Barnabas on a journey to carry the good news into Asia Minor. Yet, Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement, encourages him—literally, builds up his courage—until the scaredy-cat becomes a lion, who writes down Peter’s memoir in Rome, a stone’s throw from where Christians were fed to the lions.

Luke is a Greek, perhaps a sea-going captain of ships (traditionally identified as a doctor, but that may refer to another Luke; his knowledge of ships is informed as only an insider would know). Luke ploughs his furrow through the Great Sea, rudder in hand. And at some point—most likely through Paul—he encounters the story of Jesus, and is captivated. Drawn back to land. Searches out Mary, the mother of Jesus, living with John in Ephesus. Sits at her feet and listens as she takes out the treasured memories of her son’s birth and holds them up to the light. Luke becomes the ox whose manger becomes a crib for the incarnate Word. His words—the two-part work, Luke-Acts—will carry the story further, all around the world.

John is the youngest of Jesus’ disciples, his mother’s golden boy for whom (along with his brother, James) she wants special recognition. He is the one who shines like the noonday sun in response to love, but whose countenance darkens with anger when he perceives a sleight. John will remain at the foot of the cross; will outlive all his fellow companions; will have to hear news, again and again, of their untimely deaths by execution. John will endure; and be purified by love until he can gaze into the sun of love’s light without being blinded. John will write his good news of Jesus from a very different perspective, a sweeping overview. John will become an eagle.

And what of you? What animal represents you, and the transformation you have experienced through life, and the transformation you have yet to know?

 

Monkey King

Many of my friends are writing about Odyssey, but [1] I wrote extensively about the parallels between The Odyssey and the Acts of the Apostles—the voyage of Odysseus and the missionary journeys of Paul and his companions—last summer, and [2] I have yet to see Nolan’s Odyssey, so instead I will say something about the sixteenth-century Chinese epic Journey to the West (Book 1) and the enigmatic Monkey King, Sun Wukong, born from a stone egg nurtured by both heaven and earth.

Having been appointed Protector of the Heavenly Peaches of Immortality—the fruit by which the gods gained their longevity—the Monkey King eats them himself, and sets about a rebellion against heaven. When no one in the Heavenly realm can defeat him, the gods appeal directly to the Buddha, who entraps the vain Sun Wukong with a wager: if he can leap out of the Buddha’s palm, he will be given the throne of heaven.

The Monkey King accepts, for he can travel 34,000 miles in one leap, and also fly. And so, he jumps onto the Buddha’s open palm, and leaps out again, travelling to the very end of the universe. There he comes to the Five Pillars, writing ‘Great Sage, Equal of Heaven’ on one, and urinating against another, before returning all the way back to the Buddha...whose fingers bear a tiny inscription—‘Great Sage, Equal of Heaven’—and smell monkey urine...

Before he can escape, the Buddha slams his palm on the ground, transforming it into a mountain, under which the Monkey King is held captive for 500 years, until the personification of Mercy offers him an opportunity for growth and transformation of character, accompanying a monk on a pilgrimage, along with a pig demon and a fish demon as fellow disciples, and a dragon transformed into a white horse, on which the monk rides (each companion represents a human shadow side, that will be transformed: impulsiveness to wisdom; gluttony to faithfulness; hatred to purity; ambition to service).

There are obvious parallels here with both the heavenly rebellion of a third of the angels led by Lucifer, and of the taking and eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil by the first humans, Eve the Mother of all the Living, and Adam who is both animated earth and Keeper of the Heavenly Garden on earth. But there is also a parallel with Paul’s engagement with the philosophers of Athens.

Paul tells the Athenians that no one is far from God, for, as one of their own number had said (that is, a story from outside of Paul’s Jewish faith tradition; just as Journey to the West is outside of my Christian tradition) ‘in him we live and breathe and have our being.’

Just as the Monkey King cannot leap out of the Buddha’s palm, so no one is far from God.

‘Sin’ is the illusion of separation from God—and ‘hell’ is the awareness of that illusion, and disillusionment that necessarily precedes re-enchantment (Jesus tells a parable—a made-up story, an analogy—in which Abraham says that the gap between hell and heaven cannot be crossed. The point is not that the gap can never be closed, but that torah, the instructions given though Moses that includes the story of Abraham, the ‘father of faith,’ cannot bridge the gap. A different enlightenment is needed).

