MARK WILLIAMS ON MINDFULNESS

THE SHAPE OF LIVING

THE SHAPE OF LIVING: Spiritual Directions for Everyday Life has, according to its own blurb, become ‘a spiritual classic’.  Written in 1997 by David F Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, it was reissued in 2012 with a new preface.  He quotes liberally from the contemporary poet, Michael O’Siadhail (as well as the Bible).  As he says in the preface:

‘Poetry,with its potential for combining head and heart, density of meaning with musicality, is for me the core form of human language’.  

Of his subject matter Ford says it was ‘liberating to be thinking as directly as possible about what matters most in life’.  He admits his debt to, amongst others, a psychotherapist at Broadmoor and a priest and theologian whose enthusiasms were Thomas Traherne and the L’Arche communities for people with learning disabilities. 

No surprise then that the book’s Introduction is about ‘coping with being overwhelmed’.  Those ‘overwhelmings’ both shape and distort our lives and he is keen to recognise and confront them.  Whoever we are, we often ‘fail to cope, at least by the standards set by us or by our families or by others’.  His way of coping is to ‘answer the big questions of life, death, purpose, good and evil’, and his main task ‘to stretch our minds, hearts and imaginations in trying to find and invent shapes of living’.

Thus Chapter 1 is about people and how they shape our identity: Who are the faces and voices that concern us daily? Who are the people from the past and from the present who are always in our hearts even when we are not thinking of them?  Before whom do we live?  Who is welcome and who is shut out? Whom do we try to please? Whom do we fear? 

Chapter 2 is about desires; chapter 3 about virtue and character; chapter 4 about ‘secrets and disciplines’; and so on.

When he asks in the Introduction what are the resources for answering his questions, the answer is the religions – to which 4 billion people around the world subscribe, sometimes (as he well knows and as befits something – ‘like families, the single biggest arena of conflict’ – which goes so deep) with violent consequences.  And which religion? The religion of many in our society could be described as ‘a form of polytheism’, he says, with ‘many shifting objects of esteem and desire’. And since the great questions about life ‘do not allow for neutral statements’ -– ‘Everybody stands somewhere!’ he says -- Ford unapologetically uses his own religion (Christianity) to explain where he is coming from and to offer some shape to the discussion.

 At Wychwood Circle we have always been open to all views and all faiths (and none) – so we will trade on the fact that Ford’s discussion is also open to the less (or the not) ostensibly religious. (In chapter one, despite his introductory warning, there is no reference to God until page 19!)  And at Wychwood Circle we would no more dismiss the Bible than we would reject Shakespeare, or for that matter Michael O’Siadhail’s poetry. 

The Shape of Living (Introduction and Chapter 1) will be our theme for the first meeting of 2016, beginning at 7pm on February 7^th at Wychwood Library and ending no later than 9pm.   The question, How are our lives shaped, seems a good starting point for 2016 and we will decide after this initial discussion whether we want to return to all or any of the remaining chapters later in the year. 

PARIS TALKS AND ADVENT THOUGHTS

Praying for the climate - Advent 2015

In an interesting coincidence but a propitious juxtapostion the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP21) - or UN Conference on Climate Change - gathers at the same time as Christians begin the period of preparation and reflection known as Advent.  Though Christmas has been hijacked by our consumerist culture, with more people probably aware of 'Black Friday' (the first big day of sales) than 'Advent Sunday' (the first day of the Advent season), some of us will be doing our best to retain that attitude of quiet reflection and humility before the 'mystery' of the Incarnation.

This year we have one of the biggest issues there is to meditate on - the future of our very tangible but possibly not sustainable world resources - and to decide what action we should take, now and going forward.  Many people fast for the climate on the first day of each month: December 1st inevitably took on a special significance this time.  Others have marched to Paris, or led demonstrations, or decided that their faith led them to 'pray and fast for the climate'.  There are also climate-related Advent Calendars available, such as this one by A Rocha UK: no chocolate - just inspiration from a different voice each day. 

Blog and discussion

David Soward has elaborated on the facts, the motivation, and possible responses to damaging global warming for the Chase Benefice website. 

At Wychwood Circle we have a discussion planned on 'The Ethics of Climate Change' on June 5th 2016 - with an illustrious guest speaker in the shape of the recently retired White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University, John Broome.  John Broome has first-hand experience of world climate conferences and international efforts to come to some political agreement on what can and should be done about the climate.  We are lucky to have him on our list for 2016. 

