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Irrepressibility

30/12/2018

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​A remarkable woman died over Christmas. She had lived as a hermit for over fifty years but had become a bit of a celebrity when she was discovered by the BBC. I understand this was accidental.  The story goes that she had been taken to a medical appointment by a friend who took her to visit an art gallery.  She was overheard telling her friend about the paintings they were viewing by someone who worked for the BBC. He was so impressed by her insight that he invited her to present a number of art appreciation programmes.  No doubt the idea of a fully habited nun, who spoke with a slight lisp, and who professed to living a life of solitude and silence, was an intriguing and unusual presenter for an arts programme - and likely to be appealing to the public.  And appealing it was. She proved to be very popular. She had an amazing intellect, having got a congratulatory first at Oxford University, but she had a simplicity of expression and language which not only showed her unique insights but spoke to the public and taught them how to read a picture.  She was also respected by the art world so she did know what she was talking about. But not only did she make several series of arts programmes in the 1990s which took her to some of the most important art galleries in the world but she was interviewed by Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs and had a television programme made about her life.  She even had a musical written about her called ‘Postcards from God’. Her death has been reported on television and radio and many newspapers have carried an obituary.  This was a woman whose death became national news.
 
I’m intrigued by this because Sister Wendy began her religious life as a member of my community, the Sisters of Notre Dame. I’ve always known about her, about her struggles to find her true vocation which did not seem to be in teaching, her attempts to find a place where she could live out her desire for prayer and contemplation and her final settling to live in a caravan in the grounds of Quidenham Carmel in Norfolk. We have all sorts of stories about her. As a young sister I visited Quidenham with some friends for evening prayer. We hoped Sr Wendy would be there and notice us, maybe even talk to us, but she came and went without a sideways glance.
 
 In a way we sisters have always felt she belonged to us. We’ve always been interested in her and marvelled at how she fulfilled her teaching vocation in an unusual way. She struggled with teaching until her health broke down but her abandoning the classroom hasn’t meant abandoning teaching which she continues to do through her programmes that are now available on youtube and her books, written because she needed an income. However, I think of her as irrepressible. Her desire for silence, prayer and contemplation was true no doubt and she spent hours, days, months and years in this pursuit.  But some people just cannot avoid coming to the attention of the public. It’s as though their spirit cannot be dampened and needs a conduit to express itself.  
 
Thomas Merton was like this. He entered a Trappist Monastery, a monastery of strict silence and prayer but this wasn’t enough for him and he got permission to stay in a hermitage a mile removed from the main monastery buildings.  He wrote about silence and obedience but struggled with them. He wrote prodigiously, entertained visitors and got involved in the peace movement as well as interfaith dialogue.  He died fifty years ago this December and many commentators wonder about what his future would have been if he had not died so young.  Would he have left and got involved actively in social justice issues, particularly non- violent peace making? Would he have become Buddhist?  He died in Bangkok and on the way there he stopped off at Polonnaruwa in Sri Lanka, with its large rock carved statues of the Buddha. He is reported as saying he was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures.  He wrote in his journal “I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean of the habitual, half – tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the robes themselves, became evident and obvious”. Thomas Merton lives on through his writings and talks. There was no dampening of his spirit, no stopping him communicating and speaking to the world in spite of his great desire for a hidden and silent life.
 
In Assisi I was amused that the casket containing the remains of St Francis was bound by chains and padlocks as though the spirit of Francis was bursting to escape. No doubt the casket’s chained because people tried to steal the remains but it did give the impression of wanting to contain Francis whose spirit is everywhere in Assisi. It’s easy to imagine coming across him wherever you turn.  The spirit of Francis is very much alive and seen in the present Pope who took Francis as his name, explaining to journalists that he chose the name because Francis of Assisi was “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who lives and protects creation, all themes of his pontificate.  Please God the irrepressibility of this spirit will lead the world into a better space in the coming year.

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A Season of Contradictions?

