That Was The Year That Was 2022

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Price Family at New Year: now we are 20

I wasn’t going to write a review of the year 2022 after all nothing much has happened this year, has it? apart from a pandemic, a war in Europe, a recession, three prime ministers and a succession of ‘governments’, none of which has a clue about how to solve the problems of the country, even if they wanted to, after all they and their predecessors caused the problems, but never mind, the rich go on getting richer and richer, so why should the ‘governments’ that have served them so well even care? and that’s without thinking about the impending apocalyptic climate disaster which is what’s most likely to kill us all, so life right now often feels like we’re dancing in the ballroom of the Titanic, but hey, Strictly Come Dancing is the most popular programme on British TV, so there can’t be much wrong with the human race can there?

Yes, I am feeling a tad sad and angry and depressed about the state of the world and the nation, and who isn’t? If you’re not feeling that, you probably haven’t been awake this year. But just when I’m tempted to start really wallowing, I try to remember the wise words of the great prophet Gandalf:

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’

What is given to us, in our time when the country and the world are so very broken, is to try little by little – and what we can do usually feels like it is so very very little – to mend the broken bits we can mend. And hope. Hope that others will do the same. And even if we are all doomed, to go on hoping for as long as hope remains.

So, here in Thame, in our little corner of the world repair shop, Alison and I go on doing our very very little bit. Alison continues to enjoy being a member of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, and joins members of the community on Zoom each week for prayer and encouragement, as well as Zoom daily prayer with members of our parish church each weekday morning.

I am still allowed to officiate at the 8 o’clock BCP Holy Communion service once a month (sometimes more often, like a run of two for this Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, which falls on the feast of The Circumcision of Christ), and at St Catherine’s Towersey for their Common Worship services. Small congregations, but they seem to like me. They keep asking me back, anyway.

We’ve ventured out of Thame a few times for weekends and holidays – nothing abroad, yet. In March we went to Salisbury for a weekend for Alison’s MA graduation. It was one of the nicest graduations I’ve been to, because most of those receiving awards had been studying Theology at Sarum College, so it was appropriate for the awards ceremony to be a Christian service. Held in the church of St Thomas, with its astonishing Doom painting over the chancel arch. The speaker was Dr Eve Poole, who talked about how Theology was the best subject to study, in fact the only necessary subject, because it knows how to deal with the soul; and the soul is the only thing that differentiates human beings from Artificial Intelligence. This will become even more essential, the way that technology and communications are developing.

I am really missing Alison’s MA, and in particular her dissertation on A Spirituality of Child-Bearing. We had so many great conversations and discussions about this, while she was researching and writing it. It called into question – no, I would even say it undermined or exploded – many aspects of Christian theology and practice, or of Church teaching. They weren’t always things we really, really, believed; quite a few of them were things we were already, to say the least, uncomfortable with. For example, the doctrine of Original Sin, and its Calvinist extension of total depravity. The almost Gnostic dualism of much Church teaching, which denies the body and prioritizes the spirit, so that virginity and celibacy are prized above marriage. The emphasis on asceticism, fasting, and self-denial, instead of grateful enjoyment of all life’s good things. Most of the theories about the Cross, and how atonement works. And especially (of course) patriarchy, the suppression of women, the denial of their gifts. Because almost all the other things I’ve listed either flow from, or lead to, the monstrosity of patriarchy.

After all those years of Alison being connected with Sarum College, it was hard to sever the connection. So I have been taking courses there: a week’s intensive Introduction to Biblical Hebrew in August (wonderful, mind-blowing, hopefully ongoing), and a series of one-day courses on Reading Scripture Together, in which a Sarum staff member and a rabbi look at Bible passages and discuss the different ways our two faiths understand them.

