Month: July 2021

Peregrination

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It is an eerie and frequent sound heard around the Minster. Peregrines screeching at one-another (or a passing pigeon) from dawn until dusk. Somehow the falcon’s wing shape feels fitting for a Medieval structure, angular and evidently strong, they combine speed with a sharp eye for distant prey. At height various parts of the cathedral’s platforms and towers show evidence of the peregrines’ success as predators. Pigeon carcasses as strewn about with abandon. Hilary Mantel’s depiction of Thomas Cromwell’s life in the company of Henry VIII sees Bring Up the Bodies open with the protagonist using hawks. Imagining Wiltshire in 1535, Mantel reflects on these skilful, amoral and focused carnivores.

“Their lives are simple. When they look down they see nothing but their prey, and the borrowed plumes of the hunters: they see a flittering, flinching universe, a universe filled with their dinner.”

Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies, 2012

There is little doubt that the reader is meant to connect the behaviour of these prized birds with the unflinching determination and modus operandi of Cromwell. Just as the hawk seems patterns hidden from sight at ground level, Cromwell is surveying a landscape inaccessible to all but a few. The breadth of his experience, from the narrow and stench ridden back streets of London, to the privy chamber, enabled him to see the connections of the body politic in a way that facilitated his inexorable rise to power. Mantel’s literary construction of this complex figure in English history is a masterpiece in itself, linking the diverse threads that come to make such a sumptuous story.

“The Peregrine sees and remembers patterns we do not know exist: the neat squares of orchard and woodland, the endless varying quadrilateral shapes of fields.”

J A Baker, The Peregrine

Gaining the kind of strategic overview exemplified by Mantel’s Cromwell requires more than elevation. It is one thing to see, another to interpret correctly and to understand. When we are in the thick of events this becomes very hard, as the jumble of information is likely to bury the facts which history will come to establish as definitive. Holding the puzzle together feels as if we have the pieces of the jigsaw without any picture to help us judge where to place them or connect them.

At times we have to resign ourselves to the fact that some key questions of our time cannot be resolved. The challenge is not how to rush to some precipitate interpretation of limited facts, but how we live well with the knowledge that events refuse to reveal their outcomes. When we lack the razor sharp detail the peregrine can see, we still need to find our way through the tangle of information and decisions that lie before us. It is here that our ethics and convictions provide a steer urging one course of action over another. To trust in the received wisdom of people who have travelled before us in similar territory, finding a way through huge complexities to arrive in a place that offers some greater clarity and a deeper sense of peace. It is not a trust which should be uncritical or lacking enquiry, but must recognise that humanity’s most frequent experience is to live with uncertainties.

The name peregrine derives from Latin meaning foreign, also linked to pilgrim – or traveller. TS Eliot’s writes in Little Gidding of the ‘spirit unappeased and peregrine’, caught between two worlds, past and future. We cannot live without a knowledge and interpretation of the past, neither can we live as though the future is already decided. Whether it is COVID or climate, there can be little question that decisions now will have far reaching consequences. Mindful of this the task of the present is to perceive and evaluate reality as clearly as possible. In his seminal work about the peregrine, JA Baker begins with a reflection on the disparity between the clarity and scale of a peregrine’s picture in a book and the fleeting blur of the real thing in flight. The static compared with the ‘passionate mobility of the living bird’. The ornithology book distills many examples of the bird into its archetypal specimen – in the wild each bird has its own character, hunting ground and eyrie. Paying attention to the living detail, rather than allowing the book or abstract data to overlay our perception, is vital if we are to see and understand the experiences through which we are living.

The capacity to retain fresh vision, alert even to the familiar, matters a lot. Classification can be useful, whether of birds or people, but it also holds dangers. Identifying a few characteristics so that we can order our world means that we may miss the exceptional and unexpected. It is one of the most moving themes in the ministry of Jesus that he refuses to see the world in this kind of way. He meets people on their own terms, with their own identity, even when that means they should be sidelined and ignored. A woman at a well; a Roman officer; the leprous and the unclean; people of religious power and the children in the streets. To allow the world to be as it is in that moment, erased neither by history nor personal attributes, is a rare and remarkable achievement. Doing all we can to improve the way we see the world might be one of the most important things we can do with our time: because it has the power to change everything.

“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there”

J A Baker, The Peregrine

Freedom for Whom?

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Landmark days are often false dawns. Think of George Bush standing on the USS Abraham Lincoln under a sign announcing ‘Mission Accomplished’. The irresistible political pull leading a politician to make this kind of announcement is the knowledge that it’s what most people want to hear. Even as George Bush spoke, plenty of commentators baulked at the implication of the banner’s message. It is increasingly likely that ‘Freedom Day’ in England will be yet another fictional waymarker, an illusion of normality which will run up against the reality of a strained health service and exponentially rising infection.

Promised, delayed and now hedged about with caution, the date when all legal restrictions in England are lifted comes at a moment when the virus seems to be everywhere. Data, modelling and research are telling us that a swift abandoning of restrictions will fuel a fire-storm of transmission leading to rising deaths and more people experiencing long-COVID. The Government expects the success of the vaccination campaign to blunt the cases, deaths and debilitation, but they will still come. It appears that we have decided to accept the cost of 200 daily COVID deaths in order to open the economy and allow life to return to normal. In all likelihood these will be deaths amongst the unvaccinated; people from minority-ethnic communities; the poor and those with underlying health conditions.

