Being Jo Francis - Twenty Three

The Civil Wars

Free live download here... The Civil Wars.

Two Years Ago...

Themed Playlists

I've not put anything up here recently. It's mainly because I'm trying to finish a degree. Plus I've lost the habit of writing my musings on a website - which I'm not altogether unhappy about.

I've been making playlists with themes recently. Inspired by a friend, themes currently include 'Breath' and 'Tonight'. The one I'm currently enjoying has the theme 'Sleep' and goes thus:

1. Asleep in the Back - Elbow
2. In the Arms of Sleep - Smashing Pumpkins
3. You on my Mind when I Sleep - Richard Ashcroft
4. Let me Sleep (Next to the Mirror) - Idlewild
5. Sleeping Lessons - Shins
6. Sleep Better - Pete Yorn
7. Haunt while I Sleep - Right Away, Great Captain
8. I'm Not Sleeping - Counting Crows
9. Sleep to Dream Her - Dave Matthews Band
10. The Devil Never Sleeps - Iron & Wine
11. Daysleeper - REM
12. Singing in my Sleep - Semisonic
13. Sleep Don't Weep - Damien Rice
14. Go to Sleep - Radiohead
15. Sleep - Stephen Fretwell
16. Even While You're Sleeping - The Acorn
17. Sleeping Torpor - Anathallo
18. Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie - Sufjan Stevens
19. When You Sleep - Longview

So, in a bid to increase by 100% my blog posting for the year 2011 - herewith a post. Based on current frequency, see you in August!

Maps & Inequality

This is the Peters Projection map. It is a map based upon actual size, and focusses on the accuracy of land mass of the different countries and continents. This is at the expense of outline detail, which is what we are used to seeing on the Mercator Projection map.

What does this say to us? Well, aside from the humbling reminder of just how small the UK and Europe is, it tells us something of those who initially created maps and that they usually created maps that would tell them how to navigate around coastlines, and use this to their financial advantage and at the exploitation of the natives. In the age of exploration, the West as we know it, were greedy for gain.

This Peters Projection was brought to my attention again by friend, Anna. I was first drawn to the potential for injustice maps have in the US political drama 'The West Wing', when, in one episode, Press Secretary CJ Cragg had to take a meeting with a group who wanted to turn the map upside down. They claimed that the psychological effect of the 'West' being in the Northern Hemisphere was damaging on the Southern Hemisphere in so far as the West gained a perceived upper hand and felt entitled to certain 'inalienable' rights.

This humbling should be well noted by us here in the West, we are not all that big, and we have exploited most of the world for a long time. Now, it is clear that my comments here are not going to fix anything. But this topic, like many, just show how easy it is to be completely unthinking and naive in our opinions, and the need for Christ to give us his wisdom in dealing with the everyday and ordinary thing, like maps, and the resulting attitudes that they teach and encourage.

So, here's my suggestion: buy a Peters Projection map - you can find them for a fiver on the internet - and hang it somewhere where people will see it and talk about it, let's see if we can't take the world more seriously...

Yes. Jesus Loves Me.

Did Jesus Die A Good Death?

This is an article I wrote for the student magazine - Areopagus - at the place I study.

Did Jesus Die A Good Death?
Structured Ramblings on a Debate about Death in St. Paul’s Cathedral

It was a wet Tuesday when three old class-mates met on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, embraced, displayed the usual satisfaction and contentment gained only by those who have spent numerous years in community together, and filed quickly into the cathedral close behind the flowing scarf of the Professor they had come to hear debate death.

Not a topic you would expect to draw a crowd, and with only half the seats taken, proceedings began. St. Paul’s had four such debates during October as part of their public ministry.[1] Stanley Hauerwas – who was in the UK primarily to promote his new book, Hannah’s Child[2] – was the main attraction for the three old class-mates.

The debate was good, if too short, but what really got us talking in the pub afterwards was the question that ended the debate: Did Jesus die a good death? This was a question asked of Hauerwas by Sister Frances Dominica. By now, I found myself pre-empting Hauerwas’ answer, having followed his theology of death through to this point. But his answer shocked – expecting a ‘Yes’, he answered ‘No’.

Of course, the debate had ranged wider than this question. Up to that point, Hauerwas had given a brief but thorough explanation of why we as Christians sing from an unrecognisable songbook when compared to the attitudes toward death we encounter in our society at large. His diagnosis of cultural attitudes can be neatly summarised by a phrase he repeated a number of times: we want to get out of life alive.

He argued that our culture has been deceived into believing modernity’s project of convincing people that they should have no story except the story they chose when they had no story. The need then to co-operate as humans within society was still present, but as we increasingly accepted modernity’s lie, we needed a hook upon which to hang our co-operation, for it was no longer God. Consequently, Hauerwas names Hobbes as the man who provided the argument that we continue to co-operate because we still have a common factor that affects all of our stories – death. Thus, we have, with an ever-increasing measure, feared death.

