Category: Reflections

The Bible Unbound

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Some years ago, an academic at the University of Leeds commented to me about his experiences in teaching students studying chaplaincy at postgraduate level. He was not a religious person. While many essays which he marked contained good arguments and relevant sources, he noted a tendency for several students to write a conclusion in which some random bit of the Bible would suddenly trump all previous discussion. This would happen in such a way that there was no context or scholarly debate – as though whatever it was that Jesus had said in the Gospel of Matthew was clearly intended to be the final word on the NHS in the 21st century. Sadly, I am not persuaded that this problem in hermeneutics has been addressed in the intervening years.

Reflecting on this issue I began to wonder, for the first time, whether the physical presentation of bibles is part of the problem. All the books are bound together as a single volume, with an identical font and layout. There are many advantages in doing this, not least the referencing system that allows a chapter and verse to be identified quickly and accurately. It also conveys the fact that these particular books have been given a distinct and common authority by the Church. However, I suspect it has some homogenising effect which may incline people to regard it as some kind of dictionary or encyclopedia, with a common framework of description and interpretation. Little could be further from the truth.

In preparing this piece I assembled a collection of 66 books. The photograph of these titles heads the blog. There is poetry; fiction; history; biography; law and much, much more. Of course, through their distinct bindings, illustrations and typefaces, all these books appear as individual volumes. Many of them relate in different ways to the same subject but, even then, the audiences for which they are written are different and this shapes the style and content of the writing. I offer this as a visual image of what the Bible might look like freed from the effects of common presentation. Perhaps, if we hold this diversity in our mind’s eye, we might read and understand the Bible differently.

Documents became ‘scripture’ not, initially, because they were thought to be divinely inspired but because people started to treat them differently.

Armstrong, K. (2009). The Bible: the biography (Vol. 8). Atlantic Books Ltd.

At the most simple level, it is a reasonable question to ask whether a book of poetry is the best place to find advice about writing laws. Or that an allegorical method of discussing suffering in a universe with a omnipotent God provides us with material for a book on history? When the presentation of books indicates their topic and approach, we start to read them in a way that is appropriate for their genre.

I am not a professor of biblical studies. Knowing that this is the case makes me all the more cautious about lifting isolated phrases from scripture to support particular arguments. It’s not that I think the books of the Bible are irrelevant to these debates, but I appreciate that understanding the context and purpose of biblical passages is a precaution against their misuse. It also seems to me that it is important to be open to where this kind of study of scripture takes us. It is all too easy to have a determined position on an issue and recruit the Bible to our cause. When supervising students’ work I often ask people to read Paul Ballard’s important chapter on the Bible and practical theology published in 2012. In this paper he appeals for more work to be done in this area but, alas, there appears to have been only limited development in the past decade.

“More important, the use of scripture is an area that has not received sufficient attention in practical theology. It is imperative, therefore, that greater attention be paid to how the Bible actually functions and how it acts as scripture. The Bible is too important to be left to biblical scholars and the systematic theologians”.

Ballard, P. (2012). The use of Scripture. The Wiley-Blackwell companion to practical theology, 163-172.

I shall continue to encourage students to review their use of scripture and consider how it is featured in practical theology and the study of chaplaincy. I certainly would not wish to see the Bible being avoided, but more nuance and awareness is needed when a few words are drawn upon and inserted into an otherwise well-argued essay. Perhaps my greatest concern is that people outside chaplaincy and ministry might assume that a sophisticated and well-informed knowledge of scripture should be a basic skill for clergy and licensed lay workers. All too often, at the moment, this does not seem to be the case.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Pebbles and sea-light

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When I was training for ministry (several decades ago) there were many memorable moments. On one occasion a tutor was preaching for an act of corporate worship in the college when she happened to remark that, amongst other things “good taste” would not save us. A frisson ran through the student body. Ordinands at Westcott House rather prided themselves in aspirations to good taste, and this act of plain speaking was not altogether welcome. However, it hit home and – as all sermons should – gave us food for reflection.

