This week a wise woman wrote the following to me:
Give yourself permission not to believe anything. Just "be" and trust that the Divine Other, whatever that turns out to be, will just "be" alongside you.
I've been pondering this. Not just this week but before. Other people have recently given me advice or said words about "be" and about moving beyond or through concepts.
I was reading today and the text contained an illustration which gave me a clue. I mulled it over and turned it round, adapting it slightly for myself. Of course, it's just an illustration - human words and visions seeking to express that which is beyond our words and visions. And an illustration has many meanings. Not just the one I'm using today. A picture is worth a thousand interpretations.
To be is to sit with my hands in front of me, palms up, open.
Held in the palms of my hands is the air.
No matter what draughts or winds come, held in the palms of my hands is the air.
But if I try to grasp the air, I lose it and grasp nothing.
To be is to sit in stillness, accepting, trusting, experiencing the air.
At this time to believe in the concrete nature of human definitions would be to grasp nothing.
"God" is the real. What I can grasp is the unreal.
"God" is the infinite. What I can grasp is finite, miniscule, nothing.
I think I may have adapted my reading quite freely - looking back several times at the pages read I can't find the illustration. There's talk of grasping - but not of hands and the air.
The pages were good - proposing differences between real, unreal, and non-existent. That which is unreal exists. Of the non-existent it cannot even be said that it "is not". And they explained the meaning of "subtle" in a metaphysical sense rather than in a clever argument sense. There is talk of waves, oceans, reflections
I read:
"It is very important to understand what Krishna means by "subtle," because only the subtle is reality, truth, sat. Whatever can be grasped will be unreal, asat. It may be here today; tomorrow it will not be. Only that which cannot be grasped is sat.
Whatever science will come to know will not be godliness, because godliness means precisely that which doesn't fall within the grasp of knowing. ... The beginning of godliness is from that point where it is impossible to grasp."
So now is the time where I must learn to be, not to grasp. To let the beyond be the beyond without giving it narrow names. For the Tao that is named is not the Tao. Words, concepts are appealing. They're safe. They give us a place where we have a security and think we can see the edges of life. I like concepts. Letting them go may be difficult.
I've been grasping the air for many years. I have scars in my palms from digging in my fingernails in an attempt to hold onto air. Now is the time to relax, to rest, to open my palms and be. To be in the presence of that which is life, the eternal. And in time to realise that I too, the real me, is life, the eternal too.
To go further, the form of the hand and the form of the air are not the real. They too are unreal - they exist but are unreal. They change.
"The unreal is a glimpse of the real - though only momentary. If we hold tightly onto the form that the real temporarily takes on, we will be holding onto the unreal. But if we recognize the formless in that momentary form, the attribute-less that has shone through it, we will have caught hold of the real."
I've grasped the form, and thus held the unreal and missed the real in a quest to hold it.
Now. The time to be. To let the real be.
To see the changing forms. And the changelessness that manifests as those forms.
Now. Be.
Congratulations if you've read all that. That you've persevered to the end through all this weird semi-mysticism, and mentions of Krishna. Now, the final straw perhaps. Here's a song by Neil Diamond, from the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull - which was trendy forty years ago. And I was a lover of Richard Bach books when I was about thirteen.
Be.
(words in italics are taken from "War and Peace", a series of spoken talks by Osho discussing the early chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. I like Osho. He was paradoxical. He said some wildly outrageous things. He said things I don't begin to agree with. The people who ran things in his community in America were plainly evil or fell into great evil. Osho did plenty of things that just seem "wrong" for the average guru. Perhaps because he saw this world as unreal. Yes, he was a strange one. But I like him and his writings - usually spoken talks - provide much material for thought, even the bits that are too wacky to believe or just plain wrong! It's very different from the weighty tome by Calvin that I was reading a year ago.)
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Monday, 20 January 2014
Prophetic Picture from Within - It's time to sink or swim.
To continue. I saw a picture:
I saw people paddling in a vast ocean.
The whole ocean appeared to be about a foot in depth.
The people were happy. They were safe and the water felt good.
The ocean floor was steady, flat and could be relied on at all times.
The people wandered in the ocean, happy to experience it, and shared the experience together.
But then the ocean floor shook.
Holes appeared in it.
And then it gave way entirely and vanished.
The people discovered that the ocean was not a foot in depth.
The people began to sink.
Panic ensued. People did not know what to do.
They discovered the ocean floor was not the true ocean floor.
Their safety had gone.
Would could they do? Splash around. And drown.
The people experienced hopelessness.
But then they discovered something wonderful.
They discovered another ocean floor.
Now they stood in the ocean, almost submerged.
The water covered their whole bodies and they could even duck and cover their heads.
It had felt wonderful on their ankles.
It now felt more wonderful on their bodies, more than they could have imagined.
And then, the people, who previously could only walk,
They learned to swim.
That's it. That's what I saw. At the time I was sitting in a church, towards the end of the service. The congregation were singing a song as a response to the sermon - though it didn't seem any different to the songs before the sermon. It was noisy. I couldn't sing - not with integrity, not with honesty to myself. So I sat. In as much quiet as I could manage. And I took up the mantra from earlier that morning. And then saw that picture.
The people are the mass of humanity.
The ocean is the life of the spirit, the real, being, truth, wholeness, the beyond - whatever name you care to give it.
The shallow ocean floor, solid, safe, is theism - a belief in that one God in the sky in control of everything.
In my life that ocean floor has pretty much given way and I've been sinking, panicking, feeling like I will drown. It's a scary thing to lose sight of the God who has been your only hope.
But I feel another ocean floor is coming into view and that there is so much more to experience in this "spirit" life, growing into the potential of a human being. I feel that my God was in the ocean, part of the ocean. But that my God obscured the greater ocean behind concepts, stone doctrines, and an exclusiveness that saw the greater ocean as non-existent or evil.
In many ways our society is going through the same process - from security, to panic, to confidence, a greater enlightenment and a greater human dignity. That's scary too - it can be a mess as we explore and make mistakes in our exploration. But it's hopeful.
We have choices when we lose theism. Do we lose everything and live in despair - as many existentialists have been tempted to do? Or do we look beyond into a greater reality, and learn to swim?
Of course, my picture and interpretation may be entirely wrong.
It could be that the one God is real, that He is Lord, Judge, Saviour, the only Hope, that rejecting him leads to an eternal punishment in fire.
I could be wrong.
In which case we're not going to swim.
We're all going to drown.
I don't think so. But I'm not the one God. I've been wrong before. And this blog post isn't a holy Scripture which must be believed. It's just an idea put forward to be considered.
I saw people paddling in a vast ocean.
The whole ocean appeared to be about a foot in depth.
The people were happy. They were safe and the water felt good.
The ocean floor was steady, flat and could be relied on at all times.
The people wandered in the ocean, happy to experience it, and shared the experience together.
But then the ocean floor shook.
Holes appeared in it.
And then it gave way entirely and vanished.
The people discovered that the ocean was not a foot in depth.
The people began to sink.
Panic ensued. People did not know what to do.
They discovered the ocean floor was not the true ocean floor.
Their safety had gone.
Would could they do? Splash around. And drown.
The people experienced hopelessness.
But then they discovered something wonderful.
They discovered another ocean floor.
Now they stood in the ocean, almost submerged.
The water covered their whole bodies and they could even duck and cover their heads.
It had felt wonderful on their ankles.
It now felt more wonderful on their bodies, more than they could have imagined.
And then, the people, who previously could only walk,
They learned to swim.
That's it. That's what I saw. At the time I was sitting in a church, towards the end of the service. The congregation were singing a song as a response to the sermon - though it didn't seem any different to the songs before the sermon. It was noisy. I couldn't sing - not with integrity, not with honesty to myself. So I sat. In as much quiet as I could manage. And I took up the mantra from earlier that morning. And then saw that picture.
The people are the mass of humanity.
The ocean is the life of the spirit, the real, being, truth, wholeness, the beyond - whatever name you care to give it.
The shallow ocean floor, solid, safe, is theism - a belief in that one God in the sky in control of everything.
In my life that ocean floor has pretty much given way and I've been sinking, panicking, feeling like I will drown. It's a scary thing to lose sight of the God who has been your only hope.
But I feel another ocean floor is coming into view and that there is so much more to experience in this "spirit" life, growing into the potential of a human being. I feel that my God was in the ocean, part of the ocean. But that my God obscured the greater ocean behind concepts, stone doctrines, and an exclusiveness that saw the greater ocean as non-existent or evil.
In many ways our society is going through the same process - from security, to panic, to confidence, a greater enlightenment and a greater human dignity. That's scary too - it can be a mess as we explore and make mistakes in our exploration. But it's hopeful.
