Loving the world I: Local vs Global.

I've been meaning to write about this for about a week and a half now and haven't managed to sit down and find the time for it. I don't really have the time now, either, to write the polished posts that my brain has been scratching away at. But it's important, so you get imperfect train-of-thought rambling posts instead.

Over on Nick Baines' blog there have been a number of excellent, thought-provoking articles of late. In the comment section I seem to keep brushing up against a number of themes... so I'm going to try to explore some of them in more depth here.

One is of the difference between locality and community, and of how far community should be grounded in the local, physical world we live in. I consider myself an active member of many communities, most of which I wouldn't classify as local to Upper Suburbia. Some of them are local to London but do not by any means encompass all Londoners. Some of them are more international. The internet helps a lot, as does telephone and even the postal service, in making it obvious that no matter where I live, I am connected with the rest of the world. And yet, as one commenter noted, we all have to live somewhere, we all shop somewhere and pay taxes somewhere and have our bins collected. Most of us send our children, if we have them, to school relatively locally. Most of us are subject to local laws and by-laws to a certain degree. Try as we might to escape the influence of location, where we live does affect how we live... and if we have a choice, we choose to live somewhere that we feel we can live well.

Taking responsibility for ensuring that where we live continues to be somewhere that is safe and pleasant to live almost always means getting involved on a local level. Here in Upper Suburbia there are a number of residents' associations which help with this, as well as various religious and secular organisations which are more or less locally based. One of the things that has been encouraging to me in my search for a church to attend has been the way that all three of the local churches I've visited seem committed to serving the local community, whether churchgoers or not, in a variety of practical ways.

I think this is good and right and healthy. But I think we ignore the wider world at our peril. Some problems are simply too big to be dealt with at the local level -- human trafficking springs to mind as one example of a problem that requires cooperative efforts between people in various communities in order to make it stop.

Further to the practical aspects of working together on problems that affect all of us there is a moral principle to treat other humans well. Our local actions do affect others... if we dump sewage into a river, someone downstream is going to get sick. We need to remember that we are always upstream of someone, physically and metaphorically. To ignore that is to deny the humanity of others. It seems to me that to willfully harm another for our own benefit when there is some other option is, on some level, to deny that they are children of God, lovingly created in God's own image.

Harming nobody is a very tall order. Keeping track of the interactions of six billion human beings on this planet in order to run a cost/benefit analysis every time I do something is impossible: I just don't have enough data. And doing no harm, even if it were possible, wouldn't be enough. The world around us is wounded. And we must act to heal it. Locally, yes, but also globally.

What does that mean, in practical terms? It means reaching out to people, locally and further afield, paying attention to their needs, and helping meet them if we can. It means not just switching off when we read or listen to the news but asking ourselves what we could do to improve each situation. It means not avoiding that awkward neighbour who smells a bit funny and seems to do nothing but complain, but instead trying to figure out a way to help. It means recognising that young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, near or far, we are all in this together and the easiest way through will be to support one another.

Local or global is a false dichotomy. It's all local, and it's all global. The important thing is to act with care and with love.

Water, water everywhere

I'm not going to do the fancy embedding thing but please do go and have a look at the video Ostrich has posted.

Still searching, but I found something interesting along the way

This "finding a church" lark is feeling a bit like having cheap satnav.

Today I went again to Church-by-the-Station. I think I might be starting to lean away from there and toward Nearest Church.

If being told at intervals which paragraph of the service sheet we are on is annoying me on my second visit, it's going to annoy me a lot more after a few months.

Some people were friendly and remembered me from three weeks ago, but many didn't. Maybe there was something else going on... people didn't really seem to linger after the service.

During communion the choir sang an anthem and it was all I could do not to get up and join in. I really do need to be singing in worship, I think. And with that hymn book full of unfamiliar hymns and no copy with notation, I'm not finding that easy. But if that were the only hurdle I would just go and buy a full music copy, or arrive early enough to borrow one.

The sermon was... well, it made me think. It was outlining three things "religion" gives people, or three things God gives people, and it wasn't quite clear which was which at times. The vicar spoke of God giving us our existence, creating all the universe and beyond. He spoke of religious communities and the flawed but devoted way humans can use them as a framework for doing God's will on earth. And he spoke of God's love for humanity, so huge that He gave his Son... this is an idea that I can't quite speak of but I can sing of, I can't quite bring myself to believe the specifics but somehow I know the underlying message of love is true.