That is not to say that sin is of no consequence. An illusion can be deadly—think of the illusion of an oasis in the desert. Sin needs addressing, and in the person of Jesus, God does so address the problem of sin. But the nature of that problem was never separation from God.

If sin separates us from God, God could not have dwelt in the tabernacle in the camp of the Israelites who had come out of Egypt. Could not have dwelt in the temple in Jerusalem—nor risen up and departed from the temple to accompany God’s chosen people on their Exile into Babylon. Could not have taken on our humanity and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus. Yet our tradition insists that God did all these things.

Sin does not separate us from God. Indeed, Paul insists that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus—ours, before we recognise it, being under the illusion of separation.

And this love is key. Our not being able to remove ourselves from God’s presence is not to say that we are under constant surveillance, not that we do not possess genuine freedom. It is to say that we are held; that we are safe. Sometimes, even, kept safe—saved—from our own actions.

Jesus is the Light in whose light we are enlightened. In union with whose life our lives are transformed. Without him, much of reality is distorted to us. We see, but not with confidence. Chinese folk tales, as much as Greek—or any other culture; epic stories that belong to humanity—point to truth. Jesus is the truth to which they point.

You are not far from God. Never far from God. Nothing, good or ill, can keep you apart. This is good news. And it can be your story, your journey, your transformation.

 

betrayals

 

I like to be fashionably late to a party, unless it is an actual party, in which case I like not to go at all. And so it is that I watched the third series of The Traitors, having not watched the first two (even then, I didn't pick this one up from the very start).

A couple of quick takeaways.

Firstly, people, even people who believe themselves to be en vogue, are incredibly change resistant. This series saw a couple of twists, variations on how the game was played in the first two series (in part to keep the game fresh; in part, I'm sure, to generate exactly the kind of response it achieved) and a whole lot of viewers were up in arms. Even though this is a game of twists, we want the format to remain unchanged. We like the pretence of being in control that knowing the rules of the game gives.

Secondly, collectively we enter into an agreement to play the game. As far as I know (though I admit I did not go looking and so I may be wrong) the media respected the format. That is, although the series was filmed some time before it was broadcast (and was broadcast over a much longer time than the game took to play) the media did not report who had won (at least, even if that information could be found somewhere, you could engage with the media without finding out). The news media took the traditional roles of reporting, for the record, what had taken place the day before (the day before, in this case, being a conceit, but still) and offering editorial thoughts on what might unfold next; as opposed to the more usual current role of informing us today what someone in the public eye is going to do (e.g. leaking extensive content of a Prime Ministerial speech a couple of days before they deliver it). And this meant that we were all in a traditional and now increasingly unfamiliar role as consumers of media, held in time (not real time, as the series had already been filmed, but common time). If you chose not to watch an episode as it was aired, or if you had no choice but to catch up later, you had to avoid finding out details the next day that would spoil your viewing; but you were essentially in the traditional place of a newspaper reader who only got their newspaper a couple of days after the events it was reporting. This agreement, this holding of common time in a world of on-demand media consumption, also gives us a sense of security, which is illusionary but an effective placebo.

 

Desire lines

 

We have most of our milk delivered to the doorstep in glass pint bottles, but at least once a week I top that up with milk bought at the petrol station on the intersection. The forecourt is designed for cars, with no provision made for pedestrians who come to the station to buy sweets, newspapers or tobacco products. And so, of course, pedestrians have made a desire line, albeit a very short one, that cuts between the public footpath and the petrol station forecourt at the rarely used automatic carwash on the corner of the site.

