Between Noon and Three

I've never watched Mel Gibson's `Passion Of The Christ` all the way through and have no desire to. As a "rectory brat" and aspiring Christian, just as I don't need to fall off a cliff to know that it hurts I don't need a cinematic depiction of how the Roman Empire dealt with undesirables two thousand years ago.

It's a story that might just change your life but that change probably won't come via either a snuff film or merciless sales pitch. On this day of days, Good Friday 2012 what was it that changed my life? This is a story that inspired friends of my parents to become missionaries and willingly face untimely deaths... it's a story that kept me getting out of bed when my wife began her fight against cancer... it's a story that's inspired untold good to have kept occurring all over the world. If the least of these are being attended to anywhere in the world tonight it's probably because someone else has heard this story.

Unfortunately the story has attracted some bad press.

Just as the Roman establishment wreaked havoc on early Christians, within centuries these same kinds of believers finagled their merry way into the establishment and wreaked a similar havoc on the people who needed their help. Before the non-theists start jumping to conclusions the 20th century's trail of blood and tears was the direct result of nations that think man is supreme and start acting accordingly. Whatever the Inquisitions did in the 1500's in the name of God, the Communist Party did in their own name solidly through the 1900's. Never mind the questions of life after death, how about life before death? In a civilization and history that has done so much good why is man still a broken, good for nothing husk needing redemption?

I'll get back to you on Sunday.

God Is Not Great

The greatest invention of the last few years, for my money, has been the E-Reader. I now routinely carry enough virtual books with me to populate a small second hand bookstore and have the excuse to stretch my literary horizons. One such horizon-stretching exercise is the perusal of the late Christopher Hitchens' last works regarding his contempt for all things religious (see the subject line). Whether you would self-identify as either a Christian, Atheist or a non of the above Hitchens was a literary master so it's worth checking in on for his writing alone. Since the new atheists have suggested reason and literature should be our guiding lights I would offer any of the following titles as a counterpoint to `God Is Not Great`.

• Orthodoxy - GK Chesterton
• Jesus - Malcolm Muggeridge
  
• Can Man Live Without God? - Ravi Zacharias

(I wouldn't want you to read one religious book having not weighed all the alternatives.) It's worth noting that Chesterton's words reached into the life of a onetime atheist, Clive Staples Lewis and inspired the career of one of the greatest Christian apologists of the 20th century. You have been warned.

Much of the `New` Atheist thought has taken root in the UK and seems to have found a launch pad in much of the conceit of the left wing thought from over there. One to one, the British are still as generally well-mannered and reserved as the Americans like to think they are but there is an undertow of cynicism and pragmatism that is fervent as any of the religiosity the rest of the world think resides in the Bible Belt. If they can't see it, they can't believe it and if Americans like something en masse it's probably suspect. The fastest growing socio-political demographic in the UK is a conservative religion but since it's not American we really can't say anything about it.

As well written as the book is the sum total of it, so far is "look at all these bad, stupid and evil things religion has done, I don't do those kind of things, I'm not religious OR bad, stupid and evill, religion must be bad, stupid and evil". A circular argument is fun for internet discussion forums but it's a letdown when one of the self-proclaimed ministers of Charismatic Atheism can only offer that. I would have thought Hitchens would have been able to delineate between theology, civil rights, philosophy, history and politics in religion but he seems to be unable to tell one from the other. It's slightly ironic to see the Atheists use the same kind of hustle to justify their arguments as they criticize Xtians for doing. Most religionists know the evils that their chosen faith has perpetrated in darker days and few of them are trying to facilitate that in the 21st century. Considering the trail of blood and tears left behind by politically-driven, non-religion in the 20th century Hitchens and his devotees seem to willfully overlook what the alternative of religion can bring to a culture. It's a shame he never got round to writing about the spiritual vacuum that's existed in our homeland for the last 30 years and what's slowly been filling it for the last 20 years. I'll give you a clue, it isn't secular humanism. If you've already made your mind up you don't need to read the book.

