7 last words

My plan was to put this poem up next Friday but I have now almost finished writing another poem, also on a Good Friday related theme, and thought two in one day would be excessive, so have brought this one forward a week: which seemed more appropriate than delaying it and putting it up during the Easter season.

The Philippines is famous for its Holy Week commemorations, particularly people nailing themselves to crosses although that only happens in one place, and nowhere near Cebu, so that's one cultural experience we won't be taking part in. It remains to be seen how Holy Week will be celebrated here, although so far Lent has been remarkable only by how unremarkable it has been. Other than purple stoles and no meat on Fridays, (and as we often eat fish anyway that's hardly worthy of much note), there has been little to mark out lent from the rest of the year .. but we shall see what this week brings.

Anyway, a few fruits of my own Lenten reflections:

Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing

Do they know?

This pain inflicted

Not with nails

But with oppressive domination

Do they know?

Their violence

Cannot silence the voice of love

In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise

Where am I going?

to death

Or new life

Where is this paradise?

Is it as you expect?

It is here on this cross

Journey with me

Woman this is your son. This is your mother.

Open your doors

Open your hearts

One to another

Be a family

Be my family

Be one

Share my love

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me

Alone and abandoned

Only I can live this moment

Only I can die this moment

Not forsaken

But dying to this world

Dying as humanity

Dying as God

I am thirsty

I thirst

In the depths of my humanity

I thirst

Not for the bitter wine of my pain

I thirst

For the living water

Of love outpoured

It is fulfilled

Is this what the promises promised?

Is this what the prophets saw?

Is this what you sought when you followed?

It is the only way

Fulfilment found

In love

To the point of death

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit

I give my spirit

I give my all

Offered to the world

Offered to the hands of God

Offered in love

Take what I offer

I say no more

And you

What will you say?

I lift up my eyes to the hills

One of the many activities which make up the TVED programme is the "Youth Encounter" a three day retreat (encountering themselves, each other and God) which takes place in the "Don Bosco House of Peace" in Mantalongon. Each of the last three Fridays a group of students has set off, and each of the last three Saturdays, after our lessons finish, we have set off to join them, staying the night and returning with the students on Sunday afternoon. It has been a welcome break from the somewhat mundane routine of planning, teaching and marking, and also been very positive to spend some time with the students outside the classroom.

Mantalongon is about a three hour drive from Cebu, including the last half hour or so up a steep and only partially paved mountain road. For some of the students, who have never left Cebu city, it is a major adventure. For us, currently living on the opposite side of the world and accustomed to travelling fairly extensively around Britain and the rest of Europe, talking to some of the students gave a real insight into how small their world is. We talk about the world shrinking because of technology and transport, but for some of our students the world is very small in a completely different way, and the world outside that still seems like a very, very big place.

Being in the mountains, Mantalongon is noticeably cooler than Cebu, which for us has been a welcome respite for the ever-increasing summer temperatures; and for the students has brought another novelty: feeling cold. By British standards, it would hardly be described as cold, but then we do have glass in our windows, central heating and appropriate jumpers, coats and shoes.

The middle weekend was notably marked by my overnight battle with a very hungry mosquito, which I lost, spectacularly, meaning I spent the following two days looking like I'd been in a fight with my face so swollen that keeping my eyes open required physical effort. The swelling had gone down by Tuesday allowing me to count the 32 bites! For this weekend's trip, duly armed with an extra weapon in the form of insect repellant, it was my turn to come out on top!

Each Sunday morning we have been awake at 4.30am to be out and hiking up the nearby Mercado Peak by 5am. It has been a very pleasant change to be somewhere cool enough to go for a walk of a reasonable length at a reasonable pace. The top of the mountain is the location for photo taking, breakfast and individual silent prayer. Each week, the weather for these morning excursions has been gradually improving. The first week we sat on the mountain top buffeted by wind and rain, with some students believing they might die of cold.  The rain held off for our second climb, but any sort of view was shrouded in cloud. Third time lucky, for our final trip, the weather was perfect: still cool enough to be pleasant but bright with just a light breeze, meaning when we reached the top of our climb a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and the sea were spread out beneath us.

With the sessions mostly conducted in Cebuano, I can't really comment on the content of the retreat, but I know enough to know that the whole experience is something the students won't forget, and, in spite of the very uncomfortable bus rides, and not having had a lie in or day off for a month, it's something I am very glad we were a part of.

In their own words, part 2

You may remember that a while back I posted numerous quotes from the brochures for TVED which the senior students wrote for their English group assignment. Along with the written task, part two of that project was to produce and perform a television advert promoting TVED.

The quality, as you might imagine, varied considerably, as did the amount of effort the students put in to their production (not everybody made their own set of chalices from cardboard and silver foil, or paper ties colour-coded for the different courses, or borrowed uniforms from the students on other courses). It has taken me a while to get round to it, video editing is a time consuming process, but here are the edited highlights of what were probably the best three.

What we take for granted, part 4

It is now summer in Cebu. I'm not sure why the Philippines has its summer in March and April, but it does. TVED are still hard at work, but the main school broke up last Friday for the long summer break and the college will be ending their term soon too.

But although it is now summer, there aren't many indicators of the passing of the year and the changing of the seasons. It may be the hottest time of the year, but it hasn't exactly been cool the rest of the time, and the temperature increase is fairly negligible. The length of the days has changed slightly, but the shift from darkness falling at about 5.30, to about 6pm is insignificant enough to be barely noticeable.

In some ways, I have really enjoyed missing a winter. I have enjoyed not having to wrap up in endless layers to step outside. I have enjoyed swimming in the sea when I know friends back home are curled up by the radiator.

That said, there is a rhythm created by the passing of the seasons that just isn't as marked here. The year is passing by, but there is little to differentiate this month from the last. We might not like winter much, but maybe we do take for granted the variety of the seasons and the way it structures our experience of the passing of time. We might not like winter much, but it does allow us to appreciate spring.