We’ve taken a couple of short English holidays. In May we spent three nights in Lincoln, a city we have never visited before (can you believe it?) It’s hilly, but you probably know that. And we would recommend the pizza restaurant Dough LoCo, which not only serves great pizzas but also has an inspiring story. It started as a result of one couple baking pizzas for their neighbours during the first pandemic lockdown, from which a restaurant grew as if by magic. We were by far the oldest customers when we went there. But that seems to be happening more and more often, I can’t imagine why. Then drove on to York for 6 nights, exploring the city and driving out to explore some of the Yorkshire abbeys, including a day in Whitby which is always fun. Talks about Dracula among the abbey ruins… I wonder what St Hilda would make of that?

At the end of September-beginning of October we stayed on Holy Island, stopping in Durham on the way to revisit some old favourites:

Seeking sanctuary

Holy Island is always wonderful, of course, and we were lucky to have fine weather. It is so blissful when the tide comes in and the day visitors depart, leaving the island in peace.

On the return south we stopped in Chesterfield for one night. It’s a town that has seen better times, but the restaurant we enjoyed was the Sicily Restaurant where there really was an authentic taste of Sicily: friendly welcoming staff who were ready to advise about food and wine.

We’ve had times staying with Martha and Paul in their ‘new’ home in Frome, and with Esther and David in Suffolk. Naomi in Haddenham is the nearest of the children, so there’s rather more popping backwards and forwards, and fewer (i.e. no) overnight stays.

Oh, and we got COVID. After managing to avoid it for over two years, we caught it in June – at church! – when they started to lift restrictions. Neither of us had it very badly, but a couple of weeks later Alison began to show symptoms of Long Covid. We were out for a walk when her legs suddenly gave way. She didn’t faint, she just fell down. This was pretty scary and led to whole batteries of tests, MRI scans, ECGs and what not, to make sure she didn’t have anything really nasty. Naturally our imaginations supplied a long list of what really nasty could entail. (Stroke, heart disease, brain tumour etc. etc.) They found no signs of Any Of The Above, but neither could they explain what Alison did have. The likeliest guess was that Long Covid can sometimes cause sudden drops in blood pressure. Since Alison’s familial high blood pressure is well controlled by medication, the result of these sudden drops was falling over. And the workaround was tinkering with the doses of her blood pressure meds to try and get it right. Since then she is greatly improved in the sense that her ‘normal’ blood pressure became higher, she’s not falling down any more. But she still gets very fatigued if she forgets not to overdo things, she occasionally suffers dizziness which could make renewing her driver’s licence problematic, and she has the ‘brain fog’ that many people report as a lingering after-effect of the virus.

That’s enough of this, I guess. I’ll save reports about some of what we’re currently doing for another post. Perhaps.

I’m back

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It’s been a long time. But today – a few days before Christmas, what else should I be doing? – it feels like the right time to wake up the blog and the WordPress site. They’ve been resting long enough. Paying a year’s subscription feels like the incentive I need to get back to creating content on a more regular basis.

The big question: have I got anything to say?

I’ve felt for a while that I haven’t, really. What can one say, as we emerge (or do we?) from these months of pandemic and recovery, and draw near to the end of a spectacular annus horribilis. Three Prime Ministers, and still no sign of a Government that knows what it should be doing, or how to do it. A war in Europe, costing tens of thousands of lives, and God knows how many billions of roubles, dollars, euros, pounds. A global food and energy and cost of living crisis. And a fast-approaching climate catastrophe that may kill us all. How can one dare say anything?

Yet, there was a time when people thought I had something to say that was worth listening to. I even got paid to stand up in front of them and speak. I still get invited to, though now I’m retired I don’t get paid for it.

So, let’s have another try, shall we?

What is it, to be a patriot now?

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I grew up conflicted between the social and educational pressures to love my country and believe it was the greatest in the world – we Brits won the War, after all – and Dr Johnson’s adage that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. As soon as I was able to see that we weren’t the greatest country in the world, and not only that but it wasn’t we who won the war either, I leaned more towards the Johnsonian view.

