Ash Wednesday

 

In his Gospel—good news story—concerning Jesus, John records an incident in the temple at Jerusalem, a building that stands for a convergence of national, religious, cultural identity and power. On this occasion, Jesus is visiting the temple and is speaking in front of a gathered crowd who are taking an interest. But the scene is hijacked by a group of men who are important in their own eyes. They thrust a woman in front of Jesus. She has, they say, been caught in the very act of committing adultery. She is, one may surmise, not dressed in a manner they consider appropriate for the hallowed space in which she now finds herself. She has forgotten herself. She has not shown the expected deference. She has no cards in her hand, and without the help of those who are exposing her to public humiliation, it will all be over for her very quickly. She is silenced.

She is somewhat collateral damage, for their true intention is to push Jesus to do as they want. Will he refuse to show mercy, and so place himself in their debt, a debt they may choose to call in at any moment of their own choosing? Or will he refute them, in which case he will invalidate his credentials against their interpretation of founding documents? And who, exactly, are these men trying to impress?

Jesus ignores the men. He stoops down and draws in the dust on the ground with his finger, moving it around, so that it settles in a new configuration, so that it lies differently now.

Most Saturday mornings, I take part in the local parkrun, and afterward we go to the café in the sports centre. Near the door to the centre is a banner, a larger-than-life size photo of a smiling middle-aged woman with the text ‘Be the best version of you.’ I am sure she is a lovely person, but I cannot help but think that the best version of me looks somewhat different. But being the best version of you is quite the thing to be these days, involving self-discovery and self-improvement. We might even be tempted to coopt the Season of Lent into this programme.

But self-discovery and self-improvement are treacherous goals. Our identity is not a fixed given we discover, nor a project we construct for ourselves. When we embark on such activities we become to ourselves like Pharaoh conscripting the Israelites to hard labour or condemn our future selves to excavating and robbing the graves of our past selves.

In his letters to early congregations of Jesus-followers, Paul proclaims that our identity is in Christ. It is he, who died and rose again for us, who is the eternal convergence of our past, present and future, the givenness of our identity. And as John records, Jesus is the one who writes on the ground, who re-orders the dust of which we are made—dust animated by the breath of God—including in ways that reveal his unassuming mastery over events that befall us. Paul goes so far as to say that we are hidden in him—that is to say, our identity, which is kept safe by him for all eternity, is at least partially hidden from others and also from ourselves. For one thing, who among us could know, at four years old, what we would be at fifty, or at eighty? There is both continuity and discontinuity—the same dust, reconfigured many times.

On Ash Wednesday, I press my finger into a mash of ash and fragrant olive oil and trace the pattern of the cross on the forehead of those who find themselves standing in front of me. They may feel humiliated by the circumstances of their life, by their shortcomings, by their inability to take and keep hold of the best version of themselves. They may very well have been wounded by the actions of others, whether old wounds that have left scars or fresh wounds that have left bruises. The cross I trace says you have died with Christ. Not only are you mortal, but you have already died: you share in his death, and in his rising, in his glory, for your identity is in him, and only in him. You are hidden in him. His past, present and future are your past, present and future; and your past, present and future are his and in him. Nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Nothing that has changed or is changing or will change your very partial understanding of yourself; nothing you have experienced, are experiencing, or shall experience. And in him, one day you shall fully know yourself, and be fully known.

And with the sign of the cross in ash, words of invitation: ‘remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return; turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ to the end of your days.’ Such action—turning away from sin and returning to Christ, which, if it is true that we are in him is also to return to ourselves—achieves nothing for us. It is not a process of self-improvement, of becoming the best version of you. It is simply the expression of a thankful heart, for what has already been done. The best version of you—the version that has been set free from the hold of sin over us; the version that is the righteousness of God—has already been called into being through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, along with the rest of humanity. We do not need to strive for perfection, or wrestle with existential angst. We may, indeed, lament aspects of the past, present or future, but even as we are treated—by others, by ourselves—as dying, we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. This Lent, may we rest secure in this amazing grace, and know ourselves afresh to be reconciled to God.

 

Flow

 

Flow.