During a recent visit back to Cambridge I was reminded of this criticism. It occurred to me while visiting the fabulous Kettle’s Yard, the University’s collection of modern and contemporary art. This gallery-in-a-home is the last word in aesthetics, where each object is placed with exquisite care to balance and complement the whole experience of being there and responding to the art. Even down to the daily placement of a fresh lemon. The collection was the creation of Jim Ede, an enthusiastic supporter of young artists in the early days of their careers. The setting for the works Ede acquired was a reaction to “the greater austerity of the museum or public art gallery”. It was to be a place where people could sit in contemplation.

Pebbles and sea-light,
drift of grain across an ebbing floor,
land’s end. The wind is sharp as gulls
pat David Pembroke’s window,
lettering the e stars across
a winter wall.

Extract from Rowan Williams, “Kettle’s Yard”, 4 March 1984 in Williams, R. (2014). The Poems of Rowan Williams. Carcanet.

There is something inspiring and daunting about this relentless commitment to art in a domestic setting. The inclination is to take a seat in every room (this is allowed) and contemplate the shape of the space; the artworks; and the light coming from generous windows. I could have spent all day walking amongst this careful and spiritual placement of works by renowned 20th century artists. We went there with two friends from South Africa and they were equally bowled over by the rich diversity of works.

Because so much about Kettle’s Yard is breathtaking, it is hard to think that salvation cannot be achieved by art and aesthetics. Like the work of the tragically young Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, killed in the First World War, all these works point to something else: they are not consumed by their own necessity. Art is always going somewhere else and, even in the case of Gaudier-Brzeska who died aged 23, it is natural to ask ‘what would have been next?’ Given such talent at so young an age, what other works would this genius have brought into the world.

Good taste may not be salvation, but sharing thought-provoking beauty across so many different forms is surely a step to thinking beyond ourselves; to enlarge our world; and to wonder about what other acts of creativity are yet to enrich us.

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things”.

Philippians 4:8-9

The Apparent Surface

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Recently I visited the exhibition William Blake’s Universe, in Cambridge. For many decades I have admired and enjoyed Blake’s work as both an artist and a poet. This exhibition sets Blake’s work alongside British and European Romantics who influenced his development. A review in The Guardian found this to be a weakness in the exhibition at the Fiztwilliam. Given that the space allotted is not overly large, Jonathan Jones found Blake to be overshadowed by the other artists, whose works are numerous in the gallery. This is a reasonable criticism, although I felt that the range of artists represented had its own merits – but perhaps this detracted from the ambitious title for the exhibition.

Blake is known for his paintings of vibrant angels and mythical characters. As in the way of classical painting, heavenly figures might be denoted by the presence of a halo. In the art of the Renaissance it can feel at times that the gift of a halo is a game of celestial quoits. Such paintings depict the lucky recipients of a shining disk as those rewarded for faithful and sacrificial behaviour. Often these heavenly signs shimmer and blaze with the finest gold, testimony that someone has achieved divine approval. They stand out from the canvas as the bright honorific of exceptional virtue.

Perhaps it was due to the nature of the medium, but at the William Blake exhibition I was stopped in my tracks by a rather different impression of a halo. A key supporter of Blake during his life, the sculptor and artist John Flaxman created many mythical and Neoclassical figures. In his illustration to accompany Chatterton’s poem the Battle of Hastyngs, Flaxman depicts “Queen Kenewalcha”.

Queen Kenewalcha by John Flaxman

Looking at this painting I was struck by the depiction of the halo as an absence. It felt as though this was a gap in the paper rather than any addition of splendour. In the review of the exhibition Jones quotes Blake’s writing about the production of his books combining, as they did, both text and illustrations:

“in the infernal method, by corrosives … melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid”

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake, 1790

The halo Flaxman gives Queen Kenewalcha seems to be this kind of melting away, as though sanctity has worn a hole in the fabric of reality and allowed the underlying brightness to shine through. This halo isn’t a painstaking accretion of gold but an elliptical opening that has emerged in the life of someone who isn’t wholly captured by the beguiling surface of a reality we take for granted. Getting to the light, for the artist, becomes the act of stripping away the stuff that pleads its own importance and necessity. In this illustration, the saint is lit by this small portal of connection with a radiance which comes from the reality that is our true destiny.

