Part of the Establishment?

As part of the process of candidating for ministry, I have had to read and reflect upon a non-theological book, ready for one of the small group interviews. The book I've decided to look at is called 'The Establishment And How They Get Away With It' by Owen Jones, who writes for the Guardian. It's about how we've ended up with the Britain we have, and the consequences for those not pulling the strings!

The notion of an ‘establishment’ goes back to the 1950s and was coined by the journalist Henry Fairlie. For him, this was about a group of people at the top of British society bound together by social ties – it’s all about who you know – which included the Church of England, the BBC, the monarchy and so on. Owen Jones’ take on the idea is rather different; what defines and keeps the establishment together is a shared ideological commitment, which benefits those who maintain that the neoliberal consensus (small state, minimal employment rights, low taxes for the wealthy, minimal regulation of markets, etc.) represents the only viable political approach, and who profit as a result through shared financial ties and interests. His understanding means a far more diverse collection of people fall into its net, including supposedly anti-establishment political bloggers like Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines) and Russian oligarchs, alongside traditional members such as cabinet ministers, aristocrats, the Church of England and newspaper bosses.

In the opening chapter, Jones describes the shift away from the post-war consensus, which saw public ownership of utilities, transport networks and so on, unions as equal players alongside business leaders, and a top rate of income tax as high as 75%. Think-tanks such as the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Adam Smith Institute laid the intellectual groundwork for the concrete policies of the Thatcher government, and this worldview has come to define the subsequent political landscape. For example, the Keynesian economics of the 1970s would’ve suggested using capital investment paid for by government borrowing as the solution to a sluggish economy like ours in recent years, whereas use of interest rates, lowering taxes for the better off and austerity measures in public spending characterise the monetarism and free market approach currently employed. Successors of those who influenced Thatcher still police the agenda, with organisations like the Taxpayers’ Alliance, actually made up of those who stand to benefit directly from this setup, effectively positioning themselves as the common sense voice of ordinary people, and shouting down those who challenge this neoliberal consensus. 

Having laid this groundwork, Jones goes on to talk about the “Westminster cartel” of MPs with salaries far above anything like the vast majority of their constituents could hope to earn (£67K in 2015) implementing policies that benefit both themselves and the interests of those they work or lobby for (the “revolving door” between private business and parliament), such as private healthcare companies and venture capitalists. He talks about extreme language being used in the face of alternative ideas (think of reactions to Ed Miliband’s proposals on freezing energy prices and greater rights for tenants, or the continued demonisation of unions), to create the impression that any deviation from neoliberalism is simply madness. It clearly works; I’ve had conversations with people at work who make the same arguments and talk of plain fear at the prospect of a Labour government they see as extreme lefties - oh, the irony! Anyway, Jones goes on to talk about New Labour selling out to big business, and the acceleration of the intrusion of private interests into public services, often at great cost to the taxpayer, under the Coalition in areas like prisons, immigration centres, the NHS and education.

The remaining chapters of the book deal with specific areas of life where the establishment dictates the agenda. This includes a list of the usual suspects from the ‘traditional’ establishment such as the Humphrey Appleby-types in the Civil Service, newspaper proprietors and those at the top of the financial sector, but also includes many more targets that fit with Jones' wider definition of the establishment: tabloid reporters and phone hacking, the big four accountancy firms helping government to create tax laws and then helping firms circumvent them, the police considering themselves above the Law (think Hillsborough) and helping to create the conditions that facilitate the few being enabled to exploit the many (think mass surveillance and kettling of demonstrators), and a multitude of others like arms firms, lobbyists and energy companies.

The book includes interviews with various people seeking to position themselves as outside the establishment. Reading some of these, one cannot help but feel there’s both a goodly amount of self-delusion going on (think John Prescott or Paul Dacre, for example), as well as deliberate political posturing (he’s not interviewed here, but Nigel Farage is a prime example of this in practice), and blatant hypocrisy. Jones is very good at calling out the latter, citing Andrew Mitchell’s reaction when the power he wielded was turned on him in the ‘Plebgate’ affair, or the former tabloid editor Neil Wallis’ distress when subjected to tactics he once employed against others. I got the impression that many people were covering their own backs, and that despite having become something of an establishment figure himself (he acknowledges this) and thus able to gain access to the corridors of power, Jones was unable to draw too much out of them.  

This brings me to the question about who exactly is anti-establishment these days. Jones’ quest to find such people brings him together with a very odd bedfellow in UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, with whom he has nothing much else in common (“UKIP is not the answer to any question Jones might be interested in” – Runciman). UKIP presents a very good example, as it happens, of why this isn't a purely academic question. Farage has recently said, in conversation with Trevor Phillips, that he would like to get rid of many anti-discrimination laws, saying they're no longer necessary, and that employers should have much more freedom to discriminate/employ who they want to, depending on how it's read. When confronted with a backlash as a result, he branded the establishment "shameful" and "racist". This is fascinating, and actually illustrates why his desire to get rid of equality legislation doesn't add up. If we take him at his word and assume he's anti-establishment, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary, then surely if he's on the side of ordinary people he should be upholding laws that protect us against them? Conversely, if he is part of the establishment, then he's at least in part responsible for a racist culture. I would argue it's the latter that rings true.

