What it would take?

I haven't changed.  Not a fan of institutions.  If I was a dictator I would have denominations dissolved.

I learned recently (In Our Time) that Bonhoeffer believed that the church in Germany had been so ineffectual and collusive using the thirties and forties that after the Second World War, a new sort of Christianity would have to emerge, one not based on the church at all.

I would get heads and bang them together.  One church or no church.  For me the diversity within the church is to be celebrated and retained.  The different factions within the church are all important.  The different traditions are all correct.

What stops the church from working together?

1) Power and Control.  It's much easier to be in control, and not to have to compromise and work in partnership.  This is a shame because the skills should be out there.  After all, is this not the basis of a good marriage?

2) The money.  Churches need a steady and reliable income.  It is good to know who your congregation is so that you can estimate what you are likely to receive.  Buildings need to be maintained.  It's an expensive business.

3) Intolerance.  The history of Christianity (indeed humanity) is littered with intolerance.  I agree with Brian McLaren when he described one of the worst things that happened to Christianity (and the best) was when Emperor Constantine stopped the persecution of Christians and made it the state religion of the Byzantine Empire.

This is when the faith first became an institution.

A New Education

A Mental Health Worker married to a Teacher.

If I had the power, I would dissolve these institutions.

No Schools-  When I left school I remember walking away from the building.  It was a quiet summers day.  I wondered what I had done wrong.  An image from a film of a person being released from gaol came to mind.  A small door within a large door opens.  A bag is handed out and placed on the ground.  A dazed and confused man (usually man, as men go to prison) steps out into the daylight with blinking eyes, all alone.

What would I do instead?  The qualities I admire about schools are:-
1) Introducing children to different cultures, challenges and opportunities, that they might not otherwise experience.
2) The idea of having to work out how to live in a community.
3) Providing a safe environment free from exploitation.

For me the challenge is how to reduce the need for society to define, classify, control and regulate.

How would I do it differently?

Andre Gorz discussed in Paths to Paradise (1985)  the paradox of a modern age when half the population works too hard for too much money, and the other half does not have enough work, or money.  He suggest sharing.   I would like to see learning of young children primarily facilitated by parents and carers, not nursery's or educational establishment.  However I do not see this as a private function.  I feel it should be a collective spirit based on shared experiences.  The learning style I opt for in parenting is called Action Learning. This is an experiential, dialogical model of learning which is sensitive to the vulnerabilities and inequality of parents as adults.  The main vulnerabilities as I see them are not to do with class discrimination, but to do with generational poverty due to insecurity in the emotional strengths in relationships (bonding.)  We can see this in the broad sense dating back to the destruction of family life through slavery, or the culture of 'parental remoteness' in upper class, Western European families.  At a local level, emotional insecurity leads to a lack of awareness of risk, due to poor early childhood experiences.  This is a catch 22 scenario, as 'not seeing', heightens the sense of parental vulnerability, increasing hostile and protective reactions.

So I would have universal surestart.  National Child Birth trust for everyone, and lots of maternity leave, and paternity leave until the age of 7.  The best model for me would be 'shared parental care'.   The system would need to support parents whose ability to parent is compromised by health, and other factors such as criminality, loss of a parent due to death, incompetence (risky behaviours) or geography (a parent might move overseas.)  I agree with the Finnish model of education where formal education begins at 7.

I would like the rearing of young children to be fun for all, a celebration of life, a shared learning experience, and for children to be surrounded by all manner of people, not just their own families.  The key rules for protecting children are ensuring many people see the child and carers on a daily basis in fun informal settings.  This is in the context of a social contract, where healthy parameters are discussed frequently.

Children's Centres should be part of integrated hubs in the community where, health, fitness, libraries, life long learning, cinema's, gyms, care of the elderly (shared meals), life long learning, celebrations, all take place naturally.

I would like parents to understand this as a vital and necessary role, which is to be shared with a wider community including grandparents and people with no children.

From 7 years I would like to see a range of opportunities open to children.  As education is necessarily conservative in nature, (by this I mean that we have ideas of education that echo across the generations), much of this will be familiar to today's experiences.

The categories would be:-
1) Classical education - based on small group 'Oxbridge style' tutoring.
2) Languages based on 'immersion' and experience.
3) Physical exercise and sports.  This will be based around clubs and personal interests groups.
4) Community Service, including caring, gardening, cleaning and neighbourhood renewal.
5) Individual pursuits.  This is based on personal interests.  These subjects are designed to help every young person believe that they are skilled and talented in some area of education.
6) Religious or faith based learning, to be conducted by faith groups, but not not exclusively.
7) Creative Studies - Find your creative genius, work with others to create it.

I would like to see most education delivered in small venues including domestic homes.  I think that it would be a step forward for exams and tests to be given less status in our society.

I would like to see the responsibility for education to be seen as a partnership between parents, educators, and the state.  Teachers can be part-time, offering their personal expertees to education hubs, part of community services that include all age learning. There would be many teachers, each with their part to play.

I would like to see young people monitor their own development through university style 'credits'.
Some of these categories will be streamed, with age not being a factor.  Other will be universal and bring all people together.

