• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

From the holy city: The Big Noise, by Peter Macdonald

Festival-goers in Britain know to expect rain – lots of it. The biblical curse of rain for forty days and forty nights would rate as a good summer in these parts. Yet each year thousands of music lovers gather in fields throughout this verdant isle to turn perfectly decent pieces of green pasture into muddy swamps. A few weeks ago I sat in one of those fields, in the rain, huddled beneath an umbrella, wearing my best Iona-waterproof gear, with seven thousand other soggy souls. We were there for a performance by a remarkable group of children from Raploch, a housing estate on the edge of Stirling. You may wonder what drew such a large audience for a school concert. Was there, perhaps, an England football match on the television that night? I admit the presence on the bill of Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela may have been a factor. However, for the many parents and grandparents, local residents and the huddled masses, the main attraction was the Big Noise children’s orchestra. The Big Noise is part of Sistema Scotland’s mission to transform lives through music. The Sistema name is taken from the youth and children’s orchestra movement established in Venezuela in 1975 by Dr José Antonio Abreu. El Sistema is a state-funded voluntary sector organisation which oversees 125 youth orchestras, 31 symphony orchestras and over 300,000 young people, mainly drawn from deprived backgrounds, who attend its nationwide music schools. Gustavo Dudamel, now also music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is its most famous former pupil. There was hardly a dry eye, or bottom, in the crowd as the children performed with one of the world’s great orchestras. I was lucky enough to attend a performance of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra in the Usher Hall in 2008 when they were one of the big hits at the Edinburgh Festival but the Big Noise concert in a muddy field on a Raploch rainy night was of greater significance. It was a statement about the potential of young people and their communities, so often denigrated and denied opportunity. It was a celebration of the power of music and art in general with profound social, political and spiritual implications. Maestro Abreu, quoted in the programme notes, believes that, ‘the most holy of human rights is the right to art’. This reminded me of an inspiring piece by John Tusa, former broadcaster and arts administrator, who wrote: The arts matter because they are universal; because they are non-material; because they deal with daily experience in a transforming way; because they question the way we look at the world; because they offer different explanations of that world; because they link us to our past and open the door to our future; because they work beyond and outside routine categories; because they take us out of ourselves; because they make order out of disorder and stir up the stagnant; because they offer a shared experience rather than an isolated one; because they encourage the imagination, and attempt the pointless; because they offer beauty and confront us with the fact of ugliness; because they suggest explanations but no solutions; because they force us to think about the difference between the good and the bad, the false and the true. The arts matter because they embrace, express and define the soul of a civilisation. A nation without arts would be a nation that had stopped talking to itself, stopped dreaming, and had lost interest in the past and lacked curiosity about the future. (From Art Matters: Reflecting on Culture, John Tusa, Methuen Publishing, 1999) As an organisation committed to transformation – personal and political, local and global – we should celebrate that much of our activism is expressed through art. We are a community of composers and songwriters, wordsmiths and storytellers, photographers and painters, musicians and singers, knitters and nutters who help us laugh at ourselves. We express who we are and what we believe, how we see the world and why we long for transformation in word and song and symbol. Such creativity of thought and action is not only needed in a post-modern age, it is vital as we seek not only to interpret events but to shape them. As darkness fell on Raploch and as the Big Concert reached its finale, a local man encouraging his kids to wait till the end was overheard explaining, ‘It’s just gettin’ tae the guid bit, where they dance aboot an pit oan thur jaikets.’ Today the word on the streets of Raploch is ‘Mambo!’. * God bless, Peter l * See www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEuYGVAn4Jw&feature=fvwrel

Peter Macdonald is the Leader of the Iona Community.

SISTEMA SCOTLAND: THE BIG NOISE

From Sistema:

The work of Sistema Scotland is already changing the lives of the children and the community of Raploch. To help us sustain this programme and develop other centres in Scotland, and for more information, go to: http://makeabignoise.org.uk/welcome-to-big-noise-raploch/ http://www.fesnojiv.gob.ve/en/mission-and-vision.html Sistema Scotland c/o Big Noise Raploch 90 Drip Road Stirling FK8 1RN [email protected]

‘Where your treasure is…’: a Christian perspective on the financial crisis, by Kathy Galloway and David McNair