So I was resistant to recording John of Gaunt’s famous speech from King Richard II Act II: “This royal throne of kings, this sceptr’d isle…” It sounded to me like the extreme of mindless, overblown, and unfounded patriotism. But it’s not, of course. As so often, I had never really heard it through to the end and heard what old Gaunt is really saying.

It’s a lament, that the country he has loved and served all his life has become something to be ashamed of. By their reckless misgovernment its rulers have betrayed their people and everything the nation should be.

If we feel similarly betrayed in our time, perhaps the Psalms can provide a resource. The ‘psalms of lament’ that we find there include powerful prayers that cry out to God, at times when God seems to have abandoned his people. Why have you allowed us to be conquered by the Babylonians? Why have you allowed us to be taken captive by politicians who care more for enriching the wealthy and powerful, than they do for protecting the vulnerable, feeding the poor, healing the sick, providing a decent standard of living for all their people?

We may not like the answers. People who pray like this often hear that what has happened is a judgment for their idolatry and disobedience to God’s way. Or in a democratic society, that we get the Government we choose or deserve. Then our prayer may change to one of determination and hope. That we may return to God’s ways. That we may (quickly!) deserve better than our electoral record shows we do.

And we may take heart from John of Gaunt’s words too. Here they are:

Official Secrets

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Everyone should watch the 2019 film Official Secrets, starring Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Adam Bakri, Indira Varma, and Ralph Fiennes.

It’s the true story of Katharine Gun, who in 2003 was working as a translator at GCHQ in Cheltenham. At that time the American NSA were trying to facilitate President George W. Bush’s determination to invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with the aim “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.” As we soon learned, there were no weapons of mass destruction, and far from the Iraqi people being freed, they were subjected to decades of terror for themselves and the whole region, with the rise of so-called ‘Islamic State’ and the bloody wars that then followed to overthrow it.

The NSA emailed GCHQ requesting them to help with surveillance of the delegates from non-permanent member nations of the UN Security Council , with a view to putting pressure on them to support the 2nd resolution that was necessary to legitimate the invasion of Iraq. Katharine Gun was appalled by this, convinced that it was wrong for our security agencies to be used to support the policies of a foreign government, especially when this meant going to war without just cause. (Remember that millions of people all over the world, even in the UK and USA, were demonstrating against Bush and Blair’s policy.)

After great heart-searching, Gun sent a copy of the email to an activist friend, who in turn sent it to the Observer newspaper. The Observer had until this point supported the war, but when they investigated the email and found it genuine, as well as confirming that evidence of Iraqi WMDs was doubtful, they published it.

GCHQ staff were immediately questioned to identify the source of the leak, on the basis that it contravened the mighty Official Secrets Act. Katharine Gun could not bear her colleagues being subjected to this treatment and quickly confessed. She was immediately arrested and questioned. One of the minor heroes of this film is the (unnamed) young woman duty solicitor at this first questioning, who admits she usually only represents petty criminals on drugs and shoplifting charges, yet recommends that Gun should get in touch with the human rights advocacy group Liberty.

In a cruel twist, it was many months before Gun was formally charged — months in which the authorities left her in suspense about what would happen to her. When she was eventually brought to trial, the question was, How should she plead? She was clearly guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act, yet she opted to plead Not Guilty on the grounds of necessity: that she had acted as she did in order to try to prevent an illegal war.

Here’s a Spoiler Alert, but I can’t resist it and it won’t spoil your enjoyment of the film: When the trial began, the prosecution announced that they would not be bringing any evidence. They gave no reason for this decision, though it’s pretty clear it was because the defence had asked to see the records that the Government had received during the run-up to the war giving legal advice about whether the war was lawful. Since these records would reveal that the Attorney General had originally ruled it unlawful (until he visited Washington DC where he was presumably pressured by the Americans to change his mind), the Government didn’t want this to be revealed. The astonished judge had no alternative but to dismiss the case, and Katharine Gun walked free.