But the vicar in his sermon did come right out and say that Christianity offers something of God that other religions don't, that Christians have some sort of superior understanding of God or route to salvation and rescue not available elsewhere, and I'm not terribly cool with that, even as I feel so drawn to this faith. I'll go as far as to say Christianity offers me something I haven't found elsewhere, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist: just that I haven't been able to see it. I won't say that salvation is not universal, and that's the logical extension of the idea. I wish I could remember the wording used, maybe I am doing the vicar a disservice here. But I nearly shouted, my objection was so sharp, and some small part of me wonders what would have happened if I had.

And then it got interesting.

A bit of background...I'm not great with creeds, because some of my beliefs don't feel static to me. My belief in the existence of God is very strong, it doesn't matter whether I'm singing or speaking or writing or dancing or nearly asleep, it's just... there. But I struggle with Trinitarian doctrine, I am not convinced of the historical details, I'm not always sure what people even mean by the Holy Spirit (maybe that is what is alive in me when I sing? I hope so). So I usually say some bits of the creed and remain respectfully silent for others. In the Common Worship translation of the Nicene Creed, I usually say the first sentence, then nothing until "We believe in the Holy Spirit".

Today was a bit different. It suddenly seemed terribly important to say "through Him all things were made." So I did, loudly and clearly.

It relates back to what I wrote two weeks ago, the idea that there really isn't anywhere else to go, anyone else to turn to, that whenever we turn to the words of eternal life we are turning to Jesus whether we call it that or not, whether we understand it in that framework or not. Christianity is one framework for relating our lives to something ineffable and universal. That ineffable universal love is the only thing worth living for, but that doesn't mean Christianity is the only way to live in it.

I spent much of the rest of the service praying that the vicar might not have meant what he said, that perhaps I'd misunderstood in my usual defensive manner and really he does already know this on some level, the poor man. But I find it striking how hearing a denial of something I have come to believe made me believe it all the more fiercely, strange how being told something contrary to my strongest hopes seemed to affirm and strengthen them rather than leave them dashed to pieces on the floor.

Afterward I ended up talking to Networking Organist from Nearest Church; his wife attends Church-by-the-Station. This was a lot of talking shop, essentially. I don't want to go into a lot of detail here, but the general gist of it was this:

I need to sing in a choir, and probably to be involved with music provision on a more active level than just turning up and reading alto or tenor in rehearsals.

Nearest Church has a small struggling choir which may sink or swim; Networking Organist cannot build it up on his own. It may be a lost cause: it's a very small parish, a very small congregation, and there are no reliable strong singers. But it may have the seeds of something meaningful. Some of the congregation there sit and listen to the organ postlude, like I always do. Someone there commented on my singing voice the first time I turned up. They are actually at least trying to do some fundraising to get the organ fixed. I have asked what I can bring to the situation that might help.

Church-by-the-Station has a larger, but still small, struggling choir, and the music director (who is competent and energetic) is leaving in January for reasons which are unclear but which suggest that support for music in that congregation is lower than it might be and he is fed up. We talked about some of the politics of this, and particularly the fact that there is no talk of a sort of apprentice or shadow position for someone who would eventually replace the existing music director. That is what is needed, even if it would be unpaid. That is something I might be able to do, but I'm not yet comfortable enough at that church to volunteer to do it. I would want to have a long long chat with the existing music director, and today he had to rush off.

Both of those churches and also Long Walk Church have clergy who are nearing retirement age. In any of the three, things could change drastically in the next five years. Long Walk Church is not easy for me to get to, I want to retain some connection with them but I do not think I can commit to getting there every Sunday morning once the mornings draw in and the cold makes my joints complain more.

I can see myself getting involved in the music at Nearest Church or maybe even some sort of joint choral venture between there and Church-by-the-Station, with some guidance and support from Networking Organist and others.

Church Search continues

Nearest Church was rather lovely again today; several people remembered me from my previous visit. They used a real hymnal this time. The sermon was... academic and rather dry but not uninteresting in and of itself, just not really theology. The musical director has all but offered me an informal apprenticeship and made it clear that his instruction is not contingent on my ultimately attending or being involved with that church; this is a very great gift.

