Eyre Lines

Last year, allegations about Jimmy Saville sexually abusing children became big news; Saville had been a very significant figure in television aimed at the young, and was a fixture of the youth of many of us. They were assuredly true; he had been a prolific sexual offender behind the public face of entertainer and very significant philanthropist, and most of his victims had been under age. It would appear that he used his position and status to indulge his tastes. He was perhaps best known for hosting the TV programme “Jim’ll fix it” in which children were given experiences they had only been able to dream of, often seriously ill or disabled children. He gave them the “experience of a lifetime” – and I am now wondering if that expression is more barbed than I would once have credited in many cases.

Following that, police investigations continued, and many other well known figures have been similarly accused. I rather suspect that Operation Yewtree is to a considerable extent a reflex reaction to the fact that the ire of society cannot now be taken out on Saville; suddenly when it was announced there were a very large number of scared rock stars, DJs and other “personalities” of the 60s and 70s, certainly (when the absolute boundary of 16 as an age of consent was for a time not taken terribly seriously). This week, Rolf Harris has appeared in court, similarly charged (though with only a small fraction of the offences which could be laid at Saville’s door).

Very many people felt a huge sense of betrayal by Saville, who had been immensely popular up until his death in 2011. I was not actually one of them; I didn’t like his flagrant self-promotion, and his public manner grated on me. Quite a few people have told me since the allegations became known that they didn’t like him because they “found him creepy”; I didn’t tend to hear that much beforehand, and I’m not sure it isn’t reconstituted memory. I don’t know that I “found him creepy”, but I definitely didn’t like him, while having to acknowledge that he had done huge things for a number of charities. Of course, hindsight tells us that these were largely childrens’ charities, and part of the motive was probably to increase his ability to molest young people.

This is not the case with Rolf Harris, however. Him, I have always liked. He had a talent for writing somewhat humorous songs of the kind which (sometimes irritatingly) stick in your memory, he has an engaging personality and is an extremely talented artist; an excellent all round entertainer. I would so like the allegations to prove unfounded, but I fear they won’t (I’m particularly concerned about an apparent pornographic image from 2012; the impact of 40 year old matters with no further bad deeds can, perhaps, be somewhat discounted, but this is fresh). Seeing pictures of him going to court, I noted that I’d never seen him in public looking anything other than ebulliant. He did not look ebulliant, he looked hunted. Perhaps he deserves that, perhaps not – but something which I used to treasure has been damaged, perhaps broken.

Saville was a well known Catholic (and was honoured by a previous Pope), so the issue of weighing good deeds and bad is particularly apposite in his case. Of course, his position is between him and God now, but there has been a huge amount of public vilification and I’m confident that if you took a vote, the consensus would be that he is damned. I’m not sure the same would have been the case had it emerged, for instance, that he had been a prolific wife-beater or something of the sort. Sexual offences seem to loom larger in our weighing of good and evil than non-sexual offences, and sexual offences against children are, for many, the “unforgivable sin”.

This is very much the case within the prison system; sexual offenders generally are picked on, and frequently end up in “vulnerable prisoner” units or wings; convicted child molesters are virtually guaranteed physical violence with a considerable risk of fatal violence unless they are on a vulnerable prisoner unit from start, and even then paedophiles are not safe. Rapists regard them as untouchable too. There is nothing so reviled as a “nonce” in prison, where murderers and armed robbers are looked up to. I’m inclined to think that prison attitudes just write large those of society, but largely without the morality – except in the case of sexual offences.

The law more generally puts sexual offences in a different class. Aside those crimes carrying a life sentence and the sometime iniquitous IPP sentence, many of  those who serve their sentence and wait long enough are effectively absolved by the system under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. Sexual offenders, however, go on the Sexual Offences Register for life.

There is some logic behind this; sexual preferences are not readily (if ever) changed, and if these are directed to the young or are otherwise illegal, the law cannot, it seems, assume that sexual offenders are ever “safe”. I’m not convinced that larcenous preferences or violent tendencies are readily changed either, mind you; there is, however, an expectation that the impulses can be controlled.

Society, therefore, does not forgive sexual offences or consider that the guilt can be expiated by prison, time or good works. To listen to some Christians, neither does God. Some even consider that the mere fact of being homosexual is sufficient to damn you unconditionally (and as a sexual preference, that too cannot readily if ever be changed). Society more generally seems to think that crimes can be expiated, or that good deeds may outweigh crimes which have been “paid for” (there is one well known actor in the UK who has a past conviction for murder, which is now not much mentioned, for instance) – but not in the case of sexual offences. In Saville’s case, he did, I have to acknowledge, an immense amount of good raising charitable contributions, but it is now as nothing when he is remembered by most people.

And yet Christianity in general holds that any sin can be absolved, can be washed clean, can be saved from. There is nothing so horrendous (with the possible exception of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” whatever that may be), that it cannot end in redemption. Saville, as a practising Catholic, was presumably given absolution and is therefore presumably “saved”, though society would never have accepted him again had he still been alive. If Harris proves to be guilty, what about him? Indeed, if we take Matt. 5:28 seriously, what about most of the rest of us? I assume that the passage can be modernised into gender equality, and that a modern Jesus might have said “if you look on someone with lust in your heart, you are guilty of rape” rather than adultery (which has rather lost its sting these days).

Without wishing to deny justice to anyone wronged, I hope that Harris is found not guilty. But if he isn’t, I am going to need to wrestle with the balance of the combination in one person of a lot of good and a taboo failing, and to lament the fact that society will probably not feel able to see any balance there.

But is this not really the position of many, most or even all of us, our own faults perhaps not, quite, being taboo?

Lord, have mercy.

Yesterday morning, my Live Journal feed was adorned with “21 comics that capture the frustrations of depression”, which I strongly recommend (if you get here via facebook, you’ll already have seen me link to it). If you’re severely depressed at the moment, you’ll maybe get as far as “Well, that’s something like how it is” and shrug. Four months ago, I’d have shrugged. Today, however, I recognised what it was like wonderfully portrayed there and felt a huge sadness, and also joy at NOT FEELING LIKE THAT ANY MORE.

And my mind went back to sitting with a couple of counsellors from MIND back in 2008, telling them my life story (as they’d asked). One of them said, when I paused, “That’s so SAD”, and I noticed that tears were running down her cheeks. I couldn’t remotely understand how it was that she found it sad; I was just dispassionately telling them what they’d asked for. I can recall people saying after I shared much the same story at a twelve step meeting that I was “courageous” or “brave” to be so truthful and open. Not a bit of it. I just didn’t have an emotional dog in the fight any more; there was no point in not telling as nearly as I could exactly how it was.