Once on the way up and once on the way down #1

I'm compiling a list of books that may save your life. One of them is Thich Nhat Hanh's book `Living Buddha, Living Christ` and it's an informative study in the parallels between Christianity and Buddhism. This comes on the heels of Leonard Cohen's time in a Buddhist Monastery on the West Coast and his talk of how he saw compatibility between Buddhism and Judaism.

Since it's Easter I've been musing on the Passion more than usual and the transition from riding to Jerusalem hailed as Blessed and within a week he was on trial is interesting me on a deeper level. In a fickle, changeable era such as ours it's sometimes hard to accept hard changes. Be it a medical prognosis, job loss or challenges in a relationship it's easy to get comfortable and expect everything to roll along conveniently and when it doesn't our pride can become shaken. This Easter I'm looking at the structure of the story as well as the story itself. There may be a time where we're on top of things and for no good reason the roof caves in, but even after death there can be a resurrection. With death and the grave beaten we've no reason to have to complain about the kind of day we've had.

The Last Thoughts Of JL

Here's a note I originally posted on Facebook from the irreplaceable Jackie Leven. It's a diary entry from the Big Man and shows the warmth and good humor of one of rock music and song-writing's most criminally overlooked talents. In the almost words of John Belushi "I suggest you buy as many Jackie Leven albums as you can"

Jackie, we heartily knew ye

###

So meanwhile, back at the house, at 6 30am, it was time to go to the horses, feed, muck out and turn out Smartie (retired racehorse) and feed and turn out Blue (big French horse with a sense of humour). When I started doing this a few months back, the weather was still bitterly cold and the slippery stumble across the clogged mud footpaths, through three fields and a bit of country road sure woke you up. Now it’s different, all blossom and young rabbits zooming around. The walk has moments of interest. The first field goes past a gypsy encampment which houses about seven trotting ponies and their various carts and traps. These people come out all the time in horse and trap, usually travelling at surprising speed, sometimes tethering at local pubs early on for a bit of a session. As I pass, the gypsy patriarch tends to be there, and although I daresay we will never be on speaking terms, we’ve now got so used to seeing each other that we’re on strong nodding ‘Urr’ terms that contain a subtle warmth. I would never sully this contact by saying something stupid like ‘bit colder than yesterday, eh?’, or somesuch. Because, yes, it IS a bit colder than yesterday – but why would you mention it ya dozy geezer who lives down the road in the house I’ve told the kids to leave alone? I like this – it’s refreshing – someone who doesn’t want to spend the next eight years getting the conversation all the way up to ‘yes, it feels like it might rain later on – whaddya reckon?’...

The next field, having passed through the chock full- of-graffiti tunnel under the main London/Portsmouth railway line, has a long straight path across an open fallow field towards a set of centuries old farm buildings - very big barns and a beautiful permanent stillness. You rarely see anybody here although people do live in the cottages. There is a rickety bench to one side of the farm track, close to the big open courtyard of the farm, and on a summer’s morning this is a lovely place to sit and be quiet for a while – as long as you can manage – it’s not easy. A small path then takes you down and up through tangled birch woods, over a stream. To the right, nearly wholly hidden in creeper and silver birch saplings, is a beautiful old bright blue and yellow steam train engine, still with wheels and everything. I first saw this, and maybe wrote about it then, on a fine winter’s morning with the lightest of snow covering on it. It’s completely magical – the engine has such presence: I’d love to find someone who could tell me how it got there – it doesn’t look like it will be going anywhere else in a hurry. No matter how banal the story of how it came to be there was, there would be a moment of absolute magic in the telling, of this I am sure. Maybe I’ll start asking the old boys in some of the more obscure country pubs, like The Hampshire Bowman, The Chairmakers, or The Old Smiling Terrorist.