The Sixth Year Common Room was zoned. There was the smaller end-room where the arty kids hung out, the ones who arranged to go see Del Amitri play the Barrowlands at the weekend. That was the space where I spent the most time. There was the large room, a more general space, but zoned, around the in-crowd. I was reasonably welcome there, but never entirely comfortable. I had been popular in the First year, not least because I was the one who brought a leather football to school, for the sprawling matches that occupied our playtime breaks; I kept goal, diving on tarmac, repeatedly going through the knees of trousers, causing my mother great distress; but in the Second year, depression touched my life, and from then, I was on the edge, in case the shadow be contagious. And then there was the space, just inside the door, that the outsiders made their den. The one who fantasised about killing people (and probably would have done, had it been America). The ones who today would be called Incels. The ones who were deliberately ‘deviant’ in their sexuality, as an act of rebellion. The one who would become the first of our cohort to die, of an overdose, not long after we left school. I deliberately spent time there, too. Once, a girl from a ‘good’ Christian family asked me, “Ugh. Why do you hang out with these people? They are…repulsive.” All I could offer her in response was that Jesus loved them and would have me be their friend. I don’t know that I have much more to add to this day.

They offered one another acceptance in that space, but it wasn’t a healthy space. The misfits who gathered there could be themselves, but in many ways, it was as toxic as the in-crowd space, where no-one was truly themselves at all (including, but by no means limited to, the ones who would come out at some future time).

I won a couple of school prizes that year, for Geography and for History, and chose books on architecture, poured over line drawings setting out principles of the flow of people (and light, and wind) through architectural space.

There are limits to spaces. There is a place for designated spaces, bedrooms for example, but also for communal spaces and still other spaces that connect them all. There is a place for open-plan space, for daily life shared, in common and without differentiation, segregation, privacy. But there are limits to open plan living, too. And every solution raises its own set of problems, notably unforeseen or perhaps dismissed as worth the cost, by those who will not be the ones living with the cost.

We all need spaces for our lives to be lived. Purpose-built, well-constructed, safe. But every space has its limits. At the limits of identity politics, in all its expressions, potential friends are pushed to become enemies, those who demand to be seen and heard refuse to see and hear others, those who needed to leave a space in which they were not permitted to ask questions refuse to be asked genuine, respectful, and sometimes challenging questions.

The ways in which our designated spaces connect, and the flow of movement between them, matters. And we will feel more, and less, at home from one space to another. Will relate to people differently, in each of our intimate, our personal, our social and our public spaces.

How do we create robust communal spaces, where we can co-exist well?

In a polarised society, this question is one we need to attend to.

 

You are not enough, and that is okay

 

There’s a thing you’ll see on social media, in relation to mental health and wellbeing, that tells you, You Are Enough.

That’s sweet an’ all, but if you need to hear that You Are Enough, you are already perfectly aware that you are Not enough. And that is actually the truth, and a good thing.

You were never meant to carry the burden of being Enough. And neither was some ‘soul mate’ waiting to be found.

The hope we have in God is that we don’t need to be enough. We are finite creatures. God is infinite, and God’s love never runs out. Wonder is infinite, the healing renewal of every sunrise, or looking into the eyes of a new-born child looking back at us.

Sometimes, God says to us, I am with you, and that, for now, in this moment, is enough.

Sometimes God says, lift up your eyes and look at the sunrise, or the ocean, or the mountains, or the stars; this, in this moment, is enough.

Sometimes God says, let’s go hear that symphony, or watch that match, and let’s go with friends, and be lost in a crowd bigger than ourselves; or get lost in a novel, if you prefer; that will be enough.

All of these things are bigger than us. The incredible thing is that all of these things are diminished without us, for, God loves to share the moment.

We are not enough, but we are a key part of whatever is enough. And that is enough. Especially when we come to the end of ourselves, and fall into the arms of Love.

 

Those who live in houses of clay

At Morning Prayer at present, we are reading in the book of Job, a masterful piece of theatre exploring the tragi-comedy of existence. In the play’s prelude we witness the assembly of the council of the gods, before the sovereign Lord of the universe. The Lord engages one of the lesser, created, gods in conversation, the shadowy Satan (or, Accuser), a restless god who walks back and forth on the earth in agitation. They debate the righteous human, Job, and enter into a wager. Satan will test the limits of job’s righteousness; while the Lord will question the far corners of Satan’s agitation, for, we shall see, that the Lord is present and attentive to the pain of all creation.

The drama then shifts to Job and his friends. In his suffering, they are, at first, magnificent in their empathy, sitting with him in silence for seven full days. Then Job speaks (chapter 3), a heart-felt soliloquy giving voice to his pain, and the dam breaks. In turn, his friends offer their insight, conventional but deeply flawed wisdom. First to speak is Eliphaz (chapter 4), who recounts a vision he has had by night, in his fitful sleep as he keeps watch with his hurting friend. Eliphaz mistakes the spirit who appears before him for the Lord, when, in truth, it is the sly, sweet-talking Satan, insinuating seeds of doubt, of both human and divine nature: neither are to be trusted.