Katharine Gun is a hero whistle-blower, and of course has had to live with and suffer the consequences. Though admired by millions and the recipient of awards, Wikipedia notes

After she was acquitted in 2004, she found it difficult to find a new job. As of 2019 she has lived in Turkey with her husband and daughter for several years.

This is an accurate presentation of a young woman who stood up to protest against one of the most evil decisions taken by British Government during my lifetime. Not only was it illegal and wrong, but it has unleashed violence and suffering on the world which we have yet to see the end of. But it is also an exciting and thought-provoking thriller.

If you haven’t yet watched this (it’s free on Amazon Prime) you should watch it as soon as possible. You really should.

A Testament, a Prayer

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When I am gone I would like it to be remembered
that I took pleasure in the common things of life
delighted in the joys of Everyday
waking in the morning to life and breath and sound
and sight and smell, and the taste of bread
and the human voice and touch of those I love.
That everything is Gift — and more than this —
that there’s a Giver to whom one may give thanks.

That Everyday brings news of discoveries
fresh adventures of learning and knowing
words to hear and read and chew on, and minds to meet,
music to charm the ear and people I love
with whom to share the things that I have found
who’ll share with me what they have found also

I’d like it to be remembered —
that I was kind to others and myself
that I would smile at people (not at cameras)
laugh when I caught myself being over serious
that truth and beauty made my spirit soar
that I was wise with the wisdom of my years
yet innocent as the child who still, somewhere,
plays in my soul
that I loved questions more than answers
stories to tell, yet better, to inhabit —
that I dreamed that there could be a better world
yet never hated this one that isn’t so
nor gave up hope of how it all might be.
At day’s end never closed my eyes in sleep
without I blessed the Author of my life.

If this is what I’d like remembered when I’m gone
let it become my habit while I’m still here.

Having a go at Shakespeare

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I haven’t recorded a poem for over two months. I’d been asked to read something by Shakespeare and was too afraid to try: how could I dare to do what the greats of acting and speaking have done? But hey – life’s too short to be a coward for long. And I took courage from the remembrance of things past about my classmate Judith, who recited this in our English Verse Speaking.

Little, Big

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I’ve been wanting to write this blog post for 35 years. What? You’re telling me blog posts hadn’t even been invented 35 years ago? No, of course not: back then this would have been an article or an essay. But you know what I mean…

In 1984 I was a young curate with a struggling wife and three young children, serving a tiny church in an industrial village in Bedfordshire. I had felt a strong call to take the post, but my ministry there turned out to be not what some might call ‘successful’ in terms of making converts and growing the church. I didn’t see much noticeable fruit of my ministry, and although the people of the church loved us and we had some good friends there, it often felt there was little to support or encourage my wife and me in our own spiritual life.

Then I read a book which I thought at the time, and have often thought since, ‘changed my life’. It wasn’t a book you might have expected to change the life of a minister in that kind of situation.

It was Little, Big by John Crowley.

How can I describe this book, or explain (or perhaps, even, remember) how and why it changed my life? It’s a complex fantasy novel – Ursula K. Le Guin called it ‘a book that all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy’. It’s a love story – or better, a whole collection of love stories. It’s a family saga spanning generations. It’s a nature book, with beautifully written descriptions of field and forest, river and lake, birds and animals. It’s about architecture and literature and ideas – over and over again you want to mark sentences and whole paragraphs you think you must remember and quote. It’s full of mysterious events that you don’t understand the significance of until much later in the Tale – if indeed you ever do. It’s about the nature of Story itself: how stories are told and if they ever can have an ending. It’s a political thriller about the End Of Civilization As We Know It, when the failing democratic republic is taken over by a charismatic populist leader, whom the elite powers of the Establishment, the bankers and the media think they will control for their own purposes – but they are mistaken. (Remembering that this book was published in 1981, you have to ask yourself: How did the author come to be so prescient? What could have greater contemporary relevance for us?)

