TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN

 

 

Words have tones, and words have overtones. The tones are the meanings such as they are researched, ordered and listed in authoritative dictionaries. The overtones are not heard by all, and not heard in the same way by all; the overtones (also called connotations) are determined by the culture of speakers/writers and hearers/readers. If there is a strong mutuality between, say, a speaker and his/her audience; a mutuality that may occur, let us say, at a political campaign rally; the speaker can utter outrageous remarks in such a way that any verbal record would not show anything remarkable; in such a case, the speaker relies entirely on a shared harmony of overtones. In journalism, this is now called a “dog-whistle”.

            In large parts of the American demographic, the word “government” has strongly negative overtones (perhaps because American English also has the word “administration” for more neutral use). In France, no one minds the word “government”; but the word “shareholders” (actionnaires) makes large sections of the French electorate foam at the mouth. 

            And overtones depend, not only on geography but also on historical period. A word that in one age is perfectly neutral or positive may in another age be strongly disliked. I am old enough to remember that in any publicly available printed text the (sexual) “F-word” could not be printed in full; on the other hand, in modern America, the (racial) “N-word” cannot be printed or even, in some cases, referred to. And a particularly intriguing case, one that goes as far as what one might call lexical dissonance, is the French word con, which in one meaning (the original one), that of the female pudenda, is taboo; but which in its other meaning of “a stupid and disagreeable person” is colloquially common to the point of ubiquity. 

            All this leads me to the word “religion”. In the space of my (now not inconsiderable) lifetime, this word’s overtones have gone from neutral and sometimes positive to almost universally negative. When I was young we sang what were then still called Negro Spirituals, among which were stirring songs like “Give me that old-time religion, it’s good enough for me.” Some people’s religion was Christian, others’ Jewish, still others’ Muslim or Hindu; and within the Christian, some people’s religion was Catholic and others’ Protestant. Now, however, to have faith is good, to be spiritual is good, but to be religious? Noooo. 

            It is a pity. The word comes from a Latin verb, re-ligare: to bind together again. The idea behind it is that somehow, Heaven and earth got separated, and that this is tragic. I’ve often wondered that so many people find the idea of Original Sin hard to comprehend. Looking around one (and inside one), it seems so obvious: our human mind is capable of imagining something flawless, perfect; but we are incapable of realising it. Something always comes along and buggers it up. This being the case, any idea, person, or institution dedicated to binding-together-again Heaven and earth, perfection and BHF (basic human fuckup); to restoring the link between the despairing human soul and hope, between the woundedly resentful and the charity of love, between the helplessly angry and peaceable friendship, should surely be welcomed and cherished. Alas, this is too often not the case, and the media, social and otherwise, who delight in the excitement of conflict, eagerly exacerbate the tensions.

            I should like us to restore re-ligio to its ancient and merited glory. Let us be re-ligious in every part of our life. Let us try, wherever we can, to re-tie the broken strings and cables, to bridge the gaps, to mend the bridges; and most especially those broken ties between simple, hurting humans and a loving God who cannot force them to love him back, and who weeps among angels.    

GENTLY NOW . . .

 

Makarioi hoi praeis, hoti autoi klèronomèsousin tèn gèn: ”Fortunate are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.”

 

In his television series (later a book) “Civilisation” Lord Clark wrote “We are so much accustomed to the humanitarian outlook that we forget how little it counted in earlier ages of civilisation. Ask any decent person in England or America what he thinks matters most in human conduct: five to one his answer will be "kindness." It's not a word that would have crossed the lips of any of the earlier heroes of this series. If you had asked St. Francis what mattered in life, he would, we know, have answered "chastity, obedience and poverty"; if you had asked Dante or Michelangelo, they might have answered "disdain of baseness and injustice"; if you had asked Goethe, he would have said "to live in the whole and the beautiful." But kindness, never. Our ancestors didn't use the word, and they did not greatly value the quality — except perhaps insofar as they valued compassion.”

 

I used to agree with this, and think that it was perhaps the Victorians who made the change; and broadly I still do. But there is a precedent, and I believe it is in the Third Beatitude. It is usually remembered, because of the Authorised Version, as saying that “Blessed are the meek”, and that translation has caused untold harm. “Meek” is not an adjective most people sense as positive or attractive: it conjures up images of a donkey bowing under a rain of blows from a cruel master’s stick; of oppressed or tyrannised people too passive to rebel; of Nietszche’s characterisation of Christianity as “slave morality”. But if we look at the Greek praos, the meanings given are subtly different. Of things, it is “soft, mild” as in a mild breeze; of animals, it is “gentle, tame” as of a horse not restive; of persons, it is “mild, gentle, meek” – in a case in Herodotus, of one who has been toweringly angry and subsides into being praos again. 