Overall, I think this is a very important book in that it diagnoses the problems faced in modern Britain as a result of the power wielded by the establishment and points out the resulting symptoms, such as overlaps between Westminster and private business interests, authoritarianism, removal of the welfare safety net, records numbers of working people needing to use food banks and so forth. What it doesn’t do is offer many solutions or avenues for change; I have to confess I came away feeling utterly dispirited and fed up! Having been on Occupy myself and of the view that as much as they were seeking a new way to be, this was doomed to fail because of a lack of imagination, I wonder increasingly if what we need is something like what I’ve tried to get at in the sermon extract I’ve posted below.

Your thoughts, ideas and challenges would be appreciated! Let’s get a discussion going…
 

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In his book ‘The Prophetic Imagination’, the American theologian Walter Brueggemann describes the task of a prophet as being to “nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to [that] of the dominant culture around us”, which he argues is both “grossly uncritical” and “wearied”. In other words, prophets are all about cultivating a radically different way to be, centred on justice and compassion and the freedom of God’s liberating love. Whereas the dominant powers insist there can be “no new beginnings”, the prophetic imagination brings about renewal that leads to societal transformation.

So this calls for honesty, honesty to identity and penetrate the numbness and apathy that allows oppressive structures to flourish, especially when income-based segregation in things like housing and schooling can easily end up sheltering middle-class people (whom statistics suggest make up the majority of church members) from the everyday struggles of the poor and vulnerable. It needs courage, courage to grieve for the death of the current way of being and to articulate hope, when those running the show are fearful of the death of that which advantages them, and protest that there is no alternative. Finally, and crucially, it requires imagination to tap into the symbols in our culture that speak of hope. We need imagination to energise people, to help us discover language of poetry and praise to express wonder and amazement at the freedom of God’s love. Imagination takes the deep wells of grief and transforms them into wellsprings, torrents, monsoons of living and life-giving water.

Brueggemann goes on to talk about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the ultimate example of this. His death on a cruel cross acts as the ultimate criticism of all that the oppressive powers of his day and ours, religious and secular, stood and stand for. We don’t like to think too much about the reality of crucifixion, which was designed to strip its victim of their dignity and humanity, but we need to gets our heads around why the Romans did it and why it was effective. For starters, crucified people didn’t wear loincloths, but were naked and utterly vulnerable; no pandering to polite sensibilities here. It was a punishment considered too severe for Roman citizens and thus was reserved for criminals and rebels, and to avoid offending its inhabitants in this particular case, took place outside Jerusalem’s boundaries. It was a shameful death, followed normally by being dumped in a common grave.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that the cross was a stumbling block to Jews, many of whom were hoping for a military Messiah who would banish the hated Romans from their land once-and-for-all, and to Greeks, who couldn’t see the logic behind the claim that such a death brings about a new way to be. Yet, that’s exactly what Jesus Christ has brought about. This apparently foolish and crazy act, the letting go of all earthly ideas of power and wisdom, the refusing to love and live with anything other than the freedom of God, changes everything.

The cross shows us, whether we like it or not, where our selfishness, our clinging onto what we have and excluding the stranger, the poor, the vulnerable and the difficult leads us. And yet that wasn’t and isn’t the end of the story. Easter and Christ’s resurrection energise and free us to embrace and to cultivate hope. It makes a radically different way of being and doing possible. Rowan Williams once referred to the resurrection as a “second Big Bang”, a release of creative energy into the universe that opens up new possibilities we could never previously have imagined. The reality is that injustice, oppression and death do not have the last word. Through the continued energising of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome weariness and apathy to see things with honesty. We can find the courage to name our society’s demons aloud and seek out symbols of hope. We can imagine a transformed world, and express wonder as we see the freedom of God’s love at work.

FtM Chest Surgery Diary - Eight Weeks On

On the 4th December 2014, I had my chest surgery (sometimes called top surgery) at long last, with surgeon Catherine Milroy at St George's Hospital in London. This procedure served to change my previously female-appearing chest into a male-appearing chest as part of the process of gender affirmation/reassignment I've been going through over the past few years. For me, this has been truly life-changing already, because as I outlined in this previous post, having breasts caused me a great deal of distress as a transsexual man and created practical difficulties due to the need to bind them and through them causing me to be misread as a female.

 

In the hope of being helpful to others contemplating having chest surgery, I thought it may be useful to document the process as I go through recovery and adapt to my changed body.