We have choices when we lose theism. Do we lose everything and live in despair - as many existentialists have been tempted to do? Or do we look beyond into a greater reality, and learn to swim?
Of course, my picture and interpretation may be entirely wrong.
It could be that the one God is real, that He is Lord, Judge, Saviour, the only Hope, that rejecting him leads to an eternal punishment in fire.
I could be wrong.
In which case we're not going to swim.
We're all going to drown.
I don't think so. But I'm not the one God. I've been wrong before. And this blog post isn't a holy Scripture which must be believed. It's just an idea put forward to be considered.
Sunday, 19 January 2014
Words for my life - Prophetic, Intuitive or Imagined?
In the middle of May 2013, I was visiting another church, a church of enthusiastic people with a love for the prophetic. I went there several times - the regular pre-service food is probably unrivalled by any church in Newcastle!
After the service I sat with two good people and they prayed for prophetic words, writing down a page of what came to them - with the proviso that they might not be right and that they weren't perfect at listening to what God was saying.
Of course the words could be seen as coming from the one God, coming from developing an intuitive gift, or as coming from everybody fooling themselves in the name of a religion. And they could be interpreted in many ways. But there are parallels, real or imagined, between the words and the paths I've walked in the last eight months.
Here goes:
"Feet walking in the same place up and down for quite a while. Sense of God changing direction of the route."
"A picture of an old cupboard you haven't opened the doors of for a long time. The Lord wants to encourage you to open the doors and examine with Him what you find in there. He will be with you while you do this. He knows what is in there already, so do not be afraid or hesitant."
"This cupboard might have a maternal link."
"God is calling you by name, calling you out."
Now, I'm not sure what those very evangelical, very charismatic church people would think about the path my life has gone in the last eight months.
But I opened the cupboard. I examined thoroughly. It didn't have much link to my own mother - but in the examining I became a mother and embraced the feminine/female I am.
The direction of the route changed drastically in terms both of gender and faith. I'm not walking where I was and I wouldn't be able to walk there again.
And God did call me out. They wondered hard about that one and then added a postscript. "... must be like Samuel." But it wasn't like Samuel. I was called out. And I came out. As myself. I came out to myself and then to the world and keep setting my public honesty bar high. I haven't been back to that church for ages so I don't know what they would think of my coming out in an LGBT fashion!
There were other "words" too. But "Believe Jesus" is obvious advice from a church - though I am taking it now in a "Believe Jesus" sense rather than a "Believe Christianity" way. And I don't know what "Get the DVD" referred to - I can't think it refers to any that I've bought in the last months!
Why am I posting this now? Because this morning in church I "received a picture". It came to me as strongly as any "prophetic word" ever did in the past. Since I'm currently not the monotheist I was I have to interpret the source differently. It arose from within rather than from without, albeit with influences from without and perhaps with influences from the interconnectedness of all things. We are one.
I'll write about my "picture" in my next blog post. Unless I get completely sidetracked by another facet of life before I write more. It's not a "picture" that would have been well received by the church I was attending this morning - and it's not a "picture" that will be well received by many of my friends. They'll reject it. But that's fine. It's just a "picture". It's not "THUS SAITH THE LORD."
After the service I sat with two good people and they prayed for prophetic words, writing down a page of what came to them - with the proviso that they might not be right and that they weren't perfect at listening to what God was saying.
Of course the words could be seen as coming from the one God, coming from developing an intuitive gift, or as coming from everybody fooling themselves in the name of a religion. And they could be interpreted in many ways. But there are parallels, real or imagined, between the words and the paths I've walked in the last eight months.
Here goes:
"Feet walking in the same place up and down for quite a while. Sense of God changing direction of the route."
"A picture of an old cupboard you haven't opened the doors of for a long time. The Lord wants to encourage you to open the doors and examine with Him what you find in there. He will be with you while you do this. He knows what is in there already, so do not be afraid or hesitant."
"This cupboard might have a maternal link."
"God is calling you by name, calling you out."
Now, I'm not sure what those very evangelical, very charismatic church people would think about the path my life has gone in the last eight months.
But I opened the cupboard. I examined thoroughly. It didn't have much link to my own mother - but in the examining I became a mother and embraced the feminine/female I am.
The direction of the route changed drastically in terms both of gender and faith. I'm not walking where I was and I wouldn't be able to walk there again.
And God did call me out. They wondered hard about that one and then added a postscript. "... must be like Samuel." But it wasn't like Samuel. I was called out. And I came out. As myself. I came out to myself and then to the world and keep setting my public honesty bar high. I haven't been back to that church for ages so I don't know what they would think of my coming out in an LGBT fashion!
There were other "words" too. But "Believe Jesus" is obvious advice from a church - though I am taking it now in a "Believe Jesus" sense rather than a "Believe Christianity" way. And I don't know what "Get the DVD" referred to - I can't think it refers to any that I've bought in the last months!
Why am I posting this now? Because this morning in church I "received a picture". It came to me as strongly as any "prophetic word" ever did in the past. Since I'm currently not the monotheist I was I have to interpret the source differently. It arose from within rather than from without, albeit with influences from without and perhaps with influences from the interconnectedness of all things. We are one.
I'll write about my "picture" in my next blog post. Unless I get completely sidetracked by another facet of life before I write more. It's not a "picture" that would have been well received by the church I was attending this morning - and it's not a "picture" that will be well received by many of my friends. They'll reject it. But that's fine. It's just a "picture". It's not "THUS SAITH THE LORD."
I believe in God - but might be told that I do not believe in God at all.
It's public confession time.
At this point in time I do not believe in a God.
Looking back I can see that I have not believed in a God for quite a while. Perhaps I haven't believed in a God for years but have kept on practising the same things and holding mentally to the same creeds. I believed that was the right way. It was also the safe way. But inside there was the death of faith. My God meant nothing to me personally. There was little inner sense of connection with this one God even in the emotional, hormonal high of worship. Yes, at times I could honestly say "I believe ..." but at others my faith was a clinging to a concept because I couldn't bring myself to actively challenged concept. I'm sure I'll be writing much more about this.
Second confession.
I believe in God, or at the very least in god.
Some people will think at least one of my confessions is false. We're used to hearing people with loud voices telling us that there is either theism or atheism, that the two supposed opposite views are the only alternatives. The fundamentalist theists call the atheists stupid. The fundamentalist atheists call the theists stupid. Put one of each in the same room and the debate turns from reason into two people in different holes throwing mud at each other - albeit mud that's dressed up in long words and the respectful language shared by Parliament - "with all due respect, the right honourable gentleman is a complete idiot".
But I believe in God.
Some people will tell me that I don't believe in God because I don't believe in a God, in the God, or more to the point, I don't believe in their God or their picture of God. Some will tell me that because my definition (or lack of definition) of God doesn't match their definition it is not God I believe in, that I believe in a folly that I've misnamed.
Yesterday I finished reading the book "A New Christianity for a New World" by the retired Episcopalian bishop, John Shelby Spong. The book hasn't changed my thoughts but he has helped me find words for some of my thoughts and crucially he's helped me find hope and direction - that Christianity and my life are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Reading some pages I had thoughts like "that's exactly where I am" or "those are exactly the questions I've been asking for at least the last year". He doesn't provide easy answers and his answers are made more difficult by my own difficulties in thinking of God beyond a traditional theistic framework.
Yes, the nature of my God will take much time and work to come to terms with. The nature of my faith will take time and work to come to terms with. Entering into a liturgical environment where everything is phrased theistically is very difficult for me - and there will probably be a post about that. Prayer life is also a challenge. I have not really "prayed" since last May. How can I "pray" when I have nobody to "pray to"?
Spong has shown me that a personal life of prayer, worship, devotion, spiritual discipline is still possible without the one God. I don't know whether his answers will be my answers but it doesn't matter. What matters is that there are answers.
He also gives a few working definitions of God. He believes in God as:
God is "being" to be entered into, to be lived, expressed, in becoming all that we can be, more than we thought we could be.
I can't phrase this well - it's all new to me. Spong does is so much better and expands on the meanings of his loose definitions.
A year ago I had all the answers. I was ploughing through the very long fourth edition of Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion." I was reading a wadge of the Bible every day. I prayed to the one God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I was enthused by the pentecostal writings of men like Smith Wigglesworth and the pentecostal, charismatic exuberance of churches like St Luke's in Newcastle and of groups like Speakers of Life.