 

So I think it would be much better to translate its use in the Beatitude as “gentle” or “kind”, thus providing a precedent for that long-underrated value mentioned by Lord Clark. The praeis, then, are the “dear hearts and gentle people” that Bing Crosby sang (nostalgically) about as living in his home town in Idaho. And who, indeed, live everywhere, though they are only very rarely in the news. And being gentle, they are of course often taken advantage of, trodden upon, ignored, looked down on, sneered at, the butt of those (like Nietzsche) with “stronger, tougher” values. 

 

They also live, though, in all our memories. Almost all of us remember one or more truly gentle persons we knew when we were young. And we are certainly right in that, because the young have an unerring feeling for true gentleness in adults. And later we remember amusing posters calling for “random acts of kindness” which resonated because we had known such acts, and perhaps even from time to time performed them. 

 

Now, why are the gentle fortunate? Because, says Yeshua in a breathtaking sweep, “they shall inherit the earth”, no less. The planet, the whole kit and caboodle. Inherit it, as heirs; take possession of it, as the Children of Israel took possession of Canaan; be given it,  be left it, take possession of it, own it. And, my children, this is the new Law. This is the new Torah. The earth will no longer belong to the strong, the mighty, the superrich, the One Percent, the strongmen and dictators, the Führers and the corporations. It will belong to the gentle, the kind. In a way, this continues the First Beatitude, in its reversal of the values we take for granted. The basileia, the kingly rule, of Heaven will belong to the Beggars of the Spirit, while the earth will belong to the Gentle, the Kind. 

 

And while the Greek leaves it at that, the English translators added a twist that Yeshua himself might have approved: they changed “will” to “shall”. Now those of us old enough to remember prescriptive grammar recall that “shall” can mean a simple future only in the first person, singular or plural: in the third person, as here, “shall” combines future with imperative in a uniquely compact way. So, faced with the new Law, we should not simply wait for it to happen, but get on with making it so, in every small way we can. 

 

Cry aloud, spare not,
lift up thy voice like a trumpet,
and shew my people their transgression,
and the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet they seek me daily,
and delight to know my ways,
as a nation that did righteousness,
and forsook not the ordinance of their God:
they ask of me the ordinances of justice;
they take delight in approaching to God.

3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?
wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?
Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure,
and exact all your labours.
4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,
and to smite with the fist of wickedness:
ye shall not fast as ye do this day,
to make your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
a day for a man to afflict his soul?
is it to bow down his head as a bulrush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
wilt thou call this a fast,
and an acceptable day to the Lord?
6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens,
and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke?
7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry,
and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him;
and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning,
and thine health shall spring forth speedily:
and thy righteousness shall go before thee;
the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.
9 Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer;
thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke,
the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
10 and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry,
and satisfy the afflicted soul;
then shall thy light rise in obscurity,
and thy darkness be as the noonday:
11 and the Lord shall guide thee continually,
and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones:
and thou shalt be like a watered garden,
and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Isaiah 58

A TIME (NOT) OUR TIME?

This is a year of which many will be glad to see the end. I see the sentiment everywhere expressed, often profanely. And for this late post for the Second Week in Advent I was moved to consider the ways in which we relate to the “time of the world”. There are so many kinds of time we live in, as someone on French radio, discussing Gilles Deleuze on Proust, said recently; and what I call the time of the world is one that seems to occupy more people more of the time than ever.

The “time of the world” is not a measure of time, although years, decades and centuries might be related to it. Rather, it is “time” in the sense of Zeitgeist, a “spirit of the age” as the Germans call it: an expression dating from the nineteenth century, and which the sixteenth might have found bizarre. The sense of a Zeitgeist seems linked to what we now call communication, which in its modern sense is a product of the Industrial Revolution, and which participates (and is in part at the root of) the accelerating J-curve of “rapid social change” which the Victorians were the first generation to have to confront.