 

The procedure I've had done is called a bilateral mastectomy with a nipple graft, meaning that the breast tissue that blighted my chest has been removed, a male-appearing chest has been crafted, and my nipples have been cut down to size and placed in the right part of my chest. I had to go down this route because my chest was quite substantial (DD cups - God has a sense of humour!), but smaller guys can have a keyhole procedure more akin to liposuction. This has the consequence that, as the photo below shows, I have scars around where my pectoral muscles lie which will fade with time but never entirely disappear. However, it does mean that I can now feel comfortable when I look in the mirror for the first time since I hit puberty, and can wear whatever I like without worrying about how visible my breasts are, both of which are awesome!

Eight weeks after chest surgery

In preparation for the surgery, I lost two-and-a-half stone so that my risk of an adverse reaction to the general anaesthetic would be reduced and to try to ensure a smoother recovery. Things didn't quite work out like that, as I got an infection in my left nipple and needed antibiotics to sort it out. I'm told it won't look as good as the right one, in that it won't have the pigment in it that it should, but it will discernibly be a nipple! I was initially worried that it would be permanently disfigured. However, despite this setback, I think the exercise and weight loss was very definitely worth it, as I bounced back quickly and my scars have healed very well and effectively.

The whole procedure meant spending a total of three days in hospital; this is something that a trawl of the internet suggests varies from surgeon to surgeon. Immediately after, it didn't hurt anywhere near as much as I'd worried it might, because my only previous experience was breaking my leg, and that was absolute agony when I came around. In the following days, I had to wait for the drains they'd put in to suck out the blood remaining around the wounds, so I wouldn't get swelling or an infection. Carrying them around everywhere with me was a bit odd, and they did hurt somewhat and restricted my movement; taking them out was the only really painful - as in enough to make me scream - part of the whole thing, though. Afterwards, I could move much more freely and felt a lot more comfortable.

Upon getting home, I began the slow process of recovering and getting back to normal. I'd been told that while I needed to go for walks, keep moving and do as much as possible, I couldn't lift more than a couple of kilos for a fortnight and therefore needed help with some tasks. I couldn't do things like housework or cooking, and not being able to reach too high meant Sally had to prepare things for me and put out plates and such like for me to use. However, I did find that, quite quickly, I could do a good range of normal things and that my chest would soon let me know if I was overdoing it! It was useful for Sally to be about to give me a bit of reassurance taking a shower, for example, but it wasn't long before I could do that myself without worry.

After four weeks, I was able to stop dressing my scars and nipples (it took me a while to get the hang of doing this myself and to build my confidence), and now have to massage my scars with fragrance-free moisturiser for ten minutes twice a day. They don't hurt, and indeed haven't very much since I left hospital - I stopped painkillers once free from infection, and even then I was relying on them more to stop me getting feverish than for pain management. Six weeks after my operation, I stopped wearing the compression vest that I was told to wear twenty-four hours a day. This was a relief, as I needed to sleep on my back and even with the special pillow Sally bought me, it became very painful. Trying to sleep on my side pulled on the parts of my scars reaching around to my armpits, and while they're now fine, it was very uncomfortable at the time. The vest also caused tingling sensations in my scars, which weren't very pleasant, but wearing it resulted in a better shape than would've otherwise emerged and preventing swelling.

So now life is getting back to normal, eight weeks on, and I can manage getting to and from work and going about the tasks of daily life without problem. I've got used to the feeling of clothes against my chest; I didn't have the panic about not binding some guys have described, but it was very odd not needing to tuck clothes under my breasts to prevent chaffing! Reprogramming my brain to not worry about covering my chest or being seen topless has taken time, but I think I've got there. Being able to wear whatever I like and not worry about how my chest looks has been liberating, but the expense of needing to get clothes taken in or replaced due to the big drop in my chest size wasn't something I'd factored in beforehand. Suiting is the hardest thing to adapt, and I've got rid of four large bags of clothes, including my favourite blazer. I can now wear smaller stuff, but will need to get rid of my belly to get into stuff that ideally fits around the chest.

Hopefully this gives an honest flavour of what it's like to have this operation and go through the process of getting back on one's feet. I have absolutely no regrets, and having been through three psychological assessments and nine months of physical preparation to be able to do this, am relieved to finally have gotten to this point. I can now get on with my life as a confident and happy young man who no longer has to pretend to be something I'm not, and who can now put the energy that was going into repressing the truth into making the most of things and looking to serve others. The healing that's occurred over the last few years means, I think, that I'm better able to love God and others, and that can only be a good thing.

Pondering the Turner Prize 2014

As part of the candidating process for ordained ministry, I have to reflect theologically on a theological book, a non-theological book, a film and a cultural event. For the latter, I have chosen to look at the 2014 Turner Prize, with the exhibition having been held at the Tate Britain in London. I managed to get along a couple of times to see the four artists’ work; the nominees were James Richards, Clara Phillips, Tris Vonna-Michell and the eventual winner, Duncan Campbell.