It was a Tuesday – October 29 – when a decade of American optimism and prosperity was shattered. As stock prices plummeted with no hope of recovery, panic rippled across the country – afraid they would lose their savings, people rushed to withdraw their money. Those who didn’t reach the bank in time went bankrupt, as the banks collapsed. The year? 1929. Fast-forward 79 years and one of the world’s oldest and most important investment banks, Lehman Brothers, had just filed for bankruptcy. Market confidence was shattered and stock markets all over the world lost billions of dollars. A financial crisis ensued to the point where Ben Bernanke, Chair of the US Federal Reserve, suggested that the world was just hours away from complete financial meltdown: a world where businesses couldn’t borrow, cash machines ceased working and the life savings of millions of people disappeared. By the end of October 2008, governments across the world had committed $7 trillion dollars of public money to secure risky assets, underwrite threatened savings and recapitalise failing banks. In doing so, governments rewarded those who had taken huge risks for personal gain and in the process destabilised the global economy. It was a classic case of socialisation of losses and privatisation of gain. This bailout effectively shifted debt from banks to nation states, and, as we have seen in Greece, there are now risks of whole countries going bankrupt. The impacts have been felt globally. In the UK and Ireland we have felt the sharp impact of reductions in public spending and rising taxes. But the worst impacts are on the poor in developing countries, who are vulnerable because they are poor – they mostly don’t have savings or social security programmes to fall back on. As a direct result of the crisis, an extra 120 million people will be living on less than $2 a day, and global unemployment will rise to an estimated 240 million people. This is the highest figure on record, with disproportionately damaging effects on women. In 2009, World Bank researchers estimated that the crisis would cause an additional 30,000-50,000 infant deaths in sub-Saharan Africa alone. MONEY DEPENDS ON TRUST To understand what happened, we must go right back to the beginning, to the nature and the purpose of money. The first thing to understand about money is that it isn’t real. It’s an idea dependent on trust. Imagine a primitive society. I have a bow and arrow. You have a bowl of rice. If I’m hungry, I can trade my bow and arrow for your bowl of rice. But this depends on me needing the rice at the same time as you need the bow and arrow. The possibilities are fairly limited. But as society developed, the concept of a medium of exchange emerged. The idea that I could exchange my bow and arrow for something, a pebble, for example, which I could redeem at a later date, expanded the possibilities for trade and commerce dramatically. But I can’t eat pebbles or hunt with them, so I had to trust that the pebbles I got for my bow and arrow would, one day, buy me some rice. Without trust in the medium of exchange, the system falls apart. The second thing to note is that finance is inherently unstable and crises are inevitable. In the past two decades, we had major financial crises in Latin America, East Asia, Europe and America. Take the example of Northern Ireland’s housing market in 2006. A government savings investment scheme provided to citizens of the Republic of Ireland had matured, meaning that hundreds of people had thousands of Euros to spare. With the easy availability of cheap buy-to-let mortgages, many invested in Northern Ireland’s ‘undervalued’ property market. This led to the average house price increasing in value by £600 per day – everyone was talking about it; those with houses were gloating, those without houses were panicking that they would never be able to afford one. Of course, such growth was unsustainable and prices collapsed. Whenever too many people start investing in the same thing, it creates a bubble. And bubbles always burst. When people lose confidence in the system and start to pull their money out, everyone else starts to panic and pull out too. The bigger the bubble, the greater the impact, and in a world which is globally connected this can be contagious. In the lead-up to 2008, banks in the US had developed a culture of lending money to people who couldn’t pay it back – but they didn’t really care. This sounds ridiculous, but mortgage firms were lending money, then selling these loans to others, who in turn sliced and diced the loans, packaged them up and sold them on. The buyer of these loans rarely knew or understood what they were buying. Some banks were lending over $100 for every $1 of capital they actually held. But if you are making a bonus of several million a year, why ask questions? After all, you could always sell the loans on to someone else. After years of this practice, the house of cards finally collapsed. In 2008, lots of people started defaulting on their home loans and the markets lost confidence. Banks, which lend to one another, stopped trusting that the assets of other banks were secure. They lost trust in the medium of exchange, so the money that oiled the wheels of the financial system dried up. This would all be fine if this so-called ‘casino capitalism’ was separated from the rest of the economy. But bankers were using real people’s money to bet on these risky assets. If the banks went under so would small businesses, ordinary people’s savings and the ability of our economies to function. So governments used trillions of taxpayers’ dollars to guarantee savings, underwrite financial institutions, and inject money into the banks to get them lending again. But (aside from the money for the bank bailouts) the loss of confidence in the banking system, the amount of money that has been lost on the stock and property markets and the reluctance of banks to lend have had a direct knock-on effect on the real economy. Many questions have been asked regarding the personal responsibility of bankers who benefited – and are still benefiting – from activities that have caused such havoc internationally. But bankers are not the only ones to blame. Central banks and politicians kept interest rates low and enabled the easy availability of credit – which encouraged lending, fuelled growth based on ever-increasing debt, and contributed to the bubble which eventually burst. By and large, citizens asked no questions when times were good. Perhaps, too, we need to ask questions about our own personal responsibility for the money that we borrow and the money we invest. The financial crisis also raises questions regarding the nature of speculation. One of the most shocking things that happened in 2008, was that, as the stock market and property became an increasingly risky investment, speculators started to shift their money into commodities – including basic food stuffs like wheat. This is one factor which drove up global food prices and meant that the poor in developing countries were paying higher prices for daily necessities. In India, lentil prices have tripled since 2008; urban families typically spend 55% of their income on food. Of course very few people would say it’s OK to generate a passive income at the expense of the poor – but in a globalised world, where decisions in London impact on the freedom of those living in slums in Lusaka, it’s easy to distance ourselves from the impacts of our behaviour. This crisis also raises more fundamental questions about the way that our financial and economic system works and who it serves. Does it promote prosperity, or perpetuate poverty? If so, how can we use our economic system to build the former and challenge the latter? PROSPERITY AND POVERTY Prosperity is about things going well in accordance with our hopes and expectations. This includes a sense of continuity – that we don’t expect things to fall apart tomorrow – and a sense that our prosperity as individuals is dependent on the prosperity of those around us, the people with whom we share our lives. Prosperity is about the capabilities that people have to flourish. Do they live long? Can they take part in the life of a community? Can they appear in public without shame and disgrace? Can they keep themselves warm? Can they use their school education? Can they visit friends and family? For decades, the dominant economic model for pursuing the goal of prosperity has been economic growth – with the assumption that higher incomes mean increased choices and an improved standard of living. Rising Gross Domestic Product, a measure of the economic activity of a nation, is assumed to be a proxy for rising prosperity. This has been the single policy goal that has defined Western economies for the last century. Yet, between 1990 and 2001, for every £100 worth of growth in income, just 60 pence contributed to reducing extreme poverty – hardly an efficient way of challenging poverty – given all the resources and energy required to stimulate such growth. It has also been fairly bad at challenging inequality. In the 1980s a chief executive of a FTSE 100 company earned around 25 times the ‘average’ salary. In the 2000s it had increased to around 120 times. And in richer nations where subsistence needs are largely met, does an increase in the average income result in increased prosperity? The evidence suggests that this is not the case. At low-income levels, an increase in GDP increases happiness, but at high-income levels, there is not much difference. People in Colombia are generally happier than people in France, Austria, Canada and Japan, despite huge difference in their incomes. Two other issues raise questions over the value of continual economic growth. The first relates to stability and the second relates to finite resources. One analysis suggests that capitalism is a process by which money is perpetually sent in search of more money. Financiers lend in return for interest, merchants buy cheap and sell dear, landlords collect rent, and so on. At its simplest level, the capitalist takes money, buys labour, power and materials and produces a commodity which is sold for a profit. This profit is then reinvested to make more money. The capital seeks new investment opportunities and, as long as it finds these, capitalism expands at a compound rate. But when there are limited investment opportunities, there is a problem. In the past decades, the level of capital exceeded profitable investment opportunities. And so, virtual markets were created – derivatives and synthetics that made money out of money with no real underlying value – until the whole thing collapsed. Since the 1970s surplus capital has increased year on year by 3% – meaning there is more and more money needing profitable investment opportunities. When those opportunities cease to exist, crises occur. Some analysis suggests that this is a recipe for deeper and more frequent crises in the future. The second problem is that the production of commodities and the pursuit of economic growth require the input of resources and the output of waste. On a finite planet with a growing population we need to consider the implications of a model that assumes constant growth in consumption. If our lifestyles are using resources or creating waste that impinges on the ability of the poor to achieve at least a minimum standard of living, then we need to question that. There are also broader questions with regard to our stewardship of the earth’s resources. In the last 35 years alone, human beings, overwhelmingly in the developed countries, have destroyed one-third of the world’s non-renewable resources. So while the idea of a non-growing economy is horrifying to the economist, the idea of a continually growing economy is horrifying to the ecologist. THE GOOD THAT I WOULD, I DO NOT … It’s important to understand as much as we can about our present financial situation, since it directly affects all of us in one way or another. Some of the very irresponsible actions taken over the past few years were possible only because too few people were watching – it’s easy to see now how advantage was taken of the fact that, for most of us, finance and economics has been something we thought was too difficult to understand, or even to ask questions about. But it’s especially important for Christians to confront hard questions about the use of resources, including money, because they lead directly to deeper issues that are at the heart of our faith. And as we face huge challenges – accumulating debt and bankruptcy, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, exclusion and powerlessness – at home and internationally, we ask, what does good news to the poor mean today? How does our faith speak to the crises of our time? The first and perhaps the most important thing to remember is that we are not alone. We are children of a God who loves the lost and the least, who runs out to meet us when we are in a mess, and who in Jesus stood alongside the outcast and the poor. John’s Gospel tells us that in seeing Jesus, we also see the one who sent him, not to judge but in love, and the poor and powerless are especially close to the heart of God. The spiritual realm is embedded in economic and political reality. In fact, the economic and political reality of Jesus’ day was not so distant from ours as we might imagine. It encompassed acute poverty and inequalities of many kinds, a brutal military and imperialist occupation, forced migration, slavery, indebtedness, corruption in the taxation system, loansharking and the exclusion from religious, political and economic life of the most vulnerable – lone women, the physically and mentally ill, foreigners and outsiders of many kinds. Still today, across the world, and in our own countries, people suffer under these burdens. And now, as then, we also struggle under the weight of our own fallibility and weakness; we are always tripping ourselves up. It is not just the spiritual realm which is embedded in economic and political reality – we are too. We are all born into complicity with oppressive structures and systems, part of a dehumanising world order for which we did not give our permission but which is very difficult indeed to withdraw from. For example, even when we want to do such a seemingly simple thing as open a savings account in a bank, we cannot be sure that our savings will not be used for purposes that cause suffering to people somewhere, or that damage the environment. Paul's words in Romans: ‘For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. I don't do the good I want to do; instead I do the evil that I do not want to do’, speak to and for us all. This is sin, the separation that divides us from God and from our neighbours. Every day, sometimes through our own self-interest and hardness of heart, sometimes despite our best intentions, we act in ways that relentlessly distort or diminish the image of God in our fellow human beings. Every day we do things that damage the earth our habitat. Every day we deny the goodness of God’s creation. In the occasional honest moments when we get beyond our illusions, we recognise our brokenness, the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others and the life of the world. Ultimately, we step away from God’s covenant relationship with us. THE COST AND JOY OF DISCIPLESHIP But ‘you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you’ (St Augustine). By the grace and generosity of God, flawed and divided as we are, we are invited to belong more deeply to one another. What we cannot do for ourselves, Christ does on our behalf. His costly reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel, overcoming our divisions. Out of a divided humanity, God is making a united one in Christ. Even in difficult times, this is good news to be thankful for. But not just a united humanity; that unity and reconciliation is for the whole creation. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which extends to the whole creation. The kingdom or reign of God, announced by John the Baptiser and Mary, proclaimed by Christ, offers a vision of the loving purpose of God who is at work in history to renew, restore and heal the brokenness of creation so that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. So the call to conversion, to transformation of life, which was so central to Jesus’ ministry and which is the ongoing task of his church, can never just be about our personal spiritual lives, or even our theologies and church lives. It is about our whole lives – our politics, our cultures, our economics, how we spend our money and our time – because no part of life, and not even death, is beyond God's love. All are in Christ. When he summed up and affirmed the Jewish Law as loving God with our whole lives and our neighbour as ourselves, Jesus made the economic as also being ‘for God and for our neighbours’. In his life and teaching, the Church is warned about the dangers of wealth and called to bring good news to the poor. A failure to feed, clothe and relate to those in need is presented in Matthew 25 as a failure to know and respond to Christ himself in the world. Perhaps we see God’s purpose expressed most clearly in the central Christian practice of sharing in the Lord’s Supper/Holy Communion/Eucharist. It is a definitive sign of how all that comes from God is to be offered back to God and shared with our neighbours. We come to Christ’s table knowing our own emptiness, our failures in sharing, our complicity with the world’s injustice, our sin. Conversion, turning away from that order to God’s economy of sharing, is hard. We are hungry to change, and that hunger we cannot satisfy ourselves. So we stretch out our hands, and we are fed; not because we are deserving, but because we are loved, and it is in the nature of God to feed hungry people. By grace alone we are fed. And when we hear the words ‘this is my Body’, we remember the total identification to death of Jesus with all humanity. In the bread broken and the wine poured out to be shared are both suffering and hope, both the cost and the joy of discipleship. ‘I hate your religious festivals; stop your noisy songs; instead, let justice roll like a river, and righteousness like a stream that never runs dry’ (Amos 5:21–24). So spoke the prophet, and indeed, if we get so caught up in the correctness of our remembrance, or the beauty of our ceremonies and prayers, or our own nourishment, that we forget that people are still hungry and we are united with them in Christ's Body, then we rather miss the point of Jesus the bread of life. The bread was broken to be shared. Failure to practise economic sharing is presented in 1 Corinthians 11 as a failure to know and respond to Christ in the sacrament. A faith response to economic crisis begins with our prayer: God give us grace to share our bread. Restored relationships are at the centre of our communion celebration. With thankfulness we can sit at table with our Lord, knowing that all are welcome at the feast. We are part of a new covenant, a new relationship, a new community in which we are forgiven, accepted and freed. But we don’t get to be particular about who we share with, even if they’re not the people we would have expected or chosen or even considered. As part of the Body of Christ, we sit down with street children and peasant farmers, with soldiers and protesters, with dispossessed and excluded people from all over the world. It’s worth noting that every miracle of Jesus, every healing act, every encounter he had with individuals all had two outcomes. First, a person was fed or healed, raised to their feet or turned in a new direction, changed or challenged. Second, that person was invited into a new relationship and into a new life in community. We can think of the crowds fed by the lakeside, of the women and men isolated by their sickness or stigmatised by their occupation or way of life. But we can also see it in those whose meetings with Jesus included an economic exchange: l A new relationship for the men who brought gifts for a king and found a child born in a shed. l A new relationship for tax-collectors and outcasts. l A new relationship for the women who financed Jesus. l A new relationship for the woman who anointed Jesus, henceforth known not for the greatness of her sins but for the greatness of her love. In the way Jesus transformed these exchanges, we can see: l the restoration of the capacity to share, the transformation of the personal l the restoration of the necessary material provision, the transformation of the economic l the restoration into relationship in a new form of kinship, the transformation of the political. All of these are expressed in communion. A faith response to economic crisis asks whether our exchanges lead to these outcomes. ‘Where your treasure is …’ Jesus once told a story about how the kingdom of God was like a precious pearl. It was in the context of a much longer discourse, in which he challenged his listeners to think about their own values, particularly on the subject of wealth and poverty. His listeners were mostly poor people, and like people in all times and places, probably they had something of a belief that if only they were rich, then their lives would be better, more secure, less anxious. But Jesus was having none of this. ‘No,’ he said, 'you don’t need any excess, just enough for today. Don’t stockpile, don’t store up: today, this moment, is all you know you have. The rest is in the hands of God. Your surplus will profit you nothing!’

A little bit later, he told them to sell all their belongings, and give their money to the poor. Jesus made a corporate response to need – rather than the individual accumulation of wealth as an insurance, he suggested instead a sharing community, in which each would have enough for the day. That’s very challenging indeed to our ears. Our current model of individualism and wealth creation lacks norms, limits and prioritisation when it comes to the common good. But what seems like the insatiable desire for individual freedom is likely to lead to greater rather than fewer constraints because our natural resources are finite. This desire has become increasingly damaging: it will hurt our children and grandchildren as we mortgage their future to it, and there is a kind of ethical obscenity in our conspicuous over-consumption when so many suffer such poverty and want. Beyond the modest meeting of needs, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that our present way of life does not make us happier or more content, but rather makes us more anxious and insecure. ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ Jesus says that the capacity for living a true life is greatly, and perhaps fatally reduced in those who have wealth. Such self- and other-harming behaviour is a symptom of what the Bible calls idolatry: the exalting of our own desires over love of God and love of our neighbour. There is no doubt that economic growth and wealth creation has become an idol of our age. This is not new, but its consequences are more farreaching in our globalised world. It is easy to reject the idol of wealth on an intellectual level – it is much more challenging to change our behaviour, to re-evaluate where our heart lies and to repent of the sin of economic idolatry. ‘I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly’ said Jesus, reminding us that life has many dimensions, spiritual, social, environmental as well as economic. Rather than view economics as an opportunity to pursue selfenrichment through monetary possessions, we can view economics as the task of good stewardship, the faithful management of the household resources. But good stewardship, certainly in a Christian and biblical context, is not about maximising profits, share returns or property holdings. It is about ordering the household so that all its members, including the most vulnerable, can grow and flourish. The economic is the clearest possible indicator of spirituality. Our resources are gift. We are not God: we did not create them out of nothing! We seek to order them in obedience to God’s purposes of justice and love. Ultimately, all are held in trust, not just for our benefit but for the wellbeing of the whole community, and for the future, and we are accountable for that trust. To be a steward is about effectively sharing the blessings of creation with all of creation. Such a task requires a holistic approach – there is no sense in a vision of helping the poor which ignores the reasons why they are poor or a vision of environmental stewardship without addressing the factors behind the degradation of ecosystems. A faith response to economic crisis asks, ‘How does our economic stewardship contribute to abundant life for everyone?’ Abundant life includes valuing things which don’t necessarily lead to economic growth or profit. Wellbeing relies on stable and close relationships, physical and mental health, meaningful work and leisure as well as income. We know that indebtedness has a negative impact on relationships – it’s estimated that 10.7 million people in the UK suffer relationship problems because of money worries. There is also clear evidence that where income differences between rich and poor are smaller, community life is stronger. Not only are people more likely to trust each other in societies where equality is greater, but there is less violence, health is better and life expectancy longer, levels of education among children tend to be higher and there is more social mobility. Public policy could be intentional in recognising the value of relationships for a stable society. This might affect how we view our homes – rather than as a way of generating unearned income through everincreasing property values, we might view houses as a habitat in which we flourish.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus told his disciples that they were no longer his servants; now they were his friends. He was not withholding knowledge or power from them; what he was doing was transparent, open, shared. Many of the abuses of power evident in the financial crisis involved the withholding of information and knowledge, and collusion with that withholding. We cannot be personal friends with everyone, but we can hold on to the friendship values of acceptance, exchange, openness and trust in others. A faith response to economic crisis requires us to challenge inequality and affirm mutuality. YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME BUT I CHOSE YOU …