The next small field is also always fallow and feels quite secret for some reason – it’s not overlooked from any direction by cottage or farmhouse – it’s just you, the field, a cold wind always coming off the River Hamble down a slope to the east. You can’t see the river from the field, but you can feel its personality. At this time of year, when you enter this field, hundreds of young rabbits scamper madly to safety along and under the mayflower hedgerows. The mayflower is my favourite Spring scent – it sure ain’t posh, and can have a subtle whiff of tramp’s underpants even – maybe that’s why I love it so.

A metal turnstile takes you through to the last bit of field before the country lane from Boorley Green to Durley. To the right there is a paddock with one lone Arabian white horse (a grey) in it. The horse seems lonely and I feel sorry for it – why would you think ‘I’ll just put this horse in a field on its own for the rest of its life’? But you see it all the time and everywhere with animals: they’re sociable beasts – they don’t want to live and die alone any more than we do. I try to always have a mint humbug for the little horse – well, two actually, as, if I give it one, it trots the length of the paddock until it can go no further, then gives me the most forlorn look if I don’t have a farewell humbug for it. Same thing when I walk home this way – that’s 28 humbugs a week, or more than a whole packet. My Arabian horse relationship is costing me 99 pence a week, but I could never just walk past it saying nothing or ‘sorry pal, you’ve had your last humbug out of me’....

Leaving the paddock, the walk takes an unpleasant turn. Straight ahead is a scrap graveyard of car bonnets and doors, all neatly stacked in long long ranks. You have to presume that this is a business, as there is a portakabin acting as an office, but in the years in which I have walked this path I have never seen these piles of brightly covered ex-dream parts change in the slightest – just the same old red bonnets and blue window frames. But what is unpleasant are the two fucked up dogs tied up on the flimsiest of twines which catapult out of the portakabin and go absolutely mental when you pass. One is an old blameless cocker spaniel which you suspect would just come up to you for a tummy rub given the choice: but the other dog is a right bastard – it looks like a chocolate labrador who has swallowed a wheelie bin. It foams at the mouth and strains every sinew to get at you, and the look in its eyes is unwavering – it says ‘if I ever get off this lead I’m going to savage you to death my fine friend’. There’s an old geezer who sits in the portakabin, presumably updating his inventory of dead Mondeo bonnets who makes a sound when the dogs start raging – a sound like ‘urp, ooh addy there’ – sort of telling them off, but you can tell he’s really enjoying the commotion. Having been bitten by a dog already this year, the whole scene unnerves me a lot, and I have resolved to fight to the bitter end if the brown bastard ever breaks his lead and bears down on me. But it’s not the way you want to be thinking four times a day when you pass them. It leaves you all uptight and having to re-direct the tension in order to get back into feeling a bit normal.

The footpath then passes a couple of ugly grey-green static homes and joins a small country road. The road is dominated at this point by fields of weeping willows, overhanging the road itself, and then the road becomes Wangfield Lane, and passes over a small bridge under which the river Hamble doth flow. It’s a bit chocolate box – too pretty if that’s possible, and reminds me of a Louis MacNeice poem which starts ‘My father, who found the English landscape tame’....

Then there is an abrupt left turn up to the stableyard where Smartie is either in his box, waiting for breakfast, or is out in the paddock with his mates, waiting to be brought in for dinner .Horses are interesting, to say the least: most of the time they are placid and friendly and it’s easy to drift into their mood – dreamy, curious and at peace with the world. But at all times you have to be vigilant. When working at close quarters with them you must remember that they can move at great speed – they hear a sound which interests them and will turn their head quickly in its direction (usually with a mouthful of straw so that they look wonderfully gormless). If your head happens to be next to their head when this occurs they can easily knock you clean out accidentally – then you’re on the ground unconscious with half a ton of innocence quite likely to then stand on your head accidentally. If that should happen, you may find yourself standing outside the pearly gates next to George Clooney with a coffee making machine...