Richards was nominated for his video Rosebud, which manipulates and weaves together photographs taken from, among other sources, images found in a Tokyo public library censored to remove anything that might be considered erotic or arousing, VHS videos rescued from charity shops and original close-up footage shot by Richards himself. The result is a thirteen-minute collage overlaid with a soundtrack made up of amplified incidental noises in response to the visuals, which according to the exhibition guide results in “a restricted set of image sensations” that explores the joy of the act of looking. Some of shots are quite shocking, such as a close-up of a boot pressing hard on a man’s head; others retain a clear eroticism despite the censor’s best efforts, and many explore the boundaries between interior and exterior, public and private. The images quickly shift from one to another with the key action often taking place out of shot, more implied than spelt out, and the guide argues that the close-ups and high definition presentation makes even the mundane sensual.

Vonna-Michell’s work, Postscript, consists of two short films and a collection of images of such disconnected objects as fragments of old letters and a half-eaten Creme Egg, some of which feature in said films. These are both performance pieces in which the artist tells stories of searching for clues to help him make sense of his identity as a German-born man raised in Southend. They’re delivered at a breathless pace in brief snippets, sometimes repeated and often disjointed and anxiously delivered, a bit like the verbal equivalent of a random walk, while we watch a collection of slides that bear varying degrees of relationship to the narratives, but which in places provide something of a springboard for them. The first involves a search for the French sound artist, Henri Chopin, who lived close to where the artist grew up and whom his father says can illuminate why Vonna-Michell ended up in Essex, and the second an attempt to make sense of his parents’ stories about Berlin at the beginning of the Cold War. There is a vulnerability in this work, as childhood experiences and longing for meaning are interspersed with fictional twists, resulting in ultimately frustrated journeying.

Phillips is, unlike the other three, a print artist and her exhibition for the Prize involved the bringing together of various previous works. Her style is predominantly collaborative, and this was reflected in the spoken alphabet booth, the words having come from conversations during some printing work with women’s groups in 2010. The walls were adorned with recurring prints, most abstract-appearing (Phillips utilises mistakes and quirks in the printing process) and others various poses by a female model, and there was a large ‘OK’ on one of the walls. Finally, a large sculptured letter ‘K’ was used to present various prints from previous collaborations.

Campbell’s winning contribution was a film called It for Others, which I have to confess I didn’t see in its entirety, but which offers a profound and compelling discussion of the impact of commoditisation of art. It was inspired by a 1953 film by Chris Marker and Alan Resnais called Statues Also Die, about the “objectification and fetishisation” of African art in the face of western consumer demand, focusing on the Benin sculptures in the British Museum. As Campbell’s anxious female narrator points out, when discussing them, the Museum’s director conveniently overlooked uncomfortable aspects of and questions around colonialism when interviewed, and robbed of their original purpose and meaning, these everyday items become dead. Campbell takes this further, and as we’re shown various African masks, we’re also invited to ponder how art is ascribed its monetary value. A later part of the piece uses anthropomorphic food advertising using various scenarios around a dining table. Another section features a striking original piece of choreography by the Michael Clark company, spelling out ideas from Marx’s Das Kapital. Perhaps the most powerful bit of the film, though, is an exploration of how images of IRA martyrs came to be used for commercial and political aims during the Troubles – the famous image of Joe McCann by a fire ended up on Christmas cards!

My reaction to the four pieces, which I’ve outlined in the order one was directed around them in the gallery, was varied. Richards’ film got me thinking a little about quantum mechanics, in which the act of looking determines the state of an object (think Schrödinger’s Cat); seeing things very close-up and/or from the edges lends a different perspective to the act of looking, in which meanings aren’t always clear, yet to be fully formed by seeing clearly. I wonder how much of our perception of God is like that… I found Vonna-Michell’s films fascinating as well as frustrating; they invite us to ask ourselves what forms our sense of identity: how far is it to do with our parents and origins, especially in an age where many are keen to trace family trees, the things of our past and inner sense of who we are, or something found by looking beyond this to the bigger picture of the story of God?

I must confess that Phillips’ prints didn’t particularly grab me in any meaningful way, but I did find Campbell’s film compelling. The questions raised around the value we place on objects and indeed people are highly pertinent, especially in this neo-liberal and consumerist age with its Black Fridays and appropriation of seemingly anything for monetary gain, and they link in with some of the themes in my non-theological book by Owen Jones, which I’ll explore in a later post. Moreover, it got me thinking about how things might be different if we viewed the world not in these terms, but through a lens which tries to reflect the value God puts on people and things.

Five Stones and a Burnt Stick

"We have been created for intimacy: intimacy with God and intimacy with others", says God in the opening chapter of 'Five Stones and a Burnt Stick' by Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele. This short book is an exploration of what it means to experience an intimate relationship with God and with other people, intermingling Moses' encounter with God in the burning bush with preparations for his return to his people, ready to lead them out of oppression and slavery in Egypt. While it makes connections with the Biblical narrative in Exodus, the book is an imaginative exploration which aims to open up Moses' character and familial relationships in a deeper way.