Desire lines, also known as desire paths, are those dirt tracks, worn away under foot, that cut across parks and vacant lots, or cut the corner off a bend in the official pathway. Footpaths and pavements are laid down by town planners on mapping boards, before being laid down in concrete flags or asphalt by workmen. Desire lines are public works of art, a dialogue between strangers that co-creates a more-liveable urban environment. Someone steps off the prescribed path and gives expression to another possibility. But the desire line depends on the person who comes next, the second and a third, who first notice the line that has been suggested, and then choose to take it themselves, rather than cut their own, rather than, collectively, to trample the ground so that in time the whole space is worn to earth. Desire lines say, ‘This is the Way: walk in it!’ and those whose own desire is awakened stop in the tracks, turn off the broad path that leads to some form of mass destruction (or, loss of some quality of life) and follow on the narrow path on which a fuller experience of being alive is to be found.

Today, I went to fetch some milk, and I discovered that someone has erected the most enormous communications mast on the public footpath ... right in front of the desire line.

As if to say, ‘This unofficial path is barred. You must connect with your neighbour in this virtual (and of course monetised) way. By order of the Pax Romana.’

This desire line must be one of the shortest that exists. And yet each time I step on it, I am aware that I am connected to my neighbours, even on trips to the petrol station forecourt when I do not meet anyone on the way. I am co-creating physical space. There is something almost magical about that scrappy corner of scrub, the almost abandoned carwash, blue light reflected on rain-slick tarmac when it rains at night. It puts a smile on my face that I take all the way to the cashier as I present my two quarts of milk to be scanned and paid for.

But it has never felt better than today, stepping behind the communication mast and disregarding its injunction.

demons

 

The Gospel reading set for this coming Sunday is Luke 8:26-39, in which we meet a man possessed by a legion of demons.

I note the ubiquity of alien life-forms, of gods and monsters, benevolent or malevolent, of the supernatural and paranormal, in the stories that capture our imaginations on screen and page. They can be projections of our inner selves, the battle between serving others for the common good or selfishly seeking to control others. Or ciphers of the clash of nations, cultures, proxy wars in which we find ourselves caught up. The strength of will to survive, in the face of challenges, perceived or real. And the recognition that these things, even as they are within us, are simultaneously out-with us, bigger than any individual, a shared experience. Awareness of demons might indicate that our mental health is out-of-kilter, or that our mental health is robust, in a world that is out-of-kilter. I note these things, and I take it as read that this man is possessed by demons; that we know perfectly well that demons are real; and that we know that demons must be wrestled with and overcome.

The man is weighed down by layers of stories, from which some part or other, or himself, erupt, from time to time. He lives in, or rather on the edge of, an Hellenistic city-state enjoying an autonomy guaranteed by Roman protection in the context of a surrounding Jewish culture. The Greeks, settling in the wake of Alexander the Great, brought their stories of Zeus of Olympus, and, seeing parallel universes, named local gods as multi-Zeus’s. Later, the Romans brought their own pantheon of gods in parallel with those of Greece, and with them the imperial cult, the emperor as the son of a god. The independence of the city-states of the Decapolis from Rome was protected by Rome, raising further cognitive dissonance. Caught in this is a man whose identity is shattered into countless, swirling parts, in search of resolution, wholeness, a singular story.

One might suggest that the way to be set free would be to throw off the shackles of every layer of story. And yet there is ample evidence to suggest that there is no such story-naked stance, only the search for a story to live by.

Into the story steps Jesus, the one who is possessed by love, which by its nature does not grasp but sets free. The one who desires neither to control, nor extract, but to make possible restored relationships.

And the people of the city-state are terrified. But the man who knew terror from the inside out was in his right mind.

Jesus sent him to tell his household—having been restored—what God had done for him. The man, recognising that what God had done for him was done in and through Jesus being with him, went and proclaimed through the entire city population what Jesus had done for him. It is one and the same, and the ripples spread from the one man to his family to his neighbours, from the domestic to the civic.

Such stories retain their cultural currency today, and those who have a story to tell of what God has done for them should tell them, humbly, but with confidence.

 

Let go, keep watch : part 2

 

At the request of our fifteen-year-old son, whose classical education has holes in it on account of having been born too recently, we are currently working our way through every episode of The West Wing. On evenings when I do not have any meetings, we might get in two or even three episodes, and last night we reached the end of the second series and my favourite episode, ‘Two Cathedrals.’