You have to remember at all times a hundred small things – like, when taking the horse anywhere on a lead rope, do NOT wrap the lead rope around your hand, just hold it unwrapped in your hands. If it’s wrapped around your hand and the horse takes off (flight animals) through fright, you can get your arm pulled clean out of its socket, or at best be pulled along stony ground with iron clad hooves clattering around your sad little face.

I have been a troubled soul most of my life although I have learned to be at peace with much of the troubles – a sort of Belfast Of The Mind in which the old conflicts remain raw in the imagination, but there is no real appetite for returning to the death ground. Carl Jung said that ‘the gods have become diseases’ – it’s a great idea, and as you get older you begin to see a stark choice – honour the gods and goddesses, wherever you may find them, or wait for them to visit you anyway in final forms. But don’t shun these entities – it’s very simple – you tell someone like Apollo that he doesn’t exist and you will certainly have got his attention, although perhaps not for the best of reasons. Apollo doesn’t want you to worship him, just respect his story.

I never think like this as I’m compiling Smartie’s food in a bowl – I’m enjoying the dense intoxicating aroma of molasses in the mix, and listening to him strike his hoof, making a harrumphing sound of anticipation. In the background I can hear young, open hearted ordinary teenage girls talking to their own horses, or to each other about the horse-issues of the day, and I can see a shimmer of heat in the far paddock where ponies stand nose to nose. A man’s got to know his limitations, as Dirty Harry told us.

‘working alone in the evening sun

a man and two horses come

pulling a plough on the far hillside

till day is done and the sun has died

the horse’s eye is full of trust

and easy humour in the dust

I love the horse and I love the earth

and the lonely plough is giving birth

and as time passes through my hands

I know one day I’ll be that man

the plough moves deep inside my veins

ah but someone else now holds the reins

and leaves are turning yellow in my hair’

(‘Working Alone’, from Forbidden Songs Of The Dying West. Something I just found that Jack wrote earlier in the year..so Botley..)

Third Time Lucky

I tried to reset this page several months previously but for some reason it didn't spark very much of anything. Now that I've been reading more I sense great potential. There's a particularly good second hand book store in Corpus Christi, TX that has an even better selection of theology, poetry and world history books. I've finished Ken Wilson's "Jesus-Brand Spirituality" and would recommend it nearly as much as I do the book that inspired the name of this blog. It's Christianity for the people who aren't feeling particularly embraced by mainstream Christianity and it's affirming a large part of where my mind and heart have been at for the last several years. From the top...

My weekend is better than your week

Today I got up at 6.30am to watch my soccer team lose, went to a doctor's appointment with my wife, had a Big Mac for the first time in I don't know how long, received a letter from Lambeth Palace (written by the correspondence secretary of the Archbishop Of Canterbury) skulled a couple of bottles of Harp, started to watch `Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid` and then wrote my first cowboy song. My weekend is better than your week. There will be some serious tree planting occuring within a few hours too.

Let it be said, I not only respect the head of the Roman Catholic Church I have discovered a new respect for Rowan Williams. In the age of the internet it's easy to forget how impactful a letter can be. In an age where everyone is so far into themselves it's a genuine pleasure to see an establishment like the Church Of England holding themselves so accountable. For those of you who pay attention, Rowan Williams (the Archbishop Of Canterbury) was alleged to have suggested that the UK should embrace sharia law... as always, the media got it wrong. Once the trees are taken care of I may just put up the letter I sent to Lambeth Palace with the very reasonable and measured response they provided. This isn't the booze talking but I can see that the C of E was one of the establishments that made Britain great.

The I-Monk

Once you have Bob Kilpatrick's webpage bookmarked, you can do yourself another favor and get yourself across the webpage of Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk. (This is the home of one of my favorite podcasts) In recent weeks, the Spencer's podcast has been a great source of comfort and encouragement to me as I've been juggling a full life. I think it will encourage you as well.