 

In the burning bush sections, God reveals some of the secrets of intimacy to Moses, which include Demarcation, Difference, Dwelling, Disclosure, Discovery and the Sacred Fire. Demarcation is about needing to maintain boundaries for our own protection and in order to respect the integrity of others, while Difference unsurprisingly means recognising and affirming that which makes us all unique, seeing our differences as a gift and not a threat. In this, Steele picks up on similar ideas to those expressed by Rowan Williams in an essay on loneliness in 'Open to Judgement', in which the former Archbishop of Canterbury explores what it means to be human and to uniquely reflect God's image.

 

In a church environment often packed with words, Dwelling invites us to let our bodies go and simply to dance with God, as a way of expressing the language of our hearts. I love the image of the Trinity as being about the dance at the heart of the community of God, and here I feel Steele is inviting us to join in that risky but passionate movement. Disclosure offers an interesting take on original sin, with the fear that so often separates us from God and one another depicted as the mighty Leviathan, a beast that dwells in human hearts which must be disclosed, confronted, named and overcome, though as Steele indicates implicitly, the latter is ultimately God's work through Christ, rather than ours. Finally, Discovery acknowledges that intimacy is a lifelong journey, rather than something we acquire in a one-off event, and the Sacred Fire is much like the Quakers' idea of the light within, the indwelling of the Spirit which leads human beings into intimacy.

 

The narrative sections of the book explore Moses' relationships with God, his wife Zipporah, his son Gerson, his brother Aaron, and ultimately himself, prior to the exodus (the handing on of the tradition to Moses' daughter Miriam, who comes along after the exodus, bookends the main story). I found the reunion with Aaron and their discussion the most powerful of these, which shows something of Steele's passion for liberation theology and resonates with the depiction of the plight of the Israelites in the recent film 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'. The importance of Moses' artwork to the story also surely reflects Steele's own vocation as an artist, and I liked how the sharing of this with Zipporah and Gerson formed two of the most intimate and powerful sections of the story. However, I have to confess that I found the sexual scenes to be somewhat embarrassing to read; I hope I'm not prudish, but can't help feel there's such a thing as too much information!

 

This poetic and interesting book has much to recommend it, and I'm grateful for the gifts of a copy of the text and the invitation to write this review. Overall, I found the narrative less helpful than the burning bush sections of the book in exploring the nature of intimacy in a meaningful way, but there are useful ideas contained in both parts of the text which are worth exploring. Perhaps its biggest weakness is the dialogue, which at times felt unnatural and more like formal theological language lifted from an essay than anything one can imagine people actually saying in conversation. However, it's worth bearing with this to get to the gems therein, some of which this review has highlighted.

 

 

 

Five Stones & a Burnt Stick

 

Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele

 

2014

 

Whispering Tree Original Books

 

ISBN: 978-0-9927363-1-6



Magic in the Moonlight

As part of the candidating process, I have to be ready to discuss and reflect theologically upon a theological book, a non-theological book, a film and an exhibition of some sort. For my film, I've chosen 'Magic in the Moonlight', a sweet romantic comedy written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone.

Stanley Crawford (Firth) is a magician who uses the stage name Wei Ling Soo; he specialises in vanishing elephants, sawing women in half and unexpected reappearances. His oriental illusionism is highly successful, and we first find him in Berlin, in the middle of a 1928 tour of Europe. In addition to his stage show, Stanley is a renowned skeptic when it comes to all things spiritual and religious. He has a reputation for unmasking fake mediums and utter contempt for the idea of there being anything beyond the material world, complete with an arrogance that would make Mr Darcy cringe! The story begins with him encountering an old friend and fellow magician, Howard, who asks for help in trying to rumble a young American medium called Sophie Baker (Stone), who is currently in the French Riviera with a rich American family, the Catledges. Never one to resist a challenge, Stanley agrees to go there and reveal another fraudster. However, things don't go quite as he anticipates...

Upon arrival, Stanley manages to get on the wrong side of Caroline Catledge and her husband George by implying that anyone taken in by a medium must be somewhat dim. He next succeeds in confusing Caroline's brother Brice, who is thoroughly smitten with Sophie and practicing serenading her, with his sarcasm and ridiculing tone. When he finally meets Sophie, who is chaperoned by her mother, she gets a 'mental impression' of him as being connected in some way with the Orient and having had recent business in Germany. This doesn't particularly impress him, but at a later séance, a candle that Howard confirms wasn't being manipulated in some way seemingly floats in mid air of its own accord. This does make him stop and think! Later, Sophie reveals his true identity as Wei Ling Soo, and in a subsequent visit to Stanley's beloved aunt Vanessa, appears to discern details of a secret love affair by handling a set of pearls. The latter is enough to convince Stanley that Sophie is not just another charlatan, but the real deal.