In this crisis, there is a temptation to hide away in our churches and in private religion or personal spirituality. But Jesus came to show how much God loved the world, so we must turn again to the world. This goes to the heart of our confession of faith. We cannot proclaim Jesus Christ the Lord of life, and not stand against all that denies the promise of abundant life to the world. Alone we can achieve little – but God has given us the church: a Christian community of shared life experiences, which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, fosters committed faith and enables the individual to criticise and challenge the status quo. Our words must be consistent with our lives and actions as a community. If we are not caring for the neighbours around us, we have no basis for going to the state to argue for structural change. But the church gives us the context in which we can think through and support one another in living an alternative vision. We have the opportunity to raise children in a way that values the multi-dimensional nature of life and challenges the temptation to idolise money. We can support one another in living according to God’s norms in the work that we do and in valuing those who have no paid employment. Biblically, sharing the blessings of creation is the mark of the redeemed community as well as the changed individual. In our sharing, we can witness to a different, more compassionate economics. This may well set our feet on a different journey. In the course of his three-year ministry, Jesus moved from private faith to public witness, from personal comfort to shared vulnerability, from self-sufficiency to interdependence. It is the journey of discipleship he is always calling us to join him on. Kathy Galloway is Head of Christian Aid Scotland, and a former Leader of the Iona Community. She is the author of many books, including Sharing the Blessing: Overcoming Poverty and Working for Justice, SPCK, and Living by the Rule: the Rule of the Iona Community, Wild Goose Publications, www.ionabooks.com. David McNair is Head of Growth, Equity and Livelihoods at Save the Children UK. Previously, he led Christian Aid's tax and development work. He is writing in a personal capacity

Faslane Easter Witness for Peace, by John Harvey

The sun shone cheerfully down as about two hundred of us, from Christian Churches and communities across the country, converged with our colourful flags and banners on the nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the Gareloch, on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. This was the second Easter Witness for Peace organised by SCANA (Scottish Clergy Against Nuclear Arms) – a gathering for prayer, for a picnic, and as yet another action to make clear the Churches’ utter opposition to the use or threatened use of weapons of mass destruction, which are ‘theologically and morally indefensible’. We heard strong statements from Church leaders: from Alan McDonald, former Moderator of the Kirk’s General Assembly; from David Mumford, Dean of the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Brechin diocese; and from Bishop Joe Toal of the Roman Catholic diocese of Argyll and the Isles. Kathy Galloway, former Iona Community Leader and now head of Christian Aid Scotland, gave an impassioned plea to make a final push to get rid of nuclear weapons in Britain and to release the enormous sums misspent on them for far more urgent and beneficial use; and Bruce Kent, former head of CND and a regular protester at Faslane, shared with many his hope that a Scottish initiative to remove nuclear weapons from Scottish soil would kick-start their total dismantling across the world. The event was chaired by David McLachlan of SCANA, with worship led by Lynn Peden and Ainslie Walton, also of SCANA, and we sang songs led by Graham Maule of the Wild Goose Resource Group. A huge range of people were there, mixing the very young with the really old, individuals and family groups, able-bodied and physically challenged – including quite a few for whom this was a first. And the police looked on dispassionately, held the ring, as it were – and took loads of photographs! And always in the background, locked securely behind the gates and the razor wire, the obscenity of Trident loomed over us – the massive ‘plank in our eye’, as Alan McDonald put it, while we in the UK are so busy urging other countries to remove ‘the dust’ in theirs. Did we make a difference? As we remember again that lonely man on a donkey, riding into the centre of power surrounded only by palm branches and a few bemused followers, it’s really a no-brainer. As St Paul put it so memorably: ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are’ (1 Corinthians 1:27–28). In that faith, we witnessed, we prayed, we picnicked, and we celebrated the reality of the coming reign of God – not here yet, but as sure as the sun which rises, every day, over the barbed wire of Faslane.

We keep singing, by Wendy Young

Wendy Young, Education and Church Development Officer with Christian Aid Scotland, reflects on a recent field trip to Colombia, where she met with Christian Aid partners defending human rights under threats of imprisonment and death.

I was immediately drawn to what looked like a model of a village in the hallway of the typical Bogotá house we had entered, the office of Christian Aid partner Justicia Y Paz. The model was about one metre square in size; the village consisted of eight huts on little stilts, each hut had a shiny corrugated metal roof. The area surrounding the huts was dotted with trees and a few chicken coops that even held little model chickens. There was a sign on the perimeter fence that contained this village, but my beginner Spanish was not yet proficient enough to interpret it. Our host, Father Juliana, a Redemptorist priest, entered the hallway and embraced us with his smile. He noticed our interest in the model and through interpreted Spanish explained that this was a model of a ‘humanitarian zone’. The sign said ‘No one with arms may enter. This area is protected by the precautions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.’ What initially appeared to be a quaint little model was now representative of a courageous response to a grim reality for many living in Colombia. 5.2 million people are internally displaced in Colombia, the highest number in any country in the world. The first humanitarian zones were established after hundreds of families had been forced from their homes by paramilitaries and/or the military in a land-grabbing move by palm-oil growers. With Colombia’s abundance of mineral resources, demand for the land has not lessened. The humanitarian zones provide an opportunity for families to regroup against the risk of displacement and to re-establish their lives on the land that has much more than monetary value to them. A satchel, hat and scarf hang on the wall of the landing in the Justicia Y Paz offices as a memorial. These items were all that was recovered from the field from which the campesino who owned them had disappeared. Justicia Y Paz provides accompaniment for the displaced populations (peasant, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities) with the aim to forming the humanitarian zones. They have a strong human rights focus, offering legal advice, and have had groundbreaking success taking cases through the Inter-American legal system. Father Juliana explained that campesino communities and the human rights activists they support often require international protective accompaniment. He conveyed his sincere appreciation of this accompaniment, but with some sadness asked why the life of a campesino should be seen as of less worth than that of an international accompanier. We had just visited Peace Brigades International (PBI), another Christian Aid partner, prior to visiting Justicia Y Paz. PBI provides just such protective accompaniment, and produces useful analyses of the complex political situation in the country and carries out important representational and advocacy work. Their energy and commitment to the cause of human rights is challenging and inspiring to say the least. There are those who, having been displaced, cannot foresee returning to the land: the only option for them is a move to the city. So the informal settlements positioned precariously on the steep hills of Bogotá’s suburbs continue to grow. We visited one such settlement with Christian Aid partner Mencoldes, the Mennonite Development Foundation. This visit provided a close look at the challenges of living in such unstable surrounds. It wasn’t hard to imagine the deluge and destruction following one of Colombia’s convectional rainstorms, as we stood looking down the steep dirt tracks into the valley. In the valley floor stood a stagnant lake where the community washed their clothes. Only two of the numerous surrounding hills were not densely packed with the homes of migrants. One hill was an open quarry, and the dust from the lorries and diggers blew across the valley as they carted off Colombia’s mineral wealth for the benefit of others elsewhere. Another hill lay eerily bare, but for one isolated tree. Disaster risk reduction work, which is building resilience to future incidence of flooding, is a relatively recent endeavour of Mencoldes. Like many Christian Aid partners across the world they are having to include adaptation to the effects of climate change into their remit of work. The bare hill with the isolated tree, known locally as ‘the hanging tree’, was a powerful reminder of what brought Mencoldes to work in this area in the first instance. The hill is a visual reminder of the paramilitary presence in the area. Should anyone try to build a home on this hill it would be burned down the next day. It is the vision of Mencoldes to provide an alternative to paramilitary involvement for the young people of this area. Paramilitary recruitment offers a secure income, albeit by illegal means, and a sense of identity. Mencoldes seeks to provide a more peaceful and positive sense of purpose. Their Centre for Culture and Hope sits juxtaposed to the bare hill with the solitary tree. Offering lifeskills workshops and creative arts programmes, they are helping young people gain confidence and belief that they have other options in life. They also work to challenge the culture of domestic abuse, and seek to expose the selective assassination of young people in southern Bogotá by illegal armed groups. The joined-up nature of the work of Christian Aid partners in Colombia impressed me greatly. Each of the partners had a vision for helping people at the various stages in the experience of displacement, with the human rights activists and lawyers dedicated to exposing and challenging the ingrained injustice. Catherine, my colleague in the Bogotá office, reminded me of our privilege ‘not to speak on behalf of the poor, but to amplify their voices’. Their voices beckon us on to persevere in the cause of challenging injustice and ending inequality. After admiring the model of the humanitarian zone in the hallway, we were invited into a meeting room, where we heard the stories of success and frustration in Justicia Y Paz’s work. Amongst these stories, we heard the personal accounts of why the staff, human rights lawyers, journalists and theologians were involved in this work. Some felt duty-bound by their faith to respond to the need, and others had been moved to act after losing close friends and family members in the ‘internal armed conflict’. They concluded with words that would have moved us to tears if we hadn’t already been weeping: ‘Despite the thumps, we keep singing.’ l To find out more about Christian Aid’s work in Colombia and to help support its partners there: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/whatwedo/theamericas/ colombia.aspx www.christianaid.org.uk

One planet, one people, by Paul Baker Hernandez

Friend of the Iona Community Paul Baker Hernandez – activist, musician, Echoes of Silence founder and author of ‘A Declaration of Interdependence’ – writes from Managua on Earth Day …