I had a brief chat with the vicar and he seemed to understand that while I am interested in contributing musically wherever I end up, I don't want church music to be just another professional gig. That perhaps isn't the right way of phrasing things, because I certainly don't see teaching that way either and my best performances also have an element of spiritual engagement... it doesn't feel quite right to do any of it without some commitment to things more important than money and career advancement, and perhaps the best definition of "professional" should include that. We didn't get to talk long, because after a service on Sunday is not really the best time to have
a serious conversation with someone whom every single person there wants to speak to... he got pulled off to a meeting fairly quickly.

I think wherever I go it is going to be tricky to balance musical contributions with being part of a nurturing and challenging community. Not getting involved with the musical side of things is pretty much unthinkable, I may as well accept that I'll want to sing in the choir at the very least and probably do rather more than that, but getting involved... I don't quite have the right words to explain my hesitance. When I was growing up I was a) the minister's (step)daughter and b) always heavily involved in the musical side of things and that together with moving every few years (seven churches, I think, in 13 or 14 years, though some of the military ones might have blurred together a bit in my head) meant that I didn't participate so much in other aspects of church... looking back, it seems like I wasn't ever really in the position of being ministered to, of being led by others into a fuller or more conscious relationship with God. At some churches it was clear that both paid employees and volunteers very much did take ministry to one another as seriously as, for example, community outreach or leading the congregation in worship, but I felt I was always at arm's length because of family stuff. And at some churches that didn't seem to happen so well for anyone, whether they'd been there a long time or not, because there was a sort of imaginary line between the congregation (there to receive or be led) and everyone else (there to work) and I was not on the congregational side of the line. I'm not entirely sure why it works out that way in some places but I do not want to end up in that situation again; I'm not likely to end up isolating myself because of family concerns at this stage of things but if there is a very clear line between the congregation and everyone else and this is detrimental to the spiritual health of the "everyone else", I doubt I have the ability to change that kind of dynamic to something healthier by my own efforts. So I find myself in the position of trying to evaluate how the clergy and others involved in running services and other aspects of formal and informal ministry relate to one another, from the viewpoint of sitting in the congregation as a visitor, when the vast majority of my experience in church has been as a musician and general help. I've probably been not-in-the-choir in more services in London than in the rest of my life put together; I only started attending any sort of church service regularly in January, so that's not a whole lot of services. No wonder I'm not sure where to go!

On one level it seems selfish to worry about any of this rather than just giving what I can of my time regardless of whether I "get anything back". Surely participation should be its own reward and I should go where I am most useful and trust God to sort out the bits about meeting my needs... but I suspect that's too simplistic an approach (in a rather "I sent a rescue car, a boat and a helicopter, what do you mean I didn't answer your prayers for help?" sort of way). And even some of the most musically rewarding experiences I had as a teenager were not enough to address some of my theological questions or keep me engaged with church despite those issues.

Of course I have several advantages now that I didn't when I was living with my parents: aside from knowing myself a lot better and functioning much better in general, I am actually in a position now to leave a community if I'm not getting on with people or it simply doesn't feel right. And if I could back out of conversion to orthodox Judaism after putting in so much time and effort, I can surely switch to a different church to attend on Sunday mornings if I really need to. Maybe I'm just looking for problems where there aren't any (who, me?) because a supportive, welcoming and accessible community seems a little bit too good to be true and more than one is more choice than I've ever felt I had.

Transitions

I'm concerned for my little brother.

I left home when he was just turning 11. We'd been close up to that point, because I looked after him a lot. But when I left he didn't have a computer of his own and couldn't type fast and so keeping in touch by e-mail wasn't really an option, and long-distance phonecalls were expensive (and meant I'd also have to talk to my parents). A couple of years later I moved to London.

My response to the environment in which I was raised was to keep my head down and stay out of the way, to be very very good in an attempt to control things so I could stay safe. I turned up to all my classes, was courteous and pleasant most of the time, did reasonably well in school despite spending most of the time I should have been doing homework sitting by myself crying. From the outside I looked like a "good girl", if perhaps a bit clingy and needy. I wouldn't like to say how much of that was due to nature and how much was due to nurture. Eventually--years after I'd left home--the depression was too much, some people were able to convince me to get help, and I've told the rest of that story here before, in bits and pieces.