I think we’re inclined to confuse depression with an emotional state – I certainly used to, and there’s a voice at the back of my head which still tells me that it is, with the corollary that “you can or at least should control your emotions”. As several of the cartoons point out, depression isn’t controllable like that. You can’t “think your way out of it”; it isn’t a matter of controlling the impulse to look on the black side of everything.

No, I think depression isn’t an emotion, it’s where emotions go to die.

Of course there wasn’t much about my emotions in my life story as told then, because by the time I was doing the telling, emotions were limited to shadows of despair, frustration and anger. Those were, I think, the last to go, and I suppose I sort of welcomed their demise, as those three were the ones which could well have meant that I actually did something to change the situation. Something terminal. That did come very close to happening a number of times, and a couple of those I shouldn’t have survived.

I can sit here today and feel incredibly grateful that, by some miracle, I did survive, as life is emphatically worth living – it isn’t a bed of roses, but it’s now either good or it’s stimulating, and sometimes both. However, that’s eclipsed by how grateful I feel that I’m NOT in the situation described by those cartoons any more. I have no idea why that happened. It could have been new medication (very unlikely after one dose of a slow buildup antidepressant), it could have been a placebo effect, it could have been six and a half years trying to stick to a twelve step programme, it could have been the answer to prayer. Or it could have been “just one of those things”. So I don’t know where the gratitude should be directed, but in order not to miss out, I thank God, my doctor, the pharmaceutical industry, Bill W and Dr. Bob and, of course, chance.

I suspect that my reaction to reading the comic strips this time was actually a normal one (as, probably, was the reaction of the two Mind counsellors hearing my story). So this is what “normal” feels like? Well, normal is pretty damn good. Normal I can work with. I did get two weeks of an unbelievable high following the depression going, and that was great, and I could probably live off the memory of it for quite a while (with Elbow singing “one day a year like this will see me right” in the back of my head) but I’m not sure my constitution is equipped for radical highs any more, if it ever was. It looks as if things have arrived at a sort of plateau, and taking the image of one of the cartoons, reasonably priced drinks and snacks do seem to be served (cue another cup of tea!). That, for the moment, is OK. Indeed, it’s more than OK, it is really just fine (and not in the sense of the acronym for f’d up, insecure, neurotic, emotional). Normal is a lot better than we give it credit for.

Last Thursday evening saw me at a study group, considering the topic of “Humility”. I wasn’t sure I could make much of a contribution there, once someone pointed out that humility was not to be confused with low self-esteem. My own self-esteem has been somewhere through the floor for so long that I’m likely still to be struggling to work out what actual humility rather than abject self-effacement looks like.

I’m not even sure what humility actually is. Phil. 2:3 says (NIV) “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves”. Clearly it isn’t the crippling lack of self esteem which says EVERYONE is better than you – at everything, though “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” might give some hope (assuming, for a moment, that depression allows hope!).

This passage doesn’t seem to be quite consistent with the second Great Commandment, either, “love your neighbour as yourself”; surely it is actually saying “love your neighbour better than yourself”. Perhaps “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend” would qualify.

It isn’t really practical to consider someone better than you at something in which you are skilled and they aren’t, and it’s also dishonest. On the other hand, it definitely isn’t “humble” to consider yourself always right even in an area in which you’re an expert.

So, perhaps what we see here is a form of “affirmative action”. The aiming point should, perhaps, be a balanced assessment of yourself and of others, never failing to recognise that everyone has some unique worth, everyone has abilities and above all everyone has experience which you don’t have; to value every human being for what they are, a wonderful, complex and interesting individual, but in order to get there the natural tendency to put self first has to be overcome.

It’s a lot easier seeing people this way if you’re in a twelve step programme, and are used to listening to other people’s “shares” of their own experience, strength and hope, and finding points which you can identify with. Frequently I’ve found that someone else’s life story can reveal to me something about my own, which I would probably never have known if they hadn’t held up to me a mirror of myself.

It’s also easier having reached a rock bottom of self esteem, which most long term twelve step members have done. If you have actually experienced “life at the bottom” and can keep its memory alive for yourself, it’s hard to feel superior.

I could actually pity those who haven’t got one of the many roots of twelve step programmes, and therefore don’t qualify to join one. I’m certainly grateful that I do qualify and do have such a programme!

 

I was maybe a little taken aback to see the congregation at St. Michael le Belfrey invited yesterday afternoon to form groups and do their own intercessionary prayers. Once we had our little huddle of four, I commented that we wouldn’t get beyond Syria and the Middle East – and we didn’t.

One thing we did not pray for, at least not vocalised, was for the various Muslim leaders involved. I think we should have. We did pray for the people of the area, for the Christian churches in Syria and Egypt and, finally, for western leaders to have wisdom (and I’ll come back to that). But we didn’t pray for the people whose decisions will have far more actual effect on how things proceed in the desperate situation in Syria and the very difficult one in Egypt; President Assad and his government and army leaders, ex-President Morsi and the Egyptian army and the Muslim Brotherhood there.

So, I’ll express openly what I didn’t have time to express openly yesterday; may all of them remember that they very regularly pray “in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate” and take it to heart; may mercy and compassion overflow in their hearts and those of the people generally.

I am having a difficult time with the news reporting of these situations. My wife, indeed, has mainly turned away from news, because she doesn’t want to know any more. We see pictures and hear reports of appalling things happening on a daily basis, and the need to do something, anything, in order to stop the beating our compassion is taking is very strong. Obama clearly feels it; Cameron and Clegg seem to have as well – but amazingly parliament has listened to the voice of the people and has decided for the UK not to take any military action.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Well, I would like to think the west could change something and would have the courage to do that. Is this a matter of courage? Is Obama being courageous, and the UK parliament being cowardly? Well, probably yes; to a great extent I think the parliamentary vote was because we don’t want to see much money spent and British lives lost in another foray into the Middle East. But that may also be the wise thing to do, and after all, we elect our politicians in a representative democracy to be wise on our behalf. I feel the pull of the Myth of Redemptive Violence here, very strongly; the situation is intolerable, something must be done, someone has used violence, let’s use more violence against them and “put things right”; I’m sure the parliamentarians who voted feel that too. Perhaps, therefore, the really courageous thing to do is to restrain ourselves?

What I do see is that, as in Iraq, the long term results of military intervention cannot be sensibly mapped out. Syria is not a situation in which there is a “right” and a “wrong” side; there are not two, but at least five distinct interest groups involved (probably significantly more), and the major force opposing Assad is linked with al Quaeda, which should at least give us pause in doing anything which may be seen to support them. Indeed, we should not do anything military unless we have a clear plan for the peace afterwards (as we did not have in Iraq). The only way I can see in which the multiple interests in Syria can coexist peacefully is in a fudged compromise (which is what the Assad regime really rested on until recently), and the only way to get that is for the parties to negotiate between them. There is certainly no clear path to a partition there; the various groups are far too closely intermingled.