I had answers. In the last months all I've had are questions. Great doubt. A sense that I cannot keep living the same outward faith that I've lived for twenty-four years. But an inability to reject that faith, partly because of the way I've lived it and partly because I still see light in the person of Jesus. It seemed that "one personal God" is the most central tenet of Christianity alongside our sin and the blood-sacrifice required that we might be "saved". I couldn't believe those things but couldn't quit. And in the last year, when gender issues have provided so much insecurity, I really didn't want any more insecurity.
I've come to see that there can be Christianity without those so-called central tenets of faith, that those tenets were not the only possible view arising from the life and death of Jesus and the theistic views of a 2,000 year old society. That's largely thanks to Spong and his new Christianity.
Yes, I have questions and I'll be asking them and writing about them through much of this year. I'm sure that a lot of people happening upon this blog will disagree with me and either tell me that I shouldn't have faith or that I should have a proper faith in the "one true God".
I won't phrase things well - this is a work in progress, not a finished book based on a lifetime of life and thought. If you want good phrasing I'd encourage you - whether Christian or not - to read the Bishop Spong book linked to above. Some people won't be able to engage with him at all. Some will be saying "Wow!" every other page. Some will be challenged and have to think about what they can find value in. Actually I'd love to read the book with others and discuss it together and then work out what to do about it.
It's time to get dressed now. And go to church. And struggle with the liturgies, the prayers, the words that, if taken in an easy literal manner, are words that at this point I can't really relate to.
So, my public confession again:
I believe in God.
For today, everything else is a non-essential. A window dressing. Only the window is essential. And that is God.
At this point in time I do not believe in a God.
Looking back I can see that I have not believed in a God for quite a while. Perhaps I haven't believed in a God for years but have kept on practising the same things and holding mentally to the same creeds. I believed that was the right way. It was also the safe way. But inside there was the death of faith. My God meant nothing to me personally. There was little inner sense of connection with this one God even in the emotional, hormonal high of worship. Yes, at times I could honestly say "I believe ..." but at others my faith was a clinging to a concept because I couldn't bring myself to actively challenged concept. I'm sure I'll be writing much more about this.
Second confession.
I believe in God, or at the very least in god.
Some people will think at least one of my confessions is false. We're used to hearing people with loud voices telling us that there is either theism or atheism, that the two supposed opposite views are the only alternatives. The fundamentalist theists call the atheists stupid. The fundamentalist atheists call the theists stupid. Put one of each in the same room and the debate turns from reason into two people in different holes throwing mud at each other - albeit mud that's dressed up in long words and the respectful language shared by Parliament - "with all due respect, the right honourable gentleman is a complete idiot".
But I believe in God.
Some people will tell me that I don't believe in God because I don't believe in a God, in the God, or more to the point, I don't believe in their God or their picture of God. Some will tell me that because my definition (or lack of definition) of God doesn't match their definition it is not God I believe in, that I believe in a folly that I've misnamed.
Yesterday I finished reading the book "A New Christianity for a New World" by the retired Episcopalian bishop, John Shelby Spong. The book hasn't changed my thoughts but he has helped me find words for some of my thoughts and crucially he's helped me find hope and direction - that Christianity and my life are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Reading some pages I had thoughts like "that's exactly where I am" or "those are exactly the questions I've been asking for at least the last year". He doesn't provide easy answers and his answers are made more difficult by my own difficulties in thinking of God beyond a traditional theistic framework.
Yes, the nature of my God will take much time and work to come to terms with. The nature of my faith will take time and work to come to terms with. Entering into a liturgical environment where everything is phrased theistically is very difficult for me - and there will probably be a post about that. Prayer life is also a challenge. I have not really "prayed" since last May. How can I "pray" when I have nobody to "pray to"?
Spong has shown me that a personal life of prayer, worship, devotion, spiritual discipline is still possible without the one God. I don't know whether his answers will be my answers but it doesn't matter. What matters is that there are answers.
He also gives a few working definitions of God. He believes in God as:
- The source of all life
- The source of all love
- The ground of our being
- Being
God is "being" to be entered into, to be lived, expressed, in becoming all that we can be, more than we thought we could be.
I can't phrase this well - it's all new to me. Spong does is so much better and expands on the meanings of his loose definitions.
A year ago I had all the answers. I was ploughing through the very long fourth edition of Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion." I was reading a wadge of the Bible every day. I prayed to the one God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I was enthused by the pentecostal writings of men like Smith Wigglesworth and the pentecostal, charismatic exuberance of churches like St Luke's in Newcastle and of groups like Speakers of Life.
I had answers. In the last months all I've had are questions. Great doubt. A sense that I cannot keep living the same outward faith that I've lived for twenty-four years. But an inability to reject that faith, partly because of the way I've lived it and partly because I still see light in the person of Jesus. It seemed that "one personal God" is the most central tenet of Christianity alongside our sin and the blood-sacrifice required that we might be "saved". I couldn't believe those things but couldn't quit. And in the last year, when gender issues have provided so much insecurity, I really didn't want any more insecurity.
I've come to see that there can be Christianity without those so-called central tenets of faith, that those tenets were not the only possible view arising from the life and death of Jesus and the theistic views of a 2,000 year old society. That's largely thanks to Spong and his new Christianity.
Yes, I have questions and I'll be asking them and writing about them through much of this year. I'm sure that a lot of people happening upon this blog will disagree with me and either tell me that I shouldn't have faith or that I should have a proper faith in the "one true God".
I won't phrase things well - this is a work in progress, not a finished book based on a lifetime of life and thought. If you want good phrasing I'd encourage you - whether Christian or not - to read the Bishop Spong book linked to above. Some people won't be able to engage with him at all. Some will be saying "Wow!" every other page. Some will be challenged and have to think about what they can find value in. Actually I'd love to read the book with others and discuss it together and then work out what to do about it.
It's time to get dressed now. And go to church. And struggle with the liturgies, the prayers, the words that, if taken in an easy literal manner, are words that at this point I can't really relate to.
So, my public confession again:
I believe in God.
For today, everything else is a non-essential. A window dressing. Only the window is essential. And that is God.
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
I have been informed today about a gap in Cumberland.
(Hand's up who's old enough to get the joke in the title of this post.)
Sometimes a one sentence answer on facebook expands and becomes long enough for a blog. In my case it could happen frequently - and has happened often - because I type too much, in part to get my own thoughts straight.
I was sent an article that seemed hopeful to someone - and in some ways it is very hopeful and it's not an article that would have been seen ten, twenty years ago. Progress. Progress. It's about life in a school in Cumberland, North Carolina where a first grader - who is transgender - is using the girls toilets. Some people are worried by this although I'm not really sure what horrific danger this particular first grader girl poses to the fabric of society or even to the safety of other first grader girls. The school will be acting to put a policy in place.
Here's the article:
http://www.wral.com/cumberland-school-district-to-address-student-gender-identity/13295892/
There's more that I could write - such as about the problematic nature of phrases like "opposite gender" and the problem with bringing "sexuality" into this story. And I'd make a guess that many of the first graders dress and behave "in a manner commonly associated with girls." This girl does too - she just happens to be a girl with a slightly different body. So what? It's not her fault.
People don't worry that - shock, horror! - lesbians use the same toilets and changing facilities and even shared shower facilities as straight women. Lesbians use them and we're not surprised to learn that nothing happens. Nobody is endangered. Of course not. Why would there be any problem? There wouldn't because there's no reason why there would. And that's obvious to most of us.
But the thought that a transgender girl or woman might use the same facilities fills some people with horror and fear - because they see us as predators, as a danger, as perverted, rather than as someone who just wants to go to the toilet or change to use a gym, or change into a work uniform. The rhetoric goes that transgender women want to attack people. Fear them. Cast them out. They have no right to live full lives.
Thankfully a lot of people don't think like that. Probably most women in British society don't worry if they happen to spot that I'm transgender and using the women's toilets. I find most people admire me for doing this rather than fear me for being this. There was a time when that wouldn't have been the case. Progress. Progress.
I didn't send my response to my friend on facebook. Instead she received a minor discussion about a local, friendly Catholic parish and about liturgy - noting the logical order of the liturgy of the Mass.
But here's my off-the-cuff, unpolished, disordered, probably controversial response to the article typed in not many minutes:
I look for a time when parents don't feel a need to be informed - because they realise that it doesn't matter - that they're too worried about genitals and too closed/narrow in their views of sex and gender to see a human being as a human being and treat them as who they are.
In the current climate of opinion it's difficult and for now it seems that parents feel a need to be informed - because obviously every transgender child should be outed to the entire community and have no choice in this, even in a community where some people will hate that child for being who he or she is.
But it's good that some schools are at last bothering to think about gender and address this issue. It's good that schools are allowing a girl to use a girl's room. It's good that the article calls her "her". It's good that the child's parents have the courage to let her be herself.