As the two talk, it becomes clear that Stanley sees himself as an ardent rationalist. For him, the notion of there being any meaning or purpose to life is just childish thinking, a crutch that people need to drop even if hanging onto such beliefs gives them hope or helps them cope with life's ups and downs. He sees spiritualists as preying on vulnerable people, and religion as a kind of comfort blanket; moreover, he states that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has dealt with the 'God matter'. Even his relationship with his fiancé Olivia has more to do with logic than love. Yet, meeting Sophie has begun to open his eyes to new possibilities. There's one scene where their car breaks down and they take shelter in an observatory Stanley once visited as a child; he talks about being freaked out by the vastness of the universe as a boy, but next to Sophie it doesn't feel intimidating. Instead, he agrees when she calls it romantic. They later spend a week together while Brice, who is keen to propose to Sophie and is planning an elaborate honeymoon, is away on business. It's clear that Sophie's growing increasingly close to him, and that she's enriched and brightened up his dull, pessimistic life. However, while Stanley is prepared to stand up in front of the press to affirm Sophie's gifts and tell the world he's been wrong all these years, he doesn't reciprocate her feelings.

Matters come to a head when, having just finished his press conference, Stanley is told that Vanessa has been in a car crash and is seriously injured. George drives him to the hospital, and he begins to pray for her safety. However, after rambling about having no right to ask anything of God, he snaps out of it and realises he's being played for a fool. He returns to the Catledges' house to confront Sophie - if she is what she says she is, why didn't she predict the accident? After he supposedly goes for a lie down, Howard and Sophie talk about the former's joy about finally having got one over on his old friend with the latter's help, getting a shock when Stanley unexpectedly reappears in a nearby chair. He initially refuses to forgive them, but a later conversation with a now recovered Vanessa helps him see that, irrational as it appears to be, he loves Sophie more than he admires Olivia. There's a wonderfully funny scene in which he tries to propose by telling Sophie how lucky she'd be to have someone like him (a genius, apparently!), as opposed to Brice and his money. Although initially unmoved, the film ends with the two kissing, having finally got there!

I love this film, partly because it's simply a very sweet, gentle comedy with a happy ending and much humour along the way, and partly because it raises some interesting questions. Sally and I saw it together and realised that many of the arguments we've had throughout our relationship about the place of science and rationality over against what I would regard as superstition and nonsense were being played out on the screen. Coming from a scientific background (I have a physics PhD), I'm deeply sceptical about things like stories of paranormal activity and claims to communicate with the dead, whereas I guess she's more open to those things as possibilities. However, I am a deeply committed Christian, which is something that I appreciate requires a leap of faith, a trust in something that cannot be verified using the scientific method.

In the film, Stanley is portrayed as a kind of cross between Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, with a splash of Mr Darcy at his worst, who by his own admission towards the end of the film needed bringing down a peg or two. I'm ashamed to say it reminds me somewhat of my teenage self! He comes to realise that there is more to life than can simply be arrived at using cold logic, and that if nothing else, love certainly is a kind of magic. My own journey of coming to faith involved has been fundamentally shaped by a couple of encounters with God that don't make any sense if I try to explain them any other way. In later posts, I want to explore the relationship between the physical sciences and Christian faith in more depth, as the film asks the question of how a scientist can also believe in Gog, but for today, I want to finish by sharing one of my most powerful experiences of God at work in my life, confounding logic.

The first term of my PhD study in Durham was really tough, as I was moving into physics from pure mathematics and finding the graduate courses I had to do overwhelming, as well as home being a scary place for various reasons. At the end of that term, I went back to Bath for a few days to escape, and got cajoled into going to the CU carol service. The talk was basically about how babies are cute, so I tuned out and spent time admiring the Abbey ceiling. Something he said at the end of the talk (can’t remember what) must’ve touched something deep in me, though, as I burst into tears and couldn’t stop crying. A couple of days later, I found myself praying that if God really loved me, I needed to know for sure. Through a combination of circumstances, I found myself reading ‘The Growing Pains of Adrian Plass’ a few days later. In this book, there’s a passage where he imagines Jesus welcoming adopted children; even the kid who’s scared and hiding at the back gets a glimpse of Jesus’ smile and knows they’re loved. That touched something deep down inside; it was like the scared child within me getting a huge hug. That night, God’s love became a reality, rather than an intellectual construct.

Advent and Taking Stock

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and the beginning of a new liturgical year. Having read this post by Miranda Threlfall-Holmes about taking stock of things at the end of the year, and realising both how much has happened in the past year and what is to come in the next few days, I've decided to do my own bit of reflection.

 

This time a year ago, I'd finally started the correct dose of testosterone after a cock-up by the gender clinic meant I was only taking one seventh of the right amount for three months! In that time, my body has changed enormously, which has done a great deal to relieve my gender dysphoria. It's even been worth going through a mini-menopause as well as second puberty! Perhaps the most significant changes have been that my voice has broken and my facial features have changed, meaning it's now fairly rare to get mis-gendered or hassled in public. I feel a whole lot happier and more comfortable in my own skin as a result, and I hope this is reflected in how I come across to others. I've also been working hard to prepare for my chest surgery; after seeing the surgeon in February (one day after my 30th birthday), I've lost over two stone and improved my fitness beyond all recognition in preparation for the operation, which will be on 4th December, all being well. I cannot deny being scared, but also cannot wait to be de-boobed, if I can put it like that!