Before the final restrictions are lifted, crowded streets in York’s Medieval centre

There must be people in other parts of the world (and the UK) looking on in disbelief. Much of the argument seems to run economy/wellbeing against restrictions/safety. Yet if the cost of delayed freedom is high so too will be the long term price of COVID organ damage; psychological harm; and the risk of rapid transmission producing new variants against which vaccines are less effective. I appreciate that the UK Government, like all governments, is making hard choices on limited data. However, ‘learning to live with COVID’ could mean accepting some permanent changes in society rather than simply giving up on attempts to contain levels of transmission and the associated risks. It appears that our accommodation with COVID will suit the hale and hearty, while shifting the emotional, physical and psychological cost to those individuals and communities already disadvantaged in our society.

“as we are aware, the impact of these government policies will disproportionately affect already disadvantaged groups. Michael Marmot’s recent report shows us that the fall in life expectancy due to covid has been much greater in some regions, leading to even greater health inequalities. The social determinants of health inequalities have become wider during the pandemic, and any further mass infections and lockdown will simply make matters worse”.

“Freedom Day” is on the horizon, and brings with it the risk of mass covid-19 infection, 16 July 2021 BMJ Opinion by J S Bamrah, Chairman, BAPIO and Kailash Chand, former deputy chair, BMA

At the start of the Government’s roadmap to unlocking our arrival at a day without restrictions seemed reasonable. Yet on this narrow path of balanced risks we are straying ever closer to a reckless blow-out with consequences which, if the NHS is overwhelmed in summer, will cause major damage in delayed treatment for non-COVID patients (not to mention staff burnout). It is a missed opportunity that the interruption of routine living has not led to a deeper reflection on what a new normal might look like. There is every indication that many individuals have done that reflection, opting for altered lifestyles and early retirement (where possible), but the idea that we might live differently has bypassed political analysis. Even the modest change to greater working from home has been met with political statements about the need to return to the office.

We cannot live in lockdown indefinitely and few are suggesting that we should. However, with rocketing infection rates the wisdom of removing all legal restrictions in England feel like an irresponsible act. Having observed behaviours in a city during the last few months, let alone watched the antics of crowds at Euro 2020, the idea that most people will choose to observe the use of face covering etc., is ludicrous. An age-divide may well emerge in the way precautions are taken, which is ironic given the fact that younger populations have a lower level of vaccination. What was a disease of the elderly may end up taking a toll on the lives of countless younger people, whether in preventable loss of life or an enduring legacy of damaged organs and tissues.

More than anything else COVID-19 has posed a fundamental question about how we live. How the freedoms some of us assumed and took for granted enabled the rapid spread of a new disease around the world. As people took their holidays, or jetted across the globe for meetings and conferences, the virus went with them. While the lockdowns curtailed some of the human impact on the environment, with fewer journeys, this hasn’t stopped the effects that have burned the west of the USA and Canada, or led to the devastating deluge in Germany. On two life-defining issues, unqualified access to a seemingly infinite range of choices is likely to lead to calamity.

To reach the point of ‘freedom’ it feels like we have othered the virus. With the sustained campaign of vaccination the illness now belongs to those who have failed to understand its importance and declined the jab. Today it is a disease for the poor around the world, the people with no access to immunity or healthcare. At worst it is a minor inconvenience for the wealthy and well-resourced. Something to deny us our well deserved holiday abroad. Maybe all this will be true – but this is a disease about which we know very little. Long-COVID is only just being investigated and understood. No one knows what variant will emerge triumphant from the unimpeded production of virus copies being knocked out every day in the UK. Hundreds of thousands of transmissions every week. The angst being felt by the growing number of people ‘pinged’ by the COVID app should not be seen as a needless disruption to life. The Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson got it right yesterday. As a motley group of silhouetted figures dance down a hill towards a town the caption reads: ‘Never send to know for whom the app pings”. As the Health Secretary and PM discovered today (eventually), it pings for thee.

We the Passengers

Chris Swift1 Comment

For all its faults, limitations and breadth, the Church of England has embodied a particular way of service and witness. Planted in every community, the Parish Church is a focus for spiritual expression, history and continuity. The buildings of the Church tell the story of God’s presence in the world; the death and resurrection of Christ; the connection of the here and now to a Kingdom that is becoming. They are the public expressions of Christian faith and offer the community a place to pray; to seek; and to find. The presence of these buildings is a testament to centuries of worshippers and a space of invitation ready for future generations. They are not often the buildings we would construct today – nor do they always meet the needs of modern congregations. Yet time and again creative alterations have enabled a balance to be struck between history and necessity; the beauty of a former age, and the inspiration of the present.

“Lay-led churches release the Church from key limiting factors. When you don’t need a building and a stipend and long, costly college-based training for every leader of church . . . then actually we can release new people to lead and new churches to form”. 