“To be a human person is to be a per-sona, through whom (per-) lights and fluids, vibrations and sounds (-sonae) flow. Living in attunements, we become “resonant selves,” and being religious is to a wide extent about attuning to the reality to which we belong.”

Gregersen, N. H. (2023). “THE GOD WITH CLAY”: THE IDEA OF DEEP INCARNATION AND THE INFORMATIONAL UNIVERSE: with Finley I. Lawson,“The Science and Religion Forum Discuss Information and Reality: Questions for Religions and Science”…

The Last Inn

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I once worked with a secretary who was fond of pithy analogies. As we age, she remarked one day, it’s like the old fashioned reel-to-reel recording machines. As it nears the end the depleting spool turns ever faster. Perhaps it’s the effect of familiarity that means some days pass almost unnoticed – we are established in our routines and the lack of new experiences or surprises causes our perception of time to drift. This may be why just a few days away from home may seem to occupy much more time. A new location; new people to meet; unfamiliar experiences to share.

Since August last year I have been working on a project to produce a Lent book. This has developed as a conversation between my own experiences in ministry and the legacies, literary and otherwise, of Laurence Sterne, 18th century parson and author. There are several reasons for this choice, circumstantial and otherwise. The echoes of Sterne haunt the streets of York, from the Minster where he preached, to the nearby building where Tristram Shandy was first printed. The villages just north of the city contained the parsonages where he lived and Bishopthorpe Palace was home to his great grandfather. Much further afield the work of Sterne continues to inspire many different kinds of artistic response. The book for which he is best known, Tristram Shandy, has never been out of print since 1759. Sterne’s ghost is one whose latent power can still turn a coin.

Tristram Shandy was published episodically across many years, coming to an end with volume nine. During the production of the work Sterne’s health deteriorated. He suffered from tuberculosis and often travelled away from a cold and sodden Yorkshire to find a warmer clime. In volume seven he describes one such expedition, going by chaise and spending nights in various taverns. It is this setting that leads Tristram to think about his death (which he had already escaped once). Drawing on earlier writing, Sterne’s character reflects on his place of death, and which location would afford him the most comfort in his final hour.

The conclusion drawn is that an inn would be the best place for “this great catastrophe”. Tristram thinks that the understandable care and concern of friends, mopping his brow and smoothing his pillow, would “crucify my soul”. This thought occurs at an inn within the town of Abbeville where, it would appear, Tristram suddenly realised that choosing which pub might in fact be rather important. He concludes that it could not be the inn at Abbeville, even “if there was not another inn in the universe”. To avoid any possibility that it might be the setting for his last breath, the chapter ends with Tristram demanding that the coach and horses be ready to depart at four o’clock the next morning.

“He [Archbishop Leighton] used often to say, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn; it looked like a Pilgrim’s going home, to whom this world was all an inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it.”

Quoted in Bishop Burnet’s History of his own Time (1724)

If the wish that Sterne gave to Tristram was one which the author shared, then it was granted – partially. Sterne died on the 18th March 1768, away from his friends and family, in a boarding house that had become his London lodgings. Journeys constituted a significant part of Sterne’s life, both as a child and an adult, and his ultimate departure came in the city that had granted him fame and a modest fortune. In his last days he struggled even to pen a letter. In his final correspondence, to Anne James, he writes of being “at death’s door this week with pleurisy” and ends by commending her “to that Being who takes under his care the good and kind part of the world”. At 54 Sterne had gifted to the world a remarkable literary legacy and stimulated a debate about his life and thoughts which remains productive because it is still contested. He knew, as did Tristram Shandy, that life is fleeting – and he made the most of the joy that shone fleetingly between the clouds.

The Resurrections of Jesus

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The shunned, the unloved, the bleeding – the despised and the dead – were all brought back into life by Jesus. In a culture of separation and holiness-by-isolation, the Nazarite Rabbi stepped over boundaries again, and again, and again. When that culminated in the raising of a man from the dead, Lazarus of Bethany, the authorities decided enough was enough. It was time for Jesus to go away. Better that one man should die than the nation perish. Utilitarian arguments often win the day, they are beguilingly simple and often easy to implement. Focused on what is obvious and immediate, they frequently omit or deny wider truths and bigger themes that are, perhaps, simply too inconvenient to contemplate.