Don't get me wrong, on those days next winter (of which I'm sure there will be many) when it scarcely seems to get light all day, where the wind whips your face and when although it is not exactly raining you end up soaked to the bone only minutes after stepping outside, I will be dreaming of a Filipino December.

But the crunching of autumn leaves beneath the feet, a bright, crisp day with a sparkling frost (and then coming in and snuggling up with a duvet), buds of leaves and blossom and the first daffodils, long summers evenings where the sun shines until way past bedtime. Maybe these are things I will appreciate just a little bit more next year.

Literacy and literature

I am a great lover of literacy and literacy teaching, so designing a literacy curriculum from scratch ought to be my dream job: and I am enjoying putting together an appropriate and adapted programme for our students. I am, because I am a bit of a grammar geek, enjoying organising the progression of skills and finding ways to explain at least some of the complexities and subtleties of the English language. But there is one thing that has made planning the curriculum here less fun than it might have been ... there are no books.

I have never taught literacy without books before, and, if I am honest, I wouldn't want to again. Being here has only served to reinforce in my mind (as if that were needed) that literacy and literature are and should be inseparably intertwined. I am sad enough to think that grammar can be fun and that playing with words is endlessly stimulating, but it is more fun in real books than in an abstract form. 

Part of the reason for the lack of books is financial, and my best laid plans of photocopying texts were also stymied by financial restrictions on paper, but the subject matter and expected outcomes also squeeze out the potential for literature in our literacy. The English curriculum here is teaching "functional literacy skills" - the English the students will need to survive in the workplace - so they can write an application letter, but we never write a story, they can read a set of instructions but not play with words in poetry. It is a sad reality that function has squeezed out fiction.

Don't get me wrong, I agree language should be functional. Its primary purpose is to enable communication and it is a great joy to me that, as an English speaker, language opens up a whole world of potential friendships, but I can't help feeling that language is also so much more. Yes, some would argue, linguistics is a science, but language itself is definitely an art: and like all the best art it should communicate something certainly, but also provoke questions and move you to new places, it should inspire thought and invoke emotions. It should be beautiful, which even the most well written CV, well, isn't.

There are interesting further reflections beyond our own educational circle. In the bookshops in Cebu the vast majority of the books are written in English, and the remaining small section is of Tagalog books: neither of which are the first language of our students and the population of Cebu. Cebuano exists primarily as an oral language, meaning you have to be relatively fluent in a second or third language before really being able to read at all. It makes for a culture much less literacy based and much less literature based than our own. Being able to read and having access to more books than I could get through in a lifetime, in my first language is yet another thing I take for granted.

So although I hope our students will speak and write English more fluently by the time we move on from here, and although I hope they will be in some way inspired to continue learning and exploring the language, I can't help feeling a little sad that in its functionality maybe we aren't doing justice to the beauty of language. 

So I encourage you to go, read a good book, a book that inspires, a book that is beautiful.

What we take for granted, part 3

We seem to be, at least briefly, in a period of relative routine at the moment, meaning our lives are dominated by planning, teaching and marking, which is, primarily, what we are here to do. Hopefully, by the time we leave, the students we teach will be marginally better at maths, and marginally more confident English speakers, and perhaps more importantly we will have written a teaching programme adapted to their situation and needs which will be able to be taught here after we leave.

Maybe because it is something of which we all have first hand experience, maybe because deep down we all recognise its central importance, education is something which generally incites interest and comment from, well, just about everybody. It is something that I, as a teacher, am of course very interested in, so prolonged contact with the education system here has given me plenty of food for thought.

On a global scale, the Philippines track record on education is fairly reasonable. Free, public school education is widely available and over 90% of children finish primary school, many of whom also complete high school. A system of state "night high schools" running in the evenings for students who have to work during the day, extends opportunities to those who might otherwise be outside the system. A closer look at the figures does show that the near 100% completion rate in Manila distorts the figures which range downwards to only about 30% in parts of rural Mindanao, but even so, the figures here are not as bleak as in numerous other countries.

All of the students we teach have made it through the basic education system, and emerged as high school graduates. For some, this in itself is a considerable achievement. TVED is the next stage, an opportunity for further education, which is the educational domain dominated here by private institutions and therefore for many students, including ours, prohibitively expensive.

As can be expected in any education setting, the ability of our students varies widely. Natural intelligence, of course, has a role to play. That said, as students who have "graduated" from high school the number who lack even the very basic skills is astonishing. How have so many of our students reached their late teens or early twenties unable to do simple calculations? Why did I spend a session teaching a 24 year old to count backwards on his fingers, something he appeared never to have seen before?

I haven't actually visited any public schools. I am sure some of them are doing an incredibly good job with very limited resources. I am sure there are some outstanding teachers striving to their very best for students in circumstances I have never had to contemplate. Obviously I don't know the many issues and questions which contribute to the difficulties of the Philippine Education System, nor is it, really, my place to judge. That said, I suspect an inability to fund the education system as fully as is needed, leading to huge class sizes and limited resources is probably a factor. I also doubt that the education system is exempt from the endemic corruption for which the Philippines is renowned. I have no easy-fix solution to offer, but it is certainly true that, whatever the causes and whatever the solutions, a lot of young people are being failed by this system.

Meanwhile, I certainly have no illusions about the British education. I do not think it is perfect. I wear no rose-tinted glasses. In fact, like most teachers, I can quickly identify many of its flaws and have experienced first hand its many frustrations. Our system's insistence on a results driven syllabus which can be measured by how many students can tick a certain box, and the valuing of individual academic achievements at the expense of everything else are, in my eyes at least, barriers to achieving perfection: the perfection of a system which inspires every student with a love of learning and a sense of their own inherent worth.

And yes, I know there are children who have been, and who continue to be failed by British education, which, in one of the most "developed" nations in the world, remains a scandal.