"As welcome as possible under the circumstances" is nasty language though - it sounds like "hey, you're transgender so you're not as welcome as everyone else." The circumstances are they have an innocent child in their school who should be treated like any other innocent child. Imagine the damage that may be done to the child if she's treated differently because her body doesn't perfectly match her person.
It's progress and it will continue. Just think, 50 years ago the argument in the USA would have been about whether to let a black girl use a toilet. In 50 years time most people will feel just as ashamed of the arguments over gender and the dehumanising of another section of the wonderfully wideness of humanity.
For now it is the transgender person who has something to fear, not the cisgender* person. Many have been attacked, insulted, arrested in rest rooms. Some will not leave the house in case we need a toilet, due to experiences they've had. Remember - we have been and still often are the oppressed. We are not the oppressor. Yet we are so often portrayed as criminals, sex perverts and everyone else is made out to be a victim of our boldness in daring to exist and to attempt to live in the world with everyone else. Or we get told we're mentally ill, deranged, evil, demon possessed, abominations.
How should parents talk to their children? Simply. The child will not worry unless the child is taught to worry.
* cisgender - anyone who isn't transgender, whose gender roughly matches their sex - though even these terms aren't ideal descriptions because gender isn't a binary system in which you're either male or female.
Sometimes a one sentence answer on facebook expands and becomes long enough for a blog. In my case it could happen frequently - and has happened often - because I type too much, in part to get my own thoughts straight.
I was sent an article that seemed hopeful to someone - and in some ways it is very hopeful and it's not an article that would have been seen ten, twenty years ago. Progress. Progress. It's about life in a school in Cumberland, North Carolina where a first grader - who is transgender - is using the girls toilets. Some people are worried by this although I'm not really sure what horrific danger this particular first grader girl poses to the fabric of society or even to the safety of other first grader girls. The school will be acting to put a policy in place.
Here's the article:
http://www.wral.com/cumberland-school-district-to-address-student-gender-identity/13295892/
There's more that I could write - such as about the problematic nature of phrases like "opposite gender" and the problem with bringing "sexuality" into this story. And I'd make a guess that many of the first graders dress and behave "in a manner commonly associated with girls." This girl does too - she just happens to be a girl with a slightly different body. So what? It's not her fault.
People don't worry that - shock, horror! - lesbians use the same toilets and changing facilities and even shared shower facilities as straight women. Lesbians use them and we're not surprised to learn that nothing happens. Nobody is endangered. Of course not. Why would there be any problem? There wouldn't because there's no reason why there would. And that's obvious to most of us.
But the thought that a transgender girl or woman might use the same facilities fills some people with horror and fear - because they see us as predators, as a danger, as perverted, rather than as someone who just wants to go to the toilet or change to use a gym, or change into a work uniform. The rhetoric goes that transgender women want to attack people. Fear them. Cast them out. They have no right to live full lives.
Thankfully a lot of people don't think like that. Probably most women in British society don't worry if they happen to spot that I'm transgender and using the women's toilets. I find most people admire me for doing this rather than fear me for being this. There was a time when that wouldn't have been the case. Progress. Progress.
I didn't send my response to my friend on facebook. Instead she received a minor discussion about a local, friendly Catholic parish and about liturgy - noting the logical order of the liturgy of the Mass.
But here's my off-the-cuff, unpolished, disordered, probably controversial response to the article typed in not many minutes:
I look for a time when parents don't feel a need to be informed - because they realise that it doesn't matter - that they're too worried about genitals and too closed/narrow in their views of sex and gender to see a human being as a human being and treat them as who they are.
In the current climate of opinion it's difficult and for now it seems that parents feel a need to be informed - because obviously every transgender child should be outed to the entire community and have no choice in this, even in a community where some people will hate that child for being who he or she is.
But it's good that some schools are at last bothering to think about gender and address this issue. It's good that schools are allowing a girl to use a girl's room. It's good that the article calls her "her". It's good that the child's parents have the courage to let her be herself.
"As welcome as possible under the circumstances" is nasty language though - it sounds like "hey, you're transgender so you're not as welcome as everyone else." The circumstances are they have an innocent child in their school who should be treated like any other innocent child. Imagine the damage that may be done to the child if she's treated differently because her body doesn't perfectly match her person.
It's progress and it will continue. Just think, 50 years ago the argument in the USA would have been about whether to let a black girl use a toilet. In 50 years time most people will feel just as ashamed of the arguments over gender and the dehumanising of another section of the wonderfully wideness of humanity.
For now it is the transgender person who has something to fear, not the cisgender* person. Many have been attacked, insulted, arrested in rest rooms. Some will not leave the house in case we need a toilet, due to experiences they've had. Remember - we have been and still often are the oppressed. We are not the oppressor. Yet we are so often portrayed as criminals, sex perverts and everyone else is made out to be a victim of our boldness in daring to exist and to attempt to live in the world with everyone else. Or we get told we're mentally ill, deranged, evil, demon possessed, abominations.
How should parents talk to their children? Simply. The child will not worry unless the child is taught to worry.
* cisgender - anyone who isn't transgender, whose gender roughly matches their sex - though even these terms aren't ideal descriptions because gender isn't a binary system in which you're either male or female.
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
The Doubts of Conversion
In February 1990 my life changed forever.
I became convinced that Christianity - not that I even began to understand it - is true.
I converted, became a Christian, "born again". I "prayed the prayer".
This year I've had to reject many of the bases of my Christianity. And that's led me to have to question everything else about my faith, about religion, and about spirituality. I've had to question whether the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, really is good news, and if it is good news then of what that news consists.
And so I look back on that conversion event, February 1990, in a room in Bradford with a couple of friends I lost contact with many years ago. I felt greatly joyful and peaceful by the end of that night. Secure that Jesus really was and is alive and part of present day life.
Recently I've had to ask: did I meet God or just psychology? The inner jury is still out. But the question has been posed. And I believe 2014 will see me drawn to answers that surprise me, perhaps answers that I have not before been able to contemplate as valid.
So, a few thoughts on my conversion:
An initiating prayer.
Into overwhelming peace.
A securing place.
Unexpected joy,
Convictions of certitude -
Evangelical excitement.
Was it God releasing me?
Or did I release myself?
Was new freedom mine, or divine?
What wisdom was I embracing?
Just a God who agreed with me
That I was broken, stained, full of wrong?
So did I meet the joy of Spirit
Or the joy of being proved right?
Did I encounter the love of a saviour
Or the love of a broken home?
Was fire life given from above
or ignited from martyred mind, hater heart?
On that night all was clear:
Clarity of a thoughtless mind and satisfied heart.
Initiating prayer became crazy hope
God reaching out to man, or so it seemed.
Or was I reaching out by reaching in?
Self-trickery for moments of bliss.
More lost when securely found.
I became convinced that Christianity - not that I even began to understand it - is true.
I converted, became a Christian, "born again". I "prayed the prayer".
This year I've had to reject many of the bases of my Christianity. And that's led me to have to question everything else about my faith, about religion, and about spirituality. I've had to question whether the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, really is good news, and if it is good news then of what that news consists.
And so I look back on that conversion event, February 1990, in a room in Bradford with a couple of friends I lost contact with many years ago. I felt greatly joyful and peaceful by the end of that night. Secure that Jesus really was and is alive and part of present day life.
Recently I've had to ask: did I meet God or just psychology? The inner jury is still out. But the question has been posed. And I believe 2014 will see me drawn to answers that surprise me, perhaps answers that I have not before been able to contemplate as valid.
So, a few thoughts on my conversion:
An initiating prayer.
Into overwhelming peace.
A securing place.
Unexpected joy,
Convictions of certitude -
Evangelical excitement.
Was it God releasing me?
Or did I release myself?
Was new freedom mine, or divine?
What wisdom was I embracing?
Just a God who agreed with me
That I was broken, stained, full of wrong?
So did I meet the joy of Spirit
Or the joy of being proved right?
Did I encounter the love of a saviour
Or the love of a broken home?
Was fire life given from above
or ignited from martyred mind, hater heart?
On that night all was clear:
Clarity of a thoughtless mind and satisfied heart.
Initiating prayer became crazy hope
God reaching out to man, or so it seemed.
Or was I reaching out by reaching in?
Self-trickery for moments of bliss.
More lost when securely found.
Sunday, 15 December 2013
The Past Made Present - Glastonbury, 1985
On a family holiday, when I was fourteen, we visited Glastonbury for the day. After a visit to Glastonbury Tor - where I had a most interesting talk with a stranger about how he liked to levitate there - we visited the village, including some of the more spiritual shops that have boomed there. If I remember rightly I bought myself a book about occult exercises and practices.