Like the sower’s seed, or the prodigal’s father already upon the road, the resurrections of Jesus are strewn across the Gospels. He calls back to life those who have been taught to be dead. To the contamination of a bleeding woman who dares to touch him, a wretched life is made whole. Many are healed and the doubting are allowed to walk away. At a meal with his disciples a woman dares to waste the fragrance of rich perfume; anointing the feet beside which the barren branches bring forth blossom. Here is bread and water; body and blood, the words whispered to the unworthy and the hopeless: you are alive.

The picture at the head of this blog is called ‘Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery‘ (1565) and was painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting uses a technique called grisaille, meaning that it appears to be monochrome; everything is a neutral shade – sepia-like. It is hard to imagine any depiction which conveys a stronger sense of life drained away. In the crowded painting the head of Jesus is lowest of all. He writes. I have always believed that in this story, at this point, Jesus is incandescent with rage. He knows that the purpose of this moral tale is to trap him and condemn him. Did the Pharisees just happen to catch this woman in the very moment of committing adultery? Or did the lawyers’ question come first, and a cunning plan evolve to create the drama? She is caught in the act – and they know at that moment exactly where to find Jesus. He knows that those who bring her care neither for her sin nor her salvation. She is a prop. It is little wonder that this is one of very few Gospel stories where Jesus pauses and takes his time, perhaps to marshal his feelings before speaking.

“The stone-throwers walk away, one by one, according to age. Until the kneeling Christ and the standing woman remain, in an awkward reversal of their established sexual status. He tells her to go, to sin no more, to pass from this narrative, and out of our knowledge”.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/sep/30/picture-this-iain-sinclair-bruegel?CMP=share_btn_url

The teachers and the crowd are dismissed by their recognition that no one is without sin. In this dismal tale of exploitation the one whom Christians claim has no sin does not pick up a stone. Violence is interrupted and a word of resurrection love is spoken: I do not condemn you. Like the woman at the well, she stands with Jesus alone. Another woman made the recipient of easy male judgement. The choreography of sin and punishment is cut short by someone who has no interest in this kind of dance. It is time for it all to stop.

On Good Friday we are supposed to think about the agony and suffering of Jesus, and so we should. But the resurrections continue, even on the cross. For the criminal who puts his faith in Jesus, the promise of the life to come: today. Slowly, the light of the world is extinguished. Its remains are planted in the darkness of the sealed tomb: and we wait. Today, at Easter, resurrection triumphs over death. The task of the church is to live this resurrection and set free people so quickly judged by those keen to weigh some sins more than others. To punish those whom it is easy to judge, and hide much greater sin in the folds of wealth. The resurrections of Jesus are not good news for everyone.

Photo credit: The Courtauld

The Flappers

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In the weird and wonderful world of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift described servants who performed a particular occupation encountered by Gulliver on his third journey. These servants were called ‘flappers’ and their job was to accompany their master or mistress and make sure they were paying attention to what was going on. They did this with the aid of an inflated bladder on a short stick which, when they deemed it important for the person to be alert and listening, was used to flap them on the ear with the bladder. Equally, if it was something they needed to look at carefully, to flap their employer – gently – upon the eyes, thereby preventing them falling down a cliff.

This rather dramatic premonition of contemporary mindfulness was Swift’s satire on the distractedness and self-absorption of philosophers. These 18th century thinkers are portrayed by Swift as disconnected from the world around them, requiring a ‘flap’ or, I would suggest, a slap, to reawaken them to reality. Gulliver was unimpressed by the aristocratic figures who needed flapping, and spent more time conversing with the flappers themselves who, of course, had to pay attention to the world on behalf of others. Swift would be aware that his description is reminiscent of the role played by court jesters, who also used inflated bladders, and were sometimes the only people who could speak truth to power.

