bloody exams

THOUGHTS FROM EXAM SEASON (a few months ago)

Aargh! Yours Truly has exams over the next ten days, and may be a little distracted. When I was dismissed as Dean of Waiapu I decided to pick up a diploma course on Conflict Resolution. I have been muttering imprecations in my own direction ever since. Whatever was I thinking? Apart from anything else I’m not entirely convinced by the quality of the course (and in fact Massey University is canning it after this intake). But as I come towards the pointy end, with just (just!) two exams and a Practicum to go I’m really not wanting to fail.

When I did the first paper back in late 2016 I was somewhat shocked to find that exams still existed. I hadn’t sat one since my Divinity degree back in the mid-80s, and am seriously sceptical about their value as a method of assessment. As I went on through the course in 2017 I discovered to my relief that the exams were a diminishing part of the assessment, so I was somewhat shocked earlier this year to discover that they are 60% of these papers.

Oh well. A wing and a prayer. I feel chronically under-prepared. 

But maybe there’s a parable in this somewhere? Good old Christian doctrines of judgement (= assessment?) have taken a hammering over the years. The methods by which Christian teachers and preachers kept their flock in a state of terror over the centuries were not dissimilar to the methodology of examiners: “on judgement day …” Of course if you were lucky (or blessed or whatever) there were a few ifs about grace and about being found in Christ and ransomed by his blood et cetera, but basically the message was unchanging. “Be afraid, be very afraid,” as Quaiffe says in The Fly.

I will preach and teach often about not cosying up to “God-bro” (or “God-mate” in Australia, “God-chum” in UK, “God-buddy” in the USA, if you get my drift). As a people of God we should err on the side of grace. God is the God who creates grace, who welcomes us to the divine feast, who bridges the gap between our fallibility and divine perfection. I don’t think God (or St Peter) has a check list. But at the same time as we extend divine manaakitanga, divine welcome and hospitality to those outside our faith community, we need to keep remembering that we aren’t chumming up to God by dint of our spectacular worthiness. Not to bash ourselves up, just to “re-member” (as I try to put it, on purpose, in the Eucharistic prayer). It’s God’s feast, God’s church, God’s eternity (whatever that is), not ours.

God ain’t our bro. God invites us and will invite us eternally (whatever that means), to join the feast of joy. God invites all, and, I believe, will continue to do so – eternally. Whatever that means! We just need to make our lives reflect that inviting attitude, too.

I just wish my examiners would.



PS ... I passed

neutered gospel?

NEUTERING THE PROCLAMATION OF FAITH
(notes from an old pew sheet ... Waiapu Cathedral, 17.08.14)

I write in my “Gospel Comment”* of  the gift that is flowing from uncluttered, pre-scientific cultures back to our rationalist, materialist world. In its wackier forms it may appear as the “tree-hugging, alfalfa-munching, muslin-wearing” naiveties of New Age and neo-hippie groups. I am no fan of forms of angel-touting mysticism that sidestep the brute realities of the Incarnation and the Cross, but if push were to come to shove I would prefer that idealism to the cynical rationalism that reduces the central truths of Christianity to fairy tale status, labelling itself “progressive” while dismantling the great Christ-stories of hope and comfort.

In some areas we have grasped this well. We have reclaimed the wonderful respect, for example, that Māoritanga can give us for Ranginui and Papatuanuku, rightly speaking out when we exploit and destroy God’s earth. With the Celts we murmur our “amen” when we lament an attitude that sees “the earth [as] a witch and we still burn her, Stripping her down with mining, and the poison of our wars …”.  We voice our opposition (I hope) when that is, as it so often is, the dominant trend in our greedy exploitative culture. We must, for when we do not we are failing in our obedience not so much to the “marks of mission” but to the very commandments of our faith: we are stealing from God’s garden and from the hope-baskets of our descendants.

But we are doing so, too, if we take the texts that are texts of comfort in our whakapapa of faith and render them meaningless. The balancing act is fraught. Karl Marx famously called religion “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” It can be, if we allow it to be; if it leaves us cosy (which was not what “comfortable”, that maligned word of liturgy, meant) and complacent. “She’s right, Jack” is not the gospel-message.

