The Complex Christ | Signs of Emergence

It's Christmas™

Merry Christmas, dear readers.

Break/Down | D-evolution

A couple of weeks ago my daughter broke her leg. Ouch. I have to say, the A&E (ER) department at the local hospital were brilliant, and the treatment she's received has been second to none. But as for the administration...

Today I had to take her for a follow-up X-ray and consultation. We arrived in good time and the X-ray was done. But we were then told what strikes fear into everyone dealing with public bodies or corporations these days: 'the computer system is down'. With those dreaded words full-scale melt-down occurred. They couldn't process the appointment. They couldn't find anybody's notes. They couldn't make any further appointments.

This is not a rant against the NHS or its Staff - they were genuinely doing their best. But this is a fine example of the risks that come with technological solutions: when they go down, we are paralysed. The people simply did not know what to do or where to turn.

What worries me is that all of humanity is increasingly putting its trust in IT systems, and becoming so reliant on them that we are losing the skills we used to have to deal with the processes that the technology replaced. When the RIM system had an outage recently, people with their Blackberries were literally going stir-crazy, so reliant on them were they to function.

I wonder then if we continue in this way whether we will actually start d-evolving as a race. WHAT? This is the problem: we have stopped evolving as a species; instead, all our evolutionary energy is going into evolving a system which we rely on, one that is external to us, yet increasingly is necessary for the stability of our economy, our health, our education and good governance. And when it goes down, we'll go with it.

Yesterday I listened to a programme which told the story of the Battle of New Orleans, in which many people died, which was actually fought after the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty declaring US independence. News travelled so slowly that people simply didn't know peace had broken out. The programme was arguing that this could never happen today because of the speed of our communications systems. But imagine a future war so dependent on digital communication devices and networks, in which peace was to be declared, but the systems were down.... It's New Orleans all over again.

Moral: technology is simply a tool. It is meant to aid us in our work, and make it more efficient. But if we lack contingencies for when the technology breaks, we're leaving ourselves open to huge problems. So if you're reading this - good, your system is working. Now make a back up and pray it continues that way ;-)

Technorati: Independence | NHS | System Down | US

Liverpool Nativity

I just watched the Liverpool Nativity on BBC3 tonight, and it was quite brilliant.

This was no cynical re-telling, but a contemporary, serious, politically aware take on the Christmas narrative, writ large as public spectacle. Thousands and thousands had turned out to the Dockside to join the spectacle, performed live throughout the city. What is fantastic about these events is that they appear to tap into the rich Christian root in our heritage - a heritage that I think people are beginning to see is vital to our coherent future, rather than being consigned to our past. I think this could be interpreted as a move into clear post-Christian water, where people are happy to be part of events like this without it being tied to 'the church'.

Christmas has always been about joining in the re-telling of stories, whatever distant orbit we have around belief in them. And this city-wide celebration of Liverpudlian music and theatre was just that - a risky, live, choral, sacred, communal event. It's in these moments that we are submerged into some wider consciousness... and realize why we live in cities - these urban exoskeletons that allow us new forms of movement quite impossible in smaller communities.

Technorati: Liverpool Nativity | BBC

The World Can't Wait For You, USA

[Update: following extraordinary scenes where the US contingent were booed by the rest of the delegates when it was announced they would reject the compromised plan, they performed a dramatic U-turn and have agreed to adopt the 'road-map' (wouldn't 'path way' be greener?!). A huge relief. Now we just need some non-automobile metaphors :-]

Gore has given a truly stirring speech as he accepted his Nobel peace prize, offering a clarion call to the US to get on and start taking climate seriously. Good on him. Quoting Churchill - and if the world had to rise against fascism, it surely must rise in equal force to battle climate change - who said in '38 of those vascillating about action,

"They go on in strange paradox, decided only be undecided, resolved only to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent"

He goes on to urge the world to forget about the US and press ahead, leaving a blank place for them to sign once the muppet Bush is out of the way in a year or so...