After lunch we visited Glastonbury Abbey which was unsurprisingly packed with tourists and coach parties. Why shouldn't they be there - it's famous and a beautiful ruin. Wandering off alone down some steps I found myself in St Mary's chapel - cooler, deserted at that time and with an atmosphere more powerful than the Tor.
This shouldn't be a surprise given the Christian and pre-Christian history of the site. Looking online a moment ago I found this statement: The Mary Chapel in the Abbey lies in the Vulva of the Birth-Giving Goddess of Glastonbury. This is one of the most potent places on the Island. Make of that what you will! People write all kinds of things about Glastonbury, based on all kinds of spiritual belief and practice, which is appropriate for somewhere that was such a centre for both paganism and Christianity. I will leave it up to you whether Glastonbury really was Avalon, home of the Goddess.
Last week I was thinking about early experiences of "the sacred". Without defining "sacred" I am pretty certain that I experienced it/him/her/them that day in the few brief minutes that I stood, alone, before the altar of that chapel.
Writing came as I sat in a cafe. It's in the form of a sestina. Six stanzas of six lines and an extra three lines at the end, with the last words of each line rotated through the different lines of each stanza. There's an official way to rotate them but I was sitting in a cafe with no access to anything that told me the "right" way, so this may all be "wrong". In any case it's not good poetry. I hope next year to write far more - to learn something of the art - and eventually produce something decent.
Abbey of noise, far from Cistercian silence
Hurrying coaches, camera snappers seek the common view
Japanese tourism - the south-west in a day.
Here stood Arthur; Joseph planted his tree.
We must see it all, rush, rush, rushing
This, no holy hour of freedom to seek the monastic.
Abbey of noise, I seek God, I, monastic,
Walking alone, from tourism, tack, time, into a silence.
Underneath, under the crowds, root of cloistered tree.
Above, the teashop calling, the people still rushing
Below, place of prayer, of silent, silenced voices singing: God in view.
Below, presence of lost centuries manifests this day.
Away from shallow, short life, the longevity of the tree,
The chapel altar stands stark, a remembrance of the day
Monkish voices were squeezed, squashed, quelled in the rushing
Of a King seeking to rule God, abolishing the monastic.
The chants, the rich intonement, God's praises turned to silence.
Five hundred years, God unchanging, time cannot shroud the view.
I stood in profound riches, feeling guilt for not rushing,
Alone with the alone - but why not with camera pointed at that tree?
Inside, impulse escapes, birthing the thrill of the monastic.
In quiet, in immense living atmosphere, the sacred opened my view.
Minutes, just minutes, stretched like chant memory into a day.
Above, above, bustle, noisy chaos; but for me, long silence.
I would have stayed, could not stay, force to leave that view.
Moments of a life, just a glimpse of the eternal monastic.
Moments of a meaning, brief, all changing, revolutions in silence.
Come back, return to the wells that enabled this day,
Back to family, to that other deep rooted tree
Back to above, we too were tourists - more to see, onwards, rushing.
Years pass but still present to me are those moments, that day.
A moment of calm, stilling the rushing.
Whatever darkened horror appears, the beyond comes to my view.
In the deafening noises, a present past, a moment of silence
That set in place a yearning for a life monastic,
For timeless prayer roots, deepening of the tree.
Abbey of silence. Gone but called to view.
I was not there a day but it's strong seeds became my tree.
I've lived, rush, rush, rushing. But ever inward, turning to monastic.
After lunch we visited Glastonbury Abbey which was unsurprisingly packed with tourists and coach parties. Why shouldn't they be there - it's famous and a beautiful ruin. Wandering off alone down some steps I found myself in St Mary's chapel - cooler, deserted at that time and with an atmosphere more powerful than the Tor.
This shouldn't be a surprise given the Christian and pre-Christian history of the site. Looking online a moment ago I found this statement: The Mary Chapel in the Abbey lies in the Vulva of the Birth-Giving Goddess of Glastonbury. This is one of the most potent places on the Island. Make of that what you will! People write all kinds of things about Glastonbury, based on all kinds of spiritual belief and practice, which is appropriate for somewhere that was such a centre for both paganism and Christianity. I will leave it up to you whether Glastonbury really was Avalon, home of the Goddess.
Last week I was thinking about early experiences of "the sacred". Without defining "sacred" I am pretty certain that I experienced it/him/her/them that day in the few brief minutes that I stood, alone, before the altar of that chapel.
Writing came as I sat in a cafe. It's in the form of a sestina. Six stanzas of six lines and an extra three lines at the end, with the last words of each line rotated through the different lines of each stanza. There's an official way to rotate them but I was sitting in a cafe with no access to anything that told me the "right" way, so this may all be "wrong". In any case it's not good poetry. I hope next year to write far more - to learn something of the art - and eventually produce something decent.
Abbey of noise, far from Cistercian silence
Hurrying coaches, camera snappers seek the common view
Japanese tourism - the south-west in a day.
Here stood Arthur; Joseph planted his tree.
We must see it all, rush, rush, rushing
This, no holy hour of freedom to seek the monastic.
Abbey of noise, I seek God, I, monastic,
Walking alone, from tourism, tack, time, into a silence.
Underneath, under the crowds, root of cloistered tree.
Above, the teashop calling, the people still rushing
Below, place of prayer, of silent, silenced voices singing: God in view.
Below, presence of lost centuries manifests this day.
Away from shallow, short life, the longevity of the tree,
The chapel altar stands stark, a remembrance of the day
Monkish voices were squeezed, squashed, quelled in the rushing
Of a King seeking to rule God, abolishing the monastic.
The chants, the rich intonement, God's praises turned to silence.
Five hundred years, God unchanging, time cannot shroud the view.
I stood in profound riches, feeling guilt for not rushing,
Alone with the alone - but why not with camera pointed at that tree?
Inside, impulse escapes, birthing the thrill of the monastic.
In quiet, in immense living atmosphere, the sacred opened my view.
Minutes, just minutes, stretched like chant memory into a day.
Above, above, bustle, noisy chaos; but for me, long silence.
I would have stayed, could not stay, force to leave that view.
Moments of a life, just a glimpse of the eternal monastic.
Moments of a meaning, brief, all changing, revolutions in silence.
Come back, return to the wells that enabled this day,
Back to family, to that other deep rooted tree
Back to above, we too were tourists - more to see, onwards, rushing.
Years pass but still present to me are those moments, that day.
A moment of calm, stilling the rushing.
Whatever darkened horror appears, the beyond comes to my view.
In the deafening noises, a present past, a moment of silence
That set in place a yearning for a life monastic,
For timeless prayer roots, deepening of the tree.
Abbey of silence. Gone but called to view.
I was not there a day but it's strong seeds became my tree.
I've lived, rush, rush, rushing. But ever inward, turning to monastic.
Saturday, 14 December 2013
The Perils of Bad weather & Good Health (from The Daily Express)
Over and over again we see predictions of weather sent to us from the most evil ice queen to ever create a snowflake. Every winter will be the worst ever. Every summer half of us will die in a heatwave the likes of which we've never seen before. Go to facebook posts, twitter posts, Google search results and live in fear - the meteorological Armageddon is happening. The world will end in snow or heatwave.
There's a new prediction today of a hell storm causing chaos this week. The Met Office have predicted some wind and have issued a weather warning for parts of the UK this weekend. The tabloid headlines - with the help of "experts" at The Weather Channel - turn this wind into something we all need to be afraid of. The Daily Mail have turned this into the coming chaos. This storm will "wreak havoc". Beware!
The Met Office spokesperson - ever more cautious - says that in parts of Scotland the temperature might drop to freezing tonight. Oh no! Freezing point. In Scotland. In mid-December. It's not exactly a Biblical apocalyptic sign is it?
And then there are other headlines. Tabloid newspapers and many websites seem to take a perverse joy in their headlines. Take, as an example, The Daily Express.
Somebody with plenty of time has been kind enough to compile Express front pages into one handy picture:
Ah, the joy of the Daily Express. The Daily Mail is no better - that's been known to use completely made up weather experts (allegedly - though the evidence online is good) and has cured cancer several times this year!
Good news from the Express:
A blood pressure drug beats dementia.
An arthritis drug beats dementia.
Exercise beats dementia.
You can stop Alzheimer's
There's a pill to beat Alzheimer's
With all these cures apparently already available, it's amazing that the government need to fund any more research at all. That's the logical conclusion if we believe Express headlines. We can all stop worrying about dementia - the Express has it beaten. Whoopee!
Good news: Pensions are going up 25%
Bad news: Pensions are going down 20%
And as for the front page WE'RE ALL DOOMED weather forecasts, they've been lying to us (or at best unintentionally and repeatedly misleading us) for years. Similar front pages - back at least as far as 2003 can be found with not too much searching.