But somehow, I'm not sure we always appreciate enough just how good we have got it. So, even with a Conservative government claiming that I "am happy with failure" because I think academies are a really bad idea, even with Michael Gove at the helm of Education; we do still have an education system of which we should be proud. Not proud so we don't strive for something better, but proud so we don't forget to appreciate what we already have.

And why did he die?

It is Ash Wednesday, and as this is a time for repenting sins rather than committing them, I won't lie and say I have written this poem especially for the occasion. In between teaching, marking and unsuccessful trips to the immigration office, I haven't had a lot of time this week. However, in true Blue Peter style "here is one I made earlier" and today seemed like an appropriate moment to share this peom, and its accompanying picture.

And why did he die?

As he kneels in fervent prayer

To a God he knows as Abba

A prayer that asks for an easier road

But knows nothing hurts like love

With a cry of deepest anguish

What depths of suffering humanity

And what did he do? And why did he die?

As the lash cuts deep in flesh

And his heart is torn apart

The pain of divided communities

And of those who society excludes

With a cry of searing pain

What deep scars mark his soul

And what did he do? And why did he die?

As he wears his thorny crown

And calls for a different authority

A fight fought without weapons

As he stands against oppression

With a cry of hidden glory

What painful kingship this

And what did he do? And why did he die?

As he dares to lift this burden

And offer the gift of freedom

The release from violent force

And the possibility of life to the full

With a cry of torturous effort

What heavy burdens borne

And what did he do? And why did he die?

As his arms stretch wide in love

To live love and forgiveness to the end

A gesture of poverty and weakness

But with the hidden strength of God

With a cry of final abandonment

What vulnerability of love

And what did he do? And why did he die?

I wish you all a reflective and fruitful season of lent.

In their own words

Recently, we set our students a group project in English, to produce a brochure and TV advert for TVED. Here in their own words (but with a few spelling and grammatical errors corrected) is what some of the students have to say about their school:

“All I can say is it’s the best training I ever experienced. The training centre conducts an orientation to test how determined you are about studying here in Don Bosco. The student must be poor and interested to study because if you are poor there are scholarships to be offered.”

“TVED department has low tuition fees and it is a good school for me because they train you well and give you the opportunity that you are looking forward for.”

“I’m so glad when I was “in” because my first dream came true. Don Bosco teaches mostly about the values and morality and the spiritual things. He encouraged mostly the poor children and the young who are in bad ways.”

“The orientation is a kind of endurance that will measure or test the determination of the applicants if they are willing to be part of the team as Bosconians. Most of the challenges are to test your patience. It is also to measure your creativeness, attitudes and strength, to help us know if you are really capable to be a Bosconian.”

"If you are qualified to become a Bosconian you always remember the saying of the Bosconians, not only to remember it but to do it be a good Christian and honest citizen.”

“TVED is a training centre that teaches skills such as technical and intellectual and being here every day is worth it because you are learning new things every hour of the day”

“Like St John Bosco they teach young people the knowledge that they could use in life and to improve their skills like technical skills and also in sports, in using musical instruments like guitar, flute, beat-box, organ and drums.”

“There are many courses that TVED offers like IE, MT, HST and WFT. TVED has 200 plus students, 8 instructors, 2 teachers from England, 1 training coordinator and 1 training director. For me TVED is the best vocational training center because they have time about God like every morning has a mass except Saturday”

“After we log in we went to the chapel to have a mass. When the mass is ended the next task is chores. It is nice to see when everyone can work independently. After that we have a morning assembly. One student leads the prayers. We sing the Philippine National Anthem and someone will give a morning talk. When the talk is finished that is the time of our class hours. We have also different subjects but more on technical which is related to our courses. Before we end our training we have our hobbies, during this time I see the true meaning of life. It is nice to see when everyone is living together in harmony. We end our activities with afternoon assembly”

“DBTC-TVED just only helps you to learn something new that you never knew before. So be wise to use the time given to you for the hobby so that in the end you will be proud that even though you’re too busy for your study, you also learned some skills. The DBTC-TVED only wants you to learn not only in subjects but also in skills because we need an enjoyment in ourselves to continue to live life.”

“The most exciting day of Intramurals is the championship day. The winner of the game will be the champion and the champion will be proud of their team. The loser will be sad but the most important part of the game is that you do your best and most especially enjoy the game and show good sportsmanship.”

“When retreat day came we were all very excited. We all believed and expected that this retreat will give us the chance to discover our inner self. We entered the retreat house. It is situated in Mantalongon. It is a very suited place for people who wanted to relax and have peace of mind.”

“As a trainee here in TVED you are practising the good deeds of St John Bosco by doing your tasks extraordinarily well. Being a Bosconian is not easy especially doing things that are new for you but if you believe in yourself doing what is right and keep in mind that it is for your own good and you will become a good Christian and honest citizen because it is the only one thing that Don Bosco wants us to be.”

What we take for granted, part 2

I would probably have returned to this theme sooner, but a lot has happened and there has been a lot to reflect on in the last couple of months. February has brought with it a return to something vaguely approaching routine, and so, with the celebrations out of the way for a time, it seems appropriate to reflect further on the main part of our life here, our work with the vocational students.

Working with the students at TVED continues to open my eyes to the many things we take for granted, the many privileges we have come to see as rights, rarely pausing to consider that many are luxuries a large part of the world's population can only dream of.

There are plenty of signs of poverty among the students of TVED, but there are certain things in life which are so much part of meeting our basic needs that not only do we think of them as rights, but so should we, and so should everyone: surely something as fundamental as sleep shouldn't be considered a privilege? Probably not, but some of the students here certainly don't get as much as they need.

The TVED programme is all encompassing - the students are expected to dedicate themselves to the course and give 100% - not only to learning their practical skills, but to the social and religious elements of life too: TVED is forming characters as well as employees. It means an 11 hour day, six days a week, which alone is a pretty intensive programme. There are no optional extras here, it is all or nothing, and lateness and absence are not tolerated.