 

Reckon I now scrub up pretty well!

 

I suppose the other big thing is that in September, I began the process of offering for Methodist presbyteral ministry. I started out going to the local (circuit) gathering and having my sense of calling unanimously affirmed by those who've got to know me over the past four years as something worth exploring further. That was pretty overwhelming; I don't know what I expected to happen, but it certainly wasn't such a resounding vote of confidence - I still get a tad choked-up about it, to be honest. Prior to that vote, I completed an eight-day placement in Leicester, back in June, which was really inspiring. The minister I shadowed, Dave, struck me as really living out what I think I'm called to do - to help people recognise that they matter and can make a difference in their community. Reflecting on that formed just one part of the work for my eight-thousand word portfolio which got submitted at the beginning of November, and I've also completed two assessed services, survived a psychotherapist appointment and filled in a thousand-and-one forms!

 

Having started out the process wondering what all the fuss was about, I now reckon that it's impossible to take it seriously and not end up being heavily emotionally invested in the whole business. I've found the journey thus far to be very affirming, and it's made me realise that whatever its outcome, I've got something to offer and I'm not wasting others' time by candidating! That isn't something I find easy, because while my self-esteem has improved beyond all recognition and my barriers don't immediately slam up these days, I still struggle with praise even more than criticism, and honesty forces me to admit that I don't always handle the latter very well. However, I've got my head around the idea that God has given me gifts with which to serve him, join her in building up the Kingdom, and play an active role in the life of the Church. If nothing else, the process has made that penny drop! The next step is regional (district) selection at the end of January.

 

This year has also been massive in that Sally and I have celebrated our first wedding anniversary. I feel very blessed to have someone as wonderful and zany as her in my life, who's willing to put up with me, even though I sing Beatles songs loudly and out of tune in the shower in the mornings, on the days when I've not just being grumpy! It's just one of a number of firsts for this year: I visited somewhere I've wanted to go for years (Canterbury Cathedral) at Easter, visited Madrid on multiple occasions with work while validating operational risk capital models, went to my first Glyndebourne, shaved my face for the first time, spoke at Greenbelt as part of a panel discussion, became an LGBT Champion at work and managed to run over ten kilometres without collapsing like an asthmatic wheezing wreck! I've enjoyed documenting the year with a picture for each day on Facebook, even though some days the evening's TV was the most exciting thing that happened...

 

As you can see, it's been a busy year. As a final thought for this post, I was at a Two23 meeting yesterday and we sang this song at the end, which with all the emotions around candidating and my upcoming surgery and how kind and encouraging and loving so many people have been to me individually and Sally and me as a couple, made me burst into tears. It's about God's love surrounding us, which is very much how it feels at the moment:

 

 

 

 

Rape, Forgiveness and Football

I came across an article in today’s Guardian saying that Ched Evans, the Sheffield United footballer convicted in April 2012 of raping a nineteen year-old woman in a hotel room, has been allowed to resume training following a request from the Professional Footballers’ Association to let him rebuild his fitness. In response, the club’s patron, Charlie Webster, has resigned from her role, arguing that someone convicted of such an offence should not be allowed to resume a career that involves being a role-model in the community, and in particular for young boys and men. This case raises complex and sensitive issues about how we respond as a society to sexual violence, how we treat people with criminal convictions upon release from prison, and how issues of fame and status influence these dynamics, upon which I want to offer a few tentative thoughts.

First though, some statistics: according to figures from the Ministry of Justice, Office for National Statistics and the Home Office released in January 2013, approximately 85,000 women are raped in England and Wales each year. This figure doesn’t include violence against men, or the many incidents that go unreported for a variety of reasons, such as fear of not being believed or the victim being blamed for what happened to them – Rape Crisis England and Wales say that from their experience, only 15% of victims report being attacked to the police. Various myths circulate around the nature of rape and it’s victims; the reality is that in around 90% of cases, the attacker is known to the victim beforehand, rather than being a stranger springing out of a dark alleyway, and the ‘false reporting’ rate is no higher than other crimes, with the Crown Prosecution Service estimating such instances to make up less than 1% of all cases. Moreover, there’s no such thing as a ‘typical’ rapist, and rape isn’t about sexual frustration; indeed, studies of victims’ accounts suggest many attackers find it difficult to maintain an erection. Rape is about violence, power and humiliation.

The impact of rape on the victim is huge. As the statistic on reporting rates suggests, coming forward isn’t easy, and many people internalise a sense of shame or blame themselves for what happened. The trauma that results doesn’t magically go away over time, and struggling to trust a potential partner again is a very common consequence of having suffered any kind of sexual assault. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can give rise to flashbacks, panic attacks, blackouts, freezing with fear and many other symptoms., which can be triggered by apparently unlikely things, or comments or situations that most people wouldn’t react to – it’s one of the reasons why the kind of ‘humour’ or ‘banter’ occasionally thrown about these days around rape is so unacceptable to many. I’ve sometimes found myself, having experienced life being read by others as both female and male at different times, pointing out to male friends that language they might think is ‘ironic’ or ‘tongue-in-cheek’ can have a profound and distressing impact on others.