‘Vision and Strategy update for Synod’ The Church Times Friday 2 July 2021

The rich but daunting legacy of the Church has been questioned in a recent report in which Canon John McGinley has identified the limiting factors facing the institution. It would appear that his answer to the challenges facing the Church is to move away from virtually everything that defines the C of E. Fewer paid clergy; less investment in the education of ministers; getting rid of buildings. There is an attractive naïveté in this view of the world – the investment in a bright future of low-budget Jesus-clubs with vastly reduced overheads. What’s not to like?

Well, quite a lot. This kind of arrangement already exists across a broad range of churches, it hardly needs inventing. There is nothing particular that the Church of England would bring to these house churches, and a huge amount to lose. Shifting the focus from public worship to private homes has all sorts of implications. Everyone has a right to attend worship in their Parish Church: domestic settings can be more choosy. As large amounts of money are invested in new expressions of Church it is important to ask why such funds can’t be allocated to strengthening the resources that sustain the parish system. Over the last thirty years the direction of travel has been to merge churches; group congregations; and share vicars. The stretch has become wider and wider with no end in sight to the melancholy, long withdrawing roar, of well-educated, professionally trained and locally visible clergy.

Amongst at least some clergy there is a clear distaste for the kinds of people who attend church. Just over a decade ago this was palpably clear in the disastrous ministry of a former vicar of Wetherby. Of course people can be difficult (that’s clear in the Epistles) but brow-beating the laity into the preferred theology of the minister is seldom a success, from whichever tradition the vicar comes. The disdain for people who don’t engage with the current liturgical fashion has to stop. I’ve known serving bishops refer to attendees at early morning worship as those who prefer ‘non-contact sports’. In other words, people who come to church but don’t engage: passengers. This is a disturbing and wholly anti-pastoral characterisation. In my experience many of these faithful people are wounded or grieving and this is the service that saves than from well-meaning but overbearing compassion. They are not passengers. They participate by being there; receiving the sacrament and praying. It is very dangerous to measure things by a standard that isn’t calibrated to capture the dimensions of what is under examination. In the current meeting of General Synod there has been reference to measuring the ‘depth of discipleship’, not simply its quantity. How this is developed will reveal much about the prevailing perception of what matters in the C of E.

It appears that much of the energy driving this kind of proposal comes from a desire to succeed. As Martyn Percy has commented in this debate, there are gendered and indeed sexual elements to this ambition. The attempt to achieve growth and public profile in Christian mission feels at times like an exercise in countering personal insecurity. The kind of new churches being talked about feel a million miles away from the deep, gritty, faithful and radiant ministry of the chaplain portrayed so skilfully in the recent Jimmy McGovern BBC mini-series Time.

“God left us with a very troubling model of success. I think success for the Church has to be something measured by the degree to which the compelling radiance of God comes through.”

Rowan Williams quoted in The Church Times, 9 September 2009

Even as I write this blog it feels paradoxical that most of my ministry has been spent outside the pay of the Church Commissioners. Being with people in prison breaking bread; talking with prisoners about faith and sharing in Bible study. Sitting by a hospital bed where two or three pray together and face the tough realities of suffering, loss and mortality. Singing hymns with 40 people on a Sunday evening in a retirement complex. Most of the time I have done these things, the interest of the institutional Church has been limited. For example, these moments of ministry tend not to be counted. Rather than launch some grandiose scheme of suburban sitting-room religion why don’t we invest more in recognising, supporting and growing the ministry that is already happening and proving so well received and valuable? I think we would be surprised just how much is already going on in our communities.

The answer may be that these places and people don’t fit the image of the youthful, successful and heteronormative family life so often equated with success. The picture of shining disciples who just ‘get on with it’ rather than wrestle with theological dilemmas and pastoral complexities. In a nation of increasing diversity, not least in matters of religion, this simplicity may sound appealing but it comes with considerable risks. Leading and serving the church in the 2020s certainly isn’t less challenging than it’s been in the past.

Clergy don’t need cheaper training – they need enhanced training. This training is likely to be more expensive than the training provided today. Why would we want the clergy of the future to be less able to recognise, understand and manage the responsibilities they hold? We need people who don’t simply safeguard against physical abuse but leaders who know the wisdom of ensuring people are able to make open and balanced choices about belief. Placing an overriding emphasis on recruitment and growth is likely to generate behaviours that increase the risks of abuse. The telling observation by the Leeds sociologist Zygmunt Bauman is often at the back of my mind and can serve as a salutary reminder that religious ministry is enmeshed in powerful and potentially dangerous inter-personal dynamics:

“One of the most insidious of the many shapes of domination (pastoral power), as it blackmails its objects into obedience and lulls its agents into self-righteousness by representing itself as self-sacrifice in the name of ‘the life and salvation of the flock'”

Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics

Maybe we have arrived at a moment when the Church of England needs to engage in a consultation about its future. A consultation which will include people who don’t attend church but value its presence; people in extra-parochial settings who experience its ministry; and the people who come faithfully and frequently to experience the joy and peace of worship. Surely, for something so richly present in the landscape of England, the future direction of the institution deserves wider consideration. Perhaps even the passengers can have their say?