For most of us, a sixty-six hour week probably already sounds like more than enough, but for some of the students, that is not all they do. Although the fees at TVED are low, and not all of the students even pay those,  they still have to live. I don't want to exaggerate, many of the students are supported to study here by their families, but there are a fair number who, either before school or after, or in some cases both, have to work. Considering they have to be on site for 6.30am, that is no small thing. Some students earn money by driving the bicycle taxis in the early morning and evening, at least one we know does odd jobs at the home of a wealthy Filipino to support himself.

As a teacher, I find it very irritating when students doze off in my classes, but although I wake them up and ask them to concentrate, part of me can't help feeling that anyone who is tired enough to sleep on a hard wooden chair with their head on a desk, possibly needs the sleep more even than they need the English lesson!

So when you go to bed tonight, sleep well!

Shaken not stirred

Another week, another experience ...

Shortly before lunchtime on Monday, Negros island, the next island to the west of us here in Cebu, was struck by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake. They are still searching for the missing but so far about fifty people are thought to have lost their lives. Travelling to the north of Negros island is currently pretty tricky as a lot of the bridges have been damaged.

Hopefully, if anyone was worried about us, you know by now that we are fine. Here, the reverberations from the earthquake were significant enough to be exciting, but not serious enough to be scary. Cebu is, by Philippine standards relatively safe. Negros, like many islands here is volcanic, but Cebu is a coral island so at much less risk from this kind of thing.

I can safely say that earthquakes have much the same effect on students as fire alarms do, causing much excitement and unsettledness! The students were sent home on Monday afternoon, as a precaution, which did mean some of them arrived back on Tuesday morning asking if we could "have another earthquake today please"!

The damage at TVED amounted to a couple of broken windows, and part of the ceiling falling down in one of the classrooms where we teach (although that possibly says more about the shoddy construction of the building than about the severity of the earthquake!)

The aftershocks are continuing as the fault settles back into place, one of which woke me up at 5 this morning meaning I am now quite tired. Later in the morning I think the overreaction to a very minor tremor suggested the students were just looking for an excuse for a break! Earthquakes or no earthquakes though, the teaching must go on, so if the third floor classrooms were too risky, we decamped to the outdoor areas and carried on regardless!

The challenge of David - part 4

You will be pleased to hear that I think this may be the final part of my current series of reflections!

All of this thinking about David has led me to also reflect on Jesus’ life and in what ways he might be seen as David’s successor, an identity he is given in at least some of the Gospels.

Geographically, Jesus and David both grew up far away from the corrupting influences of armies and palaces of the centres of power, and David, a shepherd and Jesus a carpenter, were hardly those at the centre of political and financial power. It is there, at the outskirts of society that both grow in wisdom and learn to listen to God. It is there, too, that both experienced intense moments of receiving the gift of God’s spirit, David, anointed in the fields by Samuel, Jesus, baptised in the desert by John.

Both came into contact with sin and both, eventually, made their way to the centres of power, but their chosen routes and responses were very different. Perhaps it is these different choices which show how Jesus became truly the king after God’s own heart that David had been unable to be.

Like David in the cave on the hillside, Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, in the face of violence and danger to his own life, understood God’s call to non-violence. David and Jesus both told their followers to put down their swords. It was a vocation to peaceful, non-violent resistance from which David was tempted to stray by the trappings of wealth and power, but to which Jesus remained faithful to the point of death.

Like David, Jesus encountered both sexual sin, and financial crimes: but while David lamented his adultery while continuing to justify his vast wealth, Jesus shows himself forgiving and understanding with those who have committed sexual sins (for example, the woman caught in adultery in John 8) whilst he reserves his harshest condemnation for those who oppress others, who refuse to share their riches, and who live a hypocritical life condemning the sins of others whilst justifying their own immoral lifestyles.

While geographically Jesus followed David to Jerusalem, to the centre of power, and by some at least was heralded for kingship, ideologically Jesus rejected this place at the centre. He refused to collaborate with those currently in power, but nor did he agree to become a political opposition leader in a power struggle; rather he rejected the prevalent model of domination and authority, maintained by armies and aggression.

I think the stories that immediately follow Jesus entry into Jerusalem on palm Sunday in the different gospels are hugely significant in demonstrating Jesus’ response to entering the centre of power. In both Matthew and Marks’ gospels, immediately after his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus leaves again to spend the evening outside the city in Bethany, symbolic of his rejection of this place at the centre of power; and while in Luke it does not say he leaves, his reaction to arriving in the city is lamentation.

The first story John tells after Jesus arrival in Jerusalem, that of two Greeks asking to meet Jesus, perhaps adds a further dimension to our understanding of Jesus relationship with this centre of power. Perhaps if Jesus is going to come to the centre of power, he is determined that so is everyone else: the centre of power cannot be a place of exclusivity, but a place of welcome for all. Only in opening the power centres of our communities to be places to which everyone has access, and which do not define themselves by those who are in and those who are out, can we create a true kingdom of God.

Maybe the message of David’s life, and of Jesus’, is how hard it is to listen to the voice of God from the centres of wealth and power: to really hear what God is saying, maybe we have to choose to stay on the edge: which is a huge challenge, because how do I, as a Brit, as one of the richest few percent of people on earth, and very much from the centres of financial and political power, continue to live on the edge and hear God’s voice. Perhaps there are some very difficult choices to be made ...

The challenge of David - part 3

As well as the sin of sleeping with Bathsheba, David compounds matters by the state-sponsored murder of Uriah. So why the change, from the man who refused to kill Saul to the one who hardly had a second thought about ordering the death of Uriah: could it be the riches and the palaces, could it be the money and wealth that drives a non-violent man to surround himself with armies? Perhaps it is always inequality that makes us hide behind violence and aggression.