22/12/2018

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Christmas is full of contradictions.  It’s a time for families, yet there are many people who are homeless, alone or bereaved for whom all the talk about families and festive meals can add to their pain and sense of loneliness. It’s a Christian festival and yet consumerism seems to have taken over and it’s become a winter festival rather than a religious one. In many places scenes of the birth of Jesus remind people of its religious origins but this year some places have decided not to have one, suggesting that in this secular society such scenes are quite irrelevant. And not all Christian denominations celebrate it. Some strict Christian groups such as the Free Church of Scotland withdraw from the festivities altogether, seeing them as reflecting a pagan observance of the winter festival and mistakenly suggesting that Jesus was actually born on 25th December which he obviously wasn’t.   Nor do all Christians celebrate Christmas on the same day. For some Eastern Orthodox churches the birth of Jesus is celebrated on 7th January and not on 25th December.
 
We don’t know when Jesus was born. It was Pope Julius 1, in the 4th century CE, who ordained that 25th December was to be the date when Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus. The date was possibly chosen because it was around the winter solstice and the feast of Saturnalia when pagans were celebrating the return of the “unconquered sun”. Gift giving, festivities and greenery were associated with the feast. What the Pope did was Christianise it, giving it added meaning by showing that Jesus was the Son of God and the true light of the world. Pagan converts could enjoy the festival, keep some of its traditions while understanding it in a new way. Christianity didn’t forbid these celebrations but gave them a deeper meaning and significance by associating them with the birth of Jesus.
 
 It’s not unusual for a religion to somehow incorporate the beliefs of another into its own system. For example Hinduism incorporated the Buddha into its belief system by seeing the Buddha as the ninth incarnation of the God Vishnu. This is especially true when the beliefs are associated with indigenous nature religions, rather than well – established systems of belief.  All religions have their places of pilgrimage, holy mountains, holy wells, which often pre-date the founding of the religion. Religions have traditionally built on pagan foundations but this doesn’t in any way invalidate their particular perspective or belief.
 
Celebrating the birth of its founder is also common in religion. Often there is an element of the miraculous about their conception and birth. The point of these stories is not to tell us what actually happened  
 to show the significance of the founder as one with a special message and gift for the world. Sometimes their birth and death are celebrated on the same day. Wesak, for example, celebrates the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha, giving a symbolic completeness to his life.  While the nativity stories of Jesus’ birth, as described in the Christian scriptures, focus on Jesus as a baby there are indications that this child will be a controversial figure and a suggestion of what is to come. The story of the slaying of the innocents by Herod may be a reflection on the slaying of the first born by the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, but it foreshadows the rejection of Jesus which culminated in his death. Similarly the gifts that the three wise men bring include myrrh, embalming oil which is symbolic of death.
 
These stories are found in the gospel of Matthew. Matthew is not writing a historical or factual account of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus but is in fact writing theology. He is reminding us of the completeness of Jesus life by prefiguring his end.  As TS Elliot said” in my beginning is my end" Those of us who have experienced the death of someone whose birth we remember know that our recollection of the birth and life of that person takes on a special significance in the light of their death.
 
The gospel accounts of the birth and life of Jesus are written in the light of his death and resurrection so they are stories which convey a meaning. Like all religious scriptures it’s not what they say that counts but what they mean. To read sacred texts we need to look beyond the words to discern the truth they contain - truths about God, about ourselves, about human relationships. For Christians the stories of the birth of Jesus are not about a cuddly baby but about the belief that in Jesus God, the source of Life and Love, entered the human condition, that this God is present in the midst of life and that to struggle to live well is to  touch God. For as it says in the letter of John, God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God.
 
For Christians the birth of Jesus lets them see life in a new light and this includes the secular, for  the secular is not in opposition to the sacred but is a vehicle for it. Thousands of people will celebrate this winter festival with no nod to religion but they will enjoy their families and lovingly give gifts to one another.  In this sense they are in touch with what Christians would see is the true meaning of Christmas.