All that and repeatedly demonising asylum seekers and people on benefits too.
Why would anyone, anyone, choose to buy this crap? Save your money. Go to the library and get a decent book instead.
Photo taken from http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/curious-repeated-headlines/ which includes another batch of front pages - but one Express headline seems to merge into the next after a while.
There's a new prediction today of a hell storm causing chaos this week. The Met Office have predicted some wind and have issued a weather warning for parts of the UK this weekend. The tabloid headlines - with the help of "experts" at The Weather Channel - turn this wind into something we all need to be afraid of. The Daily Mail have turned this into the coming chaos. This storm will "wreak havoc". Beware!
The Met Office spokesperson - ever more cautious - says that in parts of Scotland the temperature might drop to freezing tonight. Oh no! Freezing point. In Scotland. In mid-December. It's not exactly a Biblical apocalyptic sign is it?
And then there are other headlines. Tabloid newspapers and many websites seem to take a perverse joy in their headlines. Take, as an example, The Daily Express.
Somebody with plenty of time has been kind enough to compile Express front pages into one handy picture:
Ah, the joy of the Daily Express. The Daily Mail is no better - that's been known to use completely made up weather experts (allegedly - though the evidence online is good) and has cured cancer several times this year!
Good news from the Express:
A blood pressure drug beats dementia.
An arthritis drug beats dementia.
Exercise beats dementia.
You can stop Alzheimer's
There's a pill to beat Alzheimer's
With all these cures apparently already available, it's amazing that the government need to fund any more research at all. That's the logical conclusion if we believe Express headlines. We can all stop worrying about dementia - the Express has it beaten. Whoopee!
Good news: Pensions are going up 25%
Bad news: Pensions are going down 20%
And as for the front page WE'RE ALL DOOMED weather forecasts, they've been lying to us (or at best unintentionally and repeatedly misleading us) for years. Similar front pages - back at least as far as 2003 can be found with not too much searching.
All that and repeatedly demonising asylum seekers and people on benefits too.
Why would anyone, anyone, choose to buy this crap? Save your money. Go to the library and get a decent book instead.
Photo taken from http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/curious-repeated-headlines/ which includes another batch of front pages - but one Express headline seems to merge into the next after a while.
Asylum Seekers and Facebook - Where Does the Truth Lie?
I use facebook. I use it a lot. Some people would tell you that I use it too much! And I tend to get annoyed by hoaxes and scams. They crop up regularly - some of them crop up over and over again. But I get most annoyed when those posts that unfairly demonise a group of people or individual people - the posts that began somewhere as a malicious lie not just a silly joke. There are politicians and organisations I don't particularly like and rarely agree with - but I've sprung to their defence when I've seen lies told about them, intentionally or otherwise. Because of course most hoaxes and scams are passed on by well intentioned, pretty decent people.
Here's something that I see variations of posted on facebook quite regularly. There's a good chance that if you use facebook then you've seen it too. A 30 second look on Google brings up several articles that show how wrong it is. But people tell me they don't know how to do that - yes, there really are regular computer users who claim that Google is a complete mystery. And other people tell me they haven't got the time to do that - which only shows that they would prefer to risk spreading lies, demonising other human beings, rather than spent 30 seconds giving them the benefit of the doubt. I truly think the "no time" excuse is a symptom either of evil or of a belief in the basic rotten nature of humanity.
And this particular post, one I've seen quite a few times in different forms, makes me very, very cross:
I don't personally know any asylum seekers at this time. We had an asylum seeker and his family at church for quite a while and they went through great suffering until they were granted asylum and could finally start to create a life here. But I know people who are involved in working with asylum seekers and refugees - through an aid centre for them (which received my entire wardrobe of clothes in the last few months - new outward gender means new clothes for me) and through various groups run for them.
From those people I hear horror stories - families living in one room, without furniture, without extra clothes, with only one cup between them. Asylum seekers who know they face life imprisonment or death if they are sent home, so live in great fear each day. They may have the "wrong" race, religion, politics, sexuality or whatever else to be free in their nation of origin. They are usually innocent of anything we'd call a criminal offence under our own comparatively very freedom loving laws.
There is a group of LGBT asylum seekers in this city who would face terrible punishment if sent back, because of their sexuality or gender - because of that fear and because of prejudice among others from their nation they cannot be openly gay, or lesbian or seek help as transgender. Yet in order to stay the kind British government wants to force them to "prove" their sexuality or gender.
But tonight (at the time of typing - not of posting this) I saw the above set of lies on facebook. Again. Yet again. And I just had to respond.
It'll do little good I suspect. (edit - I removed my post the following morning) If someone wants to believe the worst about people and situations then they'll still believe the worst no matter how much light or truth is passed their way. So I responded, and the likelihood is that someone will not like my response much - I'm afraid it's not 100% the epitome of calm diplomacy but does improve after the 'baloney'!
I think it's a total disgrace that such complete and utter baloney keeps getting posted on facebook and elsewhere - especially when it's by people who know about the work of refugee centres and who have seen what poverty asylum seekers generally have to live in while often in desperate fear for their lives if refugee status is not granted.
But go ahead, scapegoat them. They can't fight back.
An "illegal" immigrant gets nothing. The clue is in the word "illegal".
A single asylum seeker can receive £36.62 a week. That's under £2,000 a year to live on.
A roof is provided - usually horrible as the contract goes to the lowest possible bidder and this can change at any time, without warning. Recently some asylum seekers in Newcastle had to move to Teeside - with less than one hour's notice.
Under £2,000 a year doesn't leave a lot of spare cash and asylum seekers have to report in regularly. In Shields. So they walk, very regularly, from Newcastle to Shields and back in order to receive their £36 because they can't afford a bus.
But hey, that's only a 17 mile round trip and I'm sure we'd all be happy to walk that in the middle of winter in order to receive £36 to pay for our food, fuel, clothes, and anything else we might need to survive.
We wouldn't be allowed any other money - asylum seekers aren't allowed to seek work unless refugee status is granted.
If the asylum seeker is eventually granted refugee status he/she is entitled to the same benefits as anyone else. Anyone who thinks that's wrong is wishing these people a quick trip back to their nation of origin where imprisonment or sometimes death awaits - for their politics, race, sexuality, religion.
They are scared, have run for their lives. They arrive in Britain. And people on facebook listen to lies and just piss all over them.
Here's something that I see variations of posted on facebook quite regularly. There's a good chance that if you use facebook then you've seen it too. A 30 second look on Google brings up several articles that show how wrong it is. But people tell me they don't know how to do that - yes, there really are regular computer users who claim that Google is a complete mystery. And other people tell me they haven't got the time to do that - which only shows that they would prefer to risk spreading lies, demonising other human beings, rather than spent 30 seconds giving them the benefit of the doubt. I truly think the "no time" excuse is a symptom either of evil or of a belief in the basic rotten nature of humanity.
And this particular post, one I've seen quite a few times in different forms, makes me very, very cross:
I don't personally know any asylum seekers at this time. We had an asylum seeker and his family at church for quite a while and they went through great suffering until they were granted asylum and could finally start to create a life here. But I know people who are involved in working with asylum seekers and refugees - through an aid centre for them (which received my entire wardrobe of clothes in the last few months - new outward gender means new clothes for me) and through various groups run for them.
From those people I hear horror stories - families living in one room, without furniture, without extra clothes, with only one cup between them. Asylum seekers who know they face life imprisonment or death if they are sent home, so live in great fear each day. They may have the "wrong" race, religion, politics, sexuality or whatever else to be free in their nation of origin. They are usually innocent of anything we'd call a criminal offence under our own comparatively very freedom loving laws.
There is a group of LGBT asylum seekers in this city who would face terrible punishment if sent back, because of their sexuality or gender - because of that fear and because of prejudice among others from their nation they cannot be openly gay, or lesbian or seek help as transgender. Yet in order to stay the kind British government wants to force them to "prove" their sexuality or gender.
But tonight (at the time of typing - not of posting this) I saw the above set of lies on facebook. Again. Yet again. And I just had to respond.
It'll do little good I suspect. (edit - I removed my post the following morning) If someone wants to believe the worst about people and situations then they'll still believe the worst no matter how much light or truth is passed their way. So I responded, and the likelihood is that someone will not like my response much - I'm afraid it's not 100% the epitome of calm diplomacy but does improve after the 'baloney'!
_________________________________
I think it's a total disgrace that such complete and utter baloney keeps getting posted on facebook and elsewhere - especially when it's by people who know about the work of refugee centres and who have seen what poverty asylum seekers generally have to live in while often in desperate fear for their lives if refugee status is not granted.