Nor, though, is “if it can’t be measured it don’t exist.” When I am confronted by the recent horrors of Gaza or North-East Iraq, Central African Republic and Sudan, I will try in some puny human way to respond, giving to aid organizations, writing to politicians, what Paolo Freire called “consciousness raising.” I will also stutter prayers, often wordless, participating strangely in that mystery St Paul called “the groaning of the Spirit.” When a child dies (more obviously back in the days when clergy saw more funerals) I will offer words and touches of comfort, but, more importantly, I will whisper prayers, entrusting this and all brutal contexts of grief into the weeping heart of God that is also, inexplicably, the eternally-dancing heart of God.

For, beyond the child’s death, beyond her parents’ grief, beyond our speechlessness, God dances “amen” to and with all creation. That resounding “amen” of course can’t be measured, for it is eternal. That is why it is the last word in the New Testament.

*On Matthew 14. 22-33 (NRSV)

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.

But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."

He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came

toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.   And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

It’s dangerous to put modern interpretations on an ancient text. Matthew wants us to see yet another example of the mustard seed faith that Jesus called for back at Matt 13:31-32 (or three weeks ago in liturgical time). Here in this woman is the great faith born of desperation and proximity to disaster. In the “Global North” (“West”. “First World”, whatever) we have tended to rationalize such faith away, making it an intellectual proposition. Listening to the stories of Indigenous and other non-rationalist believers I am increasingly unsure that this is wise: should I poo-poo the stories of those who have cried out in the face of evil and experienced the hand of God? Despite all the ransacking of the Global South “pre-scientific cultures,” that went on in the name of “progress” it may be the mustard seed of faith that is the gracious gift of the dispossessed, given back despite everything, back to those of us who believe safely from the comfort of our armchairs. 

on bowdlerizing fear

I’m not your kind of face your fear, jump-off-a-bridge-with-an-elastic-band-on-your-ankles sort of dude. Kudos to some of my daughters and some of my first cousins once removed in law (and where does the “s” belong in that construction?) and I guess anyone else who faces their fear and does that. Many bungy gurus feature variations of “face your fears” themes in their advertising, and I believe AJ Hackett Bungy (yeah, I promise I’m not being paid for this) are featuring my current whare karakia in a publicity film exploring in part the spiritual dimension of facing that fear. But I’m simply not brave enough. 

Heights and me.

Yeah nah. As I once said to my niece's and nephews in laws' cousins (and where go the plural and its apostrophes there?) paying for such escapades escalates fear to high enough levels, thanks. 

But I guess when rental companies say you can take their cars on any road except, then the wet paint syndrome kicks in. It was years ago, and I read it after I went from Auckland Airport to Russell and back to Whangarei one afternoon. Oops. The Russell Back Rd, which I took to spice up the return route, was verboten. Goodness knows why … sure it was dirt and there were a couple of steep banks but hardly scarier than some parking buildings. It was the 1980s, though, I guess, and kiwis were still paranoid about incompetent and murderous French terrorists popping up on the edge of Tai Tokerau. It was raining heavily that day back in 1988 and I didn’t see any frogpersons (no pun intended) lurking around, so I accidentally ticked that illicit road off, and survived to tell the tale. 

The second, Ninety Mile Beach (a gazetted road), I covered some years later in an aged and borrowed Subaru wagon. The aged vehicle was revelling in what was supposed to be its last week of active duty. It did so well it was given a couple of extra years after that. My life had taken a few personnel changes by then, but the principle was the same: head back to places of backstory and find a few adventures there. The Ninety Mile Beach was tickled off in the Subaru we called “Legend.”

But what of the third? As I noted here a few weeks back I’ve taken a turn down in the Deep South. Yeah, in bungy country, you could say. And the third verboten track is on my doorstep: Skippers, here I come. Though first I had to take a trial run out the Macetown Road. That probably wouldn’t have thrilled rental car companies, either, but Chuck is my truck. At any rate it wasn’t too terrifying. 

So, on to Skippers. And to my surprise it was a doddle. Or mostly it was. Though there is that  famous  bridge to focus the mind. The hundred metre drop  rather does that. But basically Skippers is a doddle, and I knocked the bugger off without too much terror (yes, that is the same bridge, albeit with someone else on it. The passengers walked). 

It was on the way home, though, that I encountered my parable. Because, disappointed by Skippers’ terror levels, I noticed another road, and wondered where it went.  Of course I turned up it ... and it went up.

