[ hold :: this space ]

we went to hear sigur ros on friday night. paul came along too, even though he didn’t know sigur ros… we gave him Takk and told him to learn all the words before the concert…

it was - predictably - sublime. the first few songs were quite ordinary. the crowd were still coming in, people were talking. festival hall has to be the worst venue in melbourne. i can’t remember what the first song was, but it was long, with lots of silences. i don’t think they’d got the sound levels quite right. it was a noisy friday night crowd, so the silences were filled with chatter, and people moving to get another drink… it was kind of like the orchestra warm up before the main concert… i wondered if it was just going to be a very long night… but then, about third song in, they played Samskeyti, and the world turned rightside up.

from then on it was whimsical and ethereal. i had the feeling that even they felt that the music came from somewhere beyond them, that it was this thing they had to hold lightly to. they never took it too seriously, but it was kind of amazingly reverent at the same time. hard to put that into words without sounding twee…

with sigur ros, it’s all about timing - the magic is in that fraction of a second before the next note comes, that moment of wonder; when you know the next note is going to be exquisitely beautiful, perfect, and they leave you waiting for it… and when it comes, even though you knew it would be coming, it takes your breath away with its rightness.

by the end of the night, the silences were absolutely silent. it was sheer beauty…

This is a fascinating commentary about the disconnect between traditional religion and those in the community who are post-modern and post-religious, as it finds itself played out in religious rituals.

I think within my own tradition that this conversation plays out [one side of it, anyway] with infant baptism. The church often makes judgements about why people outside the church want to baptise their children - often assuming it’s because of nostalgia or because of family / society pressure. While that assumption may sometimes be right, I think that often there’s a much deeper longing or motivation, which is not done justice by the alternative offer of a thanksgiving or dedication - the desire for ritual is more mysterious, more ‘beyond’ than these. Even if this is not the meaning the church invests the sacrament with, the baptismal water means something to people, it matters to them that they are participating in an act that’s echoed through history.

The question alluded to in the article is whether the church can offer its rituals as a gift, not as a transaction [where participation is welcomed in return for right meaning], or whether the ritual only holds integrity when it’s grounded and held within the tradition’s meaning… The question for me is if there is no space within the church’s rituals for an alternative investment of meaning [and i'm not saying there should be], how do those of us who know how to make ritual happen help new rituals form that those who aren’t part of the church’s faith can participate in; that will make real the same connection with humankind through history, and with a mystery that is beyond our articulation and reason. Will the church let us borrow theirs and reshape them? Must bread and wine always and only tell the church’s story of communion?

and i wonder if, at its essence, this all comes back to the tables we find ourselves sitting at…

we’ve spent the last two days with Elaine Enns at a staff retreat, talking about restorative justice, and making links between the ethos and values behind RJ and our work within the church and community.

it’s been a provocative and inspiring couple of days - in the midst of all the stories of transformation and restoration, we also did a lot of thinking about power, working around or with both imagined and real opposition, the [false?] dichotomies that shape our thinking and our work. we imagined new ways of relating, and of holding our work accountable to the ethos of restoration.

the stuff that i think will be most confronting for us is the critique of power that restorative justice demands. restorative justice has at its core a re-balancing of relationships, a reclaiming of life and identity, and our understanding of power is a major part of that.

It goes without saying that we act out of our perception of our power, and that we largely define ourselves and our capacity to act by our perceived place on the power continuum. our normal critique of power is to believe we need to open up one end of the continuum to allow more people to be part of it [for example, males 'move over' to allow space for females to participate; we decide that someone can be in leadership in the church 'in spite of' their sin]. we’re still working off the same continuum, but the ‘other’ is allowed in by virtue of the power-holder’s generosity. at the heart of a transforming gospel, though, is the idea that the very continuums themselves are challenged: people are no longer defined as good or bad, in or out, worthy or unworthy, male or female, prisoner or free, jew or gentile… it’s not that we all end up at the same end of those continuums, it’s that the continuum itself is questioned. so, it’s not that we make everyone worthy of a leadership position - it’s that worthiness is no longer part of the equation. if we challenge the continuum, one end of it can no longer have privilege, and those who hold it no longer have the power to include or exclude.

there’s nothing new about any of that, but the last few days have made me analyse how much of the language we use is power-based. i’ve talked often about how the most important message in the workshops we host on alt worship is about permission-giving… but wordy, that’s terrible language. it assumes that permission is someone’s [mine?] to give, which means, by extension, it’s also mine to withhold [even if i would never choose not to]. it’s generous language, but it still holds people within a power relationship.

i’m not sure if the connection between that and what follows will be clear yet, and i’ll elaborate in a week or two with something we’re working on here… but it reminds me of the story i’ve loved most in the book the starfish and the spider. It’s of Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez, who heads up Goodwill Industries in San Francisco. This is a bit of her story:

The moment Deborah set foot inside [Goodwill], she began to enact massive changes. “I realised that I had to create a certain level of chaos,” she told us. Her board, her management team, and the employees were scared. “Do you have to be so disruptive?” one board member asked. “Yes, I do,” Deborah replied.
“We’d been such a hierarchical organisation,” she told us. “We needed to get people into a conversation and get them to be innovative and creative. People in positions of power needed to understand that great ideas come from people who are closest to the ideas.”
…
This type of leadership isn’t ideal for all situations. Catalysts are bound to rock the boat. They are much better at being agents of change than guardians of tradition. Catalysts do well in situations that call for radical change and creative thinking. They bring innovation, but they’re also likely to create a certain amount of chaos and ambiguity. Put them into a structured environment and they might suffocate. But let them dream and they’ll thrive.”