My brother's response, once I'd left home, was to get involved with a rather rowdy crowd at school. Lots of partying. Lots of alcohol, lots of illegal drugs. Theft, dealing... My brother got into trouble. My parents didn't know what had hit them, of course. But he muddled through somehow and has stayed mostly out of trouble for the last few years.

He's just split up with his fiancée and spent the summer with his parents. And now he's off to the other side of the country to try and start again. He's excited, a bit nervous but very hopeful. And he should be able to do it: he's a bright kid, and a hard worker, and good with people. He's got a good qualification and he's good at what he does.

But I'm aware of how very vulnerable he is. I remember the way my world crumbled when my first love and I split. I know how I feel about myself after extended periods of time with my parents. I'm grateful I did not have to deal with both at once.

I'm also aware of how little I know this charming young man who I abandoned to a situation I couldn't bear to stay in. He's online these days, and I'm trying to get to know him again...that's going to be slow work. I don't see what else there is for me to do about it, from the other side of the world.

Besides pray, of course.

Where else could I go?

Sweetie decided late on Thursday night that we needed to get out of London for the weekend. I'm not entirely sure why, since he'd only just come back from Somerset and I'd been out to visit him there, but who am I to complain?

I had a truly wonderful time in a small East Sussex town that was an major harbour until the sea got some different ideas about the shape of the coastline. Lots of meandering over cobbled roads, a spot of window shopping, quite a bit of walking, and some very fine food have left me feeling much more relaxed than before we went. Sweetie certainly knows how to keep me in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed.

I did go to church on Sunday, leaving Sweetie to have a lie-in, and that was good, too. It was good to go to a church not having tried to look at a website beforehand, it was good to go and rest in what is becoming familiar liturgy, and it was wonderful not to be thinking about whether I could eventually settle there. My impressions were of a fairly average church, perhaps with a better-developed choral programme than some of the local ones I've been to in London (though August is never a good time to judge this, and I didn't get back in time for Evensong: walking on shingle is hard work and though there wasn't much where we had to use that rather than a path it was enough to slow us down). There were some people who were friendly and some who weren't. There were good bits of the sermon and bits that seemed a bit disjunct.

I feel rather envious of Peter, who seems to know that following Jesus is the only way for him, that only Jesus has these words of eternal life. Things have never seemed that straightforward to me. I can't put aside all that is good and beautiful in non-Christian faiths, and I am full of "what if" questions... what would have happened if I'd had a family where my spiritual questions were taken seriously? what would have happened if I'd been born into Judaism instead of attempting conversion (and deciding, in the end, that it was just too hard)? Would I be a lesser person somehow for being a cradle Christian instead of meandering my way to this faith through wilderness, not knowing even now whether I'll get there? Would I be a lesser person if I'd been taught Hebrew from a young age and keeping kosher and keeping Shabbat had been part of my cultural identity as well as mitzvot so that practice of Orthodox Judaism would have been, in some senses, easier than it was for me as a potential ger?

And I have to say, I'm not the judge of these things, but God is. And if God is loving and merciful, can it really be that a faithful decision, a perpetual striving to do the best I can with the information and resources I have, can ever be condemned? I owe God my entire existence and every joy or sorrow I've ever felt. If I do end up believing some version of Christianity it will only be because God has allowed it.

One of my strong objections to Christian dogma has been the idea that Christianity is the only way to God, the idea that heretics and unbelievers and so on are condemned. What is the point of salvation if it is not universal? What is the point of mercy if it is limited? What is the point of lovingkindness if it is conditional? I cannot abide this idea that We Have The Answers And Other Faiths Don't. I cannot swallow the idea that anyone who is not God is in a position to judge any other human being as fit for salvation or not, whether that is based on their beliefs or their works. I cannot begin to explain how strongly I feel about this.

The only way I can see to think about this is a sort of language loop-hole, a sort of re-naming of most of the world. Kathryn wrote But, ultimately, it is the voice of Jesus who calls us - by whatever name we know him. (Emphasis mine). If Jesus is God, and if all that is good and right and loving in this world comes from God, then what we have here is an issue of nomenclature: what you call Jesus I call God and someone else might call Allah and someone else again might call "goodness" (without necessarily believing in a higher power at all), and maybe these things happened and maybe they didn't but we are all chasing after the same God whether we realise it or not.

