Author Archives: Elizaphanian

About Elizaphanian

Rector of West Mersea

Do not be afraid (October Synchroblog)

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Better late than never – click full post for text.


A late synchroblog this month – and I’m deliberately writing it before reading any of the others just to ensure that I have a little something to say!

Our eldest has been invited to a Halloween party at his school, and my wife wondered what I made of it, ie should we let him go? I have little patience with the idea that allowing a child to attend a contemporary Halloween party is bad for their soul, but that could do with a little bit of unpacking just to make sure I’m not misunderstood. I believe that it is perfectly possible for children to enter into grave spiritual harm from exposure to the wider culture. Most of the products and mindsets advertised in between the cartoons, for example, damage the souls of children, which is why most of the TV which may children watch – and it’s highly restricted in the first place – is advertising free. I would even be open to the idea that there are elements of Halloween consumer rituals that can be specifically damaging, primarily through frightening an unwary child. Yet it seems to me that if the child of a Christian is damaged in that way then something has already gone wrong with their upbringing (or, more likely, something goes wrong with the response to the scare). What is going on at Halloween is spiritual warfare, ie the ghosties and ghoulies are released for a time (and half a time….) This is something that needs to be taught to children, ie how they are to cope with spiritual attack. (Sidetrack: one of the best things about Harry Potter is the invention of the Dementors – I’m sure that has been very helpful to parents of children who succumb to fears and depressions, and there is of course something very profound about the Expecto Patronum which dispels the fear….) To my mind there are really two key teachings that must be shared with children from the earliest age: that no demon can withstand the power of Christ, and that we carry the light of Christ within us. If a child is taught such things in a serious and considered way then I see no issue in their attending a Halloween party.

This teaching of spiritual warfare needn’t be excessively detailed – that can wait for greater age – but to teach a child that the spiritual realm is real, that imagination is important in life, and that they have the capacity to move within it for good or ill – this seems pretty sane and sensible to me. Of course, the rationalist in me says ‘why don’t you just teach them that it’s all nonsense?’ – and I wouldn’t do that because it isn’t all nonsense. The imaginative realm, the spiritual side of our life – this underlies everything else, and is more REAL than anything else. So using Halloween to talk about the spiritual life, and what steps need to be taken to preserve oneself in that realm – this seems perfectly proper.

Yet what is assumed here is that the parents are themselves able to engage in spiritual warfare – that they are themselves not emasculated by the presence of the darker side of life. I would argue that the incapacity to engage in spiritual struggle is a fairly clear indication of spiritual poverty, and that there seems to be a correlation between those who veer away from Halloween (or Harry Potter) and a shallow theological perspective. In other words, I think we as Christians are called to a much deeper and darker intimacy with the Lord than is sustainable in much contemporary Christian discussion. What I mean by this is that it’s not possible to develop any spiritual strength without literally and metaphorically getting our hands dirty, without going outside the places of safety. So often the reaction against Halloween or Harry Potter or anything else seems a replay of the Pharisaical purity laws, and a retreat into a Christian ghetto, that place of pure leaven uncontaminated by any bread, that gnostic, witless and disembodied corner of fearfulness. We are called to go outwards into the world, bearing the light, so that those who are in the darkness can be drawn to the light and thereby redeemed. If we can’t do that in the context of a Halloween party, how on earth will we be able to do that in the face of the ecological holocaust now coming down upon us?

From Stephen Fry to Thomas Merton

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Most of you probably already know this, but Stephen Fry now has a blog, and it’s very good. (And if you’re wondering how come I’m managing to read lots of blogs today it’s because the meeting I had scheduled for 10am in Colchester got cancelled so I have a bonus couple of hours to navel gaze;-)

In the midst of a really interesting essay (he calls them “blessays”) Fry writes this:

Compliments
The entire interaction works better if there’s a little understanding on each side. You might be the fortieth person that day to approach your sleb. They might have just heard that their favourite aunt has been diagnosed with cancer. On the other hand, the famous person should remember that it takes courage to approach a stranger, especially one you’ve only seen on TV or at the movies. They could so easily squash you. Many newly made slebs fall down especially in the area of compliments. It’s perhaps a very English thing to find it hard to accept kind words about oneself. If anyone praised me in my early days as a comedy performer I would say, “Oh, nonsense. Shut up. No really, I was dreadful.” I remember going through this red-faced shuffle in the presence of the mighty John Cleese who upbraided me the moment we were alone.
‘You genuinely think you’re being polite and modest, don’t you?’
‘Well, you know …’
‘Don’t you see that when someone hears their compliments contradicted they naturally assume that you must think them a fool? Suppose you went up to a pianist after a recital and told him how much you had enjoyed his performance and he replied, “rubbish, I was awful!” You would go away thinking you were a poor judge of musicianship and that he thought you an idiot.’
‘Yes, but I can’t agree with someone if they praise me, that would sound so cocky. And anyway, suppose I do think I was awful?’ (which most of the time performers do think of themselves, of course.)
‘It’s so simple. You just say thank you. You just thank them. How hard is that?’
You must think me the completest kind of arse to have needed to be told how to take a compliment, but it was an important lesson that I (clearly) never forgot. So bound up with not wanting to look smug and pleased with ourselves are we that we forget how mortifying it is to have compliments thrown back in one’s face.