It has continued to accelerate and has now (for the time being) culminated in the smartphone. This, together with the social networks it gives us permanent access to, has had the effect of bringing the “time of the world” into individuals’ lives in ways, and to degrees, never before experienced. As such it far outstrips newspapers and television. Much, perhaps too much, has been said about this, and I’ve no wish to repeat it. But it does change the felt quality of this season of the year. Not its essence, which is darkness and hope, sorrow and the promise of light; but the felt quality, different as the Wind Chill Factor makes the felt temperature.

A year such as 2016 has brought to the world a series of misfortunes, some unavoidable (the hurricane in Haiti), some avoidable (the Syrian civil war and the American election result – which will soon be seen as disastrous by all but the few who sit on the pork barrels). And because of the “time of the world” it appears to have been a uniquely ghastly twelvemonth, spreading gloom all around. Nevertheless.

Nevertheless, the world has not become worse: it still carries on in its difficult journey from the Fall to the Second Coming, a journey full of sin and misery but equally full of kindness, generosity, love and hope. That these last are not felt by many as part of the “time of the world” shows the degree to which that concept belongs to the public world and the media that reflect and comment upon it. A French radio programme, “Carnets de Campagne”, each day interviews founders and members of local organisations that work on the bases of co-operation and solidarity: the number of these, and their quality, is astonishing. I shared on Facebook today the story of Torrington in North Devon and its experience with child refugees. In a little-repeated story, France in the last 10 months has seen anti-semitic and anti-Moslem acts diminish by ca. 60% from the year before. And virtually all of us personally know people who, at whatever level, make the world a little better.

At this time of the year, I propose placing “the time of the world” in perspective by more attention to two other dimensions: the “time of our lives” and the “time of eternity”. The Time of our Lives is what happens to us personally. It may be fraught with difficulty and danger, but it is our time, to savour and to deal with and to improve. And if, as also often happens, it is a time of happiness, joy or even prosperity, we should not let the Time of the World embitter that. The Time of our Lives is the time in which we can be kind, generous, positively effective and spread comfort and joy.

And the “time of eternity”? That is God’s paradox: dark and difficult, we tend to think until we remember that those supposed to understand it best are little children. It is the time which eternity underlies; the time which eternity penetrates; the time which eternity suffuses and lights with a glow that is permanent, if only intermittently perceived. It is the time of faith, of hope, and of love, at the smallest level (a child grasping its parent’s hand without looking) and at the greatest level, a dimension far beyond our understanding. That is God’s paradox, totally incorporated in the apparently simple phrase “Our Father which art in Heaven” – which always makes me catch my breath, when I think of Hubble’s view of a corner of the Universe: the Creator and Father of that, all that, is here in this room and hears my prayer? 

Stupendous. And quite enough for two candles.

THE SIMPLICITY OF HOPE

Jean Vanier: “Hope lies in the true encounter”

I recently put on Facebook a link to an interview in Le Figaro with Jean Vanier, perhaps the greatest living Canadian and winner of the 2015 Templeton Prize. In the context of a summer examination of the classic virtues, the Figaro's journalist, Guyonne de Montjou, asked him to comment on Hope. Vanier is such a remarkable man that it seemed worth while translating the interview into English, which herewith. NB: unlike English, French has two words for hope: espoir and espérance. The latter is slightly more formal and grand. So I have used the capital H to express it.

Introduction:

The work of Jean Vanier, 87, shows and expresses his Hope. “L’Arche” which he founded more than 50 years ago, counts 150 communities in 38 countries. In those homes, mentally handicapped persons live together with those who accompany them, for six months, for a year, for a lifetime. Via the daily routine, Hope is established and consolidated: hope for a world in which no one will feel excluded. 

When we speak of Hope, who comes to your mind?

First of all Nelson Mandela, who spent twenty-seven years in prison, most of them at hard labour. Maltreated, threatened, he knew – in his body, in his bones – that one day he would come out. Why? I don’t know. Where does that knowledge come from? That’s the real question. What I see is that he had the certainty that in the end justice would prevail. For him, it was inconceivable that evil would have the last word. That gave him the strength not to resign himself. Beyond evil there is always something else that draws us. That’s what Hope is. I strongly believe in that little inner voice that calls without ceasing and encourages us to see far.

Why do you say that Nelson Mandela’s Hope was rooted in his body?