I also see no clarity as to who is “at fault” and who is “innocent”. Both sides have been guilty of killing civilians fairly indiscriminately as well as on a narrow sectarian basis in the past; it is by no means clear to me that the recent sarin attack was by government forces (and there is every reason to believe that they would not want to cross that line, but that the rebels would want that line to be crossed as long as it was blamed on the Assad regime). Again, there is no “right” and no “wrong” side.

Neglecting for a moment moral considerations, including such things as public and world opinion, the solution might be to say to the two sides “You will come to the negotiating table NOW and make peace, otherwise we will attack both sides indiscriminately”; of course, if the threat is made, we must be prepared to carry it out, and there seems a huge danger that that might happen. But public and world opinion would never condone such an attitude, and probably neither would the consciences of our leaders.

No, if there is anything the West can do, with its massive supply of manpower and weapons, it would be the non-violent expedient; move in soldiers tasked to do no more than defend themselves and place them between the warring factions, then call for peace talks. In other words, an UN peacekeeping mission. That would require courage (not least from the PBI – “poor bl**dy infantry – on the ground), and it would not directly foster the myth of redemptive violence. I am not sure whether this should be done either; it might still not be successful in bringing the parties to negotiation, and could end up with the forces on the ground being the target of all sides. However, it is, I think, the only courageous and proactive thing which could usefully be tried, diplomacy having so far signally failed.

Do we need the courage to change this, as we can, or do we need the serenity to accept the situation and do nothing? I don’t know, I am praying for wisdom. But I am praying more for the leaders on the ground to find their mercy and their compassion, and a very large amount of courage to change.

I am, it appears, 60 today. I’m not particularly happy about this milestone – I am abruptly an official “senior citizen”, which I tend to interpret as “past my sell-by date”, and as with other “round number” anniversaries, I am looking back at the last ten years.

(Why is it that we think differently of “round number” anniversaries? Is it just because we have ten digits on our hands, and is that a sufficient reason to regard these as in some way “special”?).

In a very real sense, the last ten years could be regarded as “ruined time”. In 2003 I was already in the grip of fairly severe depression, accompanied by an anxiety disorder, both the product of Post Traumatic Stress disorder, the trigger for which was in 1996/7; it was also in that year that I realised that self-medicating these disorders with alcohol had left me addicted. I felt completely trapped in my then circumstances, doing a job which is stressful at the best of times, but which now provided a daily diet of anxiety triggers, and which I increasingly thought I was untfit to do. It was in 2003 that I had made a series of mistakes which hung over me for the next seven years and later resulted in the loss of many things I held dear, including the practice, my ability to pursue my profession, my reputation, for a while my liberty and all the capital and assets I had built up to that point. However, I had responsibilities, to wife and family, to staff, to clients, and despite a number of attempts to “share the load” or even sell the practice, there seemed to be no way out of the situation without reneging on those.

Most of the intervening time I would not wish on my worst enemy. This time seven years ago, I did not expect to see my 54th birthday, and was frankly dreading the possibility that I might. It was late that year when I had the last conscious contact with God until late in May of this year, a period of six and a half years; I think it was at that point that my depression managed to get to the point of not being able to feel any positive emotion and to prevent me having “emotional recall”, so I couldn’t even remember what it had been like to be happy (or, indeed, recall occasions when I had been, to a great extent – the happiness seems to have been so entwined with the remainder of the memory that the whole memory became inaccessible). Various further blows happened through 2007, in 2008 and 2009-10. Then three years of Groundhog Day.

But…

I started a process of recovery in 2006; as of today, I have no problem with addiction, one day at a time. I’m part of a loving family again. The family finances are sound (admittedly mainly due to inheritance) and I have no need to be gainfully employed. I have a couple of part-time occupations which are interesting, challenging and fulfilling. The big change, however, is that one Saturday morning in May I woke up suddenly not depressed, not depressed AT ALL. And I had again the conscious contact with God which had been completely lacking since 30th November 2006. I don’t know why this happened; it might have been due to a change of meds, although that seems unlikely after one dose of a new tricyclic antidepressant; it might have been due to following a twelve-step programme for six and a half years, it may have been the product of prayer. I don’t know, I can only be grateful. I am rather looking forward to the next ten years, or however many I am granted. Life is pretty good, and I am grateful for that blessing, again on a daily basis.

But what of the last ten years? Is it really “ruined time”?

Folk wisdom says “anything which does not kill you makes you stronger”. I’m very unconvinced that that is true. I am not as strong physically or mentally as I was in 1996; repeated blows can, I think, act like dripping water which will wear away even stone given enough time.

What I do have, however, is a substantial amount of experience which I would not have had otherwise, and I have found that I can share aspects of this experience, particularly with people suffering from addiction, the threat of financial or social ruin or psychological disorders, to very good effect; I know from my own experience what it is like to be there now, and at the minimum can offer them someone to talk with who understands. On a good day I can offer them strategies to cope with the situation, and on occasion the very fact that I have emerged on the other side of this gives people hope which they previously lacked. What might have been “ruined time” is being turned to an useful purpose.

Deo gratias.

At Experimental Theology a while ago Richard Beck discussed a then-recent book by Harry G. Frankfurt “Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting it Right”; his thesis mainly concerns free-will -v- determinism, and how to construct that theology taking into account the growing consensus in psychology and neuroscience that we are not actually making free decisions very much if at all. I’m there doing very little justice to a long series of excellent blog posts, which deal in detail with, for instance, the problem of imputing moral responsibility (including sin) to someone who is actually not making conscious decisions to do most of what they do, whether reprehensible or admirable.

One quote he extracted struck me:-

“[S]uppose that we are doing what we want to do, that our motivating first-order desire to perform the action is exactly the desire by which we want our action to be motivated and that there is no conflict in us between this motive and any desire at any higher order. In other words, suppose we are thoroughly wholehearted both in what we are doing and in what we want. Then there is no respect in which we are being violated or defeated or coerced. Neither our desires nor the conduct to which they lead are imposed upon us without our consent or against our will. We are acting just as we want, and our motives are just what we want them to be. Then so far as I can see, we have on that occasion all the freedom for which finite creatures can reasonably hope. Indeed, I believe that we have as much freedom as it is possible for us to even conceive.” (p. 16)

My transition from severe depression into the light of something-like-normality a couple of months ago was also the transition from feeling incredibly constrained and being able to do very little which I wanted to do (or thought I should do) to a situation where there is very very little which I do which is not the result of wanting to do it and wanting to want to do it (and as many further recursions as you like). This is, I suspect, an enviable position; certainly it is agreeing with me very well indeed!