And up. And yes that is the same bridge far below. Very far below. And the road is not terribly wide. It all focusses the mind most wondrously. 

I’m not into bungy jumping, or even climbing ladders, but there is no doubt a 700 metre drop and a not terribly sophisticated looking road can raise the adrenaline levels to a reasonable degree. And it did. It took a long time before I overcame my fears of height and inched my way around the corner.

Which is really the point of all this.  Because fear. There was no way I was going to leap into the car and practice my drifting on that precipice. It probably wasn’t epically terrifying, but it was for this little black duck. It was fear. Seven hundred metres above a bridge one hundred metres above the river. 

When I was a teenage atheist I was slightly puzzled by a fetish displayed by some Christians, adamant that the word translated "fear" in much of the Judaeo-Christian scripture didn’t mean that at all. Awe, maybe. Love, even. But a nice God doesn’t generate fear.

Nice? Like an English cucumber sandwich? 

No. 

I was terrified, 40 years later, by that bluff far above the Skippers Road. Far more than awed. And, as Tina Turner might say, what’s love got to do with it? I did not love that precipice. 

I respectfully suggest that fear is a thing. Aslan, as C. S. Lewis told us, and I have often stolen from him, is not a tame lion.

Aslan roars. 

I’m sorry, but the Creator-Redeemer-Judger of the Judaeo-Christian scripture is no doddle. We may choose not to believe such a being exists: I think that’s a far more honourable decision than turning a lion into a pussy cat. I disagree vehemently with those who think “God” is some bearded ogre in the sky punishing anyone who lives in other than an Adam, Eve and the baby boys (and where did the grand kids come from?) nest.  On the other hand I disagree vehemently with those whose sole interpretation of the biblical text seems to be focussed on who does what with their wobbly bits.  

But on a third hand I disagree equally vehemently with those who think the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a benevolent celestial purveyor of candy floss and cuddles. Those who take bits out of the bible because they look a bit grumpy, because they look not terribly cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey Tea. 

Because by God, if there is a celestial Creator just beyond my sight and understanding, then I sure as whatever am not going to trivialize Her-Him with fluff of any sort. Not the fluff of lovey-dovey "God and his little boy Jesus are my mates" saccharinity. Not the insidious God likes me because I drive a Prius saccharinity. I am going to be so bloody focussed that I inch ... No: I micro-milli-inch my movements in the presence of that fearful, terrifying being. I am going to flat-on-my-face-bloody-terrified quiver in the place of that Divine Being. Far more terrified than I was hundreds of metres above the Skippers bridge. 

Oh yes. 

Of course the Judaeo-Christian scriptures indicate that isn’t the end of the story. Yes, they reveal a brutal method, a bloodied cross by which that God enters into and transforms my terror into dancing. But I, sure as that God (if such a being exists) flung stars across the heavens, am not going to sashay up to Him-Her with an ever so confident “Hey, Sis-Bro, didn’t we do good? Didn’t we sanitize your story and make it all sweet? Aren’t we great, getting rid of that blood and guts and fear so you became easy to swallow? You and me Sis-Bro. We did it.”

Because I think that the Lion of Judah might roar. An acrophobe’s terror of a precipice in central Otago ain’t nothing compared to the roar of the Creator narrated in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures. If there is a God I sure as whatever don’t want to chance that roar.

We will remember them

I was, I confess, a part of that generation that grew up with what I later came to see was an unhealthy disdain for the ANZAC tradition. I was deeply influenced by Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year, which I saw performed at the beginning of my teens.

I was too young to explore the many layers of meaning in the text, but bought readily into one of its superficial narratives, an exposé of a generation that I, readying to be an Angry Young Man, felt were overly controlling and out of touch with a post-Beatles world (the play, of course, was written before the Beatles). By 1986, when the play resurfaced, at least in Melbourne where I was by then living, it all seemed passé: few people attended ANZAC observances and World War One survivors were few and far between.

Then, suddenly, a whole lot of things coalesced, and either I or the world or both woke up.  Over the next five years our senses of respect grew exponentially; children proudly wore their grandparents’ medals, attendances at marches increased dramatically, school curricula embraced new reverence for sacrifices made.