He does, however, come out with one of the most incredible descriptions of the human being ever spoken: ‘those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust,’—speaking not of domestic architecture, but of the body, crafted from the clay of the earth, to which it shall return, and animated by the breath of God. For, contrary to Satan’s accusation, the Lord does not only put trust in human beings, but entrusts his very breath.

What impact does it have, what questions does it raise, for us to be those who live in houses of clay?

 

‘Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

‘If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?
But who can keep from speaking?
See, you have instructed many;
you have strengthened the weak hands.
Your words have supported those who were stumbling,
and you have made firm the feeble knees.
But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
Is not your fear of God your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?

‘Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
As I have seen, those who plough iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
and the teeth of the young lions are broken.
The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the whelps of the lioness are scattered.

‘Now a word came stealing to me,
my ear received the whisper of it.
Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on mortals,
dread came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
A spirit glided past my face;
the hair of my flesh bristled.
It stood still,
but I could not discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice:
“Can mortals be righteous before God?
Can human beings be pure before their Maker?
Even in his servants he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
how much more those who live in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like a moth.
Between morning and evening they are destroyed;
they perish for ever without any regarding it.
Their tent-cord is plucked up within them,
and they die devoid of wisdom.”

 

Three things about everyone

Over the past few weeks, I have been reading three books by Joanna Cannon, the novels The Trouble With Goats & Sheep and Three Things About Elsie and a memoir, Breaking & Mending. Cannon is a psychiatric doctor, and her deeply compassionate novels are inspired by the lives of her patients.

Three Things About Elsie is concerned with how what at the time appear to be small, insignificant choices can have the biggest impact on our lives, and the lives of others. But it is also a wonderful exploration of what it is to be human; a fictionalised companion to Prof John Swinton’s Dementia: living in the memories of God.

Swinton speaks of three selfs that, together, shape who we are; and all three can be traced through Three Things About Elsie.

Self 1 is first-person self-awareness in the present moment. This has begun before our first birthday, and we never lose it. This is most apparent in the chapters with a time stamp for a heading. Flo, the first-person narrator, has fallen in her flat and is waiting to be discovered. Flo lives with dementia, but possesses Self 1, and over these chapters, and the course of the novel, is making peace with the present moment.

Self 2 is made up of how we think and feel about ourselves. This is most clearly explored in the chapters headed FLORENCE (first-person narrated), MISS AMBROSE and HANDY SIMON (both told by a third-person narrator), in which three characters reflect on themselves. We see the things they value, even when other people do not share the same values. We see their regrets, and how choices they made have resulted in those regrets. We see them tell themselves stories, constructed from the past, to help them in the present. We note how they compare themselves against others. We note that they (and by extension, we) are not reliable narrators, not reliable constructors of themselves, both in that they are not in full possession of the facts and in their ongoing struggle to accept themselves, to forgive and own and love themselves. Self 2 changes, many times, over the course of our lives, changing through big events (such as moving into sheltered housing, or the death of a friend) and through incremental series of small choices. We can never hold on to our Self 2, though we hoard all our previous Self 2s in the corners of the room of our lives.

Self 3 is social, various social personae, that are and can only be constructed in interaction with others. We see this in how Flo, Miss Ambrose and Handy Simon see each other, and in how each of them is impacted by interaction with a wide range of other characters, past and present. We see this in being a friend (you cannot be a friend without another), a work colleague (how you are seen, and how how you are seen can change, changing, in turn, how you see yourself), in being a vulnerable adult standing in front of a doctor or a policeman.

In the end, there are limits to Selves 2 and 3. We construct our lives, in collaboration with others, but God and nature and time and eternity conspire to save us from ourselves, to tenderly strip away our outer clothing until our Self 1 is present(ed) to us, and we are invited to make peace—or, as Swinton puts it, to make friends—with the present moment.

It is amazing how much energy we put into shaping a Self 2 to our (current) liking, and how much energy we expend on trying to control the input of others into our social Self 3; and how hard we work to push away the Self 1 that was our first self in the world, our only constant self, and the self we will be at the last.

Postscript: there is a sentence hidden in Three Things About Elsie, a landmine in a field. If you have not read The Trouble With Goats & Sheep, you won’t stand on it; but if you have, you will, and, though you keep your weight on it for as long as possible, eventually you will shift and then, only then, it will explode...