Eternal Bliss

Scenario One
Welcome to the Lottery - live from Camelot,
Be ready with paper - magic numbers to jot.

Here with me bring an aura of good fortune,
Si and Flo, winners of four million last June.

"We wish you could all share the luck that we found,
But then all you'd win would be your original one pound."

"On that day special numbers made our dreams come true,
Our lives were transformed - multicoloured from blue."

"He's so nice to me now, no put-downs, no bile,"
"(Treated you badly eh?) Gritted teeth, face forward, smile."

"The first is 11, our house number, how lucky,"
(Voice over) The 65th luckiest digit.  Not a push over, but plucky.


Scenario Two
They promoted him just six months before he retired in January,
He's worked hard at his career, I think he deserves every penny.

My pension is small, his, three times what I earned,
As a primary school teacher, 'marry well' - is what I learnt.

With the lump sum we bought ourselves an antique narrow boat,
It's our passion - private world. All we need to keep us afloat.


Scenario Three
Welcome to the restaurant at the end of the universe,
Up to now all you've done has been to rehearse,

What have you to show for the life that you've led?
It's your actions that count not just what you said.

We start with the money and the luck that you've had,
Everything spent on yourselves is worth nought - not a tad.

For value is not what if might seem at first,
The last end up best and the Best shall be worst.

To the Lighthouse -

Poetry in Motion  -  Penny for your thoughts  -  Existentialist angst  -  Polyphony of voices - Stream of consciousness

Of Lily's mind....
All of this danced up and down, like a company of gnats, each separate but all marvellously controlled in an invisible elastic net—danced up and down in Lily's mind, in and about the branches of the pear tree, where still hung in effigy the scrubbed kitchen table, symbol of her profound respect for Mr Ramsay's mind, until her thought which had spun quicker and quicker exploded of its own intensity; she felt released; a shot went off close at hand, and there came, flying from its fragments, frightened, effusive, tumultuous, a flock of starlings.

Of Mrs Ramsey's mind....
Jasper offered her an opal necklace; Rose a gold necklace. Which looked best against her black dress? Which did indeed, said Mrs Ramsay absent-mindedly, looking at her neck and shoulders (but avoiding her face) in the glass. And then, while the children rummaged among her things, she looked out of the window at a sight which always amused her—the rooks trying to decide which tree to settle on. Every time, they seemed to change their minds and rose up into the air again, because, she thought, the old rook, the father rook, old Joseph was her name for him, was a bird of a very trying and difficult disposition. He was a disreputable old bird, with half his wing feathers missing. He was like some seedy old gentleman in a top hat she had seen playing the horn in front of a public house. "Look!" she said, laughing. They were actually fighting. Joseph and Mary were fighting. Anyhow they all went up again, and the air was shoved aside by their black wings and cut into exquisite scimitar shapes. The movements of the wings beating out, out, out—she could never describe it accurately enough to please herself—was one of the loveliest of all to her. Look at that, she said to Rose, hoping that Rose would see it more clearly than she could. For one's children so often gave one's own perceptions a little thrust forwards. But which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case open. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace, which Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her amethysts? "Choose, dearests, choose," she said, hoping that they would make haste. 

Speaking of vegetables...
"It is a French recipe of my grandmother's," said Mrs Ramsay, speaking with a ring of great pleasure in her voice. Of course it was French. What passes for cookery in England is an abomination (they agreed). It is putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like leather. It is cutting off the delicious skins of vegetables. "In which," said Mr Bankes, "all the virtue of the vegetable is contained." And the waste, said Mrs Ramsay. A whole French family could live on what an English cook throws away. Spurred on by her sense that William's affection had come back to her, and that everything was all right again, and that her suspense was over, and that now she was free both to triumph and to mock, she laughed, she gesticulated, till Lily thought, How childlike, how absurd she was, sitting up there with all her beauty opened again in her, talking about the skins of vegetables. There was something frightening about her. She was irresistible.


Speaking of Love.....Mr and Mrs Ramsey
And what then? For she felt that he was still looking at her, but that his look had changed. He wanted something—wanted the thing she always found it so difficult to give him; wanted her to tell him that she loved him. And that, no, she could not do. He found talking so much easier than she did. He could say things—she never could. So naturally it was always he that said the things, and then for some reason he would mind this suddenly, and would reproach her. A heartless woman he called her; she never told him that she loved him. But it was not so—it was not so. It was only that she never could say what she felt. Was there no crumb on his coat? Nothing she could do for him? Getting up, she stood at the window with the reddish-brown stocking in her hands, partly to turn away from him, partly because she remembered how beautiful it often is—the sea at night. But she knew that he had turned his head as she turned; he was watching her. She knew that he was thinking, You are more beautiful than ever. And she felt herself very beautiful. Will you not tell me just for once that you love me? He was thinking that, for he was roused, what with Minta and his book, and its being the end of the day and their having quarrelled about going to the Lighthouse. But she could not do it; she could not say it. Then, knowing that he was watching her, instead of saying anything she turned, holding her stocking, and looked at him. And as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness)— "Yes, you were right. It's going to be wet tomorrow. You won't be able to go." And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again. She had not said it: yet he knew. 