And just maybe, the different kingship, the ‘kingship after God’s own heart’ to which David was called, and to which God hoped he would be true was actually a rejection of all of this. A rejection of the palaces and the armies. Maybe the reason he was anointed for kingship as he came in from the fields to a family meal is because this was the kingship God was looking for, this was the kingship of service that would have made David a ‘king after God’s own heart.’ Perhaps the many “blessings” that David received from God in the form of riches and wealth were written into the story later, a justification of power, nationhood and empire; when God abides not in the centres of power, but at the edges of society, and alongside the poor.

How often are we tempted to justify our wealth: by giving token amounts to good causes to salve our consciences, by claiming God has blessed us with our possessions and our ability to oppress others. How true the words “How poor is the rich man who thinks he’s been blessed, by God, for the wealth that he hoards, how poor is the rich man who’s doing his best, to justify serving two Lords.” (Garth Hewitt)

Uriah is the named individual who suffers at the hands of a king maintaining his power and position by military might: but actually his death is no more of a crime than the thousands of others who die alongside him on the battlefield, for whose deaths David expresses no remorse, or even recognition that their deaths are a crime. Not much has changed. The nameless corpses on the global battlefields continue to pile higher and no one is repenting the deaths of the “unknown soldiers” and “unknown civilians” all around the world.  As the bodies pile higher no-one is even keeping count, let alone able to name, the victims of violence and aggression.

But maybe David’s prior step of accepting wealth and power, is also our preceding sin. The violence and aggression which we see as essential, as "protecting our security", are a side-effect of the local, regional and global inequalities which persist in our world and which most of us hardly even pause to question: or certainly not for long enough to make the sacrifices that are necessary to bring it to an end.

We claim that security and peace are high priorities, and most of us, if asked, would say it is wrong that children die of hunger while other countries are bowed by the pressures of over-indulgence and greed; but are we willing to step away from our palaces if that is the cost of setting things right. Do we, like David, cling to the centres of power, resorting to violence to defend them, or are we prepared for that truly different kind of kingship, that of God’s own heart?

The challenge of David - part 2

The story continues though (if you are wondering from what, please read part 1 first!), and somehow, it all seems to go very badly wrong. Taking up kingship, David, who has been anointed to be a different sort of king, a ‘king after God’s own heart’, seems to resort to exactly the same strategies as his predecessor, maintaining his power through violence and military might, and living in the midst of riches and wealth. When God called David to a different kind of kingship, I have to question whether this is quite what he had in mind.

David commits what is, probably, his most famous sin: Taking the wife of another man, and then to cover the deed, causing the man to die ... how different this from the David who refused to kill another man, even when some would have justified him doing so as self-defence.

Another prophet comes on the scene, and Nathan recounts to David his sin, through the use of a parable (2 Samuel 12). Sleeping with Bathsheba is generally recognised as being the sin from which David needs to repent, but reading the story more closely, I wonder whether Nathan actually identifies a far greater sin of which David is guilty: it is not just killing and eating the poor man’s ewe lamb which is the sin, but the preceding reality of having many flocks and herds in the first place, while another man has virtually nothing. The sin which allows the man of the parable to take the poor man’s lamb, the sin which leads David to think it is acceptable to claim another man’s wife as his own, is the sin of allowing the inequalities in the distribution of wealth to persist, and of justifying that this inequality is acceptable, even right.

Heading off at a slight tangent, this brought to mind the Sodom story (Genesis 19). In a church which can seem to be obsessed with the gravity of sexual sin while ignoring other far greater sins which are much more actively condemned by the bible, this story is usually presented as God’s wrath against sexual sin. However there is, in the text, another explanation of God’s anger: the sin of refusing to offer hospitality, the sin of refusing to share what you have with those who have nothing, the sin of excluding the outsider.

Maybe sexual sin is an easier and less challenging target for our condemnation than the acquisition of riches. Maybe we can be tempted to hide behind condemnation of the sexual sin to avoid the greater challenge of the call to open our doors to outsiders and to share what we have.  Maybe we, like David, are repenting of our peripheral sins while, with our eyes blinded by wealth and privilege, ignoring or even justifying our most significant ones.

To be continued ...

The challenge of David - part 1

At daily mass recently the readings have been following the books of Samuel and the story of David, shepherd boy, anointed by a prophet of God and destined for kingship. They have prompted some reflections which I share here in case you are interested in my theological ramblings.  I am not setting out to be a biblical scholar, so these are just my thoughts, in some sort of hopefully semi-cohesive form.

I have particularly been reflecting on the incident where David, in hiding from Saul’s violence, has the opportunity to kill the man from whom he is fleeing (1 Samuel 24). His companions urge him to do so, reminding him that the Lord has promised to ‘deliver Saul into your hands’. David throws down his sword, and instead of killing Saul, offers himself to him in humble, loving service. Saul’s response is, at least temporarily, repentance.

Perhaps it is this moment that marks David out as a true Man of God: his understanding that when God delivers Saul into his hands, he does not ask for violence: God never calls us to aggression. Rather, that Saul has been delivered into David’s hands through love, and it is to love than David is called. The recognition of this call to loving service is what proves David is really listening to God. And the message he hears is that meeting Saul’s aggression with love is the response that God himself asks. And Saul’s response, at least in the short term, is repentance. David either already knows, or learns in that moment that love holds a power greater than violence.

It is a tough call. David, literally, takes his life into his hands when he goes out empty-handed before the king and his armies who have headed to the hills with the express purpose of killing him. How often, not in the face of death perhaps, but risking ridicule or even just questions, do we opt for the easier path of aggression, be it actions, words or just in thoughts, rather than the self-sacrificing choice of loving service. 