Photo by John Nail on Pexels.com

It is not easy to see the world with clarity. Often our gaze is overlaid with memories and interpretations that make our observations conform to views we hold already. This can mean that we fail to discern new patterns or new dangers, in a context where we pull reality towards the norms of our own expectation. I have written before about the value of stringent seeing and speaking, when we try to strip away the layers we impose and see something afresh. It is not easy. Perhaps we all need a flap to the head now and then.

Until I began preparing a sermon for Palm Sunday I hadn’t noticed a comment toward the end of the appointed Gospel reading. St Mark tells us that on entering the Temple, Jesus remained there until ‘he had looked around at everything’. Not preaching; not teaching; not healing or anything else: simply looking. Further research led me to discover that the Greek word used here, περιβλεψάμενος, occurs only seven times in the gospels with all but one of these found in Mark. Why is the evangelist so keen to make this point about the behaviour of Jesus?

Referring to an earlier use of this word in Marks’ Gospel, one suggestion is that the pause for observation “helps to intensify what Jesus is about to do” (Christal, J. 2011). This could be interpreted as a word used to convey dramatic effect: something major is about to happen. That would fit with Jesus’ Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem and the impending denouement of his mission. Equally, it is possible that Mark’s presentation of the passion captures a growing disparity between what Jesus was realising about the coming days, and a world unaware of events that would come to change history. It reminds me a little of the 2011 film Margin Call about the 2007-8 financial crash. A young financier, working for a large company, had calculated that the world was on the eve of a commercial meltdown. As he is driven across the city he gazes out on a world he knows is about to change, where everyone he sees is oblivious to how their lives will be altered. The character ‘looked around at everything’ because nothing would ever be quite the same again.

I am not convinced that having a flapper around to bop my eyes or ears would necessarily help me to see the world any more clearly. Like the ping of a message on my mobile phone, it would probably lead to irritation. Nevertheless, the point Swift is making is entirely valid. We are parochial and complacent creatures, wrapped up in our own concerns and often lacking the will to shake up our way of seeing the world. In a church where there is often an emphasis to ‘make disciples’ and to be incurious about a theology that questions our way of looking, it might help to remember that Jesus took the time to simply pay attention to the world. At the start of Holy Week it is a helpful reminder to us to ‘look around at everything’. To allow the narratives of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to jolt our compassion into life, and to look forward with hope to the day of resurrection.

Nothings Monstered

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I find being praised an uncomfortable experience. There are possibly several reasons for this, such as the inevitable injustice of elevating any one person’s efforts when so much excellent work goes unacknowledged and unseen. There is also the danger that praise is a tool of patronage and amounts to little more than a loan which will one day be called in. Lastly, the words used in praise inevitably fail to fully capture the deeds they describe: they are either too capacious or too perfunctory. Among other writers, Shakespeare is notable for his exploration of the ‘precarious correspondence between words and meanings’ (Sicherman, C. M. 1972. Coriolanus: the failure of words. ELH, 39(2), 189-207). Of course, praise can be genuine and well-intentioned – but I would much prefer not to be subjected to it.

Recently I watched a film adaptation of Coriolanus. The character of the play’s title is not a sympathetic figure. He is a stubborn, able and determined fighter, admired greatly by his troops. But he has very little time for ordinary people – the plebs – or their leaders. When he is seeking to become consul, encouraged by his mother, the Senate meets to recount the many worthy deeds which substantiate his appointment, Coriolanus moves to leave the chamber:

Your Honors, pardon.
I had rather have my wounds to heal again
Than hear say how I got them.

Coriolanus Act 2 scene 2

Despite attempting to persuade him to stay, Coriolanus eventually leaves the Senate. Perhaps he finds it impossible to remain when words sound so hollow compared with the deeds they describe. Warfare is a reality that none can imagine who have not stood within it, or know what it is to be such a danger to the lives of others. Oratory risks tidying away complex affairs and obliterating the wounds they leave. Before departing Coriolanus adds:

I had rather have one scratch my head i’ th’ sun
When the alarum were struck than idly sit
To hear my nothings monstered.

Ibid.