However, I note that it is actually a rather seriously constrained position. Back to the serenity prayer; God is giving me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, such that I can practice to a great extent “radical acceptance” and not want to change these. Note, the number of things which I might have wished to change has not altered, it is purely my own volition and my own perception which has been adjusted. Again, I am experiencing no problem in finding the courage to change the things I can (or, at least, to move in the direction of changing these). I am still overreacting to anxiety triggers, but my system is generally returning a verdict of “exhilaration” and/or “energy” rather than the fight-flight-freeze reaction (mostly expressed as “freeze” in the recent past after a lot of work on converting the other two).

I’ve mostly given up on praying for the wisdom to know the difference; for most purposes I just pray for instruction as to which is the correct course of action, and by and large it comes; to the extent it doesn’t, I’m content to wait until an answer does come. If wisdom is required, it’s in discerning whether an answer has come, or whether some part of my subconscious is playing tricks on me again – and that is rarely the case now, although I’m vigilant against it.

I’m reminded of an Earl Hightower (Earl H.) talk entitled “How Free Do You Want To Be”, the nub of which is that surrendering your will and your life to the care of God, apparently paradoxically, makes you completely free. This is, of course, the Twelve Step step 3. It is one which I have been having particular difficulty with during the last seven years, primarily because however much I “surrendered”, a total lack of ability to feel what God wished me to do left me with no volition at all. This is, of course, the result of the only mode of experience of God of which I have reasonable knowledge and in which I’m practiced being at least in part an emotional experience; remove the ability to feel emotion, and you remove that category of experience. Between 30th November 2006 and 25th May 2013 I felt nothing of God (and it was not for the want of trying!); the only directions I could take during that period were scripture rationally interpreted, twelve step literature rationally interpreted and the guidance of my wife, friends and my twelve-step fellowship. Oh yes, that guidance was also rationally interpreted and sometimes rationally censored – I’ve never found a way to turn rationality off long term!

The remarkable thing is, it worked. I didn’t have either of the two main “engines”, the driving forces of twelve step. I couldn’t achieve anything through submitting to the will of God achieved through prayer and meditation (Step 11); there was no instruction, no implanted will. More fundamentally of course, I was unable to wish not to move inexorably towards institutionalisation, insanity and death. There was no emotional charge available; I could see the progression and how to avoid it, but had no basis on which to make a choice to do so.

The impression I’ve given above is that emotion just turned off in 2006 and returned in 2013. Actually, this was not quite the case. In “About” I write about my internal self-separation; while GF (“God-feeling Chris”) stopped functioning, EC (“Emotional Chris”) was still delivering motivations for quite some time – the trouble was, they were almost all negative, contrary to all the sources of guidance which I was prepared to accept. There was anger (largely against myself, and so self-destructive), shame, guilt, rage, anxiety, panic, terror, frustration and, of course, compulsion. The early part was therefore spent in fighting against all of these, and effectively SR (“Scientific Rationalist Chris”) fighting against EC, or in other words fighting myself. The fights became less intense and less frequent as time went by, and eventually SR won. The trouble is, having “won”, there was no EC to call upon; EC had taken her bat and ball home and was not playing any more, not even to let SR have some idea of what it had been like to have emotion (i.e. emotional recall) and what Chris might have done in a given situation when whole.

Alexander Pope wrote “Europe is balanced, neither side prevails; for nothing’s left in either of the scales”. He had in mind, I think, the exhaustion after the Nine Years’ War in Europe; the same could be said of my psychology five years ago. The devastation was perhaps not complete; there was still a thin thread of generalised compassion there, a tiny scrap of empathy which enabled me to feel slightly good (or bad) for others on occasion. None for myself, of course; if there was any emotion there, it was mutual hate between EC and SR.

I have found it extremely difficult to get anyone who has not been in that position to understand how all outcomes, however “good” or “bad” could become and could remain emotionally neutral, but that was the case. What is more, with the damage to emotional recall, the lack of basis for mutual comprehension was mutual; it became difficult, near impossible, to understand why others thought differently.

It seemed a hopeless situation (if “hope” could have been understood), but as it turned out, it was not. There were rules of action to follow, there were suggestions from others, there was a huge amount of “acting as if” (with SR working hard to work out what that might be) and there was time. It’s easy practising “radical acceptance” when there’s no emotion, when no course of action is more attractive than another. The depression gave me a lot of time to practice this; it may be that I couldn’t now look at life with quite the degree of equanimity (and lack of worry) which I now do without that period of practice.

I underline the importance of “act as if” as well. Heard in a sermon today (since I started writing this) “We cannot choose to love”; according to Beck’s blog series, this is correct. How then can I manage the Great Commandments (love God, love your neighbour as yourself) if I can’t choose to do so? Another paradox?

It would appear, in exactly the same way I proceeded when unable to feel anything of significance, that is to say via “act as if”. Eventually the emotions will catch up, it seems. So perhaps, in a roundabout way, there is here a form of “salvation by works”, because those works can produce love, and love is the wellspring of faith.

In the next-to-last post of Beck’s series he starts to address this:-

“1. Frankfurt’s model unites three things theologians are extraordinarily interested in: Freedom, love, and normativity. Frankfurt provides an way to unite these three things in a really interesting way. For example, think of the implications for soteriology. What does it mean to be saved? How are we saved? Frankfurt shows linkages among all three of these things:

Normativity: Being saved is about goodness/holiness.
Freedom/Volitional Unanimity: Being saved is about becoming free from sin.
Love: Being saved is about coming to love as God loves (God is love.)

Think about this list. Frankfurt shows how all three are linked in a coherent psychological model of the person.

2. In Frankfurt’s model, love is the bedrock. Clearly, this is a VERY hospitable place to start a theological project.

3. However, Frankfurt’s model is weak-volitional (see Part 1). As Frankfurt says, “Love is not a voluntary matter.” And this is the piece that will need to be accommodated by theological systems.”

I venture to suggest that although Paul may be correct in saying that “works without faith are dirty rags”, they do not necessarily continue to be without faith. We should not disparage them just because “salvation is by faith”, we should just ask for more than that. And we should be cautious about equating “act as if” with hypocrisy. It can become so much more than that…

At “Respectful Conversation” I find an article titled “On Biblical Morality, Cognitive Psychology, and Narrative Ethics”. What’s not to like about such a title?

In the course of an interesting treatment, I find “At a more abstract level, we find Christians who emphasize holiness, purity, and separation, and Christians who prefer compassion, nurture, and inclusion. We have Christians who gravitate toward authority and hierarchy, and Christians who lean toward equality and democracy. Aren’t all these concepts in the Bible? What gives? So how—and why—and on what basis should we choose which moral impulses should lead us?”