2015-2016 PROGRAMME

A MESSAGE FROM MONAWAR HUSSAIN - November 14th 2015

Our good friend Monawar Hussain, who came to talk to a large audience in Wychwood Library last year about 'Islam - mainstream or extreme', has issued the following statement this weekend:  

FROM THE OXFORD FOUNDATION 

 

Paris terrorist attacks utterly despicable 

The following statement has been issued by Imam Monawar Hussain, Founder, The Oxford Foundation, following the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, 13^th November 2015:

 

“We are deeply shocked and saddened to witness the appalling acts of violence perpetrated against innocent civilians enjoying an evening out with their friends and families in Paris.

 

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, friends and the people of France. 

 

“Many will be asking how do we defeat those committed to such acts of cowardly violence against unarmed civilians?  We will defeat the scourge of contemporary terrorist movements through being absolutely united in the values that underpin our societies – democracy, freedom, rule of law, human rights and compassion for the vulnerable.”

THE 'WISDOM' OF NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

JEREMY CORBY - POLITICS OR RELIGION?

JC takes on the world (a personal view)

There has been much criticism of Jeremy Corbyn – particularly on the right of the Labour Party and centre-left commentators like Polly Toynbee and Jonathan Freedland.  They fear, for example, that he is a great campaigner but not much of a politician.  Does he really have a will to govern?  Or the ability to be Prime Minister?  Is he leading a political party, a plausible party of government? Or is he rather leading a movement, with a huge groundswell of support amongst the young and the forgotten left-wingers of yesteryear?

Oscar Wilde said that the trouble with socialism (or any other well-meaning political work?) is that it takes up ‘too many evenings’.  Jeremy Corbyn has devoted a long political life to the cause.  Is that impressive and inspiring, or just dumb?

PURITY NOT POWER

Corbyn has called for a kinder, gentler, more caring society.  By transforming the weekly parliamentary show of  PMQs he has also – so far – introduced a more positive, more grown-up style of politics.  As one commentator put it, he is changing politics although (by being ‘unelectable’) he may not  change the country.  He apparently has no appeal with those middle earners who do are not dependent on Tax Credits (which Osborne is slashing cruelly) and who also – telling point – never even come across those who are. 

STIRRING UP A DIVINE DISCONTENT WITH WRONG

His forebear, Labour’s founder Keir Hardie, talked of ‘trying to stir up a divine discontent with wrong’, and Jonathan Freedland (The Guardian) described his early Commons appearances thus: ‘he came across as earnest, committed and charmingly diffident’, ‘he radiated a winning humility’ – even if Winston Churchill wouldn’t have been impressed!  And despite all the supercilious dismissal by delighted Tories and the insular and petty right-wing media  he comes across, as cartoonist Steve Bell commented, as ‘plausible and straightforward’: ‘he’s completely outfoxed them’, says Bell.  Or, as journalist Jenni Russell said on Newsnight, ‘he isn’t playing the game’.

Could this be the man to change hearts but not – at least not so obviously – the world?  Is Jeremy Corbyn’s heart in the right place, but not his political instincts?  Is Jeremy Corbyn the man to take forward Keir Hardie’s idealistic ambition? Or is he just leading an ineffectual movement, destined to be for ever a counter-cultural, ethical, but not political force in British society?    Some might boldly draw parallels with another JC, who preached a kinder, more caring society in first century Palestine: he too had little time for political games but devoted his life to inspiring an oppressed underclass and … well, changing hearts and thereby, maybe, the world.

George Monbiot wrote an interesting article last week reporting a study by the Common Cause Foundation that found that we are more unselfish than is often thought.  He later tweeted that  the knowledge of this was enough to make him feel more benign towards his fellow man.  So if we are not selfish but we nevertheless (pace an electoral system which may distort our true intentions) seem to favour tough but harsh governments, what is it which will motivate us to be better people and improve our world?

‘THE CHURCH MUST IDENTIFY WITH THE POOR’

No doubt the spectacular result of the May general election, confounding all expectations, is still being analysed: was it shy Tories or fearful English voters, a gullible electorate or just the cunning of Lynton Crosby that made half the voters say they’d vote Labour or LibDem but then change their minds? Whatever our true beliefs and however they affected our actions in May, the fact is that we are where we are for the next 5 years and the poor and the climate will just have to take the consequences.  But maybe there is still some hope and some compassion: the Pope seems to be on their side, Jeremy Corbyn cares enough to risk ridicule by quoting the needy in Parliament, and the SNP make quite a good opposition.  Even the Archbishop of Canterbury this week echoed his own words from 2014, that ‘the Church must take the risk of identifying with the poor’.  Now steady on…