But go ahead, scapegoat them. They can't fight back.
An "illegal" immigrant gets nothing. The clue is in the word "illegal".
A single asylum seeker can receive £36.62 a week. That's under £2,000 a year to live on.
A roof is provided - usually horrible as the contract goes to the lowest possible bidder and this can change at any time, without warning. Recently some asylum seekers in Newcastle had to move to Teeside - with less than one hour's notice.
Under £2,000 a year doesn't leave a lot of spare cash and asylum seekers have to report in regularly. In Shields. So they walk, very regularly, from Newcastle to Shields and back in order to receive their £36 because they can't afford a bus.
But hey, that's only a 17 mile round trip and I'm sure we'd all be happy to walk that in the middle of winter in order to receive £36 to pay for our food, fuel, clothes, and anything else we might need to survive.
We wouldn't be allowed any other money - asylum seekers aren't allowed to seek work unless refugee status is granted.
If the asylum seeker is eventually granted refugee status he/she is entitled to the same benefits as anyone else. Anyone who thinks that's wrong is wishing these people a quick trip back to their nation of origin where imprisonment or sometimes death awaits - for their politics, race, sexuality, religion.
They are scared, have run for their lives. They arrive in Britain. And people on facebook listen to lies and just piss all over them.
Friday, 13 December 2013
The Death of My God. And The Dancing Stars.
When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!" (Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra)
GOD was dead
I had killed Him
Yet I turned to truth,
to light, to the real.
I sought the above,
the spiritual heights.
No God. No God.
But beautiful, bountiful,
brilliant, blinker-breaking
boundless BEYOND.
___________________
Yet, even embracing God
I lived a lie.
God was still dead.
I still killed Him.
Those centred words describe something of my God, from the time I turned as a child from a Christianity that I didn't begin to understand, to the often unhealthy Christianity I embraced as an adult.
Does this mean there is no God. I don't think so - only that many of the concepts of God that we have used are dead. Or dying. They were too limiting. If God is truly God, then God is bigger than any human words or thoughts or imaginations. To contain Him in one book, one interpretation is to risk missing Him altogether.
To contain him in one gender - as I, following Christian tradition, have done here, is to risk missing Her or Them, to risk so much of what God must be being lost to view.
Nietzsche, in rejecting not just the concept but the entire exterior immense sacred, missed God and proposed other meaning, that man - the bridge not the goal - is something to be surpassed, and that in itself is a laudable aim. Nietzsche wrote much that I disagree with, but his writing is often wonderful and his ideas challenge in a good way, and I recommend a slow read of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The book isn't too long - but the ideas are massive and can be seen trying to work themselves out in sizable aspects of 20th Century history and thought.
God is dead. We have killed him in our thinking, our narrowness, mistaking our own blindness for clear vision.
God is dead. We have killed him in our thinking, our narrowness, mistaking our own blindness for clear vision.
I killed him. And, looking back, as I have been doing recently, I find that I very often killed him more as a believing, theistic, Christian, worshipper than as an agnostic seeker of revelation and ever fresh insight. It's not that Christianity is bad. Christianity can be full of wonder. It's not that Christianity is the God killer. But my Christianity was often the God killer. Too often I held so fast to dogma that I forgot that God is the God of play and that dogma, as Matthew Fox wrote, can at most only be the outline, the border of the fields in which we play.
With the unexpected effects this year has had on all my beliefs and imaginations, now is the time for me to learn to stop killing God. At this point I do not know whether I will hold on to a Christianity that most Christians would recognise as "sound". But whatever happens I need to include the searching, the openness, the disquieted chaos, the recognition that the boundless beyond will always bring new thrilling surprises and transformations.
Just as Zarathustra explained, "One must still have a chaos inside oneself to give birth to a dancing star."
May we all find the excitement in chaos, in uncertainty, so that we can all give birth to dancing stars.
Thursday, 12 December 2013
The Distraction of Ra, Disappointment of Apollo
What was a spiritual seeker to do having rejected the church at an early age? It's a common question, asked by many who never had a religious faith and many who lost their faith. Outside of God, where is meaning? Philosophers ask it - Nietzsche found meaning, others found none. My faith at that time said "There is a sacred beyond appearances. But it's not to be found in a church."
I'd been reading books on spirituality and the occult from time to time for a few years. Now my reading and collecting became more enthusiastic. By the time I was eighteen and converted to a personally held Christian faith I had over 1000 books on themes related to the occult, the new age, spirituality, world religions and philosophy. Most of them I hadn't read. Nearly all I threw out or sold: my new Christian faith urged me to cleanse my life of all these supposedly unclean, evil things.
Where was a young person to go, having decided Christianity to be based on a false story but having a yearning for something beyond this world? I looked into lots of things. Vedic wisdom. Meditation. Astral projection. Yoga. Cartomancy, chiromancy, lots of mancies! Many other little obsessions. And magic.
There's not a lot of old ritual magic that a young person can do in the comfort of their own bedroom. The Golden Dawn rituals aren't designed for a few square feet of space, or to be performed as a solo endeavour. But there's some ritual, proper ritual - not the books of invented "spells" that are now so common on the spirituality shelves of bookshops. I've forgotten most of what I ever read about magic but remember part of a ritual that I tried each day for a while. Not for too long, nothing seemed to come of it, so I moved on to other things:
In sadness, turned from a religion without meaning,
I turned, turned, turned again.
Where is hope, truth, peace?
Where is that God, that promised life?
I turned, incense burning, held tight in hand, widdershins turning.
Give me reason - Hail Ra
Give me purpose - Hail Mithras
Take my dark agony - Hail Apollo
Light bringers come - I welcome thee
I turned, turn, calling - Into the light of my life
Turning, burning;
felt my fall, called, pulled by dreaming.
Turning, turning;
from empty God to godly life
Hail Ra, Mithras, Apollo, I welcome thee,
Turning in holy ritual, come, come, light beings come.
You came, if you came, in silence.
I heard.
Nothing.
In sadness, turned, lost again,
Spinning, direction free,
Turned, turned again.
I'd been reading books on spirituality and the occult from time to time for a few years. Now my reading and collecting became more enthusiastic. By the time I was eighteen and converted to a personally held Christian faith I had over 1000 books on themes related to the occult, the new age, spirituality, world religions and philosophy. Most of them I hadn't read. Nearly all I threw out or sold: my new Christian faith urged me to cleanse my life of all these supposedly unclean, evil things.
Where was a young person to go, having decided Christianity to be based on a false story but having a yearning for something beyond this world? I looked into lots of things. Vedic wisdom. Meditation. Astral projection. Yoga. Cartomancy, chiromancy, lots of mancies! Many other little obsessions. And magic.
There's not a lot of old ritual magic that a young person can do in the comfort of their own bedroom. The Golden Dawn rituals aren't designed for a few square feet of space, or to be performed as a solo endeavour. But there's some ritual, proper ritual - not the books of invented "spells" that are now so common on the spirituality shelves of bookshops. I've forgotten most of what I ever read about magic but remember part of a ritual that I tried each day for a while. Not for too long, nothing seemed to come of it, so I moved on to other things:
In sadness, turned from a religion without meaning,
I turned, turned, turned again.
Where is hope, truth, peace?
Where is that God, that promised life?
I turned, incense burning, held tight in hand, widdershins turning.
Give me reason - Hail Ra
Give me purpose - Hail Mithras
Take my dark agony - Hail Apollo
Light bringers come - I welcome thee
I turned, turn, calling - Into the light of my life
Turning, burning;
felt my fall, called, pulled by dreaming.
Turning, turning;
from empty God to godly life
Hail Ra, Mithras, Apollo, I welcome thee,
Turning in holy ritual, come, come, light beings come.
You came, if you came, in silence.
I heard.
Nothing.
In sadness, turned, lost again,
Spinning, direction free,
Turned, turned again.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Sing, Choirs of Angels - more childhood minutiae.
Desiring to sing, Melody in my heart
I became churched that I might cry out the word.
Beyond the song, a story that gave no peace.
Seeking, seeking, but finding nothing for my spirit.
Entering in tranquility, destination looked empty.
I left that place, some inner light turned to darkness.
I liked to sing. That's all that lay behind it. I liked to sing. And I wanted to sing. I was ten and the idea formed in my head, "I want to join a choir."
I was quite surprised by the reaction when I mentioned this at home. The idea didn't suffer immediate rejection like other ideas - tap dancing, for example, was both silly and just for girls. I'm not sure Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly would have agreed with that view! My mother knew someone who ran a choir, someone I knew too. I found out when they met and went along - not knowing beforehand that it was a church choir.