I find that I am pretty thoroughly on the side of the second category in each of these binary oppositions (my initial response would have been “absolutely”. Now, I don’t much like binary oppositions; my initial reaction is to look for the false dichotomy, or at least the continuum which is being misrepresented. I am, after all, not a computer – I can think analog (pace those neuroscientists who would argue the toss – if at root it still actually is all zeros and ones, it has evolved to produce a fair modelling of analog). I naturally look for where I didn’t really fit in a system with binary oppositions of that sort. However, at first sight, I am very clearly in favour of compassion, nurture and inclusion at the expense of holiness, purity and separation; I am very clearly in favour of equality and democracy over authority and hierarchy. To me, both of these flow directly from being a panentheist mystic, both of them flow from being a follower of Jesus. Those are my two absolutes, other absolutes are, to me, illusions and often damaging illusions.

So where am I going wrong?

I do not, it seems, discount holiness and purity altogether. Granted, as I see God as radically immanent, it is difficult for me to see any one thing as more holy or more pure than another; all is in God, so all is holy. And yet, in myself, I do consider holiness and purity; I consider holiness and purity of intention, of purpose, of love (loving God, loving my neighbour as myself). Using the Twelve Step version of the Great Commandments (love God, clean house, help others), the second requires me to attend to my own inner state; this should be as pure, as holy as it is possible for me to make it (and I can then trust to God’s grace for amendment of the remainder). However, I do not consider myself required or empowered to consider the purity of holiness of others; the state of others is between them and God; it is something over which I am very largely powerless, and which I need to accept, and to accept radically.

Again, the third part “help others” (or in the original “Love my neighbour as myself”) requires me not to separate myself, not to preserve my purity and holiness against the potential corruption of contact with “the other”. If I separate myself, how can I include, how can I nurture? I doubt I can then even really be compassionate, as compassion demands action, otherwise it is a mere fleeting emotion. Here, acceptance of what cannot be changed is inapplicable; courage to change what can is an imperative. There can be no life in faith without works, as James points out; if there is some trickle of life remaining in faith, in compassion, in love, without expression it will die.

Here, though, there is a potential problem. Having compassion for and including those who are not fulfilling the quest for inner holiness and purity and whom we cannot change risks us effectively condoning, encouraging, enabling, supporting their ongoing self-destruction and, potentially, destruction of others. There has to be a balance, there has to be, in the end, an acknowledgement that yes, we cannot change them, and that our own purity of purpose, our own ongoing compassion and love, our own faith may be compromised by involving ourselves further or to a greater extent. Twelve Step refers to this as “separate with love”. We are enjoined to love others “as ourselves”, not (in the general case) instead of ourselves. There is no balance if we prefer ourselves, there is no balance if we prefer the other.

It is worth stressing that the stronger one is in one’s own self-regulation, self-knowledge and purity of purpose and commitment, the more one will be able to include and nurture. In turn, it is often the case that the more one includes and nurtures, the stronger one will be in ones self.

So to authority and hierarchy versus equality and democracy. The mystical experience leads, I think, inevitably to a radical non-preference of one over another and a valuing of each for himself, making no comparisons. It leads inevitably to egalitarian and democratic impulses. And yet human society inevitably arranges itself into hierarchies, into leaders and followers. The experience of revolutions down the ages has been that the structures are overturned, the ruling class brought low – and within a short period there is a new ruling class, and new structures of oppression. We are not ready in practice for radical egalitarianism, much as we may all be equal in the sight of God. Perhaps in the Kingdom, part-instituted for 2000 years and, I take on faith, growing steadily, humanity will be transformed and able to put this into practice.

As matters are now and have been for the history of mankind, radical egalitarianism if enforced would be individualistic anarchy, and it would have to be enforced, as it could never grow naturally. There, of course, is the problem – the structures of enforcement would be hierarchical and authoritarian themselves; they cannot be provided by human agencies. The nearest to a balance yet found is democracy; to paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy is a lousy system of government, but it’s the best lousy system which has so far been tried.

So we are stuck with authorities, with hierarchies. I cannot advocate outright anarchy, as I know it will not work, however much faith I may have (it would require very many people to have that faith, perhaps all). How do we ameliorate their inevitable damaging effects?

The first thing which springs to mind is that although we are going to have leaders, we should never follow them blindly; if they belong to a political party, we should never follow that party blindly. In other words, we should never give over to them all power, we should always be involved personally in political processes. We should agitate, we should criticise, we should use whatever power we possess to curb the inevitable tendency of those with power to become corrupted by it, no matter what the purity of their intentions may at some point have been. There are very few, if any, who can avoid the lure of power for power’s sake, of control for control’s sake (and, having been an elected politician for some twenty years earlier in my life, I am not one of them; I can only say that having realised this, I left politics).

Then again, should we involve ourselves in the political process to the point where we attain power, we should be extremely vigilant of our own motivations. This is itself an involvement, a call for compassion, nurture and inclusion which we are tasked with carrying out, and with it come the potential pitfalls I mention of risking our own purity and holiness, magnified by the political process itself. One particular stress which can be borne in mind is the radical reversal proposed by Jesus, among others, that the greatest among us should regard themselves as the servants of those below them. If you come to power, it is by the will of those you govern (yes, even if you are an autocrat – government is possible only with the consent of those governed) and it is incumbent upon you to acknowledge the contract between yourself and the governed, which is that in return for handing over some of their power, you must use it in their interests and not under any circumstances in your own, even your own psychological interests (to feel in control, to feel self-worth, i.e. importance, however good those may be, as well as to feel superior and to dominate).

Above all, we should remember that our leaders are our equals, to whom we have entrusted a mission, and if we are leaders, that we are the equal of our followers (though entrusted with a mission by them), no more and no less than that. None of us are perfect, our leaders will make mistakes, as leaders we will make mistakes. If we cannot learn from our own mistakes, we should cease doing the job; if our leaders cannot learn from their mistakes (and admitting them is the first step) we should seek to remove them.

What I am saying here about authorities and hierarchies does not just apply to government. It applies to any group of human beings (even if apparently disorganised, they will acquire leaders and hierarchies). It applies to companies, to political parties, to pressure groups, to clubs and societies, to churches and even to families just as well as to governments. Tread cautiously with all of these; you cannot and must not separate yourself from all of them in a bid for radical individualism, you equally must never submerge yourself in them, deindividuate and abrogate your responsibility towards yourself. And your responsibility to love God, clean house and help others.

Some more thoughts about “beyond Alpha”

This follows on from “not the Omega” and the Alpha postscript.

I referenced deindividuation and personal suasion as two factors which I thought may be at work in Alpha; that should not be taken to indicate that I do not think the Holy Spirit works through Alpha, just that those are factors to be taken into account and may, indeed, be among the methods which the Holy Spirit uses to produce the result of personal experience.

The acknowledgement that these factors do exist does, I think, mean that a programme should be in place to follow on from Alpha and work on the basis of any personal experience to produce an individual centred on God through Jesus aided by the Spirit (rather than the dangers of centring on the group or on the individual who prayed with them when they experienced the Spirit).