President Bartlet stays behind after the funeral of his longstanding secretary at the National Cathedral, and lets rip at God. He accuses God of cruel indifference, the injustice that nothing he has done, none of the good his administration has achieved, counts for anything. As a Catholic who believes that salvation is by faith and good works, his good works have not changed the mind of God in favour of salvation.

Returning to the Oval Office, the President has a final conversation with the ghost of his secretary, who sets him straight about God (stop projecting your father onto Our Father) and speaks into his life as only she can for one last time before he is able to let go (stop projecting me).

God, of course, can withstand the storm of our wrath while it blows over. Jed Bartlet stands firmly in the scriptural tradition of Job. But, like Job, he needs to hear God speak. And what God says, through a beloved woman, resonates with the exchange between Jesus and his friend Mary in John 12:1-8.

Until you are able to let go, of God and of our neighbour, whom we are called to love as much as ourselves; until we are able to free God and our neighbour of obligation, of any debt owed to us; we are a liability.

For as long as we need to be the protagonist, the hero, we are doomed to force the hand of history with a helping hand, as Judas tries to do; or to create the hubris that humiliates us, as Peter does. We are condemned to the existential crisis that leads Judas to take his own life, and Peter to run away before he is eventually restored to community.

But when we let go of the demand that God repay us, we are freed to watch over whatever it is that God is doing. We are trusted to be a witness, to testify in defence of a loving, self-giving God who is roundly accused of perpetrating a great deceit. We get to point beyond ourselves to something greater than we could ever imagine.

Let go.

Keep watch.

 

Ghosts, past, present, and future

 

Ghosts, past, present, and future

As well as exhibits at Sunderland Minster and Durham Cathedral, the National Glass Centre’s Glass Exchange project includes an empty site on Sunderland’s High Street West. Ryan Gander’s ‘Ghost Shop,’ a half-gutted and abandoned betting shop made entirely of clear glass, bears forensic witness to the decline of the high street, following the exodus of flagship department stores, the vacuum filled with a wasteland of charity shops, discount stores, betting establishments and fast-food franchises, themselves now in danger.

‘Ghost Shop’ is an extraordinary piece. Furniture, signage, an upturned pedal-bin spilling over with cans and cups and straws, balled-up betting slips discarded on the floor, a plant in the window, fire extinguishers against the back wall, flyers advertising other businesses pushed under the door—all in glass. The ordinary detritus of life, hallowed, rendered visible by making it transparent.

Within a week of unveiling, part of the shelf running along one wall has fallen off and, being made of glass, smashed into shards and dust. At first glance, it isn’t clear whether this is part of the statement or not. On second glance, not; and a source of sadness. With third glance, dawning realisation that this, too, adds to the conversation. Decline and fall. The temporary and changing nature of all things. Everything beautiful in its time.

Here is testimony, not only to the high street, but to our hopes and dreams, those things we chase after and, at best, break even, over the course of a lifetime. At best. Testimony, also, to our history, to our story. Our past is a ghost, leaves unquiet trace: we cannot rid ourselves of who we once were, of our associations, our pass times and passions, our pursuits. Our future is, yet unknowable. Our present, transcended.

Qohelet, the Teacher, the one who said that everything is beautiful in its time, also said that God has placed eternity in the human heart, though we can never grasp it in our hands. Considering this, he advises us, be happy and find joy in life, eating, drinking, working, understanding all this as God’s gift to us. The overflowing pedal-bin. The moments in the betting shop, not in pursuit of riches that will not satisfy, but for its own sake. The passing conversations that still echo in the sealed box left behind, as we now stand outside, looking in. Ryan Gander may just be Qohelet’s heir.

 

Libation

Libation

Two images, and a reflection on John 12:1-8

The first image is of Katie Paterson’s ‘The Moment,’ commissioned by the National Glass Centre and currently on display at Sunderland Minster. Over the course of fifteen minutes, cosmic dust older than our sun flows through the carefully calibrated aperture in the neck of a glass timer, inviting the onlooker to contemplate our place within the vastness of time and space.

The second image is a detail from a stained-glass window by Leonard Evetts, made for the Lady Chapel at St Nicholas’ Church, Sunderland. The window presents Christ on the cross, which is stylistically transformed into the Communion chalice. The detail shows the stream of blood flowing from Jesus’ pierced feet.