Perhaps surviving appears to be a nothing in the context of war. Many people caught up in the chance nature of conflicts, know that a decision to turn left, rather than right, is the difference between life and death. When I heard the remarkable Arek Hersh speaking about his time in a concentration camp, while standing in Auschwitz next to one of the kind of cattle trucks in which he was forced to travel decades before, it was a powerful testament to the apparent arbitrariness of survival.

USSR – CIRCA 1980: Postcard shows Italian Majolica from Hermitage Plate “Coriolanus’s mother and wife implore Coriolanus to spare Rome”, Faenza, 1523, workshop of Casa Priora, circa 1980

Shakespeare appears to have been very interested in ‘nothing’. The title of Much Ado is a play on the word, and ‘nothing’ occurs 34 times in King Lear. In Coriolanus’ bitter sense of rejection as he is sent away from Rome, he undergoes a fundamental crisis of identity. He has been a loyal and outstanding warrior for the Republic – his decision to cross into the camp of his enemy is a ‘Damascus Road’ transformation. His former commanding officer, Cominius, goes to entreat him to be at peace with Rome – and is rejected. Returning to the capital, Cominius describes the state in which he found his late deputy:

“Coriolanus”
He would not answer to, forbade all names.
He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
Till he had forged himself a name o’ th’ fire
Of burning Rome.

Shakespeare, W. Coriolanus Act 5 scene 1.

Forging a name in battle is a long-standing tradition in many cultures. As a result of his service in WWII Montgomery’s most senior title was ‘1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein’. For Marcius it is the heat of battle that creates for him a title earned in combat, and takes a form of the name of the city where the battle occurred: Corioli. There appears to be genuine modesty in the response of Coriolanus to the gifts that are showered upon him in the moment of victory. He refuses the offer of a tithe of all the treasure in the city, and instead wants to receive the same portion as every other soldier. As he says: ‘I have done as you have done – that’s what I can’. However, refusing to play the game of reward and gratitude can be a dangerous course of action, as Coriolanus comes to discover. He is banished.

Renouncing his past titles and honours, walking away from his citizenship, leaves the resigned general in extreme isolation. I’m not sure that I agree with Ibsen that, “The strongest man upon the earth is he who stands most alone.” Nevertheless, Coriolanus sacrifices an enormity of rank and resources when he sides with his former enemy. As his mother tells him at one point: ‘You are too absolute’. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, people who took an absolute view about religion and the state could find themselves losing titles and property, not to mention their lives. The playwright was familiar with those who could, in a moment, become ‘a kind of nothing’. A state of loss which is perhaps the precursor of a wisdom that comes to us, all too often, far too late:

For wisdom is the property of the dead,
A something incompatible with life; and power, Like everything that has the stain of blood,
A property of the living …


William Butler Yeats, “Blood and Moon”

Refreshment

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Today passes by all sorts of names: Mothering Sunday; Mothers’ Day; Mid-Lent Sunday; Rose Sunday; Laetare Sunday; Simnel Sunday and Refreshment Sunday. Despite the differences, there is a kinship between them, laying emphasis on different aspects of this waypoint through the long sojourn of Lent. For the vast majority of people, who aren’t making any particular commitment to the season, Mother’s Day will be the most recognisable name.

Refreshment seldom seems a bad idea. When we embark upon any long project, or simply feel weighed down with the routine tasks of daily life, pausing to be refreshed sounds a positive step. In some churches, after the weeks of purple, the vestments and hangings on this Sunday will be a vibrant pink. Colour refreshes the dullness of abstinence, flowers will be given and received, and family dinners will be eaten. In gardens and parks in the northern hemisphere this moment in Lent is accompanied by the emerging colours of spring and, hopefully, some slightly drier and warmer days.

In some traditions and ways of living, the idea of refreshment might be regarded as an indulgence. The consequences of this can be seen all too plainly in Hard Times. Dickens locates the exclusion of play, childlike wonder and a lively imagination, in the pattern of life imposed by a father:

“You have been so careful of me that I never had a child’s heart. You have trained me so well that I never dreamed a child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, Father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s belief or a child’s fear”.