In fact, though, I think some follow on is essential in any event. There are parts of Alpha which deal to some extent with this, primarily Session 13 “What about the Church”, but to some extent in Session 14 “How can I make the most of the rest of my life” and even Session 11 “Why and how should I tell others”.  I could argue that Session 5 “Why and how should I read the Bible” and Session 4 “Why and how do I pray” also have a role to play, as they are the two sections dealing with personal as opposed to communal practice. Nothing in the course at present seems to me to bring all these threads together. Perhaps that should really be the job of Session 14.

At that point, I suppose much depends on what groups and programmes the church running the Alpha course has to offer (or could refer people to, if we’re feeling ecumenical!). Just worship services is not, I submit, going to be enough. I’ve seen Alpha courses follow on with a “First Steps” programme of introduction to Bible Study and then morph the resulting groups into cell groups, which seems an option.  

In any event, I think substantial consideration should be given to continuing the discussion groups created during Alpha as something approaching cell groups, if not actually as cell groups. This would, I think, capitalise on any group-centring or individual-centring which may have occurred; it will then take work in the cell group to delink those centrings. If persistence is too low to make a sensible sized cell group out of a discussion group, they could be combined or, possibly, tacked on to an existing group.

In any event, though, I’d want to see a stress on developing an individual spiritual programme, a personal praxis, in order to refocus on a personal relationship with God rather than one mediated by the group or another individual and, of course, because that is desirable. Either a portion of each cell group meeting could be devoted to discussing how individual praxis was developing (and talking through any issues which arose) or every third or fourth meeting could focus on this entirely; I suggest the first of these, as otherwise people might decide to skip the relevant sessions.

The “Journey” approach of Rev. Dr. John Vincent might well provide a good template for such follow-on groups, though it is possible they may go in unanticipated directions. So might the Emmaus Course material (probably concentrating on the “Growth” sections).

It occurs to me, though, that it would be possible to capitalise further on any individual centrings which arise by taking a leaf out of the book of 12 Step programmes, and encouraging a system of “sponsoring”. In this model, anyone who wished to follow on from Alpha would be encouraged to form a link with one of the helpers, who would then be responsible for supporting them, taking them through something akin to the 12 Steps and encouraging and assisting them into attendance at core services and membership of other groups within the church, including, of course, some form of service (an important concept within 12 Step and one which any missional, social gospel or radical church would be encouraging in any event.  I hope any church would be doing this, actually).

Clearly, in the light of my reservations earlier in this post and in the “postscript” post I link to above, one of the primary objectives of a sponsor would be to get the individual to develop their own praxis. I think it would also be worth considering that this “sponsorship” should be time-limited, both to encourage de-centring and to reassure individuals that this sponsoring was not a lifetime commitment, although I note that for many forms of personal praxis it is very desirable to have a Spiritual Director on a permanent basis. Perhaps, therefore, there should be an objective eventually to hand over to one of a group of people specialising in spiritual direction within the church?

It does seem to me that the assumption of the Alpha course is that a “one size fits all” personal transformation will be the result; a kind of standardised “born again” major transformational, paradigm changing experience. Most of the people I’ve met who are involved with Alpha are able to testify to such an experience, after all, so why should they assume anyone would be different? However I think from my own observations that many people are different; for one reason or another they are not susceptible to having such an abrupt paradigm change.

I anticipate, therefore, that there will be significant numbers who feel something as a result of going through Alpha, but nothing which they can identify as “born again”. I would like to think that their needs are being met; there may have been the start of an awakening which, if carefully nurtured, could blossom into something much greater. My suggestions above are designed to add an element of care for them.

Above all, I do not want to see people leave Alpha having not had an experience they could call “born again” feeling that they are failures, that they are excluded or, at the worst, that they are damned. I will therefore add one last element – everyone who leaves an Alpha course should have the opportunity of a one-to-one meeting to glean from them what their experience has actually been like, where they are now, to counsel them as to ways forward and to assure them of a continued welcome and support if they are still seeking. I say “opportunity”; I would prefer this to be a default, which someone could opt out of if they felt very strongly, but would otherwise be the norm.

Lastly, anyone with experience in sales will realise that these suggestions will also help in establishing persistence and in giving feedback to improve future Alpha courses. It may be impious to regard Alpha as a sales exercise, but it’s realistic. Granted, what is being “sold” is arguably a free gift (or, according to some theologies, a benefit already paid for), but what else is evangelism than sales?

12 Step as a spiritual programme

These are the twelve steps, slightly modified by me from those originally developed by Alcoholics Anonymous (source Wikipedia). Different twelve step programmes insert different words where I have a blank in Step 1:

1. We admitted we were powerless over [   ] – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God to be.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God to be, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to those suffering from [the source of our own powerlessness], and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

They represent a development of the spiritual programme of the Oxford Group, splitting their spiritual practices down into elements and adding Steps 1 and 2 and step 12.

Where “God” appears, commonly with the words “as you understand God to be” or some variant added, all that is needed is some “higher power” than yourself; some who have problems with the whole concept of God have considered it to be the group of fellow sufferers to which they belong and on which Twelve Step programmes are based, some substitute “Good” for “God” or consider it an acronym for “Good Orderly Direction”. It is, I think, necessary for it not to be within you yourself, though some have considered it “their higher selves” with success; if possible it should not be another human being, as there are huge pitfalls there.

What you insert in the blank in Step 1 differs from programme to programme; alcohol was the original, drugs are another including specifically narcotics, nicotine, cocaine and prescription pills; obsessive behaviours such as gambling, shopping and overeating all have their own programmes, as do psychological disorders such as co-dependency and other emotional disorders. The whole list is considerable (and my link fails to include one or two I know of).

A lot of people, including myself,  have gained some freedom from these various sources of difficulty in their lives through Twelve Step and have, in the process, embarked on a spiritual programme which to my mind results in improvements far wider than the narrow specific they start with. Many people I know have effectively moved beyond, say, “alcohol” as the source of powerlessness and are mentally using “people, places and things” in its place.

It seems to me that anyone could probably find some item over which they are powerless to slot into that blank, even if they do not fit into one of the many categories for which there are existing Twelve Step groups. Many people in Twelve Step programmes feel somewhat sorry for those who do not have such a source of powerlessness which they can identify, as they feel they have gained so much themselves from following their particular programme.

However, Twelve Steppers will generally agree that in order to use a Twelve Step programme, someone must reach an “emotional rock bottom” as a result of their particular problem. Although you may be able to fit anything in to the box, it is therefore necessary for it to have taken you to that sticking point where you can emotionally commit to “this far and no further” with absolute assurance. On the plus side, there are people I have met whose emotional rock bottoms have been far, far less traumatic than my own or those of the majority of Twelve Steppers, such as one lady whose rock bottom was feeling her social standing slipping as she was becoming erratic and undependable. For her, that was “this far and no further”, and I am immensely happy for her that this was, for her, enough (once, I felt envy, but dealt with this through a Step 4- Step 7 procedure).