 Because we are spirit AND body. At the beginning we spend nine months inside a body, in security. And then our life begins with that cry that also expresses the anxiety toward the infinity opening out before us. We cry because we no longer know what to do. For me, Hope lies in that cry of the newborn who calls for the arms, the security, who looks for communion. And so, for a bond, an encounter, tenderness.  Something in human life is marked with the seal of the Infinite, with that hunger for the Beyond. And also with the need for relation.

You describe Hope as “the little inner voice”. Charles Péguy, in his poem “The Porch of the Mystery of the Second Virtue” (1912), speaks of “little Hope”. Why is Hope so discreet? How would you define it?

The “little inner voice” is not a feeling. It’s deeper than that. It is an attraction to justice. To Truth. To Love. It’s a pull, a drawing, it’s not the fruit of discernment. The Second Vatican Council defined the place where we hear that little voice: in the individual conscience, that holy and intimate sanctuary where God speaks to each human being to help it to orient itself toward justice and truth. To turn it away from evil. The little voice is an attraction.

Is Hope the same as optimism?

No, optimism is a psychological attitude. One is optimistic because one feels too vulnerable to contemplate the glass as being half empty. Optimism, I believe, is less profound than Hope. Andrea Riccardi, the founder of Sant’Egidio, an association of more than 50,000 people in the service of the poorest and of peace, writes in his book on Pope Francis that every community is rooted in a history and is oriented towards “the hope of a utopia”. For example, at L’Arche, we help the shattered ones, the persons who are handicapped, to grow. We know that relationship lies at the core. As we live together, the mission is clear. We welcome people like Pauline, a 40-year-old paraplegic who all her life had been treated as garbage, to give them confidence in themselves. We do not want to change them, we simply want to encounter them with tenderness. We are filled with the utopian idea that the world is changing; instead of arming for war and showing that one is stronger than one’s neighbour, we feel that another world is possible. Each day we discover that communion is what’s important: a bond, via bodies, eyes, hands. Here we receive people who have been humiliated. And they begin to dance, to live, to grow, and to fill us with joy simply because of a bond of listening. But it is difficult truly to describe what is so small, so intimate, so discreet. I am convinced that the bond of communion between mother and child is the beginning of the red thread of the whole of life. We are always looking for that bond of understanding. Communion is linked to littleness, to humility. In order to obtain it, you say to the other, “At bottom, I’m no better than you. I need you.”

Someone else who, to you, incarnates Hope?

A man who I think incarnates Hope today is Pope Francis, precisely because he listens to that little inner voice. He doesn’t know where it will lead him, but he knows one thing: that we are healed by the poor. To go to the periphery, to the edges, means to listen to the way the marginal people, the poor, the burdened evangelise us and lead us to their wisdom. That is his essential message and it seems to me to carry Hope with it. The wisdom of the poor is the opposite of that of the world which always invites us to move up. Moving up is, somehow, pushing others aside in order to win. Going toward the wisdom of the poor touches humanity at its earthiest, its fleshliest and its most bodily. It is a cry. A cry to be recognised. I am moved by every story of humiliation. The humiliated cry out to be recognised. The great problem of our time is the separation between rich and poor. A billion and a half people live in shantytowns. And each day, another 100,000 people in the world join them, drawn by the big city’s ideal of consumerism, its materialist model. What do those humiliated people need? Someone who sees them and who believes in them.

Why to you does the cry of the humiliated, the poor, the handicapped represent a call, a plea?

Because it awakens something in the depths of my heart that gives me life. St Francis of Assisi tells how when he came out of prison, when he was barely 24, he found himself mysteriously attracted by a group of lepers even though previously he had found lepers repulsive. Something had changed in him. So he moved in with those lepers and shared their life. When, after two years among them, he continued on his way, he wrote, “I found a new gentleness in my body and in my spirit.” Finally, that experience of shared living had let him see the leper within himself. Often, when our heart is hard, if we protect ourselves and refuse to hear the cry of the poor, it is because we are afraid to reveal our own poverty. Recognising one’s limits allows one to enter into communion with the other.

In the midst of a society like ours, where the prime objectives are performance and success, where does one learn humility?

By not knowing. I knew a man who was perfect, who was successful in his marriage, in his career, in his family. One day. one of his daughters was born with a mental illness. He was completely lost. It was that little sick girl who taught him that there is something more to life than success. I think one learns humility when one looks for simple and true relationships. When one visits prisons, or the sick, one discovers that those one thought worthless are in fact terrific people. Everyone can do that. One doesn’t need a degree for encounters.