It’s vitally important, therefore, that the gravity of what Evans has done is acknowledged and reflected in how he’s subsequently treated. However much he protests his innocence, and while the criminal justice system isn’t perfect, he was convicted of rape in a fair trial by a jury of his peers, and must be seen in that light. Many jobs involve a representative aspect and require the person to be a role-model in the community, but few also come with the fame, adulation and status associated with professional football. If Evans was to eventually be re-signed and allowed to carry on as if nothing of consequence happened, it risks trivialising his actions and their impact upon his victim, and facilitates a situation where young boys could get the impression that sexual violence against women isn’t a big deal. I think the way footballers get hero-worshipped in our society is profoundly unhealthy anyway; in Evans’ case, it would be deeply irresponsible to elevate him to that position once more.

I do think, however and more generally speaking, that our response to people who’ve been in prison and served their sentence often lacks compassion and precludes the possibility that someone can change their ways. Forgiveness isn’t a very fashionable word these days, and it seems that, despite much evidence that the best way to prevent reoffending is for someone to find stable and fulfilling employment, having a real fresh start after serving a sentence is very rare. Employers are reluctant to give someone a chance, and having been a prison visitor in the past and spoken with a variety of folks, several expressed the sentiment that the first time they were sent down was like getting a life-sentence, as they’ve been unable to build a ‘normal’ life for themselves afterwards. If we’re serious about our justice system having something to do with rehabilitation and not simply a dynamic of punishment and revenge, then we need to recognise, I would argue, that human beings are rarely black and white; there’s good and bad within all of us, and redemption has to be a real possibility.

Obviously, the practicalities of working the above out are complex, as Evans’ case demonstrates all too well, and it’s worth pausing at this point to think about exactly what we do and don’t mean when we talk about forgiveness. As an example, consider the Biblical story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. Just as God had warned Israel when they clamoured for a king, human beings all too easily abuse power for their own gain. In David’s case, he saw Bathsheba, a married woman, bathing and took rather a shine to her. Learning she had a husband didn’t deter him, and the text tells us that he sent for and seduced her (2 Samuel 11:4), though what chance she’d have had if she’d said no isn’t a point we usually worry ourselves about too much – make of that what you will. When David found out she was pregnant, he tried to engineer a situation where Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, could return from battle and sleep with her, so everyone including him would think the child was his. After this plan failed, David conspired to get Uriah killed in battle (2 Samuel 11:14), so he could step in and marry Bathsheba. Seemingly, all was well, though God knew what he’d done.

Nathan was a court prophet, and God used him to call David out on his abuse of power with a clever bit of preaching that brought home the reality of his actions. Upon being pulled up, David acknowledges the wrongness of what he’s done (2 Samuel 12:13) and he receives forgiveness from God. However, the consequences of his actions for himself, for Bathsheba and for his kingdom were profound; David could never be the one to build the Temple, political instability and rebellion ensued in the years up to his death and beyond, and the child that resulted from his forbidden liaison died. Forgiveness didn’t mean being able to sweep his actions and their impact on others under the carpet, nor did it mean being able to carry on the same as before. However, it also didn’t mean being cast out from God’s presence, that everything David had achieved beforehand needed to be erased from history, or that he was dismissed as evil or a monster; David was still a human being made in the image of God, as is Ched Evans, whatever his past.

What I suppose this all shows is that balancing justice and mercy is a highly complex business that throws up profoundly difficult questions. Moreover, while we may want to draw out general principles from sources like the Bible, each individual situation has its own nuances which need careful consideration. In Evans’ case, the status accorded to professional footballers and the consequent responsibilities make it, to my mind, highly inappropriate for him to be allowed to continue in that role. However, branding someone a monster or condemning them to never be allowed to rebuild a life for themselves is cruel and perpetuates misery and suffering, and that I feel cannot be right, either.

My own experience of escaping and surviving an emotionally, physically and sexually abusive relationship is that forgiveness isn’t about pretending nothing happened (even if that were possible, which it isn’t when the silliest of things can cause flashbacks), acting like it doesn’t matter or excusing the person’s behaviour; it’s vital that what happened and the pain and suffering caused is acknowledged. It does mean, though, a willingness to not hold what happened against the person, to lay their actions aside and see their humanity, which is bloody hard work and an on-going process rather than a one-off event. I made a conscious decision not to let my anger consume me, after realising all I was doing by hanging onto it was destroying myself from the inside. It doesn’t mean the scars aren’t still there and that they don’t itch sometimes, or that being able to trust another partner, as wonderful as I think she is, has been easy at all, but it does mean there’s room for God’s love to be at work in me where previously there was just hatred, and that has to make a difference for the better, right?