I feel a bit like George MacLeod, although I’m not particularly tall, nor weighty of mien, nor holder of the Military Cross for bravery at Passchendaele and Ypres. I don’t recall ever having been Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, or rescuing Iona Abbey from ruin. And I’m certainly, so far at least, neither a Lord nor dead. Plus, I’m English! However, when I lived in Edinburgh exile – way back in the 1980s – I remember how Lord George, leaning emphatically on his cane (so far I don’t have one of those either) would challenge the entire Church Assembly over nuclear weapons. Year in. Year out. Hopeless, year in. Hopeless, year out. The received wisdom of the day was that, without nuclear arms, enormous guntoting Soviet atheists would be gaily trampling down the flowers in Bellahouston Park, snowy boots, Communist Manifesto, clinking bottles of vodka and all. Abruptly, one magical year (1986, was it?), those of us supporting George on the pavement outside the Assembly felt a sudden frisson. The old soldier had stood to his duty one last time and the gathered Elders had suddenly capitulated: ‘Have you heard? They’re voting through a motion condemning nuclear weapons as anti-Christian!’ Water on stone? Georgic frustration? The spirit, holy or otherwise? The one vital thing was that Lord George had persisted and, billionth snowflake, hundredth monkey, ripest banana or whatever, the critical moment had arrived. Well, a (very little) bit like MacLeod, since the turn of the millennium, I've been banging on about an idea whose time has clearly come, but to which we remain largely and confusingly indifferent: One Planet, One People. After all, it’s obvious, isn’t it?: we are all profoundly interdependent: in personal relationships, family, local community, nation and, beyond all else, on our one exquisite, exquisitely fragile earth. Independence is fine, especially from oppressive systems of governance and exploitation, but blinkered individualism? It’s precisely because our individual fingers and thumbs are physically linked in exquisite harmony that our hands are such marvellous tools. Exactly so, we humans are essentially and inseparably individual/communal. Essentially and inseparably. It’s of our very essence. And it makes us beautiful – and capable of so much beauty. ONE PLANET ONE PEOPLE So what do we have?: a rather splendid Universal Declaration of Human Rights, coupled with some pretty anodyne entities supposedly implementing it, overwhelmed by a dominant system that relentlessly denies those rights to the majority of the world’s people and peoples. And, obviously, and correlatively, a planet going down in flames. Politicians live on too short a leash to make great ideals concrete and genuinely universal. Practically all the great movements of history have come from the people, from below not from above: Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Julia Ward Howe, the Pankhursts … And now: One Planet, One People. Could it be us?! The fire this time? Does anyone else remember Greenham Common? If George MacLeod was trying to climb a gumtree, imagine how the women who staggered up to that air base after their long anti-nuclear march felt. A Welsh group, ‘Women for Life on Earth’, their ‘little march’ was instantly consigned to obscurity by the hacks of corporatocracy. But (and is this the key?) the women would have none of it: they decided to stay ‘for as long as it takes’. And so they set up camps at Greenham’s very gates. And so they changed the world, so became the legendary heart of the UK antinuclear movement. And nineteen long years later, the cruise missiles were gone. Nineteen years – ‘for as long as it takes’. And today, when even nuclear weapons pale beside the actual ongoing destruction of the planet – occurring right now as we breathe – where are our Greenhams? For a start, what about working to get this implemented: A DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE: ONE PLANET, ONE PEOPLE ‘We, the peoples and people of this one exquisite – and exquisitely fragile – planet hold these truths to be self-evident: That all persons – children, women and men, of every race, calling, creed, colour, condition and age – are created equal. There are no exceptions. That they, collectively and individually, are endowed with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That the fundamental sources and resources to achieve these rights – peace without threat, force or weapons, pure air, fresh water, an uncontaminated earth, nourishing food, good health, creative education, a secure home, equitable justice, local and global responsibility, authentic, proportionate, participative representation and worthwhile work – also belong inalienably to them all, for ever. That this inheritance – these resources truly without price – can never be taken over or away by individuals, classes, corporations and/or states for their own exclusive or majority use, exploitation, profit or control. Rather, that it is the marvellous gift and responsibility of every human generation to enjoy and utilise these resources with respect and delight, in interdependence with all peoples and with the whole multitude of species, both animal and plant, with which we co-inhabit this tiny, fragile planet. And, within that gift, to hand them on, enhanced, to the children of our children’s children.’ So, yet another worthy document to gather yet more cyber-dust in some remote cyber-archive on some distant cyber-planet? But, if we add – and act on – this: ‘To make this Declaration reality we therefore require our employees, the governments of the world, to reallocate at least 1% of all budgets currently dedicated to the military, war and the arms trade –money, materials and especially the creative lives and expertise of their members – to bring fresh water to everyone on earth. And to redress the female/male/racial imbalance at every level. Not only will these measures help regreen the planet and avert looming wars over water, so much more precious than oil, but also, by beginning the deliberate build-down of weapons, will mark a vital psychological turning point for humanity, especially in the true honouring of women, other so-called ‘minorities’, children, and all who have given their lives for peace. Further, it will improve global health dramatically, saving additional vast quantities of resources and freeing up armies of skilled personnel for urgent medical and other tasks. Finally, it will at last provide, in the wonder of a healed, balanced and cooperative planet, a truly fitting memorial to all those who gave their lives believing their sacrifice would at last “end all wars”.’ But we have to act. It is up to us. ‘If not now, then when? If not us, then who?’ But how do we, charming though we may be (yet so insidiously corroded by Me First consumerism), even begin to take action as seriously as the women of Greenham or George MacLeod? One Planet, One People. Forget Earth Day. Every day is Earth Day. There are critical moments in every life. This is one such moment for the entire planet, for all of humanity. In the Greenham women’s and Lord George’s spirit, we must act boldly. To have a habitable planet for our children, we must commit ourselves as they did to ‘as long as it takes’. It truly is a matter of life and death. I’m lucky – for all its imperfections, Nicaragua today is some way to becoming an enormous peace camp. So many of the MacLeod/Greenham measures are beginning to be implemented here: peace, cooperation, solidarity, free education, free universal health care, women’s rights, children’s rights, the healing of impoverishment, of community, of the very planet. All within the context of a Latin America suddenly on fire, throwing off the increasingly catastrophic US/European Way of Death in order to build a truly human and humane world, based on cooperation and environmental intelligence rather than the selfconsuming, criminal cancer of dogeat- dog capitalism. (For more information on this, search: ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America; and CELAC, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.) Expecting to go out with a whimper, I find myself suddenly riding this glorious bang. How lucky can you get? And if that luck holds, I’ll be giving Lord George an enthusiastic high five in some distant eternity! But for those who can't get over here, share in that luck, the excitement: how to bring this optimism and creativity to our jaded North? To begin with, how about getting your school, college, faith community, union, local council, business … to formally adopt the Declaration of Interdependence, and to commit to some or all of the following: l Call on all MPs, MEPs, Members of Congress, etc to offer this Declaration, and its related actions, to our own nations, to the European Community and other such unions, to the world’s militaries, and to the entire international community, to be formally adopted. l Call on them, and on the UN, to declare an annual Global Interdependence Day l Spread the Declaration relentlessly – through the web, independent media, articles, radio, TV. (And I’m always ready to come and discuss all this and sing a few ditties.) l Set up Interdependence circles and camps to campaign for its promulgation, acceptance and implementation. (Could this become an Occupy theme?) l And challenge the news media everywhere to cover these great Latin American initiatives which, again imperfectly and embryonically, are actually offering a functioning alternative humane system to the whole world. George MacLeod focused on one burning issue. How about if we each pick one action idea and work ‘for as long as it takes’ ? The earth itself is our most compelling advocate: already Nicaragua is enduring vast thunderstorms, a month before their normal time; globally, there’s much more to come. The writing is firmly on the wall, but we are people of hope, not fear. We only have one life – why piddle it away on childish consumerism when there’s Occupy’s glorious vision and ALBA’s alternative reality to implement – to celebrate? Aren't these the wonderful continuation and celebration not only of the Greenham women’s/MacLeod’s work, but also of the millions of people like ourselves all round the world, moiling away unseen and unremarked, day in, day out, for love, for justice and peace, for beauty? One Planet, One People! We are the future. Where else will we find one? PRAYER TO A LABOURER Stand up and see The wonder of the mountain Source of the sun, the water, and the wild wind. Stand up and see These hands With which you labour; Stretch out, grow tall, Join hands with your sisters And your brothers, Working together, By deepest blood united, Knowing together, The future can be now! Victor Jara, from his song ‘Prayer to a Labourer’ l Paul Baker Hernandez was thrown out of his Trappist monastery for secretly making a guitar from a toilet seat and other recycled oddments. 40 years on, his guitar has led him to invade queen’s castles over nuclear weapons (heading up a posse of bishops), sing protest songs to Popes, join Jackson Browne and Martin Sheen on Central American picket lines, and help fight off death squads attacking Salvadoran exiles in Los Angeles. He now lives in a marginalised neighbourhood of Managua where he helps dig eco-water ditches, and makes up rude songs about cellphones, Starbucks and other dictators. He takes regular tours of the US, Canada and the UK to raise awareness and funds for the work of Echoes of Silence. Echoes of Silence –‘artists with dirt under their fingernails’ – works to build peace with justice, through beauty and concrete action. Beauty offers a glimpse of wholeness, keeping alive the vision of a healed world, and moving people profoundly to take concrete actions to make peace-filled justice. Echoes emphasises the arts as vital channels for communication and interchange. We particularly support projects to end war, to reduce global warming, and to build community information and action networks locally, nationally and internationally. For more information: http://echoesofsilence-ecosdelsilencio.pbworks.com To hear some of Paul’s music: http://www.myspace.com/paulbakerhernandez

A place of modest miracles: Santa Maria de Fe Hotel, Paraguay, by John L. Bell

Behind the reception desk of the Santa Maria de Fe Hotel in Paraguay is a book entitled ‘Odd Jobs’. The cover has a photograph of a middle-aged woman sniffing the armpit of a younger man. The book is for the exclusive use of past or potential voluntary General Assistants at Iona Abbey or the MacLeod Centre. It is from the village of Santa Maria de Fe that for several years volunteers have come. Guests on Iona during that period may know the distinctive names of Rufino, Fabiana, Dario, Maria Gloria, Liliana, Milciades or Elida, all of whom share the common denominators of belonging to that village, speaking Guarani (the indigenous language), Spanish and English, and knowing Margaret Hebblethwaite. People who read The Tablet may recognise her as a former associate editor of that publication, or may know her from a number of books on spirituality and theology. Margaret is an English Roman Catholic who felt drawn to live in this impoverished Paraguayan village and discern by what means she might encourage the life of people who not only in ancient history but in more recent times had been demeaned and persecuted. Santa Maria de Fe is one of 30 pueblos, or villages, which grew up around 17th-century Jesuit missions commonly called the ‘Reductions’. The term is highly deceptive. It does not infer that the locals were oppressed by the Jesuits. Rather, it describes how the indigenous people voluntarily reduced the distance between their habitations in order to settle in communities near the Jesuit churches, where they were evangelised by people who honoured their distinctive culture and, in some ways, prevented them from being enslaved as many other Native Americans were. The small museum which sits on the opposite side of the village square from the hotel bears witness to how exactly the Jesuits encouraged indigenisation. Beautiful statues of Christ, the Virgin and a variety of saints were sculpted by a progressive Italian called Brassanelli, whose great gift was to move from conventionally passive sculptural images to those which, despite being made of wood or plaster, exhibit energy. His native apprentices were encouraged to emulate the style, but more, to make the effigies look like locals. Thus long before Vatican II encouraged the indigenisation of religious artwork, the people of Santa Maria had a Jesus who looked every much a Guarani as one of them. In subsequent years Paraguay endured wars against a triple alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and in the early twentieth century the Chaco War with Bolivia. Its borders shrank, but the southeastern province, called Los Misiones, remained intact. With a small scattered population (6.2 million at the moment), a land mass almost twice that of the United Kingdom, no seaboard and little by way of mineral wealth, the nation’s continued poverty owes much to the corruption of the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner, which lasted from 1954 to 1989. During this period real and suspected dissidents were tortured and murdered and the basic Christian communities which developed in the 1970s were regarded as subversive. There are people in Santa Maria who still bear the physical and mental scars or unrequited grief from that period. Bringing no ready-made answers, but allowing the community to benefit from her experience and skills, Margaret Hebblethwaite has enabled great transitions to happen. The hotel is one of her projects, both giving work to local people and providing a place of hospitality in a small town which has no other such accommodation. Another project has involved the resourcing of an Institute of further learning through the Santa Maria Education Fund. This enables local people, free of charge, to study for their own interest, and awards bursaries for university education. One of the cultural innovations has been the provision of teachers of violin and Paraguayan harp so that children may learn both historic classical and indigenous styles of playing. On my visit I was privileged to hear four teenagers give a private recital of national harp music which was of broadcasting standard. Through her initiative, young people who could never dream of going abroad have been given the opportunity to come to Iona to improve their English language skills and to gain experience of working in a place of hospitality. Rufino, who was on Iona six years ago, is now the manager of a 23- bed hotel and is both studying and teaching in a local university. Maria Gloria and Milciades, who are more recent ex-vollies, share the management of the Santa Maria Hotel, translate with great agility from Spanish and Guarani into English, and introduce guests to the variety of opportunities in the area. For people who would like a different break in a small country with a distinctive culture, and who don’t mind hearing the occasional cock crow at 4 in the morning, this place – with its shared commitment to the values of the Iona Community – is worth visiting. l For information on accommodation, tour weeks, etc: http://www.santamariahotel.org/index.php/en/ For the best guide to the nation: Paraguay by Margaret Hebblethwaite, Bradt Guides, 2010 For an insight into local life: With Love from Santa Maria by Margaret Hebblethwaite, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2012 John L. Bell is the author and editor of many books, including collections of songs from the world church. He is a member of the Iona Community and of the Wild Goose Resource Group. Photo: Maria Gloria and Milciades, by John L. Bell

Vulnerability as the heart of transformation, by Donald Eadie

An address given to the Vinter Konferens, Stockholm, 2011. The theme of the conference was ‘En Kyrka utan väggar’ (‘A Church without walls’) …