The Gospel According to John recounts that Jesus was guest of honour at a dinner at the home of his dear friends, Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Not long before, Lazarus had died; and some seventy-two hours later, Jesus had called him out from Sheol, where the dead sleep with their ancestors, back to the land of the living. Lazarus was among the guests, Martha served the meal, and Mary, well, Mary poured out costly anointing-oil, originating from the Himalayas, all over Jesus’ feet, soaking also into the ground.

This was a remarkable family. Three adult siblings, living together. The sisters had never married. Lazarus, noted as a friend of Jesus, is never recorded as speaking, not once, in any of the Gospels. Some scholars suggest that he had some learning disability, perhaps connected to a physical disability. Mary could not marry, because a younger sister could not marry before her older sister. Martha could not marry, because she was responsible for a brother who would never live independently. Lazarus could not marry, because he could not support a wife. And so, after the death of their parents, these three remained, each one pouring out their life for the others. Costly. At times, too great a cost. Mary’s frustration played out in refusing to help her sister. Martha’s frustration played out in angry words. And yet, they are one. There is no sigh of relief when Lazarus dies, no welcome release from the burden of duty. They are diminished; and then they, this three-who-are-also-one, are restored.

Jesus is reclining at the table, legs stretched out behind him—that is how they ate—and Mary pours out her perfume on his feet. It is a myrrh, like that presented by the Magi after Jesus’ birth, used in the preparation of the dead for burial. And Mary will rub it into his skin with her hair; but some will flow onto the ground: a libation poured out for the dead. And Judas moves to put Mary in her place.

Jesus replies, Leave her alone. His choice of words are ones sometimes used, in other contexts, to speak of freeing a slave or writing a certificate of divorce. The point is clear: Who do you think you are? This woman is not answerable to you for her actions. She is under no obligation to you whatsoever. But Jesus continues, let her go, so that for the day of my burial she may keep watch over (or guard) it (that is, what remained of the perfume). [Without justification, the NRSVA reads ‘she bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial,’ admitting in a footnote that the words ‘she bought it’ are not there in the Greek.] Keep watch, Mary.

It is possible that this costly ointment was Mary’s inheritance, from her parents. Given her in the expectation that she would outlive her older sister and her disabled brother, that she would be the one to prepare the other members of her family for burial. But when we give a gift, we surrender our right to determine what becomes of it. And for Mary, something has changed, not least because Lazarus has had his share of the inheritance in advance, and yet is some-miraculous-how here, now, at this very table.

Mary pours out her perfume, knowing what the others still refuse to know, that Jesus’ death is now imminent; and daring to know what the others still refuse to dare to know, that he has repeatedly claimed that on the third day, seventy-two hours later, give or take, he would return.

From the moment we are born, our lives flow out, until the day we return, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Cosmic dust flowing through a clear glass. Blood flowing from an open wound. Perfume flowing from a jar. There is nothing we can do to hold back the flow. We can only choose to resent that flow, or to rejoice in it. To try (futile attempt) to keep hold of others, to keep hold over others, who have no obligation to us whatsoever—whether they should outlive us, or we outlive them—or to be moved by the awesome wonder of existence, that we should be at all, for a moment, before we return to cosmic dust, turned in the careful hands of the King of the Universe.

 

We Are Together

 

The western Ukrainian city of Lviv is home to the Lviv School of Iconographers, a collective of women and men who are keeping alive deep-rooted traditions, not by slavishly reproducing past forms but by labouring with the Holy Spirit to birth twenty-first-century descendants.

This icon, titled ‘We Are Together’ is by Shadrina Katernya. It is a stunning depiction of human solidarity, not as a humanist construction but finding its source in God. Seven human figures cleave together in one mass, stunning colour, blue and pink and green, luminescent in the darkness—which is, itself, set within bounds by white light—evocative of the sevenfold Spirit of God spoken of by the prophet Isaiah and by the disciple John stretching to describe the Revelation given him on the island of Patmos:

the Spirit of the LORD, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of power, the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.