David comes out of the cave empty-handed. When he offers himself and rejects violence he does it openly, visibly on the hillside. The choice to reject violence is not just about putting down the sword, it is about him coming out from the shadows, leaving his hiding place and approaching in vulnerability and weakness. It would be unrealistic to suggest that for all who choose this route the outcome is as fortunate as David’s. The route of loving service can also be the path to martyrdom. But maybe it would lead to a situation like David’s more often than we think. 

If only we had the courage to put down our weapons, to put down our harsh words, to come out from behind the masks which have become our security and to give it a try.

There is more, but this is long enough for one post – watch this space for the sequel!

All Hail to St John Bosco!

Today, 31st January, the church celebrates the feast of St John Bosco. We, on the other hand, have already been celebrating this feast for nearly a week. Lessons ended on Wednesday to be followed by three days of events and activities with the students, Sunday was family day, and yesterday the whole staff headed to the beach to swim in the sea, eat (a lot) and play mad games. By comparison to the goings-on of the last few days, today is fairly quiet. Time perhaps, to reflect on this saint who we are celebrating.

There is no doubt about it, Don Bosco certainly gets his name about (partly owing to the Salesians' lack of originality in naming their projects - of the twenty or so in this province, I think all bar two are called Don Bosco something!) It is a name which, this time last year, I knew of vaguely, and in a short space of time has become incredibly familiar. Along with the name, I have come to know something of the story of this holy and pioneering spirit.

In the midst of the industrial revolution, John Bosco became a priest and dedicated his life to working with those most other clerics of the time wouldn't touch with a barge pole. He called to him the boys from the streets, brought to the cities in search of employment or wealth but finding instead only poverty, destitution and abandonment. He welcomed those who were unwelcome elsewhere, he offered them a place to call home, a chance of an education and skills. He invited them to play and have fun and be children. He offered them the gospel of a God who loves them just as they are.

Mixed up in his story are tales of magic and miracles, incidents we might doubt through our 21st century eyes, but which were perhaps much more easily accepted by the people of his day. Irrespective of whether they happened as written, or have a more rational explanation, there is no doubt in my mind that the true miracle of Don Bosco's life was his absolute commitment to the poor and destitute children, migrants to the growing industrialised cities, abandoned by society at large. The miracle of his life was to pray holding nothing back, and so be willing to give up everything to serve these kids whose existence everyone else would rather forget.

And the miracle to which he calls us, is not to perform feats or tricks but to place those who are most excluded by society at the very centre of our thoughts and lives.

The need he saw then, for someone to show these poor, destitute, unloved children that there was someone who cared is just as real today. There are still children displaced by poverty, damaged by abuse or abandonment, scarred by war. There are still children searching for a place to be themselves, to run and to play. There are still children who need to hear someone say "you are loved"

St John Bosco has left a legacy in his name plastered on schools and youth projects around the world: but a greater legacy will be the day when the rest of the world wakes up to the call to care enough so that no child dies of a disease that could easily be cured, no child starves on the streets, no child is dragged into the misery of war, no child is left abandoned and alone, no child descends into a spiral of depression and fear.

If we live in a civilized world, surely that shouldn't be beyond our reach?

Filling the Void

After a short interlude for Santo Nino, this poem returns to a previous theme, that of silence. Melissa's comment forced me to reflect on my choice of the word empty and the meaning of emptiness. I do not withdraw my choice of the word empty in relation to peaceful silence, but I do agree that there is a huge difference between the emptiness of an opening up to the potential to be filled, from the emptiness which accompanies the lack of even a hope of fulfilment; between the creative emptiness of silence, and  the destructive emptiness of noise.

I would suggest that the latter type of emptiness is widely prevalent in our western societies. In spite of (or perhaps because of) being richer than ever, there remains a deep level of dissatisfaction and many people who struggle with finding and believing in their own worth and inherent value as individuals. Maybe the noise with which we surround ourselves is symptomatic of our attempts to fill a deeply felt void.

But perhaps it is only in seeking the first kind of emptiness, the creative peaceful emptiness of silence, that we find the possibility to overcome the second.

Filling The Void

Empty

Crushed and closed

A lonely despondency

The lethargy of nothingness

Empty

Fearful and frozen

Dashed dreams

And hopes unfilled

Chasing the pot of gold

At the end of an illusory rainbow

The empty void of what could have been

And isn’t

Empty

Breathing and being

Reaching depths

The silence of vitality

Empty

Open and alert

A window for light and air

Inspiring growth

Empty

Listening and believing

A space

Of new hope

Turning from shattering noise

To live and love and dare to dream

The empty depth only God can touch

With abundant life

Empty

Filling the void

With another emptiness

Of vitality and life.

Santo Nino 4 - Is this our God?

This poem is really a continuation of the ideas I explored in my previous post, but as that was already long enough I decided to offer this as a separate post, which delay, incidentally, gave me time to do a picture to go with it.

Baby eyes of a child’s wonderment

Discovering a world of joys and pains

Watching, waiting, hoping, fearing

Is this our God?

Tiny fingers reaching up

Crying out for another’s help

Living, breathing, loving, dying

Is this our God?

True Love hiding nothing in humanity

Breaking barriers and removing masks

Choosing, daring, feeling, being,

Is this our God?

The vulnerability of love

To the point of life

And death

And what is it we are asking for

As we pray to our vulnerable God?

Santo Nino 3 - In praise of a vulnerable God

Last weekend's festivities are continuing to provide food for thought (and content for blog posts – apologies in advance for the length of this one!) Hot on the heels of Christmas, with its all too familiar images of the infant Jesus, comes this feast of the Santo Nino, where the image which is so venerated is that of a small child (albeit dressed in the rich costume of the Spanish courts, but we'll lay that aside for the moment). Reflecting on this celebration, it seems right to also reflect on the image at the centre of it. I invite you to join me as I meander through a few of my thoughts, and to share your own reflections. 

It seems to me we have sometimes become so accustomed to images of Jesus as a baby or small child, or in agony (or with a saccharine smile belying the agony) on the cross, that it is easy to forget just how revolutionary and challenging these images are.