It is both a great honour and a great responsibility to be with you at a time like this. Your willingness to journey through the death of three Churches into the birth of a new Church, your courage to live and work with difference, your openness to wait on God for the fruitfulness which the Spirit will bring is for us an inspiration. I choose to speak on the theme: ‘Vulnerability as the heart of transformation’. These are not my words but those of our Anglican Archbishop, Rowan Williams. I have also chosen to speak in the context of a question: ‘What could our experience of the human body, and in particular the experience of those of us who live with impairments, physical and psychological, bring to our being reshaped within the Body of Christ?’ ‘We are,’ as the Psalmist said, ‘wondrously made’ (Ps 139:14). The human body has infinite pathways of communication, memories stored up in organs and cells. The body is our teacher, yet we are so slow in our learning, in our listening, and in our being gentle with it. THE JOURNEY FROM THE CENTRE TO THE EDGE For much of my life I have taken my body for granted, enjoyed sport, loved walking in the mountains, and through most of my working life, and to my shame, worked all hours. In 1987 I commenced my work as Chairman of the Birmingham District of the Methodist Church. Five years later, my experience of living with my body changed. I was told that I have a developing degenerative disc disease. There have been three major spinal operations, including the implanting of scaffolding to support the spine. I live with continuing pain and physical limitation. I am unable to stand or sit for more than a few minutes. I asked those in authority in the Methodist Church for help to minister from a chair, a ministry of stability and availability, and was told that to be a minister I must be mobile and be able to work a three-shift day. I was confused, I was angry and I wept. The journey away from the centre of the busy life of the church to the edge was, paradoxically, a journey deeper into the heart of things. It was unexpected, unwanted and yet became a frightening liberation. What were the fears? The letting go of identity, role and relationships. Living with the new aloneness, the new silence, the new limitation. Living with feelings of marginalisation and abandonment, and living with the death of the old life, and not being able to imagine a new life with meaning and purpose. During this time, a Jesuit priest, Gerry Hughes, came to visit me and we began to explore what was happening and to interpret the meaning. He accompanied me in this way for nearly 10 years. He helped me both to build a bridge into the future and later to let go dreams and wishes, and to face the emptiness and the waiting within weakness. Waiting with openness for what is new is not easy. In this experience we become pilgrims. Gerry spoke of the journey from the centre into the borderlands. ‘The borderlands,’ he said, ‘are the place of exploration and discovery; they are the new centre.’ ‘There will be new companions,’ a wise old friend promised. And to my great surprise and joy this has been true. I have met wonderful people I never knew existed. I have encountered prophetic communities. Much of my time was, and still is, lived in a loved room. And people began to come to the room, not for counselling or therapy but as those who are also pilgrims within the borderlands. Some seek the life-giving presence of God within this wondrous and terrifying world, and within the story of our lives. Others seek help to live their faithfulness to God within complex and ambiguous situations. Some are bruised and oppressed through different forms of religious bullying yet live with a poignant sense of the ‘otherness’ and the intimacy of God, and ask if this is enough. Others appear to be beyond the reach of the Church yet have spiritual needs and ask faith questions. ‘This room has become my church,’ one person said. And months later: ‘No, the world has become my church.’ Physical limitation, perhaps even divine calling, brings us to a marginalised place. It becomes for some of us a conversion experience. A director of mission from Rotterdam also visited my room. He spoke of our listening to the voices of people and communities on the margins of society as the mission priority. ‘The borderlands,’ he said, ‘are the context where God’s Spirit works to convert the Church.’ THE CONNECTION BETWEEN OUR BODY AND THE BODY OF CHRIST And second: I speak of the connection between our experience of our body and the Body of Christ. We are understandably hesitant to make these connections. For Paul, the imagery of the body is central to both his experience and his teaching. ‘We are all brought into the one body by baptism’ (1 Cor 12:13). ‘When we break bread, is it not a means of sharing in the Body of Christ?’ (1 Cor 10:17). God’s call, says Paul, is to be drawn into the mystery of the Body of Christ, to share in his life, suffering, death and resurrection. ‘We carry in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body’ (2 Cor 4:10). The power of the resurrection is only experienced through suffering and the cross. This perplexing mystery belongs to the way of God in the world. ‘The continuing passion of God in the world,’ a South African friend said, ‘is carried not in abstract ideas but in our human bodies and souls, in our willingness to absorb evil, suffering, grief and shame willingly.’ I want to introduce you to some of those new companions who have helped me to make these connections. In 1997 a group of priests, women in religious orders, and Methodist ministers, all living with physical or psychological impairments, began to meet together in Birmingham. We still come together four or five times a year. There have been 12 of us, among them Angela, an Australian Franciscan nun who lives with MS and is in a wheelchair; Bob, an Anglican priest, who also has MS and is in a wheelchair; Stan, a Methodist minister who has lived for many years with the illness called depression, and now lives with cancer; Kath, his wife; Bernie, a La Retraite sister living with a severe spinal condition and with pain; John, an Anglican parish priest, and his wife, Jo, who was born with cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair and communicates through a small light-pointer attached to her head, which beams onto a qwerty keyboard on her lap. In this group we explore the mystery and meaning of our own suffering. We are real, and not heroic, we listen with acceptance and without judgements and learn from the discoveries and insights of others, and we seek the resources to live honestly and compassionately within places of darkness, weariness, frustration, pain and vulnerability. It is our experience that the Church speaks much of pain and suffering but is embarrassed by it. What are we learning?We are learning from the experience of dependency; for some this means dependency on others for the toilet, for the washing not only of our feet but of the whole body, for receiving food and drink, for being dressed and undressed. We know something of being stripped of roles, responsibilities and masks, of nakedness and exposure, of the loss of dignity, and of humiliation. Jesus at the end of his life was also stripped, stretched horizontal on a cross, and handed over to others, and in his final hours is shown as almost naked. We are beginning to make connections between his physical vulnerability and our own experience of weakness. And more, we are discovering theological and spiritual meaning within this experience of our bodies. We are learning from our experience of pain, of physical and psychological pain interconnected within the memory of the body. We are critical of a Western medical culture that sees pain as simply something to be got rid of, anaesthetised, zapped. We are learning that pain can be a message. We consider the place of pain in the Christian pilgrimage. We are drawn into a contemplation of the Passion of Jesus, what his body bore within that journey, the receiving of the help offered by Simon of Cyrene, the offer and refusal of the drugged wine, the women watching, the soldiers and others drinking and jeering. We live with the mystery that there are those in the world who are the ‘painbearers’, and that sometimes some good comes out of all that suffering, and this has its place in the redemptive process. We use the feeling of solidarity with others in pain – victims of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, HIV/AIDS, TB – as a focus for prayer. Sometimes we catch glimpses of God in pain. We are learning from our experience of depression. One person says: ‘I’ve found a oneness with people with all sorts of mental difficulties. I’ve found a wisdom in insanity that I miss very much now that I’m back in the socalled sane world.’ And another speaks of living in ‘a kind of chemicalised numbness, within which he is learning the presence and goodness of God within the sense of the absence of God’. We are learning that theology must not be left to those who are fit and strong. Theology must also be wrestled for through pain and disability: these are the raw materials of our encounters with a mysterious, silent, hidden and powerless God. We are also learning from something utterly central to our meetings: we laugh and laugh; we leave the meetings energised and with a deeper hope and trust. This is the group where, above all, we are able to be ourselves, and show others who we really are. RECEIVING THREATENING GIFTS And finally I speak of receiving threatening, dangerous gifts which could transform. It is our experience that the Church finds it difficult to receive the gifts of God through those who live with impairments. We are ‘an uncomfortable presence’. In the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and Simon Peter’s difficulty in accepting this, it is as if Jesus is saying to us ‘If you are not able to receive you can no longer be a disciple of mine’ (Jn 13:1–20). Openness to receive the gifts of God through encounters which may threaten us includes the possibility of transformation, as Simon Peter discovered in his encounter with the Gentile Cornelius (Acts 10:1–48), and as Jesus discovered with the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:1–15). I want to introduce you to more of those ‘new companions’, this time in the context of Sarum College, a theological college near the beautiful Cathedral in Salisbury. We have had three conferences there and in different ways explored the faith journey of the impaired pilgrim. On each occasion there have been between 20 and 30 people. And among them: Susi, a wheelchair user, a former nurse who worked briefly on the Afghan border of Pakistan. Gordon, a wheelchair user, living with MS, a lecturer in the Physics Department of Birmingham University, dependent on the care of his wife, Dot. Anne, who is on the autism spectrum and is Autism Consultant for the Diocese of Oxford. Sally, another wheelchair user with MS, formerly a teacher of religious education, with her husband and carer, Gerald. Ros, a wheelchair user, a Methodist mission partner in Nigeria, a pioneer in mental health provision, a spiritual director. And Peter, who lives with a spinal condition and with chronic pain, and who had to retire early as a minister. His thesis on the spirituality that emerges from impairment speaks of ‘dangerous gifts’, threatening gifts, challenging the traditional view of God and of God’s world. What are the gifts of those living with impairments? We bring our experience of darkness as the context of hidden growing and transformation. We bring our calling to go into the fearful places without being imprisoned by fear. We bring our experience of fragility, of physical weakness, of what it means to trust, and of the mystery of strengthening within our continuing reality. We bring our experience of restoration through touch, embrace and holding, and of an inner healing which is deeper than physical healing. We bring our experience of our bodies, a source of wonder, pleasure and pain, the dwelling place of God, where we meet God in the here and now of our actual humanity. We bring our experience of waiting, waiting into the unknown. We bring our experience of anger. We bring faith journeys which sometimes include the experience of dereliction, of Godforsakenness, of being apparently without faith in order to grow in faith. We bring our experience of playfulness, of humour, of laughter. We bring our discovery of bread on the edge and of wells of water under our feet, in desert and destitution, as did both Elijah (1 Ki 17:1–7) and the slave girl Hagar before us (Gen 21: 8–20). Consecrated food from heaven is not confined to lie under white cloths in our churches. We bring these gifts and many others, not as victims but as liberators. CONCLUSION I have come with a story of a journey from the centre to the edge, of making connections between our experience of body and the Body of Christ, and of receiving threatening gifts which could transform. And to share in your conversations. And with my own questions to you: What does the journey toward transformation through vulnerability mean in your situation? What are your stories of frightening liberation? How can your transforming journey as Churches become a sign of transformation in your society, the showing of a different way, a different paradigm? The world has a right to say to the church: ‘Unless I see the marks of the nails in your hands, I will not believe’ (Stanley Magobe, Methodist Church in Southern Africa). l Donald Eadie is the author of Grain in Winter: Reflections for Saturday People (Epworth Press). He is also an occasional contributor to Wild Goose books. He is a friend of the Iona Community.

Lack of Vision, by Susan Dale, with Mike Holroyd

Community members Susan Dale and Mike Holroyd explore worship, church and faith experiences of those who are visually impaired. Susan is partially sighted. Mike is registered as blind. Both are engaged in research projects exploring the experience of people living with a visual impairment …

‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise, In dim light, inaccessible, hid from my eyes. Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, If the words just would come to me, your name I would praise’ … I stop singing and the congregation carries on without me. I stand lost in my own thoughts in the dimly lit church, clutching a copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern. I remember the words of the first verse (with just a few alterations!) but the second and third verse elude my memory, and all I can see of the page is the hymn number (conveniently typed in large bold print) and a number of grey squiggles, which I assume must be the words. At least I can just about tell how many verses there are as there are spaces between the squiggles. I am visiting a local church. I had asked on my way in if there were any large-print books and service sheets available. ‘Yes,’ came the answer, ‘we do have some large-print sheets with the readings on, for some of our regular elderly worshippers.’ Reluctantly, it seemed, he handed over the sheet. I felt guilty: I am not elderly and not a regular. The readings and psalms are indeed in quite large print, not so the hymn and service books however. As I look around I am aware that, at the age of 52, I am the youngest in the church by at least two decades. This interests me greatly. I wonder: how do others in the congregation cope with small print? Surely, when you consider that over 65 percent of people diagnosed with a visual impairment are aged over 65, some of the people around me must be affected, especially by conditions such as macular disease, which affects the central vision and the ability to read small print. Perhaps they just have a much better memory than I do! Over 250,000 people in the UK are currently registered with macular disease. EXPERIENCES OF WORSHIP, CHURCH AND FAITH This unimpressive Sunday morning has led me to think more about worship and how having limited vision can affect our ability to participate. Mike and I emailed some people with a visual impairment, who are involved with research, and asked them about church and worship. Annie was the first to respond: I only get to church now when someone has time (or remembers) to pick me up. Walking there on my own would be too difficult now as it means crossing several roads. When I go people make a great fuss of me, but it is hard now to join in in the way I used to. They have everything projected onto a screen at the front of the church – the words of the hymns and prayers – and of course I cannot see them now. I can’t really see people’s faces either; so often, at the end of a service, I can’t see who I am talking to. I am a bit of a spare part really. Not useful for anything! When you lose sight, just getting to church is a major hurdle, but the challenges do not stop there. Sarah emails: As you know, I had huge issues with my faith when I lost my sight. I found people treated me very differently. I felt patronised and ignored. I had always been the one who supported others, now I found myself as the one who was cared for, or not, as the case usually was, and I was never asked what would actually be helpful. The church I attended was a busy Methodist Centre where there was a team of people in charge of taking services and organising the church, etc. They did have some large-print hymn books and service sheets, which were a bit helpful, but unfortunately my sight was so bad that I couldn’t even read these, especially given that the new lighting system was turned down to ‘give soft conducive lighting for worship’, i.e. ‘DIM’. Often I felt totally excluded from worship and didn’t know how to change that. I also felt very angry with God, and church certainly did not feel like the place to share this. Everyone seemed to be telling me what I should think and feel! One rather earnest young man even told me he thought that blindness would be a good challenge for the healing group! Assumptions about what it means to be ‘blind’ or ‘visually impaired’ are embedded in our society and culture. The word ‘blind’ often has connotations in the Bible of sin and punishment. It is the opposite of ‘walking in the light of God’. And yet the Bible contains some quite diverse material on the issue of blindness and visual impairment. Could it be, for example, that St Paul himself was visually impaired? We know that he spent some time not being able to see at all, but there is evidence to suggest that he continued to live with partial sight. Also, the book of Tobit is centred on a character who is blind. Yet there is an overwhelming amount of negative references to blindness in Christian tradition. But we need to explore our stories within scripture in order to be able to tell a different story. What is particularly interesting when talking with people about their experience of faith and visual impairment is that it is often other people’s reactions that present far more barriers than faith itself. For some, the faith journey becomes internalised, with church playing a less significant role than it might otherwise have. Another aspect of worshipping as someone who is visually impaired is the language of liturgy. Take, for example, this from a collect in the Church of England’s Book of Common Worship: ‘Open our eyes to glimpse thy glory and our lips to sing thy praises with all the angels …’ Most would read this without anything but prayerful thoughts. Imagine for a moment, however, what it would be like to read this, or indeed listen to it, when you are blind or losing sight. Gradually, those writing liturgies have made them more inclusive to gender, but disability, especially hearing or sight loss, is still not even thought about. Even in one of the prayers in the Wee Worship Book, the leader says: ‘You opened our eyes, to see how the hands of the rich were empty …’ A metaphor which enables people to think about poverty and wealth could, however, make someone who is losing sight feel excluded. Mo writes: I never realised growing up how sexist the texts were in the Bible. I just took it for granted to think ‘women’ as well when we prayed for all men. The new prayer book has changed all of that. For the good I think! Now losing my sight, I sit in church and hear prayers and readings which, as surely as eggs are eggs, tell me that being sighted is the normal thing for a Christian, and that being blind is definitely not OK. The prayers effortlessly go over the heads of others in the church. They do not seem to notice, whereas the word BLIND for me seems to stick out like a sore thumb. So there is a challenge here to any of us who engage in planning worship and writing liturgies. Mike makes the point that he is very happy for those who have full vision, but is happy too with his less-than-full vision. Happy when worship celebrates the gift of our senses, but struggles when there is an implication that his experience of vision is negative, or in some way lacking. For many of us who are visually impaired there is also something in all this about maintaining identity. Mike and I have had many conversations about this, and this is just one excerpt where we were talking about being valued for who we are: Mike: ‘I remember one particular example: I was going into chapel and somebody who I knew very well was handing out the service books or hymn books, whatever it was, and she said: “Here’s yours.” And I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I probably said, “I don’t need one.” And I asked her about this afterwards, and she said, “Well, I don’t think of you as any different than anybody else.” So that kind of felt like a double issue because she had accepted me as part of the community, and treated me exactly the same, so it felt like the acceptance was not based on who I was, but on who perhaps she wanted me to be.That’s a very small example.’ Sue: ‘But it’s quite a big thing in a way because what she had given you wasn’t helpful for what you needed … She was saying you are just the same as everyone else, which in one sense was accepting, but in another sense it was denying you needed anything to enable you to access the things in the same way …’ In order for worship to be authentic, it surely must enable the worshipper to engage with God and others in the present. This means being able to come as we are, celebrating our uniqueness in the context of our diverse human experience. If worship focuses on the supremacy of one particular way of being, i.e. moving from lack of sight to sight, then the worship experience becomes less than authentic for the person for whom this is not possible. If our identity is caught up in the way in which we engage with the Divine, then it follows that worship needs to be a space where we seek wholeness in our present situation. PRACTICAL STEPS We want now to explore some simple practical steps that could help churches to include those who are losing their sight or are visually impaired. Most of the things that would make a big difference are related to two words: awareness and assumptions. Awareness: most of us remain unaware of the experience of people who navigate the world differently. We live in a very visual world, and it is easy to forget that for some the visual is not something that helps to make sense of either the physical or spiritual landscapes that surround us. Assumptions: because there are so many myths that surround blindness. For example it is commonly believed that if someone is blind they are compensated by a superior sense of hearing; whereas in reality if someone loses their sight they often find hearing more difficult because they have lost the visual clues that often help us to make sense of what we hear. The sighted can take everything in at one glance; we who are without sight have to persevere with inept questions. There are as many different experiences of being visually impaired as there are people with a visual impairment. Within most congregations (especially where older people predominate) there will probably be some who are affected by serious sight loss. This may not be obvious, they may not use a white cane or guide dog, but they may be affected none the less. Simply having large-print materials available may be all that is needed. People often find it very hard to ask for these resources, feeling embarrassed that they can no longer participate in the way they used to. Normalising the use of large-print resources makes it easier. For example, on attending services in Iona Abbey congregations are informed that large-print or Braille service and hymn books are available if required, and these are brought to where the person is seated. I found this helpful because if your vision is poor you cannot always ‘see’ the pile of large-print books at the back of church. A simple question from those greeting people as they enter the church could mean the difference between someone being able to participate in worship and them remaining silent observers. If there is a regular member of the congregation who tells you they are visually impaired, ask them what their needs are. It may be very well-meaning to purchase a Braille copy of your hymn book but this will only help if they are Braille readers! Some other format may be more helpful. Remember that there is no Godgiven commandment that worship has to involve a lot of written words – be they sung or spoken. Some of the most profound worship can involve few words, repeated phrases or even silence. Sometimes spontaneous worship can be more accessible to those who cannot read carefully crafted liturgies and songs. Many visually impaired people are unable to read fluently in any format, unless a lot of learning has taken place in advance. If you are preaching, explain your visual aids so that those who cannot see them can share in the experience. We have heard of examples of good practice where the preacher has, in advance, emailed descriptions of any visual material to be used. If using overhead projectors ensure that the images are clearly visible, and, again, make sure alternative formats are available if needed. Text should be printed in a clear font, for example Arial or Verdana, rather than the more ornate Times New Roman. Ask the visually impaired person to give a few members of the congregation some instructions on ‘guiding’. It makes such a difference to have confidence in the person whose arm you are taking. Being dragged or not warned of hazards (such as steps up the communion rail) can be a rather frightening experience! Also, when you are talking to someone who is visually impaired it is helpful to say your name: your voice may be recognised but it sometimes takes time to put names to voices – and do tell them when you are going to move away. We have often found ourselves talking to a blank space, which is quite embarrassing! Do not get too stressed about using ‘politically correct’ language – ‘see you next week’ is a phrase used regularly by people who are visually impaired! When designing worship, though, it is worth thinking about whether the language used includes or excludes them. This does not mean not having any readings relating to blindness. Blindness is after all part of our lived experience, and has been so since the beginning of human history. It is more important perhaps to think about how we use language and the impact this has on people who may have different abilities and experiences, whether this be as women, as gay men or women, or as people with a physical or mental health challenge. People who are visually impaired come in all different shapes and forms. Some have enough sight to read large-print text, others access text through computer software or Braille. Some can recognise a friend at arm’s length, others rely on audio clues. Some grieve the loss of their sight, others accept it as an integral part of who they are. This issue of valuing our life experience is a crucial building block to all our attitudes. It is so often assumed by both sighted and visually impaired people alike that the experience of visual impairment is negative, undesired and leaves one in a state of brokenness. Whilst many people do of course struggle with the loss of vision, there are many of us who feel that our visual impairment is a neutral experience, or indeed, in some cases, a gift or a blessing. To promote one response over another would of course be inappropriate and pastorally disastrous. In our worshipping communities we need to be wise enough to hold in tension these various responses. Sarah says: I yearn to just be enfolded in worship. To be accepted by other people and be able to participate. I yearn for a time when my sight, or lack of it, does not matter. What matters after all in worship is God! The last words come from Nicola Slee’s poem ‘The darkness of God: a blessing’. This poem is dedicated to Mike and also to theologian John Hull (who is blind), and moves us to embrace and celebrate not just the light of God, but the darkness also: And so the darkness of God shall be a blessing and the shadow of God will be to you a light more lovely than the dawn, a lamp more gleaming than the sun. And your blindness shall be the mark of your faithfulness and God’s faithfulness shall be sealed by the star of everlasting night. (From Praying like a Woman, Nicola Slee, SPCK)

An interview with Hanan Al Sanah Hanan Al Sanah, interviewed by Margo Sabella-Marshall

Hanan Al Sanah is Director of the community and educational programmes at Sidreh Women’s Association in the Negev, in the south of Israel. A groundbreaking woman in her Bedouin community, she toured Scotland in spring 2012 and spoke at Fairtrade Fortnight and at the Scottish Parliament. Here she speaks with Margo Sabella-Marshall of the fairtrade shop Hadeel, about her life, work and hopes for the future. (The interview was translated, by Margo, from Arabic into English.)