Do you think you have acquired a certain wisdom?

Not at all. I learn every day. A pharmacist, a woman, taught me something. Sometimes people come to her who suddenly say something very important. She told me that one of her clients came with her young son, and explained to her that he had lived through something dramatic and tragic. She was at once sad and furious. The pharmacist listened to her with great attention without saying a word. She showed her, with her regard, that she empathised with her suffering, that she felt compassion. But she said nothing. I asked her, what is wisdom? That woman answered me, “wisdom is the space, the time of silence, the regard which explains that you have understood the other’s suffering without necessarily speaking.”

In these times of families in mourning and where terrorism creates a desire for revenge, do you think that every man, the most radical of ideologues or a sanguinary criminal, is capable of amendment?

Of course. Who am I to judge him? I believe that each human being contains a seed of innocence.  It is buried inside him and functions as a base. I call it the seat of conscience, which goes deeper than the person himself. It is the inner place where one’s being is not shaped. That is why I think we should sometimes become like small children again, and touch the other’s innocent side. I believe that each true encounter between two people implies that virgin point, a certain humility, an attitude that can say, “I am no better than you.” When we help someone up who has tripped and fallen in the street, it changes us. Every human being is capable of that. Each man, whatever his way in life, whatever his suffering, hopes that someone will regard him with tenderness, without judgement, to discover the place of his innocence. One simply has to learn to welcome the other. And then one changes the world.

An example?

In the United States, a friend of mine, a doctor in a palliative-care unit, was called to care for a mafia boss who had throat cancer. All his life this man had wanted to be strong. And now, suddenly, he discovered someone who touched him with tenderness. Vulnerable now, he saw this doctor coming to his aid with goodness and gentleness. All his life he had believed that adults were bad and that one had to defend themselves from them. That was why with all his strength he had constructed a shell: deep down he must have had a fear of suffering. I believe that this story helps us understand the role of the encounter: it is the ingredient that nourishes Hope.

Doesn’t your sense of Hope for man sometimes come close to a certain naiveté?

 Perhaps. I’ll admit that sometimes I’ve been wrong. For example one time, I was working in a prison retreat in Winnipeg in Canada. They had seconded to me a pleasant prisoner, agreeable, near the end of his sentence, to help me. He was my secretary and was indeed devilishly efficient. He wanted to do his rehabilitation in the East of the country. So I recommended him to friends of mine to welcome him and help him with his first steps. I gave him their address. A few weeks later I had a call from my friends thanking me for the contact . . . the man, the ex-prisoner who had gained my trust, had disappeared with their stereo! Trusting is not always simple. There is always a risk. If I had listened more to the prison staff, I would have been more on my guard. They had warned me that this prisoner knew just how to inspire trust.  

What circumstances taught you about Hope?

What helped me most was the confidence of my father [Georges Vanier, diplomat, later Governor-General of Canada – RK]. I’m a Canadian, but I spent part of my childhood in England where my father was a diplomat. At the age of 13 I expressed the wish to join the Royal Navy. My father who had spent three years in the trenches near Amiens in World War I, said, “If that’s what you want to do, do it. I have confidence in you.” If he had said no, my life would have been different. The confidence he had in me was decisive, his greatest gift. I remained in the Navy for eight years. When I left it, I knew I had to go. Then I started L’Arche with the same conviction that this was my way. The little inner voice, still, that profound, intimate pull toward justice. Today, it seems to me that the most important thing is helping children to have confidence in their desire. That isn’t all that simple. To teach them how to trust that pull toward what is good. One can make mistakes, certainly, but time will tell.

What do you want to say to the young?

The other day I hosted a group of young people. They all had their smartphones in their pockets! I told them, “Here we don’t need experts in communication. What we are looking for is experts in presence.” Being present: it seems such a little thing! And it takes time . . . I spend time with you and I can’t spend it with someone else. But it is the only way to communion. Once one has tasted it, one can’t do without it. I still hope that when one person has changed, others will change. Deep down, that’s what my Hope is. “Encountering, meeting” is the keyword of Hope. It is the poor who will lead us to peace. In our world we need to create places where people can meet, play, live, experience something together. Once everyone has had a taste of that, everyone wants it to recommence. In a class, we need to pay attention to the student others make fun of; in society, we need to care for the person suffering beside us. Rather than in moving up, it’s in coming down to the humblest that we find ourselves transformed.