I leave it to the reader whether they feel this to be an useful tool for them, either individually or as part of a wider spiritual programme (which Step 11 really demands). If there really is no root of powerlessness, it is possible to start with Step 3, but commonly people are unable to give this a complete commitment unless they have Steps 1 and 2 behind them.

Alternatively, you might like to look at the Oxford Group programme. All the elements of that were in my own spiritual programme before I ever learned of Twelve Step. I admit that it was something of a surprise to me to find that I was called to share my sins and temptations with another, but I did find myself doing this on a long railway journey with a priest whose name I never asked, back in 1972. After the event, the best metaphor I can find is that of ringing a friend whose house I had never been to, and asking for directions. The first question, of course, was “Where are you now”, so I looked around and described it; directions then followed.

If you don’t know where you are now, it is more difficult to know which direction to go in to reach your goal.

Letting go of chains

I read in “Living the Questions” (Felten and Procter-Murphy 1998 p.5) a quotation from the author Maya Angelou. “I’m startled or taken aback when people walk up to me and tell me they are Christians. My first response is the question ‘Already?’ “.

I sympathise with that. I also sympathise with Dave Tomlinson’s description of himself as a “Bad Christian” in “How to be a Bad Christian”; he cannot (yet) do all the things he thinks a true, a complete Christian should do, so he is a “Bad Christian”.

Yes, I may well not be yet a Christian, or I may be a Bad Christian, or I may be an incomplete Christian. I have a direction, but I have not reached the destination of my journey, nor do I think I ever will. I see that Jesus encourages me to give away all I possess to the poor (Mat. 19:21), in many passages; by the standards of many in the world, I am a “rich man” and though I can imagine ways in which I could pass a camel through the eye of a needle (Mat. 19:24), the poor beast would be very unlikely still to be a functioning camel on the other side (blenders and extreme gravitational effects sprang to mind).

I have a wife and children and an aged mother, and though I also hear Jesus asking his disciples to leave their families and jobs and follow him (repeatedly, in Mark 1:17 and throughout the early parts of the gospels), I fear that as matters stand I feel my obligations to them outweigh my obligations to myself.

And yet I know from personal experience that the more I let go of ties which bind me to the world, to money, to possessions, to self-image, to status in the eyes of others, to control of my or others’ lives and to individual other people, the more my heart is lightened by letting me pursue the Great Commandments. Thus I talk of my obligation to myself.

In all these, I cannot say that I can yet “Love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind” (Matt. 22:37). I doubt I will ever achieve that degree of surrender except, perhaps, for very brief periods. I try to imitate Jesus, to imitate Christ, as best I can, but cannot hope to count myself his equal.

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The abrupt ending, on 26^th May of this year, of 17 or more years worth of decline into depression, for the last 8 years severe clinical depression, has given me an opportunity to review my life in a way impossible to me for at least the last 8 years, and with the gift (taken away by the depression) of being able to recall the emotions (or lack of them) which affected me previously. Depression, if severe, removes emotional recall as well as the ability to feel positive emotions and, eventually, all emotion.

Indeed, depression may have been growing well before 17 years ago, because despite emotional recall, I cannot remember a period when I felt so energised, so enthusiastic, so optimistic, so accepting, so grateful and so alive before at any time in my life. I have a better lens through which to view, so I can look back at my self-examination in the past (a regular exercise for 45 years) and see more.

In Acts 28:20 Paul says “since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain”. According to Acts, Paul had been arrested and bound with chains in Jerusalem when in fear of his life from the local population, and via various places, all under Roman guard and, it is supposed, attached to a Roman soldier by a chain, eventually reached Rome, preaching all the way. On his route, Felix, governor at Caesarea, was willing to let him go, but did not in order to placate “the Jews” (24:27).

So, he was bound by chains, and bound because of his preaching, his attachment to Christ – a binding, an attachment, which did not affect his ability to preach to soldiers, governors, a King, sailors and finally people in Rome, as distinct from Romans.  He was a prisoner, but his bond to Christ made him free. In Ephesians 3:1 he says “I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus”, but the translation is sometimes “OF Christ Jesus”, and we can see which of the Romans or Jesus kept him prisoner successfully, and of these which he accepted voluntarily from choice, which of necessity.

There is a talk given by a well known 12 Step speaker called Earl Hightower, entitled “How free do you want to be”.  He focuses on the 12 Step programmes’ Step 3: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him”. Briefly, his argument is that by surrendering completely to God and to the programme, you will become free, and the more you surrender the freer you will be. I wonder whether Earl had been reading about Paul, or, indeed, if his predecessor Bill W. had been. We see there Paul surrendered to his relationship with Christ, effectively free despite actually being in chains; he is doing what he needs to do, he is doing what he wants to do. He seems to have achieved that every time he was imprisoned, in fact.

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Depression is like imprisonment. I’m not unacquainted with real imprisonment; as Paul found, if the spirit is free, the walls and the chains cannot bind. The insidious prison, however, is one you make for yourself; the “Open Prison” tends to have this characteristic – all the inmates could walk out at any time, but they imprison themselves for fear of what would happen if they ventured outside (in that case, generally a significantly more restrictive prison). Often the more restrictive form of open prison stays with people after they leave. Prisons generally can also sap hope and will; it is common for people to become institutionalised, so their situation, however awful, seems better than any alternative could. Life can evolve to live in volcanoes, prisoners can learn to live in Hell.

Depression sets boundaries you contribute to yourself, it cuts you off from yourself, taking away your emotions, your hopes, your mere likes and dislikes, leaching all of the colour and life out of life until the only reason the idle thought that death would probably be better doesn’t get acted on is that it would take some emotion to muster the energy, and that went years ago. Eventually, like the institutionalised prisoner, you become complicit in its continuance.

I feel I’ve just been let out of prison after 17 or more years of depression, and let out of the self-imprisonment as well. More, though – I can now see what I couldn’t see before, that there are ways of looking at my life which just haven’t been available to me for years, ways which involve actual emotions rather than just coldly logical analysis. In 12 Step terms, this is a “Step 4”, making a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. It is not usually recommended that you share this (in Step 5) with the whole internet community as I seem to be doing, though, just another human being and God.

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So, what do I now see? Well, at the beginning I talked of Jesus commending the abandonment of money, jobs, family and, of course, security. In Matt. 10:39 we read the culmination of this; “whosoever loses his life will find it”. I see these as chains which bind us, which hold us from pursuing a loving relationship with God without condition.

I see the young Chris, fairly free of chains, entering into a relationship with the lady who is now his wife; I see him taking a job, buying a house and borrowing money to do that, doing a job which was about helping others and taking on obligations towards them; entering politics and taking on obligations to look after the people he represented; starting a family and commencing a lifelong responsibility towards children and becoming an employer and taking responsibility for the welfare of employees.

