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

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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.

An Incorruptible Crown

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For many years the 30th of January was widely observed across England as the day King Charles I was executed. It is retained in the calendar of the Church of England, but the degree of emphasis attached to the commemoration has diminished. Charles King and Martyr is kept as a ‘lesser festival, 1649’ with a single prayer to be said. In the Book of Common Prayer there was a entire service provided for this day (removed in 1859).

“I go from a corruptible, to an incorruptible Crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the World”.

King Charles I, spoken at his place of execution 30 January 1649

Following the Restoration the Church of England played a significant role in shaping official history and sustaining the belief and convictions that underpin monarchy. Sermons were preached and many were published. The date provided the occasion for bishops and senior clergy to demonstrate their loyalty and prevent any thoughts returning to the idea of a commonwealth. Across the land, from village church to metropolitical cathedral, it was expected that royal subjects would observe this solemn day.

There were other ways in which the return of the monarchy was welded into popular imagination. This included the creative arts, especially portraiture. One enterprising donation took the form of a recycled statue. Now sited at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire, the monument to King Charles II was previously a statue showing the Polish commander John III Sobieski riding down a Turkish soldier. In its revised form substantial work was done to modify the head of the figure, to resemble Charles II, but the trampled figure of Oliver Cromwell retains a decidedly unusual appearance (i.e. he’s wearing a turban).

There should probably be a maxim to beware of sycophantic royalists bearing gifts. The first attempt to donate the statue to a prominent London location (the Royal Exchange) was rejected. The statue’s owner, Sir Robert Vyner – who might be said to have a stake in the royal franchise (he created new coronation regalia for Charles II) – then offered the work to a City church. This was accepted (perhaps it was too hard to say ‘no’?) and the statue occupied space at the Stocks Market. It later moved to Lincolnshire, before settling at Newby Hall in Yorkshire.

The recycled statue used to depict Charles II, Newby Hall, photo by David Bridgwater

The 17th century poet Andrew Marvell made satirical comment on the statue when it was still in London. He suggested that there was more than a passing resemblance between the horse rider and the man who had commissioned the work:

When each one that passes finds fault with the horse,
Yet all do affirm that the King is much worse ;
And some by the likeness Sir Robert suspect
That he did for the King his own statue erect.

Andrew Marvell, A Poem on the Statue in the Stocks-Market

Having been shuffled off to the north country, London had performed that subtle process of sifting out mediocre work at odds with its ambitions in art and public monuments. Following the Great Fire the city was modelling itself as an international capital for trade and culture where, alas, Sir Robert’s reworked homage did not belong. Marvell’s intimation that the statue bore a likeness to its commissioner may also have helped seal its fate.

As it is one of my principal areas of reading at present, I feel bound to mention that Laurence Sterne published a sermon marking the 30th January. Compared with many of the thundering homilies delivered on this date, Sterne’s offering has been described as ‘innocuous’. Although thoroughly loyal, and referencing ‘our forefathers trespass’, Sterne adds the comment that: ‘to avoid one extreme, we began to run into another’. Perhaps this indicates a more critical understanding of what led to the Civil War and how future progress might be made without recourse to arms. This appears to be a lesson the world is still struggling to comprehend, let alone enact.

Good Lord, Deliver Us

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Management is an integral part of all organisations. It existed long before it was much spoken about or, indeed, became a field of study and development in its own right. Modern general management was introduced into the NHS following the Griffiths Inquiry in the mid 1980s. It paved the way for streamlining NHS processes and enhancing accountability which – eventually – even incorporated chaplaincy within its structures. Since then, in many organisations, I have witnessed and experienced the power of good management to exclude waste and improve efficiency. However (and there was always going to be an ‘however’!), there is plenty of evidence that contemporary management and executive leadership is far from perfect. Perhaps the instantaneous and seemingly universal response to Mr Bates v. The Post Office arises to a significant extent from the resonance of this story with many people’s experiences of institutional behaviour.

When I reflect upon my own professional journey there have been several key points when I have found myself in disagreement with a majority view. This is very inconvenient because, being naturally inclined to a quiet life, feeling compelled to express contrary views is time-consuming and energy-sapping. Often it requires detailed work to elucidate arguments and marshal the evidence that suggests – at the very least – that there is more than one way of looking at something. ‘Group-think’, especially when the leader’s views are clear and unequivocal, is far too easily generated in an environment which is unwelcoming of dissent. Over the years this is something I’ve observed in many contexts, including those of a research ethics committee and in church settings. The latter may be especially susceptible when the charisma of a Bishop is invested in a particular approach. Criticism of the approach can all too easily be perceived as criticism of the person.

It seems to me that a primary flaw in the case of the Post Office, and in many other institutions, is an inability to require a perspective 180° away from the one holding sway. For example, when a surprising number of post office staff were accused of fraud, and many maintained their complete innocence and were supported by local communities, why didn’t someone at a senior level think the unthinkable: what if they were right and Horizon was wrong? It isn’t difficult to speculate why a supplier might be reticent about admitting faults with a service it had provided. System error can be very costly and damage reputations (leading to even more adverse financial impact).