And so began my first experience of the Christian church beyond the odd Christmas service and one Easter service that we really only went to so that the Easter Bunny could hide her eggs.
A child friendly version with an evening children's group that didn't mention God too much but did play silly games and set challenges to make egg box monsters or fill match boxes with as many things as possible. We did do one God related activity - beyond the forgotten prayer that must surely have started or finished each evening. We performed a dramatised version of the story of Jonah in a Crawley Festival, open air in the main shopping square. I played God. Typecast at an early age. My little self had a crush on one of the other people narrating the play. I hope she is having a good life.
A child friendly version with a Sunday school that did mention God all the time. I'm sure we talked about the Bible every week but most memories now are of dull worksheets and learning the names of the first eight books of the New Testament. That's not the most impressive feat ever achieved by a Bible scholar but it's the one bit of Sunday school knowledge I never lost.
And the choir. Quite enjoyable - and I could sing. Plenty of practices for Sunday services - though we only sang some Sundays, a special occasion choir. I ended up singing some solos. We weren't a rich, high church choir - we had no robes. We just sang.
I was seeking - I'd been seeking something more than earthly life, in little ways, for years. Seeking, disquieted within, long before devouring a dictionary of the occult when I was nine. I wanted more and I hoped I'd find that more in the church. In God. I'm sure that others in that church found something - a number of them are still faithful there, thirty years later, and it was good to meet some of them again on a visit last year and see that church so lively and enthusiastic. But all I found was silence. Stories from the past that did not gel with my young life. I got bored in the church - apart from the singing and developing worryingly good skills in locating Bible passages in the traditional Sunday School game of "Bible Sword".
I was seeking. "Seek and you shall find," said Jesus. I did not find. For me there was just emptiness - and with eleven year old priorities a great chasm when a previously faithful Sunday School boy stole a Lego figure from me and then stopped coming to the church! My interest waned. I stopped attending the church - absent most weeks unless the choir was singing. And I dropped out of the evening group having previously been proud of my metal badge gained for regular attendance.
And then I was thrown out of the church choir because of my ecclesiastical absences. The only reason I was still involved in the church, in some Christian religion, was taken from me. I was sad for a while but it was fair enough - how could I sing in the choir of a church I didn't attend?
Yes, I was seeking. I wanted this Jesus teaching to be true. I wanted meaning. But I wasn't given meaning. Nobody ever told me what Christianity was about - they just told me the plot of old stories from an old book - and then told me that all the stories meant that we had to be nice. Yes, I sought. I was so, so proud to have my Bible as a birthday present. I read it frequently but could not find the promised abundance of life in its pages or in the organisation that represented this God.
_______________________________________
This week I've been thinking about my past - having been asked about experiences of the Sacred. I've looked at those but also found myself remembering the times of seeking the Sacred and finding nothing but disappointment. So I've looked back on that church life, what I can remember of it, and the emptiness it brought. Had I found God I can see that my entire life from that point on would have been very, very different. But I didn't. I found only people. Nice people, but not people able to show me a path to faith.
I left the Church, not to rest, but to search elsewhere. But that's not a tale for today. Maybe tomorrow, one piece of the search. Another fruitless effort.
I still search - even when you do find truth, you find it points to bigger truths. The quest, the searching can and will never end. You cannot rest, you cannot proudly assume that you've reached the destination.
Desiring to sing, Melody in my heart
I became churched that I might cry out the word.
Beyond the song, a story that gave no peace.
Seeking, seeking, but finding nothing for my spirit.
Entering in tranquility, destination looked empty.
I left that place, some inner light turned to darkness.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
A Psychotherapist, a Poem, Pythagoras, and a Publication
White Lodge went by several names.
It was known as The College of Psychotherapeutics. White Lodge had several aims. One was to help others become healed and live unfractured lives. Another was to train others to help others become healed and live unfractured lives. The ultimate purpose behind those aims at White Lodge was that they would work themselves out of their jobs, that those jobs would no longer be needed.
As part of the work of White Lodge, a little magazine journal was regularly published, The Psychotherapist. I received that journal for several years but, as with everything else from that time, I destroyed them, threw them away or sold them in my Christian evangelical zeal. The journal contained articles from the staff and students at White Lodge, poetry, stories. Always an interesting read, if issues were still available as a bumper compilation volume or a digital file then I'd get hold of them.
I wrote poems. I submitted a couple informally to The Pyschotherapist. Very informally, as I probably had never been intending to submit them for anything. And I think they both appeared in print. The short one certainly did - a triolet.
I'd been taking an adult education writing class in the evenings - I'd had to get permission from the school headmaster to take the class because I wasn't an adult. An entertaining class, we were set homework each week to write very different things in very different formats. One week had had to write short poems - haiku, clerihews, triolets, and a longer poem, a sestina.
Until this moment I had forgotten the word sestina. But I wrote one. I have no idea what the 39 lines were about but seem to recall it had minor merit. Perhaps this week I should write another. It's a disciplined form. Six stanzas of six lines followed by a three line envoi. The words that end the lines of the first stanza also end the lines of the other five stanzas, but they are rotated to appear in different lines. Lots of people have written sestinas. Here's a link to one, The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People by David Ferry. I'm a poetry ignoramus so hadn't heard of Ferry but am impressed by this poem.
The sestina is lost. If it did turn up I'd probably be very embarrassed by it. But I still remember one of the clerihews.
My experiences of depression were awful. Later experiences were worse. But I can't claim it's all been worthless - they did at least give me good marks in an English lesson.
(This has been written without aim or plan and without any conscious memory of words like sestina)
It was known as The College of Psychotherapeutics. White Lodge had several aims. One was to help others become healed and live unfractured lives. Another was to train others to help others become healed and live unfractured lives. The ultimate purpose behind those aims at White Lodge was that they would work themselves out of their jobs, that those jobs would no longer be needed.
As part of the work of White Lodge, a little magazine journal was regularly published, The Psychotherapist. I received that journal for several years but, as with everything else from that time, I destroyed them, threw them away or sold them in my Christian evangelical zeal. The journal contained articles from the staff and students at White Lodge, poetry, stories. Always an interesting read, if issues were still available as a bumper compilation volume or a digital file then I'd get hold of them.
I wrote poems. I submitted a couple informally to The Pyschotherapist. Very informally, as I probably had never been intending to submit them for anything. And I think they both appeared in print. The short one certainly did - a triolet.
I'd been taking an adult education writing class in the evenings - I'd had to get permission from the school headmaster to take the class because I wasn't an adult. An entertaining class, we were set homework each week to write very different things in very different formats. One week had had to write short poems - haiku, clerihews, triolets, and a longer poem, a sestina.
Until this moment I had forgotten the word sestina. But I wrote one. I have no idea what the 39 lines were about but seem to recall it had minor merit. Perhaps this week I should write another. It's a disciplined form. Six stanzas of six lines followed by a three line envoi. The words that end the lines of the first stanza also end the lines of the other five stanzas, but they are rotated to appear in different lines. Lots of people have written sestinas. Here's a link to one, The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People by David Ferry. I'm a poetry ignoramus so hadn't heard of Ferry but am impressed by this poem.
The sestina is lost. If it did turn up I'd probably be very embarrassed by it. But I still remember one of the clerihews.
Pythagoras, Pythagoras,
You'll never quite catch up with us.
Most of your rules are out of date,
But your rule of the triangle still works great.
Very silly - but that's normal for clerihews. Some are much more clever than mine - but I was only sixteen. That's my excuse anyway!
And I still remember one of the triolets. It's not exactly to the level of Thomas Hardy's triolet but, as I plead, I was sixteen. And I'm not a poetic genius. So this is the triolet that turned up in the pages of The Psychotherapist. Since that time I have rarely written poems. The only poetry I've tried this decade has been written in the last six months and is already on this blog. And since that time I've certainly not been a published poet!
Why am I here?
I'd quite like to die.
If I did, people would cheer.
Why am I here?
Why won't people hear
When I talk and I cry?
Why am I here?
I'd quite like to die.
I knew depression. I knew about feeling bad. And a memory came out as I wrote. By the time I wrote it for the class and then took it to White Lodge I was happier and did not want to die. Later the school English teacher set us homework to write a suicide note. We had such joyful school lessons! Fortunately the teacher didn't turn out to be an evil cult leader, "Bring in your suicide letters children, and then we can enter into the spirit of things." I began my note with that poem - and my note received an A+ grade.
My experiences of depression were awful. Later experiences were worse. But I can't claim it's all been worthless - they did at least give me good marks in an English lesson.
(This has been written without aim or plan and without any conscious memory of words like sestina)
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