- p. 130f

i think she’s describing an organisation where the continuums are being redefined. so much creativity and imagination in the church is constrained because people hold the power to give permission, or people are waiting for permission. it’s still based on a power continuum. it’s only possible by virtue of someone else’s generosity…. how do we create a system, or a network that isn’t based on permission giving, on one person or group having the right to validate another’s work? can we actually do it within an institution that has been shaped so tightly by the continuums we’re actually trying to redefine?

we’ve got so, so much work to do on all this…

one of the things i realised a few years ago was that i have a quota of words that i can say each day. it’s an introvert thing - at the end of a day full of talking, I run out of the capacity to both think of words to say and to actually say them. i think i’ve said stuff but i haven’t, i’ve just thought it [i'm a nightmare to live with]. my sentences trail off into nothing…

last week i lost my voice, completely. for a whole week there was absolutely nothing there, not even a squeak. it was just one of those winter illnesses that strikes from out of the blue every few years… and i don’t want to draw too clever a link between talking too much this year and my voice running out… except to say that i have been and it did. it was a pretty nasty bug, and the doctor told me that it would take weeks, maybe months, for me to get full voice back. ‘best not speak in front of groups, or push your voice until it’s right’, she said.

bliss.

i’ve got lazy with my use of words this year, both written and spoken. i’ve used them too much and too often, partly that’s because words work on a blog and in a book, and i’m good at putting them together… they are the easy option. but it feels to me like they’re getting stale, like i have developed a selection of words that i use on high rotation… so i want to search out new language and put the old on hold [i'm creating a blacklist of words i use too often, words that have got too comfortable: relentless, gasp, redemption, grace...]. i want to practice being minimalist with words, to edit back to almost nothing… i want to only use the words that the moment can’t do without.

it is, of course, much harder to write less than more… and even this morning, while trying, i realised i’d forgotten just how much faith it takes to let there be gaps between the words….

i’ve heard the rumour twice now… that i applied to be a candidate for ordination and was knocked back. just wanted to say that i haven’t applied [and won't be], but the church would indeed have been right to knock me back if i had.

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i’m ordering these for christmas presents [no-one i buy them for reads this so i'm safe to put this here]…. i think i just had the beginnings of an idea, something to do with pictures of jesus on the cross, chocolate and easter worship… i might need to add to the order…

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loving this also :

There are hundreds more on the website, with the following explanation:

Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 13 years. Rotterdam’s heterogeneous, multicultural street scene remains a major source of inspiration for Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, although since 1998 they have also worked in cities abroad.

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.

apologies… had to take this post down… it’s to be published elsewhere… email if you’re gasping to read it.

quick things…

firstly, i’ve had a few emails about my state of mind, after putting up the solstice stuff. i do worry sometimes that people look for hidden meanings in what i put up here… poetry or reflections that go up here are very rarely a reflection on my current state of mind… i get asked often about the writing i put out publicly - mostly in the Age - and how I can bare my soul to the world. I’m actually not baring my soul. I only write about stuff that no longer has a hold on me. I write in the present tense, but i’m thinking it retrospectively. That’s both to protect what’s still vulnerable and because i’m an introvert… I have to have it sorted in my head before i can find words to put it out to the world, otherwise I’m spectacularly incoherent. [I've just finished writing a piece, and it took 6 drafts. The first five are absolute crap, inarticulate, unfinished sentences, contradictory statements, utter bullshit... and then suddenly it comes together in a final piece that expresses something i never imagined in those first five drafts. in this piece i contradicted my earlier thoughts entirely, and convinced myself of something else completely, quite possibly just because it sounds more poetic in the final form. i am fickle like that.] And when it’s sorted in my head, it’s sorted… I’ve moved on. if i re-read what’s been published, it feels like ancient history, some other person… i’m somewhere else already.

anyway, onto the second point… i still can’t leave comments on the blog. we’re working on it, but there seems no obvious cause, which makes fixing it hard. it makes me grumpy, but not for long. be assured, it’s not causing enough angst to result in black poetry about solstices.

One of the things I’ve noticed about writing every day is that there are days when writing that page feels like flying. Like the hand of God reached down and touched my keyboard, and every word is just pure gold. And then there are days that I feel I’m writing absolute, totally forgettable junk that shouldn’t have been committed to phosphors, let alone saved to disc. The thing is, a month later, you can’t tell the difference. The difference between a day when it feels like you’re writing brilliantly and a day when it feels like you’re writing terribly is entirely in your head, it’s not in the prose.

Cory Doctorow
via Kottke

like abraham and sarah
i also heard the promise of god on the way
to this new land

but while they tell their story
with words of faithfulness
gift
life
laughter -
you need to know that for me,
those words have become the language of heartbreak;
fleeting,
fickle,
and taunting.

i have been cursed by their blessing.

and in the end
when the plans change,
the promise is withdrawn
and the future rewritten

my dreams have become abraham’s litter,
and i am left on the side of faith’s road.

from an article by David Brooks in the NY Times:

… [M]y guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible…

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day…