God is a Londoner: Time Out

The usually so-antagonistic-its-almost-funny Time Out seem to have mellowed this year. They gave Greenbelt a great write-up as the 'best family festival' and this week have an actually really good series of pieces on religious London: Muslim speed-dating, living in a London monastery, Kensington Temple and a trip behind the scenes at the stunning Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden.

Good on them.

Technorati: Hinduism | Islam | London | Time Out

"cos, you know, you can treat them like shit"

On the train to this little drinks thing for an education weekly I write some stuff for, just a couple of stops. Three guys sitting in seats across the aisle:

"So, we go from the pub to the match, and then from there onto another pub, and I'm so wasted by now, and then we go on to a strip joint, and I just spend SO much..."

"Cool..."

"And this one girl comes up, and I've already shelled out loads for dances, and begs me to pay her to dance..."

"I bet you did a bit of that, eh?" (guy mimics lifting up of a skirt)

"...and she then like promises me something a bit special, so I get my cash out, and show it to her, and she looks well pleased, then I think, fuck it, and tell her to piss off, cos, you know, you can treat them like shit"

And I look at the middle-aged lady sitting opposite. And look at them, bigger than me. And think of the broken promises I'd made to get really stuck into campaigning with The Truth Isn't Sexy, and my stop comes, and I get off, without saying anything, feeling none of the wisdom of the wise men, and none of the raw courage of Joseph, and none of the 'fear not', and all of the shame of the shit I'm complicit in and feign to shout loudly about and continue to do nothing about, pray for at least an ounce of John the Baptist's gall to stand up for what I know is right and pay the price. Because you know I know for sure that every day trafficked women are paying a lot more than that. And I let them get away with it, and treat them like shit, and go and sip my champagne.

Just another compromised day in the life. Sometimes I'm just not proud.

Technorati: London | Strippers | Truth Isn't Sexy

Watch Your Back

Ramping up the fear at my local railway station.

Technorati: Crime | Fear

Bethlehem Speaks in Many Tongues... ¦ Wi'am

The wonderfully monickered Zoughbi Zoughbi, director of the fantastic Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre in Bethlehem just sent me this short meditation:

Every homeless refugee, desperate for a bed for a night, understands the agony of Joseph of Bethlehem.

Every frightened teenage girl, pregnant and lost, comprehends the bewilderment of Mary.

Every executive, trying to reconcile commercial realities with moral imperatives, identifies with the local innkeeper.

Every working person, in a daily routine awakening to a sudden reverence for life, experiences the awe of the Judean shepherd.

Every ruler or intellectual, coming to the limit of human power, evinces the humility of the Magi.

Every tyrant who keeps in control by means of ruthless and harsh practices knows the insecure fear of Herod.

Every infant, born on the rubbish heap of a city slum, shares the indignity of the Holy Birth. Bethlehem speaks in many tongues....

Every working person, in a daily routine awakening to a sudden reverence for life, experiences the awe of the Judean shepherd.

Every ruler or intellectual, coming to the limit of human power, evinces the humility of the Magi.

Every tyrant who keeps in control by means of ruthless and harsh practices knows the insecure fear of Herod.

Every infant, born on the rubbish heap of a city slum, shares the indignity of the Holy Birth.

Bethlehem speaks in many tongues....

The work Zoughbi does is amazing. While lobbying for a wider peace in the area, Wi'am also focuses on conflict resolution among individuals and families. Living in the pressure-cooker that is occupied Palestine, with check points and lack of basic resources, and with farms being bull-dozed and homes demolished, the stress takes its toll on family life, and Wi'am are there to help provide mechanisms for these inevitable conflicts to be resolved.

If you'd like to do something amazing this Advent, you could do little better than support their work.

His Dark Materials | PowerReligion

Andrew Jones posted yesterday about the imminent release of the first film of the Philip Pullman trilogy 'His Dark Materials'. (Why the hell has is been re-named? Durrr.... ) In the post he leans to siding with Matt Barber, who has written that Pullman's anti-theist stance is a strong theme, and thus Christians should avoid the films.