None of these was a bad thing. An accompanying sense that in order to fulfil all of these commitments, more money needed to be made was not so much bad as dangerous (at least it wasn’t pursuit of money for its own sake). A growing fear of failing in these commitments might have been beneficial in small measure, but was damaging when allowed to grow. A lack of trust that “all would be well, and all manner of things would be well” without Chris’ own endeavours was very damaging. Accepting the obligations as absolutely necessary, as things which could never be let go of, was fatal.

These were all chains, and eventually they became too heavy when there was a shock to Chris’ system. But he tried to pick himself up and push forward, despite the growing knowledge that something had broken, and that he was, after all, too weak for all of these chains. He could not; the weight became steadily more unbearable; Chris started to self-medicate with alcohol in order to cope and eventually one of the chains (a client) pulled hard and Chris allowed himself to be pulled into a stupid and catastrophic action.

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The last ten years have been horrible. I came close to losing wife and family (my wife on several occasions, only once by her leaving), I did lose business, ability to practice my profession and social status; financial security nearly to the point of bankruptcy; nearly my home; my physical health, for a time my mental health, for a time my liberty and very nearly my life. And, for over 6 years, hope, purpose and all positive emotion – and my consciousness of God.

Twelve steppers will recognise that everyone who starts seriously upon a twelve step programme has experienced an emotional rock bottom; without it, you cannot start to rebuild successfully. Mine came on the 30^th of November 2006 when all of the above had either been lost or their loss seemed inescapable. Sadly, it took some time following that, from the prison of depression, to be released.

I’m now free of the chains of business and profession, clients and electors, the desire for financial security, or at least excessive financial security and if the house goes, God will provide somehow. This has been forced on me as of 25^th May 2013; I don’t think I could have let go completely voluntarily. My family, I can attend to without the chains being too heavy now, and I can see that they didn’t just need a bank balance, they needed me, and me without all these other chains. It has been a painful corrective exercise, but I can now see it as a necessary one.

So, Earl Hightower asks me “How free do you want to be”, and I say “exactly as free as I am; and if I need to be more free I can weaken my grip on a chain or two”. The chain I will not willingly drop is that to God; previously, among all the others, I think I had dropped it. It took 6 years to find it again, or for God to press it back into my hand. *

So, with Paul, I will happily be a prisoner OF Christ. Not a perfect one, as Maya Angelou or Dave Tomlinson would agree, with some reservations, but knowing the other chains which bind me and which I elect to hold on to.

* In conscience, I will not willingly drop the chain representing my wife either; I did effectively drop this for a period in 2006-7 and regret that; I hope there is never a stark choice of God or her, because I would probably choose her. We are joined in flesh and spirit, as Paul would put it; I cannot separate us.

…help thou my unbelief.

That’s how St. Augustine put it.

Around 24 hours ago, while I was asleep and my computer was supposed to be backing up, it crashed. This meant that the backup failed and also that the previous backup was corrupted. My hard drive has turned into a terabyte of paperweight, it seems. Is this disaster, calling for a wailing and a gnashing of teeth? It would have two weeks ago…

But no.

I talk of Scientific Rationalist Chris (SR) and Emotional Chris (EC) often, and sometimes they talk to each other openly in places where no-one else is listening, like this blog (do not worry, I know these are only a story I tell myself about how thing work, because it makes sense of it for me – actually, things are much more complex than that and all the bits of Chris I identify are one person, with SR EC and something else I call GF all inhabiting and sharing one set of brain cells and one identity).

SR was worried and pointed out that a lot of the great creative flurry over the last 10 days had been lost, but EC is now happy and doesn’t want to feel sad or angry or frustrated if he doesn’t have to. So we said “Feh, we can write it again”, trusting that GF, which prompted that activity, could do it again if necessary – and in any event, someone more skilled than us could probably get the information off the doorstop. It wasn’t worth getting hot and bothered about.

And this was a teaching moment. I talk of a reductionist concept of what GF is which satisfies SR in some of my writings; in this conception GF is nothing more than a part of Chris, and just as much resident in Chris’ brain. This keeps SR happy; it is a sufficient reason for SR and he can believe it strongly (though not have faith in it – it is only a model, an hypothesis). But EC is not satisfied by that, to him GF is more than that, MASSIVELY more than that, because he FEELS that. So EC tells us we must believe panentheism, which is the way of thinking of  the box [   ], or GOD, which agrees with this feeling.

SR protests that we have no evidence of anything more; EC retorts that we do not have any evidence of not-more – and SR agrees, and can believe as well, though less strongly. Maybe if he can find a way of testing that hypothesis, he’ll insist on it, but he can’t yet. And we are happy.

I have also written about the difference between faith and belief. Faith is love and trust. I love my wife, I trust my wife with my life, let alone my possessions; I love and trust her abolutely. But I do not believe absolutely – I could trust her, and my possessions or my life would not be safe, in fact – but I trust anyhow, I love anyhow. I believe that I am taking a calculated risk.*

And here we are. I have just had ten days of incredible writing productivity less than half of which has appeared here and the other public places I write, and I can be happy trusting that GF will, through EC, inspire SR to do it again, only better. Before this, I was writing all the time, fearing that the depression would return and that the creativity, without GF, would wither, and I wouldn’t remember enough of it unless I wrote it. I was not trusting GF, not trusting God, at least not fully. So my faith was weak.

Lord, I have faith, help thou my lack of faith.

Through the dark days of the depression I have for most of the time had behind my chair near my desk the poster “Footsteps in the sand”. I could not see how this was really relevant, because, of course, GF had deserted me, us. According to SR. at least. We hadn’t felt GF for over 6 years, after all – it had been our footsteps, waiting for GF to return. We had not had faith.

And yet EC had liked the poster and we put it up to please him. And that, to us, looking back, proves that GF was there all the time. Chris is still here, the footsteps continue, but Chris walks with God (or GF, if you like) now and there are two pairs again. But we have faith that actually, GF was always there – Chris, the whole Chris, including SR, EC and GF could not see, because SR had locked up EC, and with him GF. We had made ourselves blind.

God did not leave us. God wil never leave us. My faith is strengthened.

Lord, I have faith, help thou my lack of faith.

We believe, in some measure. We believe strongly in GF, in the God within us, the God which Buddhism recognises well; we believe less strongly in the panentheist conception of God, but we believe nonetheless

And we believe it, too. Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief…

 

* I would like to apologise unreservedly to my wife for writing that; she has read it, and cannot separate faith from belief in her mind, and therefore I have hurt her, and I would do anything not to have done that. But once said, it cannot be unsaid. I will write more separately about this, as I realise that people may still not grasp this important distinction.