With them emerged new waves of understanding of what those caught up in the  brutalities of war (not just WW1) had lived through. PTSD became a thing; slowly we who lived warlessly realized that the degenerate drunken day that Seymour in part portrays was not some sort of selfish nostalgic debauchery. Slowly, as the last WW1 Vets died out we realised that the gathering and marching and telling stories, and yes no doubt a drop or two of rum and the odd game of two-up, was a tiny step of healing for those whose scar-tissue reached far deeper than we could ever imagine into their minds and souls.

While I didn’t this year, it has been my privilege in recent years … perhaps twenty or more now, to take part in and often lead liturgical observances for those whose lives were caught up in wars not of their own making. It remains true, of course, that there are some deeply evil forces who strive endlessly to make money out of war, whose share prices soar when Messrs Trump and Kim Jong-un rattle sabres, but that has never been the real story of war.

The real story is told – or not – by the men and women whose lives have been irreversibly changed (and that includes families of service men and women) by conflict. The real story is written in scar tissue. As the War Poets made clear, there is no glory in war. But there is respect for those who put their lives on the line for ideals of hope, freedom, and justice. Lest we forget.

Back in the saddle, for now

THOUGHTS ON A NEW JOB[1]

It’s a couple of years now since I was catapulted out of my role as dean of a small cathedral on the fringes of humanity.[2] Much water has flowed under the bridge since the time of my dismissal. The subsequent Tribunal finding that my dismissal was errant was gratifying, and I was happy to receive Bishop Hedge’s apology and move on. I’m sure he has moved on too, and no doubt both of us have done a little self-reflection in the many months since then. Let it be, as the late evening liturgy Compline puts it. What has been done has been done. Let it be.

In the interim, after wrestling with questions of my desire to be a part of an organization that could get matters so badly wrong, I have set about focussing on what my erstwhile director of formation called “Learning Issues.”[3] When I sat in classes as an eager young ordinand, sat wrestling with “learning issues,” I never expected them to be quite so dramatic, so capitalised. I never expected them to be much more than being late for a meeting because of a traffic jam, or maybe the way in which random personality conflicts can spark an ecclesiastical fire or two. These Learning Issues have earned their Upper Case.

On the other hand I’ve never thought being a Christ-bearer, and a flawed one, was an insurance against doo-doos happening. Even in the trauma of the last couple of years when I’ve been tempted to mutter “why me?” I have given myself a severe lecture of the “why not?” variety. I don’t want to tempt fate with too many messianic associations, but if we trudge along in the footsteps of a dude who was crucified it would be a little surprising if our track didn’t pass through a bit of brown stuff.

So after a dose or too of fairly stern self-talk and brief wallows of self-pity I stumbled off to a Tikanga Māori faith community, Te Pou Herenga Waka o te Whakapono. There I found embodied not empty words of welcome but radical, soul-strengthening manaakitanga, radical inclusive hospitality. This is “embrace” of the type proposed by Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf in his seminal work Exclusion and Embrace.

There’s a lot of difference between those ecclesiastical milieux that proclaim a welcome to everyone but whose gate-keepers glare at tattoos and allegedly sub-par clothing, and those that declare the divine “Meh”: come on in. God’s house is your house. There’s a world of difference between those who display Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace on their shelves and those who practice, instinctively or programmatically, radically restorative, inclusive faith. Many is the church notice of welcome that I’ve seen with Mary Magdalene or Matthew the Tax Collector beneath it, weeping tears of exclusion.

So I’ve had two years to think, two years to dwell in the place, that place where my instincts often take me, outside the hard oak doors of “Mater Cantuar” (my preferred nickname for the great, unwieldy monster that Eurocentric, English-speaking Anglicanism is).

Not really outside, of course. Tikanga Māori is, last time I checked, a part of the Anglican Communion! But outside Eurocentric, self-satisfied ecclesiology.

I have, not for the first time, looked from this apparent outside, seen hostility, exclusion, formidable formality, self-satisfaction and, paradoxically, tortured befuddlement. “Why don’t people love us?” cry tired voices as yet another middle-manager is appointed to review or save or otherwise redeem their slowly sinking ship. It’s not a pretty sight from the pavements of exclusion. It does not speak clearly of hope in an increasingly dismal, Trumpian miasma. Tired bleats of self-preservation do not speak of a divine, all-embracing still-point in a bewildered, chaotic world.