The other weekend my dad asked me my response to the same question - he'd had a very strong email from an Australian campaigner saying Christians should be actively boycotting the movie and protesting about it.

I totally disagree.

The books are a 'rich casket of treasures' - for children and adults alike. And, while one reading might be a strongly atheistic view, I think that Pullman is more interested in critiquing the 'power religion' exemplified by historic Catholicism and institutional Anglicanism. The villains of the book - though this is apparently watered down in the film - are the members of the 'Magisterium', the paranoid and power-mad government of religion, who fight to close down free thought and cut off children's souls to gain power for themselves.

And I have to agree with him. It's clearly powerful stuff, but no more cutting than Jesus' critique of the Pharisees as 'white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inside are full of shit.' I heard Pullman in conversation with Rowan Williams, and was struck how both were egged on by 'fundies' on their own side... but both resisted their encouragements to slam the other. Indeed, Pullman admitted to being struck by the character of Christ, and said he was writing about him.

If we try to protect our faith from criticism like this, we seal it from the tricksters, and prevent it from being refined. If we truly believe it, we should allow our children to see the film, and trust that the truth will out. If we begin protests on things like this, don't we risk end up jailing people who let kids name their teddies Jesus? I hope the God believe in is more robust than that.

As I quote in the book, the trilogy ends with the hero Lyra, having 'killed God' urging people to 'work hard, all of us, to build the republic of heaven.' I think this is a fabulous metaphor: heaven as republic takes the power away from the high-and-mighty pompous white men who try to keep the gates closely guarded for only their own pure few. And that's something I can definitely cheer for.

Technorati: Golden Compass | Pullman | Northern Lights

He Who Gets Slapped

A strange and beautiful weekend.

We were down in Bristol, seeing some good friends. In one of those marvellous moments, I found myself taking the complimentary tickets of a multi-Oscar-winning animator to see the World Premier of the new score to the 1920's classic He Who Gets Slapped.

Will Gregory, of Goldfrapp fame, had written the score, which was performed to a projection of the film by the BBC Concert Orchestra, with a little help from Adrian Utley of Portishead and others.

It was brilliant. The emotional depth that music added to the silent film was stunning. And the film is simply brilliant too. Produced in 1924 - MGM's first production, and thus the first ever use of the lion in the intro - it had some wonderful 'special effects', and a rich and complex story about a cheated scientist who becomes a clown. I highly recommend catching it if you get the chance.

A friend and I turned our phones back on afterwards to be greeted with a whole host of missed calls and texts. My daughter had broken her leg. Slap.

Hats off to Wallinger

Perhaps my favourite living artist - so glad he's won the Turner Prize.

Do We Know It's Christmas? | Santa's Ghetto

Advent. One of my favourite times of year. A time to wait. To anticipate. Or open cardboard windows and eat bland chocolates. And get pissed at work. Sometimes I wonder if, to bastardize Geldof et al, we know it's Christmas time at all.

Some trickster work to nudge us back in the right direction:

paperlesschristmas.org is a project some friends of mine have put together - a short video for each day of advent, dressed up in a calendar style. More thought-provoking than a mini Mars bar.

Santa's Ghetto. I went to the first one of these in Carnaby Street (I think) years ago. Then it was just an old shop taken over for a couple of weeks to tout Banksy et al's work. Which was great. It seems his visit to Palestine and the horrific Israeli wall has made him think some though, and this year the Ghetto is based in Bethlehem itself - "you know, the place Santa Claus was actually born" as they so brilliantly put it.

Two things I love about this: firstly, every shekel goes to help local kids' projects. And secondly one of the pieces - the scale model of Jerusalem made entirely from memory by a Christian Palestinian forcefully ejected from the city many years ago - is by the father of a friend of ours, Wisam Salaa. I wish the shop every success.

Technorati: Advent | Banksy | Bethlehem | Santa's Ghetto