Maybe Peter doesn't say, "to whom else could we go?" because only Jesus has the words of eternal life, but because wherever we turn to the words of eternal life we turn to Jesus in some sense. This isn't a "where else could we go?" when you are standing on an ice floe and all around you is the treacherous, deadly sea: this is a "where else could we go?" when you are surrounded on all sides by water and you are in the water and everywhere else you go, you are still going to be in the ocean. Elsewhere does not exist. You can call it what you like but it's still the ocean.

I had some sense of this, visiting a small congregation in a church building which once served a much larger town, being unwilling and unable to commit to the community there in any sense except the very vague one of singing with them for that short time, joining them for worship and then moving on. Wherever I go I am going to be in the ocean, incomprehensibly large, ultimately inescapable, of God's love.

Was there ever a happier way to drown?

Spoilt for choice.

I went to Church-by-the-Station today.

I was not feeling very happy about this search for a church thing, before I left. I felt like going to Deacon Friend's church where I know I'm welcome in the choir and where I know I'm not going to be afraid of the clergy. But I wouldn't have been able to get there before the end of the service, as it's a 90-minute journey.

With that not an option I felt like staying home and singing instead. But that's never the same as worship with other people, and that won't find me a church.

So I went.

I am glad I went.

Like my visit to Nearest Church two weeks ago, this visit left my imagination alive with possibilities for getting more involved. The music director will be leaving in a few months, though the organist is staying on, and while I am perhaps young and inexperienced there is definitely scope for me to get very involved in the choral side of things should I so wish, without having to build it up nearly from scratch. There are some deaf parishioners and the entire liturgy was simultaneously translated into British Sign Language; when I spoke to choir members they said they hadn't done any choral signing, which is a shame. I bet it would be a possibility, though. The priest who had been doing the signing came and made the sign for peace at us during the peace, I tried to make it back at her but probably messed it up.

Church-by-the-Station is, er, right by Upper Suburbia Tube station. As such it attracts people from all walks of life who just drop in. It seems to take very seriously the call to serve the wider community. The sermon was relevant both to the day's readings and to issues which affect the community. Less of the liturgy was sung than at Long Walk Church and there were no smells or bells, but still processions. The blessing I received at the altar was long but full of almost-tangible warmth, I had a real sense of God there. That was true at Nearest Church, too, but not at Long Walk Church last week.

The choir and organist were very friendly; and again I had people taking my details, saying they'd pass them on to people who wanted music lessons. I ran into Networking Organist from Nearest Church and we had a brief chat about things, which was great.

I actually got a chance to talk to the Vicar for a bit. Or I got a chance for him to talk to me... he seemed very eager to tell me about the things the church has done for the community in recent years, very eager to reassure me that the three churches I have visited so far all work closely together, very eager to emphasize a strong commitment to arts ministry and to equality. Perhaps he was a bit too eager; why not let the facts speak for themselves? But for all that, he did seem to understand that I am looking to make a long-term commitment to a community and that it will take some time to figure out which is right for me. He spoke of the right place being the place that I find that I meet God.

On the whole I felt a lot better for having been to the service. It still really isn't clear where I will end up. But how blessed am I, that there are these three churches I could attend? All of them seem to be places that would nurture me in some ways and challenge me in others. All of them seem to have a strong commitment to serving the wider community. The degrees of inclusiveness vary a bit and perhaps aren't entirely clear but all of the congregations are at least attempting to engage with those issues on some level. And all of them are places where I could get involved with the musical side of things and make significant and useful contributions while learning an awful lot.

I guess the thing now is to keep going back and see what happens... see whether the sermons at Nearest Church get better, see whether the community at Long Walk Church is a little more friendly once you get to know people, see whether Church-by-the-Station really does walk the walk as well as talking the talk.

But I might go visit Deacon Friend next Sunday at Leafy Suburb Church, despite the journey, just to rest in something known, to comfort myself with the slightly-familiar, and perhaps by attending a service at a church where I know I won't be able to make a long-term commitment, turn off that part of my brain which for the last three Sundays has been evaluating everything as it goes by.