In the Ignatian inheritance, consolation is to be moving towards the active presence of God in the world, with growing awareness of the Mystery and in contrast to desolation, or, moving away from the active presence of God in the world. In the darkness, deep but having limits set upon it, we are consoled. As we gaze on the Mystery, we encounter this sevenfold Spirit of God: are drawn to the light of God’s wisdom, which is folly to the desolate heart; to God’s understanding, which confounds the desolate mind; to God’s counsel, which is death to the desolate soul; to God’s power, which is weakness to the desolate body; to be known by God, and to experience God’s Holiness and our holiness come together naked and unashamed.

Here is solidarity, human and divine, with every hurt that wrings the human breast.

As we gaze upon ourselves, and our God, Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

Attack

 

The western Ukrainian city of Lviv is home to the Lviv School of Iconographers, a collective of women and men who are keeping alive deep-rooted traditions, not by slavishly reproducing past forms but by labouring with the Holy Spirit to birth twenty-first-century descendants.

This icon, titled ‘Attack’ is by Danylo Movchan. If we think, for a moment, of icons as psalms in paint, there are the careful and deliberate meditations on the wonder of God’s glory, and then there are the urgent cries of the heart. Written in free-flowing watercolours, ‘Attack’ is an example of the latter, a lament in response to the Russian bombing of a maternity ward and a children’s ward in Mariupol.

Four skulls cut through a yellow-gold field that evokes Ukraine as the breadbasket of Europe. In as much as skulls are universal symbols of mortal danger—poison bottles, pirate ships—or even manifest evil, we notice that they cut an obliterating trail through the gold, they cause real harm. And yet, far more gold remains than not. Hope is not easily erased.

In as much as skulls represent our common human frailty, our mortality, we may see here a different kind of attack. The failure of life to reach fulfilment, to take hold of Life: too few sperm, failing to reach an egg; a child, stillborn. And the troubling, accusing questions that trail in the wake: Why are we unable to conceive, when others find it so easy? Is it my fault I could not carry this child to full term?

In as much as skulls stand for death, we gaze on death crushed beneath Christ’s feet.

In as much as skulls stand for human creatureliness, we gaze upon the skull transfused by Christ’s own life-giving blood.

We gaze upon the field, the Land, transformed into a hospital, a church, a place of healing, for body and soul, under the cross of Christ and centred on his self-sacrifice, his bruised and battered body, luminescent in darkness, agony shot through with glory.

Come, Lord Jesus, to the mothers and the children, to the sons and daughters, to the men who are prepared to lay down their lives for those they love, and the men who are prepared to kill.

Come, Lord Jesus, to the life fighting for Life, to the lives drowning in sorrow.

Come, transfuse us with your life, and set us free.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

The Still Point

 

The western Ukrainian city of Lviv is home to the Lviv School of Iconographers, a collective of women and men who are keeping alive deep-rooted traditions, not by slavishly reproducing past forms but by labouring with the Holy Spirit to birth twenty-first-century descendants.

This icon, titled ‘The Still Point’ is by Ivanka Demchuk. It depicts the infant Jesus taking first steps, released by his father, Joseph, moving towards the embrace of his mother, Mary. The child is held in the watchful encouragement of his parents, in the paradox of letting go and receiving. The Christ does not grasp hold of being one with his father, but takes on our nature, as one who must learn to walk, as one who willingly and joyfully takes human nature upon himself. The one who will call others to come to him, and to go sent out by him, must first make this journey for himself, for he is the pioneer and perfector of our faith.

To walk, to run, to propel ourselves forward requires that we repeatedly throw ourselves off balance, in motion. But at the heart of every step, every stride, the still point, where our most recent step of faith finds its home-coming, its stability, its rest, before embarking on the next step. The calm centre in the eye of the whirling wind, or breath. This is the transcendent moment we are drawn into here.

In the background, that wind blows, free. Tugging at the domestic scene of washing hanging on the line to dry. Scattering the carpenter’s tools from his workbench.

We hold before our God those lives blown by the wind, scattered, asking that they, too, may find the still point held between letting go and being gathered up in the arms of love.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.