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A Hanukkah and Advent Party

7/12/2018

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I went to an exciting interfaith event this week. It was a Hanukkah and Advent party organised by the West of Scotland Council of Christians and Jews. We expected 45, prepared for 50 but 85 people turned up.  We managed to organise some extra tables, found some cakes and sent out for more doughnuts, traditionally eaten at this time. 
 
Hanukkah and Advent are festivals of light and have a focus on candles. The hanukkiah, the candelabra used at Hanukkah, has 9 candles.  On each of the eight evenings of the festival a candle is lit from the ninth one which is called a helper or shamash so that by the eighth day of the festival all nine are burning. The tradition is to display these candles at a window to illustrate that the Jewish community can now enjoy religious freedom. Today large hanukkiahs are lit in major cities and public places such as the Scottish Parliament and the White House as an expression of religious freedom and tolerance.
 
The lighting of the candles commemorates the victory of the Maccabees over the forces of a Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes who, in the second century BCE, desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem and forbade Jews to practice their faith. Defeating Antiochus, the Maccabees purified the Temple but found they hadn’t enough oil to light the everlasting lamp. Miraculously the little oil they did have lasted for eight days until replenishments could come. This is the miracle celebrated at Hanukkah with prayers, gifts, family fun and games. It’s a family, happy time to cheer us up on dark winter days – at least in this part of the world.
 
Advent is also a time for the lighting of candles but it looks forward rather than back. It begins the Christian year and is a time of preparation for Christmas. Some people use the time to do some kind of penance in the sense of a discipline to free them from a habit or even an obsession like giving up social media for four weeks. And there are candles. In some homes but in many churches there will be an Advent wreath – a circle of everlasting greenery to symbolise the infinity of God, purple ribbons as a sign of anticipation and waiting and four candles for each of the four Sundays of Advent. Three of them are purple and one pink for Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday in which the opening prayer in worship is Rejoice. It’s now become common for a white candle to be put in the middle of the wreath to symbolise the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
 
What made our party this week so enjoyable was the presence of children. We held the event at the Synagogue just as the pupils from the local Jewish primary school were leaving, having visited the Synagogue to light the Hanukkah candles. Their school is rather a special one as it shares a campus with a local Catholic school. We think it’s the only shared Catholic – Jewish campus in the world and we’re very proud of it. Each school promotes the ethos of their particular faith but the pupils share the playground and are getting to know one another. The Jewish children, though, who told us the story of Hanukkah were not at the school but were two of the home-schooled children of the Rabbi. With great confidence they told us about the Maccabees, the lighting of candles, the gift giving, the eating of doughnuts but what got us all laughing and participating was a game that had us passing little parcels left and right as the words were mentioned in their story – parcels that contained a reward for all of us. And of course we lit four candles for the fourth day of Hanukkah accompanied by the Rabbi’s blessing.
 
It was the head girl and head boy from the Catholic primary who told us about Advent. Telling us that the Advent Wreath helped Christians take time to think about the real meaning of Christmas and reflect on how they could bring God’s light, joy, peace and love into the world today they explained the four candles - the first one representing hope. which is like a light shining in a dark place: the second candle representing peace and reminding us to try to be peacemakers in our schools and homes; the third representing the joy we feel celebrating the birth of Jesus and the fourth one representing the love we share in Jesus and how we try to show this love in the way we treat those around us, not just friends and families but also those less fortunate than ourselves.
 
As you can imagine the children were very well received. I found it very moving to see the children from both faiths participate in our celebration. What a contrast to the enmity that existed between our communities for centuries but has thankfully given way to a new reality. The shared campus offers such hope for the future. Already the children from both   schools have collaborated on helping the homeless, enjoyed a ceilidh together and are now beginning to learn a little about one another’s faith. As one of the children said “we really do enjoy one another’s company and love finding about one another’s faith. In St Clare’s we are always saying we are making memories to last a lifetime but we also think we are making lifelong friends.”  We cannot ask much more than that.

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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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