But above all, it is a fairy story. And the secret of how and why this book changed my life is tied up with this, and the old question we all remember from our days of watching Peter Pan: Do you believe in fairies? As I read this book in 1984, a time of struggling with and trying to make sense of questions of faith, again and again it helped me to learn more about just what faith means.

The Drinkwater family, around whom the whole Tale revolves, are said from the outset to be ‘very religious’. But this is not Christian or any other kind of mainstream religion: it is about knowing and living and walking with ‘them’, the inhabitants of another world, the world of Faerie. Into this family marries a young man who doesn’t share their ‘faith’, who is introduced to us in the very first wonderful paragraph of the book:

On a certain day in June, 19–, a young man was making his way on foot northward from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood, that he had been told about but had never visited. His name was Smoky Barnable, and he was going to Edgewood to get married: the fact that he walked and didn’t ride was one of the conditions placed upon his coming there at all.

Smoky is aware of and respects the beliefs of his bride and her family, but he cannot share them. He never sees or hears or speaks to ‘them’: so he simply cannot believe in them. Yet out of courtesy he keeps quiet about his lack of faith, never speaks of it, seems almost to pretend that he does share it. Suspects, sometimes, that many of the other members of the family are also ‘pretending’ because they also are too reticent to speak of it. One of the most moving moments in the book describes the conversation, many years later, between Smoky and his grown-up son Auberon, when Auberon finally asks him, “Do you believe in fairies?” And it transpires that each of them has thought that the other knew Something all along that remained a Mystery to him. What is the difference between believing, and pretending we believe, because we think that all the people around us believe something we cannot, and yet they expect us to share their faith, and imagine that we do?

In the end (SPOILER ALERT! – or maybe not?) They all withdraw into the smaller world within their one, which turns out to be far far bigger, while all the characters in our world journey into that inner world that They have vacated, and take Their places. (I think.) All of them except Smoky who cannot make that journey. But it doesn’t matter, because

how could he desire another world than this one?

and

He couldn’t go where all of them were going, but it didn’t matter, for he’d been there all along.

His life, and all their lives and the things that have happened to them, are part of the Tale. Which is now ended; and yet it’s a Tale that never ends.

I have always been most fully convinced of things not by reasons or proofs, but by imagination. It’s why the moment I came to believe was when I read the Gospels and realised that this was a Story that I could, and wanted to, inhabit. It’s why the stories of C. S. Lewis, Narnia and the were so helpful on my spiritual journey.

And Little, Big helped me too, because it taught me to imagine the truth that “There is another world, but it is in this one.”1 Some of the most important discoveries of my own spiritual journey have been deepening insights into this truth. The ‘other world’ that we believe or aspire to believe in is ‘in’ this world, or touches it at every point, or is separated from it by only the thinnest of veils. And we come to know that ‘other world’ most fully as we learn to love and know this world. If we hate this life, we will never enjoy the life of Heaven. Or whatever.

You may not like Little, Big at all, it may leave you completely cold. But I hope that, if you do read it, you catch a glimpse of the same mysterious, wonderful truths that so captivated me and continue to do so.

  1. Variously attributed to W. B. Yeats, Paul Eluard, and even Rilke ↩︎

Papua Merdeka

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A cause dear to our hearts is the West Papuan freedom movement. West Papua was illegally occupied by Indonesia after it became independent from the Netherlands, and since that time has been exploited and oppressed, its people subjected to a long catalogue of persecutions and human rights abuses.

You can read about their cry for independence on their website.

Our West Papuan friends in Marston have just released their first single which you can watch here on Youtube:

Vocals by Koteka and her mother Maria; spoken words by Benny Wenda, the leader of the Free West Papua Movement; backing features the legendary drummer Tony Allen. If you like it, they ask “Please listen, buy and share.” And support them with your prayers, your protests and however else you can.

Papua Merdeka!