So why come back? Partly, of course, because I never left. The manaakitanga and arohanui of tikanga Māori massaged my scar tissue. And partly because, well, God. Because despite the bitter exclusivity practiced by some, there are also stumbling, hurting, love-remembering inclusivists.

In any case, perhaps ever since I was a teenage coxswain I have felt that it is inappropriate to stand outside the boat and yell abuse at the crew. Okay, I’ve changed my metaphor. Or not. Oak doors prohibit people but leak water. “I will go down with this ship” sang Dido (and yes, the persona in the song was acknowledging her fault, as I do, in the foundering). I whisper my amen. Mother Cantuar is a leaky tub behind her bulwarks. She often seems better at baling water from the ocean into her own bilges than vice versa. Yet she’s the leaky tub I belong to, that the God I believe in biffed me into.

So here I’d better stay, passionately, strugglingly believing, hoping that the lessons of manaakitanga I have experienced in tikanga Māori will continue around and hopefully through me as I splash around once more inside the shell of tikanga pakeha.

It’s great to be back in the saddle, if only for a season. Here’s to a journey of embrace.

---

[1] From February 25^th 2018, and into an uncertain future but for several months, I am privileged to minister as Interim Priest in Charge, Parish of Wakatipu, in the Diocese of Dunedin.

[2] If a globe can have fringes? Said cathedral prides itself on being the “first cathedral to see the sun,” but given that the International Date Line is little more than a colonial-era convenience it’s all a bit metaphorical, really. The 180° meridian was, after all, chosen because it was as sparse and removed from civilization as possible. Napier just pips Malia Tupu Imakulata Cathedral in Nuku-alofa to the edge of nothingness.

[3] With capitals. Thanks, Dr Ames, wherever you now are.

Royalty, reproductive rights, and rancid misanthropes

Ah, the politics of jealousy! Shoot, garrotte, behead the royals because they have a life I can’t aspire to!

Jealous, much?

Do they have a better cash flow than I do? For sure, though that wouldn’t be hard: I’m unemployed. They are reasonablty remunerated, but far from the top of the ladder.

Are they perfect? No. Last time I checked I wasn’t either.

At their best, at least for the last 75 years or so, the royals have inspired those of us who have less fortunate existences, and have suffered brutal intrusions and exposures as our thanks.

And what are the alternatives?

Politicians? Trump and his minions surely remind us that bastardry is not a royal prerogative. Boris maybe? May maybe?

Rock stars? Oh, God, yes. I lift mine eyes to the Rockstar Heavens and find Jagger, Cobain, Miley Cyrus, whoever.

Reality TV hosts. Oh - there's Trump again. Or Simon Cowell. Or Jeremy Clarkson.

Yeah-nah.

Sports stars? Some, for sure, but I’m not sure I’d want to set them as my highest icons of human achievement and inspiration (Lewis Hamilton, anyone? Bernard Tomic?) and they reach their use-by long before 40 (Seb Coe perhaps is an exception … or New Zealand's late lamented Colin Meads or Edmund Hillary).

Authors, playwrights, poets? Who hears aught of them anyway?

And yes there are people like Saffiyah Khan or Keshia Thomas, and definitely Malala Yousafzai. But it’s funny, I don’t hear the anti-royalist back-biters chanting these names, proposing them as alternatives to the very human and often quite noble accidents of history, the Wills and Kates and their wider family.

Maybe I missed those pixels.

Ironically it seems, anyway, that the same people arguing bitterly for women's reprodctive rights are arguing that Kate has none. I suggest her choices are exceptionally brave: hyperemesis gravidarum is not a doddle in the park. Nor is it rare. If Kate inspires just one or two women in their own journey through this hell she will have achieved much.

So, jealous haters, until you find a viable alternative to royalty perhaps you could use your verbal energy to find better ways to utilise your politics of jealousy: get out from behind the keyboard of vitriol and do inspire the world around you, inspire your neighbours to greatness, change your world, clothe a beggar, cuddle a dying cat, hug your child.

But  spewing politics of jealousy has never yet made for a better world.

thoughts after Charlottesville

In the past days we have been exposed to images of hate.  Pictures of James Alex Fields Jr., charged with second degree murder, [1]  Cole White, Peter Cvjetanovic, James Allsup and others have spread across the USA and, in this global era, the world after they were seen in various roles participating in the alt-right, or apparently “paleoconservative” march at Charlottesville. 