The person of Jesus, and the affirmation that He is God, turns on its head the idea of the all-powerful nature of God. 

Here is a human being, born as a baby completely dependent on others, living his early life as a refugee, learning the meaning of inclusion and exclusion and community, growing up under a regime of military occupation experiencing firsthand the effects of oppression and violence and power, standing against the authorities of the day challenging his realities without ever resorting to the use of force, and who suffers and dies the agonising death of those who have dared to challenge the regime.

It is easy to identify how the person of Jesus reveals many facets of the identity of God: the creativity of a creator God, the journeying of a universal God, the forgiveness of a merciful God, the relationships of a loving God, but I think his life reveals a weak and vulnerable God rather than a powerful one.

To suggest that Jesus, in his human life is all powerful and all knowing is to deny his full humanity. Christianity has been quick to distance itself from denominations who deny the divinity of Jesus, and, in words at least, most mainstream Christian denominations would affirm that Jesus is both fully God and fully human; but maybe in practice it is the divinity of Jesus which, ultimately we find easier to believe, and less challenging, than his complete humanity.

The power of love is a very different kind of power. Can God do all things? Well actually, maybe not. God is love, and therefore he cannot "not love". Love never imposes itself, it never forces. So if God were to force us, if God were to impose Himself, he would cease to be Love, and, by definition, if God is Love, if he ceases to be Love, does he not cease to be God? If God can do all things, he must be able to force others to bow to his will, but if he does so, does he not deny his own deepest identity, that he is and only can be Love?

We know from our own human relationships that vulnerability, a willingness to be weak and an openness to the effect of the other on ourselves is an inherent part of true love. That is why those we care about the most have the most power to hurt us or to touch us. If God is all loving, by definition he has to also allow himself to be vulnerable and weak, in order to allow his very being to be touched by others.

So does believing in a God who is not all powerful, who cannot do all things, make Him any less God? Well no, I don't think it does. Maybe the idea of an all-loving and an all-powerful God are not compatible, and actually, I know which I would rather believe in. Maybe the image of an all-loving God is even more special and more amazing than the idea of an all-powerful one.

Amidst the complexity of the doctrine of the trinity, my understanding is it is affirmed that these are not three different facets of God, but that each reveals the full and true identity of God. The true and full identity of God, then, is not an all-powerful being, but a weak, vulnerable suffering servant. The slaughtered lamb is not one image of God, but is the fullness of God. The true identity of God, is that as well as being fully God, he is fully human. 

The problem is, of course, if God is fully human - then that makes for a very challenging call for the rest of us!

Santo Nino 2 - The culture of religion

As promised in the previous post, I have been reflecting a little more on the feast of Santo Nino and its meaning. This weekend was undoubtedly a memorable cultural experience, but Sinulog is also the celebration of a religious festival. I had a wonderful weekend, but have been asking myself the question, did I really live it as a religious experience? It has led me to think more widely about the interplay between religion and culture, two things which are invariably impossible to separate.

About thirty years ago, in Cebu, a decision was made to separate the "cultural" Sinulog parade, on the Sunday, from the "religious" Santo Nino procession on the Saturday: but to say one was religious and one cultural is a dramatic oversimplification of the reality. There is no doubt in my mind, that dancing through the streets, with a Santo Nino waved aloft in one hand, and a bottle of Red Horse beer in the other, is not purely religious to the exclusion of cultural elements. Nor would it be fair to say the dance presentations on Sunday, all of which involved images of the Santo Nino, were purely cultural with no thought to the religious origins of this celebration.

The experiences of this weekend were completely alien to the way I usually experience faith, and are from a religious culture very different to my own. I cannot pretend that I found it to be a particularly prayerful experience.

That said, I think there were elements of faith very much in evidence, elements which are often absent in my own experience of religious culture. Sinulog concerned the whole of Cebu (and many from further afield): it was a community experience of creating a shared identity, of coming together in a truly joyful celebration, a celebration which is inclusive of all comers, whatever their motivations, intentions, faith or life stories are. As we walked to the stadium on Sunday morning, people cooking in the streets invited us, who they had never met, to eat with them. I believe the idea of an inclusive, welcoming, shared joy is a central gospel value, and it was probably the living out of this aspect of faith which, for me, was the most “religious” part of the experience.

The interaction between religion and culture is not limited to festive celebrations. It is something I have been very conscious of here, as we live our faith in a very different religious culture, but it is not just an experience for here, nor is it something I have only become aware of here. The wider ramifications of the interweaving of cultural and religious experiences are felt on a local, national and global scale.

It is an easy temptation to identify as "faith" things which are loaded with cultural influences, and likewise, to identify as purely cultural, experiences which actually have a deeply religious or spiritual significance, even if they would not always be named as such. It is not as simple as identifying where faith ends, and culture begins, or of promoting one to the detriment of the other, or of trying to separate one from the other, but about acknowledging how our culture and our history and a million and one other things affect the way we live our faith.

Viva Pit Senor!

This weekend we have experienced Sinulog, and although I have generally avoided writing purely descriptive blog posts explaining things we have done, Sinulog probably merits just that, as it is something it is probably impossible to experience, without making a trip to the Philippines for the third Sunday in January.

Sinulog, or the festival of the Santo Nino, is Cebu's celebration of the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines; the image of the Santo Nino being a gift from Magellan to the queen of Cebu on her baptism in 1521. Magellan didn't last long, being killed by Lapu Lapu on nearby Mactan island, and the image was lost for a time but when the Spanish came back and stayed in the 1540s, the image was refound, and is still housed in a basilica in the city. It is a history, as the "cradle of Christianity in East Asia" of which Cebu is proud, notwithstanding the contradiction inherent in the arrival of their faith with an occupying force.