Dickens, C., Hard Times, 1854.

Dickens may have exaggerated several aspects of Victorian England in his novels, or placed together less common experiences in a single story, but it all flowed out of a reality with which he was familiar. Allowing space for refreshment in the 19th century could be a dangerous step. People might begin to think; to feel; to dream. Better to do your duty, however bleak the prospects, than imagine a life of being ‘fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon’. In that era few were wealthy and many were poor, and finding any kind of middle way between the two was not in the interests of the powerful. ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’.

Rather than being simply a pleasant 5 minutes pausing on a bench, or walking through a wood, refreshment can mean the moment we begin to see life anew, and wonder how to live the lives we are given. It might be the time we decide that change is needed, and that bobbing along as we are isn’t how we are meant to use this one, precious, opportunity we have to be here. Pulling the levers and turning the handles of our part of existence can fill the time – but it should never stop us pausing and lifting our eyes to the horizon.

Refreshment can be dangerous. It can lead to revolution. It may resolve our heart to pursue a different path. It is never time wasted – but the space in which a different future might be imagined.

What Shapes Us

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I probably shouldn’t be allowed in bookshops – perhaps, especially, the second hand variety. It’s not that I steal from them, but I am mesmerised by so many tantalising titles that whisper: ‘read me – come and see the world from where I’m standing’. All too often I succumb to the siren call of these exciting doors into new worlds of information; history; narrative and imagination. I am at a particular risk living where we are now, as the excellent Minster Gate Bookshop (pictured) stands less than a 3 minute walk away on the other side of the cathedral.

“A bookshop is an idea in time”

Carlos Pascual quoted in Carrión, J. (2016). Bookshops. Hachette UK.

Growing up there were few books in our house. These consisted of map books, a Bible, some children’s books, cookery tomes and a Readers’ Digest three volume ‘Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary’ (the latter now a mere £5 on Abebooks.com: I found it very helpful on many occasions). At my grandparents it was a different story. Bessie, my grandmother, had been a primary school teacher before her marriage to Robert. The small bookcase in the sitting room was crammed with novels by Walter Scott; Dickens and Thackeray. There was also an atlas with a remarkable number of countries shaded in red. It was here that my love of literature began, but its development and maturity came via a charismatic English teacher at secondary school. Before the first years’ long summer holiday Mrs Boll handed round a list of books. Apparently we were supposed to choose one to read: I misheard, and read them all (and I’m a slow reader).

When I look around the study where I am sitting, the books are a record of my evolving interests and passions. There are a few books from undergraduate studies in English Literature and Theology. A selection of novels and poetry titles. More books linked to my PhD research and subsequent publications. A Bible in Spanish. Copies of journals for which I’ve been an editor and a host of miscellaneous and probably ill-advised further purchases. Nevertheless, they are very good company and sometimes I’ll wander about looking for a title (which I know is somewhere) and become distracted picking up these old friends and reminding myself of their contents.

Some years ago I was given a copy of Jorge Carrión’s Bookshops. This recounts the author’s visits to bookshops in many different parts of the world. It has been described as an extended essay and ‘a vital manifesto for the future of the traditional bookshop’. Some of these bookshops are ancient; others are works of art in their own right, employing the skills of local carpenters to fashion the shelving. For Carrión such places are about more than the retail of print, they are the context for people to meet, debate, share new ideas and inspire one another. After all, books have always – to some degree – been dangerous. There is a reason that despotic regimes burn them. No doubt, today, the internet has provided another forum to share ideas and this can be shut down when authorities feel threatened. It’s much harder to track-down and deactivate inked paper.

My most recent visit to Minster Gate Bookshop saw me give in to temptation (twice). I could hide behind a facade of professional interest for one title, an exploration of Jeanette Winterson’s writing and its relationship to religion. I’ve always loved Winterson’s novels. The other is justifiable (I protest too much?) because it concerns Laurence Sterne, and his work is my current hobbyhorse. Incidentally, I have found on occasion that another advantage of second hand books is that they sometimes contain material from a previous owner. In one case this was a typed letter in which the author told a librarian that all his children had turned out to be nincompoops. Reflecting on the chronology, I suspect that they’re probably now all in high-powered jobs.