It would appear that often, as in the case of the Post Office, even independent reviews can encounter opposition if their findings differ from the dominant narrative of the organisation. When in leadership in health care chaplaincy I called on numerous occasions for an independent review of the operation of the Hospital Chaplaincies Council (HCC). There were many reasons for this, not least indications that something was wrong in the core operation of this Church of England quango. Eventually a review took place under Dame Janet Trotter, which concluded that the HCC was “too large and cumber­some for its purposes” and should be dissolved. Its findings were not welcomed by everyone and consequently the report was criticised from several quarters. However, the Hospital Chaplaincies Council no longer exists.

In leadership there is always more you could know, and the data will only ever be partial. Having a healthy appreciation of the gaps – the dark matter – is a key component in grasping the gravity of a situation. Being alert to seemingly insignificant anomalies can lead to the early detection of systemic failures. Simply closing ranks and moving into denial will only work for so long. Eventually, as the case of the Post Office demonstrates, you come up against the tenacity and determination that bends back into shape the distorted reality that huge resources have attempted to impose.

A wise leader doesn’t only want to hear the view of the majority. In 1 Kings chapter 22 we learn how King Jehoshaphat wasn’t content with the homogeneous advice of 400 prophets: ‘Is there no other prophet of the Lord here of whom we may inquire?’ Micaiah had the wisdom to make himself scarce when he knew the King wanted to hear from all the prophets. Micaiah was’t going to fall in line with the rest, and this would eventually earn him a slap and see him thrown into prison. Micaiah had the same inconvenient trait demonstrated by Mr Bates – he wouldn’t sign off on something he knew to be wrong.

“But Micaiah said. ‘As the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, that I will speak.'”


I Kings 22:14 NRSV

Bright Expectations

Chris SwiftLeave a comment

Recently I was introduced to the writing of Jon Fosse. The latest author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, this accolade was recognised by Pope Francis, who praised the Norwegian’s “gentle testimony of faith“. As a leading figure in the world of creative writing, who exchanged atheism for Catholicism some years ago, the pontifical praise for Fosse is hardly surprising. The quality of the prose in the books authored by Fosse is the most striking aspect of his work. The books can be surprisingly brief – A Shining comes to just 46 pages in the English translation. Even as a slow reader I managed to finish this novella over breakfast. However, it is a work that lingers in the imagination, shaped by writing which left me with a sense of shimmering uncertainty. It is a book that makes you wonder ‘what was all that about?’ (in a good way). In terms of spirituality and faith it achieves a credible doubt about our perceptions and consequently allows something beyond our understanding to glow at the periphery of vision. In the words of the Nobel judges Fosse gives ‘voice to the unsayable’. In A Shining the protagonist’s certainties and confidence suddenly evaporate, and time and again what seemed logical is found wanting. Into this scenario comes the strange light of a shining presence.

“I don’t write about characters in the traditional sense of the word. I write about humanity”

Fosse speaking to the French newspaper Le Monde in 2003.

It is not easy to offer a narrative of spiritual enquiry in a Western world that is deemed disenchanted and post-religious. The skill of Fosse is to develop his text with painstaking honesty about the uncertainty of what we see, and the apparently random events that intersect with our lives. To reflect the language of the season, Fosse follows his evolving story with a constant determination. It feels as though his commitment and skill to write whatever comes next, draws us into the wake of his quest. As Fosse said in an interview: “To me, writing is listening, not seeing.” As we read, we are allowed to discover what Fosse has heard.

Across the world the church is celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany. The shining star leads the Magi on an extensive journey. Thankfully, they are also discovering that their search for the meaning of this light did not conform to their expectations. At first they seek the new King in a palace. If they had lacked the flexibility to reassess their beliefs about sovereignty, then the mission to find the King might have ended there. Herod knew nothing about it – and how could a future King be born without the monarch’s knowledge? Their determination overruled the power of their assumptions. Having made the decision to follow the star, and allow it alone to denote sovereignty, they left their homes; walked away from a palace; departed from a capital city; quit imposing accommodation; and completed their journey in humble – but holy – circumstances. This could not have been an easy journey and TS Eliot concludes The Journey of the Magi with reflections that suggest abiding questions: ‘were we led all that way for Birth of Death?’

Expectations can have the power to obscure the presence of things that are surprising, novel or outside our experience. The risk is that familiarity shapes our world as we anticipate it to be, and we make our way through life imposing a pattern that demonstrates little recognition of the differences we encounter. When something breaks through our imposition of normality, it might be said that we experience an epiphany. A vision of reality re-ordered which questions our everyday certainties. The Bible is full of such moments and they are often far from being comfortable or comforting. Easier to lie, like Lazarus, in the shroud of endings, than be re-awakened to new life; new insights; or fresh possibilities.

The Magi allowed the star to reveal unexpected news. They took their gifts where the star commanded, bypassing palaces and people of honour. In the end, when they reached a simple home, they fulfilled their mission with obeisance and splendour. The circumstances were circumstantial. The wise had committed to their truth and followed unwaveringly where it led. It was their resolve to be undeflected in their purpose that led them to a foreign infant of doubtful parentage, in an insignificant town. The encounter – in Eliot’s poem – leaves them ill at ease with life when they return home. It is a reminder that away from the saccharine carols and excesses of Christmas there is a Word revealed that can, if we listen, release us from the captivating assumptions that tame our spirits.

But the child that is Noble and not Mild
He lies in his cot. He is unbeguiled.
He is Noble, he is not Mild,
And he is born to make men wild.

Extract from ‘Christmas’ by Stevie Smith