So too have pictures of Heather Heyer, who was brutally killed in the violence that ensued,  a picture of bravery, of love in action, of martyrdom. Her mother, Susan Bro, has spoken out bravely through her grief: “Heather was not about hate, Heather was about stopping hatred. Heather was about bringing an end to injustice.”

Photos of the “Unite the Right” marchers do not show love. Since the event many have (including President Trump) used slippery words to justify their now well-exposed participation in a hate  event that day. Peter Cvjetanovic has told the world ‘he “cares for all people”.’ Images show him chanting at the march, wearing a polo-shirt emblazoned with the Identity Evropa symbol. Identity Evropa are identified as a white supremacist group, suggesting that Cvjetanovic’s care for all people contains the rider ‘some are more people than others.’ 

Cole White, outed by Twitter User “Yes You’re Racist”, has lost his job at Top Dog Berkeley. Top Dog Berkeley released a statement disassociating themselves from their former employee: “The actions of those in Charlottesville are not supported by Top Dog. We believe in individual freedom and voluntary association for everyone.” [2] As it happens even the manufacturers of the tiki torches carried by the alt-right marchers have also disassociated themselves from the vile use of their product. At the very least the politics of hate is not good for business, but I suspect Tiki recognize that hate is not good for humanity, either: “Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.”[3]

James Allsup, president of Washington State University’s chapter of the College Republicans, has claimed that his outing is a smear, announcing “They have no proof that I’m a racist. They are slandering me and that I’m racist without evidence because I talk about history and I talk about American politics.”[4] We might guess he doesn’t speak much of the history of the Civil Rights movement. 

Nevertheless, these three and many others captured on camera, many of whom have been named by Yes You’re Racist and #GoodNightAltRight, were attending a rally the  intention of which was not to make daisy chains, sing “Kumbayah” and strive for universal love and racial equality. Their participation in a march featuring swastikas (as armband on a featured speaker and as a flag), T-shirts quoting Hitler, and more insignia of  Nazism suggest that racial hatred is a fundamental part of their creed. This is so no matter how they re-clothe their hate as “talk[ing] about history and I talk about American politics” (Allsup) or ensuring “that white European culture has a right to be here just like every other culture” (Cvjetanovic). 

The maxim “a photo never lies” is an over-simplification: the camera may not lie about the miniscule slice of time it captures, but judicious selection of photos is certainly a process of spin. Nevertheless the contrast between the photo chosen, presumably, by Heather Heyer’s family, and the photos of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and others portray a yawning chasm. They display the vast gulf between hate and love, that is as far, as the psalmist put it, as east is from west. No doubt there are photos of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White looking tender, loving, and sweet, and perhaps even of Heather Heyer looking grumpy, but one senses that the current flood of images are conveying an indelible truth. 

One senses too that it will be Heyer’s photo that ultimately captures the spirit of these dark days, for the politics of hate will become – are becoming – a house divided, as Jesus described the entourage of evil.

For as long as Trump, Pence and others fail to disavow the politics of hate these days of tragedy will go on. I don’t want to make excuses for Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and their pals-in-hatred, nor trivialize the immeasurable sacrifice of love made by Heather Heyer: greater love has no one than to lay down their life in a cause of justice.  But in the realm of conflict resolution, in which I am dipping my toes, note ‘conflict lies not in objective reality, but in people’s heads.”[5]

 

What is in the heads of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and their pals-in-hatred? Why do they feel so threatened by a changing world that, in the first place they champion the election of a pussy-grabbing thug as leader of their nation, and then, in the case of Fields, feel motivated to take action that leads to the charge that he has committed, inter alia, second degree murder? Is it possible at all to gain access to the patterns of these hate-filled minds? 

Certainly, though I like many of us would love to spew the same venom that they have spewed, retaliation and mockery will achieve nothing. Far more likely to achieve some solution is the undoubtedly grief-filled response of Susan Bro, Heather Heyer’s mother. After speaking of Heather’s love of justice, she goes on to speak of her daughter’s alleged killer: “I don’t want her death to be a focus for more hatred. I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion. I’m very sorry that [Fields] chose that path because he has now ruined his life as well as robbed a great many of us of someone we love very much.” As if that were not awe-inspiring, peace-inspiring enough, she also said “I think he’s still very young, and I’m sorry he believed that hate could fix problems. Hate only brings more hate.” 