The Novel ends...and it begins...
"He has landed," she said aloud. "It is finished." Then, surging up, puffing slightly, old Mr Carmichael stood beside her, looking like an old pagan god, shaggy, with weeds in his hair and the trident (it was only a French novel) in his hand. He stood by her on the edge of the lawn, swaying a little in his bulk and said, shading his eyes with his hand: "They will have landed," and she felt that she had been right. They had not needed to speak. They had been thinking the same things and he had answered her without her asking him anything. He stood there as if he were spreading his hands over all the weakness and suffering of mankind; she thought he was surveying, tolerantly and compassionately, their final destiny. Now he has crowned the occasion, she thought, when his hand slowly fell, as if she had seen him let fall from his great height a wreath of violets and asphodels which, fluttering slowly, lay at length upon the earth. Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was—her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision. 

The End- and as the story restarts...the beginning again.
"Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow," said Mrs Ramsay. "But you'll have to be up with the lark," she added. To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night's darkness and a day's sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests...

Prayer Thoughts

My usual 'Ironing' accompaniment with my mate Melvin

In Our Time discussion about Prayer  - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005465m

With Professor Russell Stannard, physicist, religious writer and author of The God Experiment; 
Andrew Samuels, Jungian analyst and Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex.

In Our Time discussion about Dietrich Bonhoeffer -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bkpjns

With Stephen Plant, Dean and Runcie Fellow at Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge

Eleanor McLaughlin,  Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at the University of Winchester and Lecturer in Ethics at Regent’s Park College at the University of Oxford

And Tom Greggs, Marischal Chair of Divinity at the University of Aberdeen

In Our Time discussion about St Paul - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kjk8z

Helen Bond is Senior Lecturer in the New Testament at the University of Edinburgh; 
John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews; 
John Barclay is the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University.

And my thoughts on Prayer inspired by this programme.

"Thinking of you", a modern secular way of saying "Praying for you". But is it enough?  We know that connecting with 'the other', a Supreme Being, is universal across all time and space.  Is there anything out there?  I agree with Samuels (and perhaps Stannard too) that researching the effects of prayer is likely to back fire.  The premises of the experiment is floored.  What if the experiment was repeated in Japan?  Is God's love dependent on The attention of a fan base?  I was interested by Carl Jungs book, described by Samuels, analysing the God of Job as a narcissist.  

I like the idea of the word 'pray' being banned.  

Beauty is a Vector

The arcing blades of wind-turbines bring wonder and inspiration,
But if just one stands stationary, this turns to consternation.

Beauty is a vector, motion creates depth of vision,
A beautiful face is nullified with a dull expression.

One, with large body and moled face,
Speaks with joy, fascinating, delightful, a warm embrace.

The other, beauty as seen on the screen,
Plastic expression, two dimensional, mean.

Making Myth

Elizabeth got her ICU diary back from safe keeping on Friday.  She read the diary without experiencing any trauma.  She did point out the historical inaccuracies (for example - that nurse was Christie, not Kirsty. I didn't use a letter board, I wrote with my right hand.)

It struck me that this is how myth evolves.  Slight inaccuracies which Liz is pointing out in the blog, are sometimes changed, sometimes not.  She says I have simplifies the story for my readers.  Perhaps so. After some time the story solidifies.  It is analogues to a pathway that is formed by many people treading the same route.  After a while it become difficult to re-route.

I remembered when I transcribed my great grandmothers memoirs and was then surprised that my mother, uncle and aunt did not seem very interested in it.  "Oh she exaggerated.  You can't believe what she wrote."  For me it didn't matter.  What she wrote might as well be the truth.  Didn't matter that much to me, as I was not emotionally involved.

I heard a Hindu explaining his understanding of Hindu mythology. He said that the things described in the Hindu texts happened so long ago.  No one can verify whether they actually happened or not.  And does it matter?  It's in the past.  Why not believe, but if you don't, it doesn't make much difference. The past is the past, a distant land.  Myth and reality; two sides of the same coin.

And I think about my own relationship with the sacred text of my faith.  Does the same perspective apply to me?  I recently listened to the 'In Our Time' radio broadcast on artistic representations of 'Judith'. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002hl7

The programme began with a discussion about whether the story could be described as an early historical novels.  Apparently the narrative is full of historical inconsistencies.  If these were corrected, then how would the story then play out?  The Protestants removed the book of Judith from the biblical cannon and put it in the apocrypha.  One reason for this it was argued was that Jewish scholars had already made this decision.

How important is it to identify myth?  Am I a myth maker?

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, - A Study in Scarlet

"Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction."  - Mikhail Bakhtin

So to my conclusion - Myth occurs when questions end.  The truth is maintained and kept alive by shared lived experiences.  These are as beams of light projected on the truth from all directions.  

To quote Michel Foucault

Truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an original affinity with freedom.

MICHEL FOUCAULT, History of Sexuality