On the wall of my study is a work of art by Wilkinson. It contains a block of acetate pages printed with a novel, written by the artist: ‘The Alabaster Child’. The work appeals to me for a number of reasons. It gives physical expression to the fact that reading is not simply linear. Later chapters of a novel are in dialogue with earlier sections, or certain words, as they weave towards a particular conclusion. In the case of ‘The Alabaster Child: A Novel’, the sheen of the acetate captures the reflection of my bookshelves on the other side of the room. Books speak to books and the relationship is both constant and dynamic. All my reading, what I remember and what has shaped my unconscious imagination, is in dialogue. As Doris Lessing put it in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us – for good and for ill”.

The Watchful Bailiffs

Chris SwiftLeave a comment

I have been reading Mary Fulbrook’s challenging new book Bystander Society. It is subtitled ‘Conformity and Complicity in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust’, which makes clear what the book is about. This is a forensic historical study of how in the mid to late 1930s the German population as a whole was moved into a position of compliance with the emerging practices of the Nazi regime. Fulbrook understands bystanding as a posture that is socially constructed and capable of undergoing change. At a time when Western populations (in particular) seem to be more and more indifferent to egregious acts of violence and the curbing of peaceful protest, this book is a timely publication. As I recall saying at the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic, if you only act when it is blindingly obvious that you need to do something – then that is the definition of having left it too late.

“And for anyone who, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, wants to give more meaning and content to the oft-repeated refrain ‘never again’, this may suggest many potential points for earlier or more effective intervention. It is, then, vital that we extend our understanding of the historically contingent conditions for the production of a bystander society”.

Fulbrook, Mary, 1951- author. (2023). Bystander society : conformity and complicity in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. New York, NY :Oxford University Press, p. 399

The most dangerous circumstances steal upon us in such a way that by the time society might be roused to action, the means of action have been disassembled and silenced. Last week’s pantomime in the House of Commons, when something was both done and not done, epitomises a wilful complicity with chaos even while – elsewhere – a society is being dismantled by sustained violence. Distraction is the art of manipulation and deceit. While some bystanders may be innocent, and deprived of any realistic prospect of intervening, other bystanders occupy a role best described as ‘neutral’. These bystanders could do something, or work with others to intervene, but they choose to remain inactive.

Knud Nellemose 1908-1997 Dansk/Danish – Erindring/ Remembrance 1987 in the SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

‘Bystanding’ has been identified as a problem in society for a long time. The phrase ‘watchful bailiffs’ comes from the poem ‘A Description of the Morning’ by Jonathan Swift, written in 1709. Many older adults of that time lived with the memory of the English Civil War and a nation torn apart by violence and radical change. Describing the urban twilight of London as it awakes to an unheroic dawn, the poem observes the effects of growing trade, wealth and criminality. Swift describes a society busy sustaining mechanisms where servants are the victims of the powerful; apprentices carry the marks of malnutrition; and the destitute young are sent up chimneys. At the end of the poem, Swift writes:

The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands;
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.

Swift, J. (1879). The Poetical Works of Jonathan Swift (Vol. 1). Houghton, Mifflin,.

A great deal of harm and inequality is woven into this observation of the early morning. The bailiffs – court attendants – were people of authority to whom the behaviour and conduct of the affluent would be known. Transcripts from trials are often the clearest historic records of people’s behaviour and relationships. It is here, in the courts, that at least some of the underbelly of capitalism could be seen. Yet the bailiffs are silent. Swift’s poem demonstrates the need for change, to end the cycles of exploitation he sees, but the people best placed to enable this are doing (and saying) nothing. They have their place, and watchful complicity comes with rewards.

In every organisation there are people behind those who appear in public. Often these servants of power are the ones who can alter the course of events. They are the people who enact the decision of the leaders and turn the cogs to make things work. Without their active help no regime can enact its policies, whatever these might be, and the ‘bailiffs’ can never be innocent bystanders. For good or ill they share the responsibility for each and every policy that is implemented by those in positions of executive power.