How do we climb inside minds of hate? Fields’ mind is the mind, we can safely assume, of someone who feels deeply troubled by the world he is facing. That’s why he (probably) voted for Donald Trump. That’s why he travelled some distance to attend the “Unite the Right” rally of hatred. That’s why, even before that, he subscribed to newsfeeds that told him, and Cvjetanovic, White and Allsop, that Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally of hatred was happening. Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, has spoken of her bewilderment, for she had told her son “if they’re going to rally to make sure he’s doing it peacefully.”[6]  

Somewhere he missed part of that message. Peer pressure? Fear? The most visceral cause of action is survival-fear. Did – does – Fields fear that the existence of all that he holds dear is threatened? It has been suggested that even Kim Jong-un’s primary motivation to evil (nuclear empowerment, yes, but also assassination of rivals) [7] is the fear that his survival is threatened. Actually, perhaps that is true of Donald Trump, too.

It certainly is of Allsop, Fields, Cvjetanovic, White and their pals-in-hatred. Their perception, fed to a frenzy by hate-filled media such as the Breitbart News beloved of Trump’s ally Steve Bannon,[8] is that nasties are dismantling their world. Over-empowered blacks, Muslims, gays, Mexicans, nasty journalists,  foreigners: these faceless Others are threatening their world. It has never occurred to them that their world is one of privilege and exceptionalism, nor can it without help: “Unite the Right” is a pun you see. They are right, their privilege is God given, if they believe in God, and many do, or evolutionary if, like Hitler, they do not.  So they become, in photo and we might guess in reality, embodiments of fear-fuelled hatred.

But what of those who love? Of Heather Heyer, and her equally brave mother of course, but myriad others, too? I am reminded of Saffiyah Khan facing down an insignia-clad supremacist in Birmingham in April.[9] I am thinking of the unnamed woman facing down a hooded participant at a KKK rally recently.[10] I am thinking of Nobel prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who refuses to hate those who shot her. Because I am an aging hippie I think too of the famous Flower Power photograph[11] from the Pentagon in 1967, an anonymous antiwar demonstrator placing a carnation in a Military Police rifle. And because of that photo I am somehow reminded of the recent and vivid Jonathan Bachman photo of Ieshia Evans facing  down riot police at a Black Lives Matter gathering in Baton Rouge.[12] These are the photos that proclaim “love wins.”

For those of us who wish to follow the Jesus way of the cross we have to respond not with hatred but with love. But how? Susan Bro has led the way (and her religious beliefs are immaterial: her amazing compassion is all). We need to climb inside the minds, no matter how putrid, of those who are frightened by justice and love and progress and equality (or race, religion, sexuality, and a myriad more … Trump’s mockery of disability reminds us of the many forms hatred of otherness can take). We need to strive to understand, and then strive ceaselessly for St Paul’s “more excellent way.” 

But as John Lennon accidentally reminded us, “Christ, you know it ain’t easy,” and all the harder when the perpetrators of hate believe they have God on their side. Christians however believe ourselves to be invaded by the Spirit of Christ; he sure understood his enemies, and loved and loves them still.

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[1]https://twitter.com/HenryGraff/status/896541167084548096/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Findepth%2Ffeatures%2F2017%2F08%2Fcharlottesville-james-alex-fields-170813111202708.html]

[2]http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/08/13/popular-berkeley-hot-dog-chain-fires-worker-seen-in-virginia-protest-photos/

[3] http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/tiki-blame-white-supremacist-torch-march/310108/

[4] http://www.theroot.com/washington-state-universitys-college-republicans-presid-1797816820

[5] Fisher, Ury and Patton, Getting to Yes, 24-31.

[6] http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2017/08/13/Mother-of-James-Alex-Fields-accused-of-driving-into-Charlottesville-crowd-shocked

[7] http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-1.4244020.

[8] Who is himself making some lifestyle choices, it seems, in the interests of self-preservation, at least if The Daily Mail can be believed; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4720054/Bannon-largely-disappeared-Trump-s-inner-circle.html

[9] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/woman-edl-protesters-defy-birmingham-photograph-hijab-islamophobia-muslim-islam-racism-a7676971.html

[10]https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/photos/a.347907068635687.81180.346937065399354/1652342074858840/?type=3&theatre

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Power_(photograph)

[12] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36759711