So, every January, they celebrate - and they do so in style! The Cebuanos certainly know how to throw a party. On Saturday we were up at 3 in order to join the fluvial procession, with hundreds of boats accompanying the Santo Nino back to the city from Mactan Island where he has spent the night before in the Shrine of Our Lady ("at his mum's house"!) We set off from Pasil before dawn and by about nine were back and, with thousands of others were dancing through the streets, with Santo Nino statues held aloft.

We had time for a short rest and some lunch before heading into the city for the main religious procession, a 6.8 kilometre route around the city, which took us about four hours. We had been warned in advance that if we joined the procession there would be little chance of joining the mass with which it ends - and we could see people were already queuing to get a space in the basilica before we had even begun the procession. I don't suppose anyone really knows, but the estimate was that about 2 million people joined the procession (and nearly as many Santo Ninos!)

On Sunday there were even more people out on the streets for the cultural parade, but apart from a short walk to get there (even just that was an experience in itself!), we watched it in the stadium: and it was quite a show! The portable scenery and costumes were spectacular and the choreography was outstanding: and Santo Nino appeared every time to the loudest cheers. We watched all 135 dance presentations and left after the fireworks finale at 9pm.

I hope my words, and the photos below, do some kind of justice to our experiences this weekend!

After two very full days, there are plenty of thoughts and reflections buzzing round my head, but they aren't in order yet, so that will be for another blog post perhaps!

Touch the Silence

You can probably spot that part of the inspiration for this latest poem is the peace of our Boholano holiday. But it is also about more than that.

This is the first new year for several years that I haven't boosted my Taize batteries in one European city or another, but, thanks to the wonders of the internet we were able to join the last evening prayer live by webcam, even if we did have to wait up to 2am to do so. Even from thousands of miles away, it is something very special to take part in.  

Anyone who knows me well, knows that Taize is a very important part of my life. I can (and often have) waxed lyrical about the merits of Taize, and one (of the many) things they do very well is create the space for silence. Few people would describe me as the quiet, retiring type, but I have certainly come to learn the value of silence, the importance of  emptiness. In our results driven world with its judgements based on what we achieve, the importance of time just to "be" is essential and life-giving. It is something which is often missing in life, where, by choice or not, we are constantly surrounded by both auditory and visual noise. We live in environments where filtering out noise, even, maybe, where really listening is very difficult.

I think silence is one of the gifts that Taize has given me, and is one of the gifts, perhaps, which the church has to offer to the world. The problem is, that even in the church, silence is something which is often missing. Others may have different experiences, of course, but it seems to me the average length of the silence between "let us pray in silence for our personal intentions" and the next words can often be counted in seconds rather than minutes. So why do we feel the need to fill every moment? Why this absence of silence and space? 

Do we think we are just too busy and don't have time to stop? That in this hi-tech, supersonic world we can't "waste" time doing nothing? Are we under so much pressure to "do" that we don't have time to "be"?

Or is it even more than that - are we afraid of silence? Afraid of this absence, this emptiness - and if so why? What might we "hear" in the silence that makes us avoid it? Are we avoiding really listening, because beautiful though the message we hear may be, we fear it may cost us just a little too much of our comfort?

References to palm trees and sandy beaches aside, it is that, really, which this poem is about.

Reach out and touch the silence

Gentle waves on an empty shoreline

Blue reflecting blue

Sun sparkles

Emptiness stretching beyond horizons

How many grains of sand sit in silence?

Reach out and touch the silence

Palm trees silhouetted against brightening skies

Gentle rain on fresh green leaves

Washing clean

A canopy of life

What price this living silence?

Surrounded by chattering voices without

And amidst incessant ones within

Amongst the shoulds, and musts and ought tos

And the scars of society’s demands

Why do we fear this silent place?

Reach in and touch the silence

There is a place

Deep inside

We see

The beauty

And its cost

Hidden in the soul

Not hiding but living

Reach in and touch the silence

In this silence a whisper speaks

More is possible

Life in all its fullness

There is a place

Deep inside

Reach out and touch the noise

From your silence

Revelation from above?

Now the time when we remember the arrival of the wise men at the place of Jesus’ birth, the feast of Epiphany apparently used to celebrate four moments in Jesus life – his birth, the visit of the magi, his baptism and the wedding at Cana. I have been reflecting on what links these moments and their “Theophany” – how they reveal the true nature of God. 

Epiphany means revelation from above, but it has struck me that one of the things which links the four events remembered is precisely that this is not a revelation from above, but that Jesus, God, takes the lowest place: in a stable in poverty, as a vulnerable baby in need of the care of others, going down into the river taking the lower place, and putting himself in the place of a servant. 

My ancient Greek isn’t good enough (being non-existent) to suggest an alternative name for the feast; but perhaps “Revelation from Below” would be a more appropriate name for this celebration. Perhaps it is not when we look up, but when we dare to look down that we see the revelation of the true nature of God.

A new king is coming!

Long awaited hope of change

Some wait for glory and chariots of gold

But this king was born in a stable dirty and dark

To an outcast teenage mother

Far from home

Some chose to look down

And they saw God

New hope in a vulnerable baby!

Worshipped by those from far away

Some search for him in the centres of power

But he broke through their assumptions

Of palaces, grandeur and pomp

A baby in a stable

Some chose to look down

And they saw God

And God took on flesh!

Living life with human joy and pain

Some hesitate to accept his closeness

But he chose to join us in humanity

To the earth and deeper still

Down into the waters

Some chose to look down

And they saw God

A feast where all are welcome!

The drawing in of those who are out

Some give of what they have

But He calls them to give of what they haven’t

Pouring out the joy of inclusion

From the place of a servant

Some chose to look down

And they saw God

Are we busy gazing skywards

Searching for God in the great out there?

Are we looking to the heavens

And feeling all alone?

Are we waiting for our epiphany moment

A revelation from above?

But some chose to look down

And they saw God

Dare we?