MARGO: What motivated you to want to go to university? What were some of the obstacles that you faced to get there? HANAN: I am the youngest of nine sisters and saw how disempowered women around me were, which is why I wanted to go to university. Up until the age of 18 I believed that family and our patriarchal society were to blame for women’s problems. Higher education was discouraged because of fears that our encounter with the outside world would corrupt us. We were expected to adhere to strict dress codes and were not allowed to partake in matters defined as the male domain. It took me a long time to assert myself within the family and the wider society. I eventually persuaded my family to let me go to university, who agreed on one condition: that I marry someone from my tribe. I agreed, but the man I eventually married was by choice. Once I got to university, a different kind of discrimination emerged: that of being a member of a minority community. It became clear that our impoverishment was caused by Israeli policies that destroyed our traditional way of life as a nomadic pastoral society. We are only allowed to live on 3 percent of the land, even though we make up 20 percent of the total population of the Negev – we are around 200,000 people. Ironically, we are Israeli citizens, but despite being equal in the eyes of the law, when it comes to implementing the law, that is a different story. Israel declared most of our lands a military zone in 1953 and forced the community to move into seven towns they created for us, known as the recognised villages. They promised us access to jobs, better education and other services and benefits, but in truth we live in one of the most deprived areas in Israel with over 70 percent unemployment and where the allocation of resources is nominal. The situation is even worse in the 45 unrecognised villages, as Israel disputes that these villages own their land, despite the fact that the community holds official deeds from the Ottoman period. The unrecognised villages lack running water, electricity and access to education and basic health services. They also face constant home demolitions. One village was demolished 33 times – they are even asked to cover the cost of these demolitions, when in reality they can barely make ends meet. MARGO: How did the weaving project start? HANAN: It was important to develop a project that supported local needs, and the idea for it came in 1991 to try to reinstate women’s past role in society. After Israel’s establishment, women’s roles in the pastoral way of life eroded, as they were no longer needed in agriculture or to weave Bedouin tents, because they were rehoused in permanent structures. It may have started out as a simple weaving project, but it has been a source of sustenance and encouragement for over 1400 women. MARGO: What changes have you witnessed in your work? HANAN:What haven’t I seen?! What keeps me going is the change I see daily. It is now normal for women to get jobs. The first Bedouin female physician and nurse in the Negev are daughters of women in the project. The first Bedouin woman to get her driving licence is a woman in the project. The first women to open small businesses in the unrecognised villages are graduates of adult education classes. More young women are going to university because their mothers are investing their incomes in their education. It has also had a social impact whereby their economic independence led them to refuse polygamous marriages. I’ve been working quietly with the women to empower them through the adult education programme, the weaving and the tourism projects for the last ten years. We managed to build a good support base among the women and some men in the community. In the past we would not have been able to have our voices heard, but over time we got involved in advocacy and the media and established a women’s newspaper, because the local press wasn’t interested in printing stories about women’s issues or rights. Our women have been on the periphery of our society and we wanted to draw attention to their issues. The Sidreh Women’s Association wanted to change the stereotypical perception that many have of Bedouin women: often seen as disempowered victims. Instead, we wanted to highlight their strengths and abilities. It was also an important way to raise issues faced by women in the unrecognised villages, because they are often being silenced by the State. MARGO: You spoke about the stereotypical image of the Arab woman in your own society. How do you challenge these stereotypes in the West? HANAN: I take myself as an example. I worked hard to get to where I am, but at the same time I didn’t disown my society. I feel that Western societies see us as weak victims of our own traditions, and that if women do gain any rights and become empowered it is thanks to outside influences and not their own society. I believe that women can still live their lives and fulfil their dreams, but at the same time contribute to the betterment of their society. Women aren’t the weaklings that people sometimes think we are, but what we need and want is the access to opportunities to enable us to be participants in society. MARGO: Has it been easy for you to take a leadership role in your community? HANAN: Change isn’t easy, especially in such a traditional society, and especially when it concerns women. I always felt under attack so I had to constantly reassert my point of view. At the same time, I didn’t want to alienate my family because I love them, so I found ways to help them understand my life choices. MARGO: What do you tell your twin boys about your work? HANAN: I want to avoid passing down stereotypical attitudes towards women because I believe that our hope for the future is if younger generations changed their attitudes. I am always telling my boys to see women as human beings and not be influenced by what they hear from members of the community who aim to diminish women’s standing. That women, like men, can do what they want. MARGO: What is your impression of the Scottish Parliament? HANAN: It was a wonderful experience and I was impressed with women’s rights attained in this country, but there’s a big gap between what they have gained and what we still struggle to achieve. We are fighting for basic rights to education, housing and work; theirs is a struggle for more representation in Parliament. I feel that we face many more challenges than they do, but because of the progress they’ve made over the years, I think that it is easier and quicker for them to get more rights. MARGO: How can Coracle readers support you and your work, especially the weaving project? HANAN:We need help in marketing our products. We believe in this project because it is our traditional craft. It has enabled women to get an education and gain economic independence. To your readers these rugs may just be consumerist goods, but for us they have brought a ray of hope into our society. They can be found at Hadeel in Edinburgh, but we are happy to take orders, which Hadeel can facilitate. We work with many women, but our budget is small compared to what we aim to achieve. It would be great to get funding for other projects, but we have found obstacles. Some donors have wanted to impose conditions on their funding, so we refused their aid. Oxfam Great Britain supported us in the beginning; but despite our community’s impoverishment we are ineligible for funding from most international development agencies because Israel is considered a developed nation. MARGO: Can you tell us something about your tourism programme? HANAN: The tourism project raises awareness about our history and political struggle and welcomes visitors from all faiths and nationalities. Most visitors come expecting to hear an idyllic story about our life and are shocked to learn about our living conditions and the political reasons that led to that. Most people leave with a positive experience. But despite the popularity of the rugs with Israelis, they do not like to hear that the State discriminates against us. They only want to hear that our community subjugates its women. Nonetheless, there have been many Israeli supporters throughout the years, helping to raise awareness of our issues. MARGO: Do you see any hope for your community? HANAN: Given the current government’s policies, I’m not hopeful of any positive change in the near future. It will only come when there are honest intentions to resolve the situation. I do have hope in people, who want to continue improving their situation. The weaving project is a model of something that came in response to a problem that needed a solution. l To view and purchase items from the Sidreh Women Association’s weaving project: www.hadeel.org Hadeel is a fairtrade shop selling crafts from Palestinian social enterprises in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Iona Community members Carol and Colin Morton, who spent many years working in Palestine/Israel, were instrumental in setting up the shop.

Signs of peace: letter from Gaza, by Alison Swinfen

To the west, sea and Israeli warships, 6 km out from the shore, lined up on the horizon. In front, small yellow-and-blue fishing boats. To the east, Khan Younis refugee camp, focus of much aid activity. To the south, greenhouses and olive trees, date palms and orange groves, planted on land left when the Israeli settlers went to settle more land on the West Bank. To the north, Gaza City. On the horizon, watchtowers and a large air balloon watching Gaza’s every move from the other side of the separation barrier. We are with the Vice President of administrative affairs at Al Aqsa University. The university specialises in fine art and physical education. It is made up of new buildings generously funded by Gulf states and Turkey. Men and women are segregated and our host is keen to explain that this is a mark of respect for women, who are honoured, he says, with the highest place in society. The line through the campus which represents this gender division is a hibiscus hedge. The buildings we are shown used to be the villas of Israeli settlers. This was the best land in Gaza and the villas were spacious. We are taken to the basements of the buildings first of all and shown the bunkers and bomb shelters. It is clear that these people lived in constant fear. Now the bunkers are prayer rooms, decorated with images of peace and with rugs. They are full of the peculiar calm which soaks into the walls of places of prayer. Overhead there is a buzzing noise, which I don’t really register. Our host nods to the sky: ‘The Israeli drones.’ We enter the large lecture theatre in the new block and suddenly hear the sound of bombing close by. ‘They are bombing,’ our host says, in a matter of fact way. We take our cue from his reaction and continue our walk across the campus, speaking of buildings and teaching and hibiscus flowers, not bombs. We walk over towards the Faculty of Fine Art to an installation made as a sign of peace from the spent shells which killed and maimed many hundreds during the 2009 war. Then we begin to view the artwork in the different classrooms. Everywhere the theme of the land, the suffering, the love of kin and family, and the re-use of bullet-blasted materials to express defiance, anger, hope and a long-sustained cry for justice. There are no words between us. The images speak for themselves. The art tells the story. Our host is bursting with pride at the extraordinary achievement and courage his students are communicating here. A message arrives, and we learn that houses and trees to the north of Gaza have been destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. Our host turns back across campus towards the point of farewell, pressing hibiscus flowers into the palms of our hands. Alison Swinfen visited Gaza early in 2012 as part of the EU Tempus programme ‘Lifelong Learning in Palestine’, which is directed from the University of Glasgow’s Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network and from the School of Education. She and others were hosted by the Islamic University, Gaza. Her task was to produce a report and ethnographic detail of what kinds of activities are currently being undertaken in universities, NGOs and civil society organisations to support the most vulnerable in their education throughout their lives. The work feeds into the next research stages of the overall project, with return visits and further connections planned for the future. Alison is a member of the Iona Community. To read her series of Letters from Gaza, go to the Iona Community’s website: http://www.iona.org.uk/news.php?id=288 WILD GOOSE PUBLICATIONS NEW PUBLICATIONS Pathways for Pilgrims: Discovering the Spirituality of the Iona Community in 28 days, Chris King (book) £9.99 (plus post and packing) Fundamental to the Iona Community’s understanding of spirituality is the conviction that God’s Spirit permeates the whole of life – ‘every blessed thing’, as George MacLeod said. God is thus to be encountered and experienced in the busy daily routine of our lives, and through our relationships, not just in tranquil moments and remote, beautiful places like Iona. The Community’s approach to spirituality does not distinguish between the sacred and the secular. Prayer and politics, work and worship are all of a piece. This holistic spirituality of engagement – rooted in prayer and scripture – stands in contrast to some of the more ethereal, nostalgic and self-indulgent approaches on offer these days. Pathways for Pilgrims is a timely resource for individuals and groups wishing to explore this integrated approach to spirituality. Each of the four weeks of the book covers an area of the Iona Community’s engagement: with God, with the church, with the world, and engaging as community. The days include a ‘community experience’, a Bible reading, material for reflection, prayers and thoughts to ponder. The book was structured and edited by spiritual director and workshop leader Chris King, and written by members of the Iona Community, with contributions by Norman Shanks, Jan Sutch Pickard, Brian Woodcock, John Harvey, Peter Millar, Graeme Brown, Ruth Harvey and Neil Paynter. Ready or Not: Children, Spirituality and Journeying Together, Ruth Harvey (ed.) (book) £10.99 (plus post and packing) How does being with children offer us a glimpse of God? On our adult faith journey, do we remember the wisdom of our own childhood thoughts? And in what ways are we, as adults, open to the wisdom that children in our midst share about God, faith, life, death and spirituality? Being in the company of children – as a new mother hungry for soul food – led Ruth Harvey to ask these questions, and to share them with a range of about 30 others – some parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, foster siblings – which resulted in this original collection of stories, reflections, meditations, poems, songs and dialogues. The contributions, including pieces by Peter Millar, Donald Eadie, Yvonne Morland, Em Strang, Ellen Moxley and Neil Paynter, explore how the wisdom shared by children in what they say and do can lead us closer to God. They explore themes of adoption, parenting, illness, disability, birth, death, passion and more. Ready or Not can be used for personal reflection, group studies and in worship – it offers resources and inspiration for finding God and spirituality in the midst of the busyness, messiness, pressure, nurturing, despair and joy of life. Ruth Harvey is a Quaker and a Church of Scotland minister. She is the editor of Wrestling and Resting, and a contributor to many Wild Goose anthologies. She is a member of the Iona Community. TO ORDER: 0141-332-6292 [email protected] www.ionabooks.com

A TRIBUTE TO IONA COMMUNITY MEMBER ROBERT CURRIE, by Norman Shanks, Paisley Abbey, 12 April, 2012 I’m sure that everyone here this afternoon has a particular memory of Robert Currie – Bob. In the mind’s eye we can see him still – large as life, with a cheery greeting, a kind word of encouragement and concern. He was a straightforward and good man, compassionate and generous almost to a fault. He had a sharp and active mind, with a particular interest in theology and literature. His life was rooted in his commitment to Jesus Christ and to the church but there was a gentleness and an openness about his faith: he was not afraid to doubt or question. He recognised that our life is a pilgrimage, a quest, and that the readiness to explore leads to deeper insight and spiritual growth. Bob was born in Aberdeen 87 years ago, the eldest of three sons of a master blacksmith who, by the sound of things, was a rather strict and formidable character. From school Bob proceeded to Aberdeen University, where he joined the air squadron, and this resulted in his studies being interrupted by wartime service in the RAF, with a spell training as a pilot in Canada. On resuming his studies he graduated MA in 1950 and began training for ministry at Christ’s College in Aberdeen. During this time he was very impressed by the work and writings of George MacLeod, shared in the rebuilding of Iona Abbey and in 1952 joined the Iona Community, which continued all his days to be a significant driving influence in his life. Bob had an active student career: he was a successful sportsman, representing the university at rugby, hockey and squash; he was president of the Student Christian Movement; and he took part in several student shows. He has described himself as a very restless student, and did not sit his final BD exams, which in these days was not an obstacle to becoming a minister; and from 1953-54 he served as assistant to Uist Macdonald, one of the founding Iona Community members, in the busy parish of Wallacetown Dundee. In January 1955 Bob was ordained and inducted to Boquhanran Church, Clydebank, where he spent fourteen happy, busy years and had a very effective ministry, building up the congregation and engaging actively in the life of the local community, where he is still remembered with warmth and respect. In February 1969 he was persuaded to accept a call, which he had not sought, to Dowanhill Church in the west end of Glasgow. This was a very different situation – an aging, predominantly traditionalist congregation with, as Bob put it, ‘great individual talent but no central cohesive policy’. These were difficult years and Bob found himself waging a long battle against Presbytery indifference to the exceptional cultural heritage in the Dowanhill building, despite splendid support from the then Historic Buildings Council and conservation groups – a battle that was eventually lost: the congregation no longer exists, although the building survives in its present incarnation as Cottiers. It was good that Bob’s subsequent experiences in ministry – as chaplain to the Queen Mother Maternity Hospital, then at the Western Infirmary and community minister in Partick, and finally as Associate Minister here – were so happy and positive. The other main pillar of Bob’s life was his family. Bob and Sheila were married in 1955, and Sheila kept Bob’s life in working order, as it were; and through the inevitable ups and downs of family life there was a strong sense of mutual support and love. When Gill, Richard and Lesley were growing up they remember Sheila playing the leading part in family organisation and discipline with Bob’s round the clock working hours and the demands of his ministry. But he was there for them when needed, and they remember with affection the outings to the cinema, the family holidays back in Aberdeen, the visits to places like Acharacle and Iona. Bob and Sheila’s home was always full of people – some of the extended family who needed to spend time with them, waifs and strays Bob brought back for a meal – and the family had to hold back so that the food went round. Bob would literally go out of his way for others: when picking up one of his family at the station he would ask the people waiting for a taxi if anyone wanted a lift. The move to Redlands Road from the Dowanhill manse was a major exercise in downsizing: to the end Bob was under pressure to declutter and offload more of his huge collection of books and papers. Bob and Sheila were very happy in their time at Redlands Road; in their retirement there was much to do and enjoy together – the Florida holidays and visits to Stratford with Johnny and Rena, the trips north to the family in Aberdeenshire, the worship and all the other activities around the Abbey here. After Sheila’s death 18 months ago, Bob coped with remarkable courage and cheerfulness but the struggle within was clear to those close to him. Bob had a wide range of interests. He was very well-read and loved music, especially the organ. He served on several Iona Community and Presbytery committees and remained a member of the local medical ethics committee until very recently. He was a regular at the annual Scottish Church Theology conferences at Crieff and a very diligent attender at the monthly Iona Community Family Group meetings, where he is remembered with the utmost affection and respect. Bob was always warm and open, consistently kind and generous. He took people at their face value; you knew where you were with Bob; there was a very attractive almost innocent vulnerability about him, something indeed of the character of Jesus in whose footsteps he sought to walk all his days. Prayer Be Thou, triune God, in the midst of us as we give thanks for those who have gone from the sight of earthly eyes. They, in Thy nearer presence, still worship with us in the mystery of the one family in heaven and on earth … Tell them how we love them, and how we miss them, and how we long for the day when we shall meet with them again. George MacLeod, from ‘A Veil Thin as Gossamer’ Notice: Long-time member David Levison died on 19 April, 2012. A tribute to David will appear in the autumn Coracle. (Ed.)