Now this reminded me of something I read by Thomas Merton a week or so ago, which I wanted to record (it was in the ‘Celebrating the Saints’ volume that we use at Evening Prayer):

A humble man is not disturbed by praise. Since he is no longer concerned with himself, and since he knows where the good that is in him comes from, he does not refuse praise, because it belongs to the God he loves, and in receiving it he keeps nothing for himself but gives it all, with great joy, to his God.

…The humble man receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the light is, the less you see of the glass…There is danger that men in monasteries will go to such elaborate lengths to be humble, with the humility they have learned from a book, that they will make true humility impossible.

How can you be humble if you are always paying attention to yourself? True humility excludes self-consciousness, but false humility intensifies our awareness of ourselves to such a point that we are crippled, and can no longer make any movement or perform any action without putting to work a whole complex mechanism of apologies and formulas of self-accusation.

I suppose the word being looked for here is grace.

Fr Christopher Jamison has an excellent analysis of humility in ‘Finding Sanctuary’ which I continue to ponder.

Of course an analysis of fame that I find most interesting is Robert Pirsig’s. But perhaps another time on that.

More worried

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I try not to say anything too often about the Anglican Communion controversies, but I’ve just read a letter from Rowan that I find really strange. I had thought I could understand – and sympathise – with his approach, but this one is staggering. It’ll take me some time to digest. It’s the abandonment of provincial authority which is mind-bending – he appears to be inviting dioceses to reject archi-episcopal authority. It’s as if he is expecting a) the broader communion to reject TEC; b) TEC to split; and c) some TEC dioceses to ‘abandon the sinking ship’.

If that IS what he’s arguing for then for the first time I might find myself really disagreeing with the ABC, something I never thought I’d say. It’ll take me some time to be convinced of that though.

The text of the letter is here.
Some analysis at Fr Jake and ‘The Blog’ (via MP).
I’d be keen to know what *Christopher or James Alison make of it all.

One other thing I’ve been pondering (partly as a spin off from the Learning Church talks – which I think I will do a write up of here, to compensate for the recording failure): the TEC struggle is often presented as being between the biblically conservative and the socially liberal. When thought of like that I’m quite clear that the ‘biblically conservative’ are no such thing and whatever else I might think about these issues I would not be standing with them. Yet there seems to me to be a large number of ‘middle voices’ (this is one) who don’t fit into either category. I take the line of episcopal authority very seriously – which is why I think the episcopi vagranti are much greater offences against orthodoxy than Gene Robinson. Assuming that he is, of course, and I’m not persuaded of that by any means. Actually that sounds mealy-mouthed. I recognise him as a Bishop, validly elected and consecrated, and I think it’s a good thing on the whole. I just think that there are lots of other issues and noises going on here which confuse the issue and TEC has this reliable habit of shooting itself in the foot and telling the rest of the world ‘go f___ yourself’ which is rather unattractive in a Christian body however understandable it is in terms of US history and culture.

I just wonder what the ‘blowback’ of all this is going to be in England. Clearly the Scottish Episcopal church will stick with TEC, and it won’t be the only one. I had been expecting the “biblical conservatives” to split off – but if Rowan’s strategy is what this letter indicates then he will be strengthening that faction – which is frankly a distinct minority in the CofE – and antagonising (inviting to leave?) a rather larger cohort of moderately progressive clergy and congregations. In other words, it seems to me that if the “biblical conservatives” were the ones to leave then the status quo was essentially tenable. There would be turbulence, but in ten, fifteen years time the CofE would be recognisably the same. The only difference would be that the closeted gay bishops would be publicly accepted gay bishops. This way round though…. a phrase about nails and coffins comes to mind, especially when taken in conjunction with the women bishops issue.

I’m just worried, much more worried than I have been for a while.

UPDATE: I found this quite comforting as a summary of Rowan’s letter:

It seems to me that Rowan Williams is implying the following:

– ‘Windsor bishops-and-dioceses’ should not contemplate realignment with ‘other provinces’ because to do so would not ‘improve’ their stature in terms of Anglican unity and identity.
– ‘Windsor priests’ should not contemplate realignment with ‘other provinces’ because to abandon sacramental [union] with their ‘Windsor Bishop and Diocese’ would threaten their stature in terms of Anglican unity and identity.