A touching place: news and letters

GROUNDBREAKING COMMUNITY VENTURE ON IONA: NEWS FROM SCOTTISH CHURCHES HOUSING ACTION From Alastair Cameron, Chief Executive of Scottish Churches Housing Action: Iona will see some much-needed affordable homes built, as the result of the recent sale of land on the Church of Scotland glebe, adjacent to the parish church, to Iona Housing Partnership (IHP). As long ago as 2003, IHP identified the glebe, then owned by the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland, as a possible site for building new affordable homes, and entered negotiations with them. The sale of the land took place at the end of 2011. The proposal is for 5 houses to be built on the glebe, which lies just off the road linking the village with the Abbey. IHP now requires the raising of funds to build these properties, which will be used by local people in need of their own home. The Tudor Trust has already helped fund this project. Iona Community member Raymond Young was closely involved in this venture. One of Raymond’s many hats is as a Board member of the Rural Housing Service, which was instrumental in making the case for unmet housing need among islanders. He describes how important it is: ‘The Iona proposal is unusual and potentially groundbreaking. Since 2003, there have been a number of community land purchases that included housing – such as Gigha. However, until very recently there were no grants available to build new housing for rent – only for improvement of existing houses. These communities had to rely on housing associations. New housing associations are difficult to establish (the trend is for larger organisations), and the letting, management and maintenance does not necessarily reflect the local circumstances.’ The Iona initiative gives the opportunity for genuine community control of a community asset. Scottish Churches Housing Action, which works with churches of all denominations to secure affordable homes from under-used property, is keen to learn lessons from Iona. The opportunity exists to spread the model to other rural and island settings. Work is under way on mainland Argyll, on Arran, and elsewhere, to ensure that the churches play their part in tackling the shocking shortage of affordable homes in rural Scotland. NEWS FROM THE IONA HOUSING PARTNERSHIP (IHP): THE ‘BUY A BRICK FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN’ Iona is an iconic destination which attracts thousands of visitors each year. Visitors to the island are welcomed; indeed most of the 130 resident population rely on tourism in some way for their livelihood. Iona is also a place which draws people back time and time again. Regular visitors contribute to the life of the island and are welcomed back as friends rather than tourists. A large percentage of the houses on Iona are now used for holiday letting or are holiday homes. While necessary for the island’s economic stability, this also means that not many houses are available for sale or for rent to people living on the island. Several families have left Iona in recent years due to difficulties in finding suitable housing. The Iona Housing Partnership was formed in 2003 by the Isle of Iona Community Council to answer the growing demand for long-term affordable homes for island residents. In September 2011, after a long and successful fundraising programme, the West Glebe field was purchased from the General Trustees of the Church of Scotland. The project is now at an exciting and critical stage. Iona Housing Partnership aims to build 5 houses on the site to fulfil the local need for affordable homes, but we need support to bring these houses into reality. To donate to our ‘Buy a brick fundraising campaign’, please go to: http://www.justgiving.com/IonaHou singPartnership, or contact: The Treasurer, Iona Housing Partnership, Lechnabahn, Isle of Iona, PA76 6SP For news: www.welcometoiona.com KAIROS PALESTINE: ‘THE IONA CALL 2012’ A group of Christians from many parts of the UK and beyond gathered on Iona during Pentecost week 2012. Under the guidance of Rev. Dr Naim Ateek and Dr Mark Braverman they considered their response to the Kairos Palestine document and the situation in Israel/Palestine. Read the Iona Call 2012: http://www.iona.org.uk/news. php?id=313 CHURCH ACTION ON POVERTY’S ‘CLOSE THE GAP’ CAMPAIGN From CAP: It’s time to close the gap between rich and poor. The ‘Close the Gap’ campaign is built around ordinary people and churches pledging to join the movement and do what they can. We know that if we give, act and pray together we can build a more equal society: www.churchpoverty. org.uk TRILLION DOLLAR SCANDAL From member Arthur Chapman, and One International: Irresponsible multinational companies are lobbying hard against new laws that would lift the lid on the trillions of dollars they pay to governments across Africa for their natural resources. These secret payments allow unscrupulous leaders to pocket some of the profits instead of investing in vital services like schools, roads and health clinics. Join in calling on European leaders to stand up to corporate lobbyists and end these secret deals. With your help we can lift the veil of secrecy and help millions get themselves out of extreme poverty: http://www.one.org/international/ WORLD DEVELOPMENT MOVEMENT CAMPAIGN TO CURB COMMODITY SPECULATION From WDM: Banks are earning huge profits from betting on food prices in unregulated financial markets. This creates instability and pushes up global food prices, making poor families around the world go hungry and forcing millions into deeper poverty. To act: http://www.wdm.org.uk ‘NAE NUCLEAR WEAPONS HERE’ From Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: Please support Scottish CND’s new campaign ‘Nae Nuclear Weapons Here’. We want people to add their pin to our map to show that people in every corner of the country want to see nuclear disarmament. To add your pin: http://naenuclear.org PUBLICATION OF INTEREST Radical Human Ecology: Intercultural and Indigenous Approaches (coedited by Associate member Alastair McIntosh): ‘This volume pioneers radical new directions. In particular, it explores the power of indigenous and traditional people’s epistemologies’: www.ashgate.com NORTHERN REGIONAL PLENARY, CHESTER, OCTOBER 6TH, 2012 From member Margaret Smith: The Iona Community’s Northern Regional Plenary will be held in Chester, October 6th, in the Welsh Presbyterian Church, St John St, at 11am. Steven Broadbent will talk on modern Christian themes in art. Worship will be after questions. After lunch there will be the opportunity to view the Methodist Art Collection; we also hope to visit Steven Broadbent’s statue of the Woman at the Well in the cloisters of Chester Cathedral. Children's activities will be arranged in the morning if required. For cost and details: [email protected] POSITIVE CATHOLICS Some Community folk will remember Vincent Manning, who was Camas Coordinator in the late 1990s. Vincent has been involved in running the charity Positive Catholics: a peer support network of women and men who are living with HIV and have a Catholic faith: http://positivecatholics.com/ CITY OF SANCTUARY City of Sanctuary is a movement to build a culture of hospitality for people seeking sanctuary in the UK. Find out how towns and cities around the UK are becoming recognised as places of safety and welcome: www.cityofsanctuary.org JOIN THE IONA COMMUNITY’S RESIDENT STAFF ON IONA OR AT CAMAS Are you looking for an alternative, counter-cultural and spiritually challenging way to live and work? Then consider joining the Resident staff at our centres on Iona or at Camas on Mull, to share in a common life and extend our ministry of hospitality to guests from all over the world. For more information: www.iona.org.uk/iona_staff.php or [email protected] Bread for the road We will take what you offer, we will live by your word; we will love one another and be fed by you Lord. John L. Bell, from There Is One Among Us: Shorter Songs for Worship, www.ionabooks.com Prayer of the Iona Community O God, who gave to your servant Columba the gifts of courage, faith and cheerfulness, and sent people forth from Iona to carry the word of your gospel to every creature: grant, we pray, a like spirit to your church, even at this present time. Further in all things the purpose of our community, that hidden things may be revealed to us, and new ways found to touch the hearts of all. May we preserve with each other sincere charity and peace, and, if it be your holy will, grant that this place of your abiding be continued still to be a sanctuary and a light. Through Jesus Christ. Amen

From the grassroots: prayers

AFFIRMATION I believe in you, my companion, the human Christ, the worker Christ, the conqueror of death. By your measureless sacrifice you have begotten the new human being who is destined for liberation. You are living in every arm raised to defend the people against exploitative domination, because you are alive on the ranch, in the factory, in the school. I believe in your truceless struggle. I believe in your resurrection. Christ, Christ Jesus, be one with us. Lord, Lord my God, be one with us. Christ, Christ Jesus, take sides not with the oppressor class that squeezes dry and devours the community, but with the oppressed, with my people thirsting for peace. Prayer from a basic Christian community in Nicaragua, collected by Ian M. Fraser on his travels in Latin America (From Living Letters of the Word, www.ionabooks.com) OPEN DOOR COMMUNITY JESUS PRAYER Our Beloved Friend Outside the Domination System May your Holy Name be honoured by the way we live our lives. Your Beloved Community come. Guide us to: Walk your walk Talk your talk Sit your silence Inside the courtroom, on the streets, in the jail houses as they are on the margins of resistance. Give us this day everything we need. Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us. Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One. For Thine is: the Beloved Community, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen Open Door Community, Atlanta, Georgia* FROM THE GRASSROOTS Lord God of all, who, out of nothing, created this universe and launched it on its way in nebulae and starry clusters; who opened the eyes of the prophet to see life-giving possibilities in a valley of dry bones; who raised Jesus Christ from the dead; give us the insight, when situations seem without hope, to stand before you as did Ezekiel, empty-handed and expectant, to affirm what you, the source of life, may do which is beyond our power. Wherever this world husbands but ‘a little life in dried tubers’, we give thanks that, from the grassroots, you call people to emerge, as would seed to bear fruit; who in small communities and house churches turn to you to find a trustworthy promise of new life for the world, who set out, in community, to know you better and take your Way, growing in faith and helping others to become mature – that transformed life may mark the world’s course. We rejoice in you, God the Lord, who, out of nothing, summons into being the church to be like light and salt, giving life meaning and flavour. Amen Ian M. Fraser (From 50 New Prayers from the Iona Community, www.ionabooks.com) * The Open Door Community is a residential community which seeks to dismantle racism, sexism and heterosexism, abolish the death penalty, and proclaim the Beloved Community through loving relationships with some of the most neglected and outcast of God’s children: the homeless and our sisters and brothers who are in prison: http://opendoorcommunity.org The Open Door Community is one of the Iona Community’s sister communities; one of the communities members pray for each month.

GENEROUS GOD: A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING Generous God, we thank you that, time after time, in the most surprising places, you spread a table for us and welcome us to the feast of your presence. Sometimes we feel like amazed guests at a banquet, a great celebration; sometimes we meet you at a kitchen table among friends, sharing daily bread; sometimes as children enjoying a picnic, laughing, singing in the sunshine; sometimes in a dark valley, on a hard journey, by the barbed wire, bread is broken. Always we find nourishment, always enough for all who come; always we are blessed by sharing – this is the gospel feast. Jan Sutch Pickard, from 50 Great Prayers from the Iona Community, Wild Goose Publications, www.ionabooks.com Cover photo: © David Coleman

Load more

  67

Copy Link