This is an about turn from what we as Christians have as our story and our attitude toward death. In the Middle Ages, notes Hauerwas, the prayer was ‘Lord, save us from a quick death’. The desire was to have an awareness and understanding that death was coming – for that enable the dying person to be made right with their friends, enemies, and first and foremost, God.[3] It was God they feared, not death. Today, we it is death we fear, not God.

There is something profoundly obnoxious about wanting to get out of life alive, spending remarkable amounts of money to surround dying people with technology that keeps them alive until they do not actually know whether they are alive or not. We no longer fear God, and thus want to slip out of this life without noticing we died. Indeed, as Sister Frances noted, being surrounded with technology whilst dying is profoundly lonely. But this in itself is antithetical to the Christian message. Because we need not fear death, we are able to make death less lonely by being present with those who are dying. Sister Frances, who had surprisingly little to contribute to the debate and was unable to contribute to what a good death actually is, is practicing this very presence with her work in setting up children’s hospices.[4] Instead of this obnoxious desire to get out of life alive, we have a bigger, better story. Life is a gift from God – and therefore, whilst we rightly see death as an enemy, we need not fear it.

Conversely, Hauerwas ponders whether death is actually, in an interesting way, a gift itself. Death makes life valuable, but because God ultimately wants us to be with Him, Hauerwas wonders with Augustine whether there needed, even before the fall, to be some sort of transition from finite beings to infinite beings. Now, whether Hauerwas is correct on this musing is open to debate, as he seems to disregard the fullness of the communion between God and man in the garden. But it is a thought worth of further pondering that likely needs another article.

Our attitude to death is neither one of fear nor of trepidation. For in our baptism into the death of Christ we are baptised into the resurrection. As Paul says, if we have died with Christ we will surely be raised with Christ. The fear and loneliness that clasp around our society and the pervading attitude towards death are released and banished by the death and resurrection of Christ.

Hauerwas concludes thus: That as Christians we do not have to get out of life alive because we know our destiny has been set through our baptisms into the love of God. Christ’s death was, for us, a very good death.

And thus we come back to the question of whether Jesus died a good death or not.

If we look at the modern fear of death, then Jesus died a very bad death. Not only was he alone, our culture would claim, but he knew he was going to die, it was long and painful, and he was something of a burden to those around him when he died – his death infringed upon the freedom of the lives of many of those around him.

But, when we think about the death of Jesus through the eyes of the followers of Christ we are and not followers of modernity or cultural trends, we surely cannot fail to come to the conclusion that Jesus did indeed die a good death.

Jesus died as he lived: sacrificially and specifically for others. He did not die alone; his Father was with him every step of the way (even if we do allow for the cry of despair right at the last – although even then, the Psalm Jesus quotes does not allow for the actuality of God not being there, only for the perception of his absence). Jesus had time to prepare for his death, he had time to set things right, had he any need to, with his family, friends, enemies (forgive them, they know not what they do), and with his Father. And finally, his death infringed upon millions of people and is remembered by them every time the Eucharist is celebrated.

For Hauerwas to claim that Jesus did not die a good death seems contrary to his whole argument that as Christians we have language and mechanisms that enable us to both understand, process and come through death – our own and that of others – as a community that is radically changed because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who died a good death.

So, when it comes down to it, and we are sat in a small London pub on a wet Tuesday, what do think about death? And what do we think about the death of Christ?

---

[1] If you want to watch them, which you should, go to: http://www.stpauls.co.uk/View-St-Pauls-Videos.

[2] Hauerwas, Stanley, Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, London: SCM Press, 2010. A thoroughly excellent read.

[3] Interestingly, Lauren Winner, in a completely different context, also notes this was the American attitude in the 19^th century. There was a desire to linger around whilst dying in order to put accounts in order, and to make sure we were ready for the future, for death albeit a reality more real than most, is a prelude to the future. For more see Winner, Lauran, Mudhouse Sabbath, Paraclete Press: Brewster, Massachuettes, 2010, 92-108.

[4] Helen and Douglas House, see http://www.helenanddouglas.org.uk/.

Cosmic Countdown.

Check this out. It's better than your best Lindt bunny-esque advent calendar indulgence.

Hubble Space Advent Calendar 2010

Top find, Tom Green.

A word from Thomas Merton & a blog you should read.

It seems appropriate to quote Thomas Merton at a time when writing - my own and other peoples - has been under a fair bit of discussion and debate in recent weeks:

If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticised, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some people will condemn.

From his 'New Seeds of Contemplation'.

I was reminded of this by Chloe Lynch, a friend who has a blog you should be reading. So a tip of the hat to her, and head to The Art of Steering to check her out.

Political Islam

Today I led a seminar on Political Islam.

There are several aspects to this Islamist tendency within the wider Umma (Muslim community), but a couple of aspects of the Islamist movement are interesting to note - especially from the perspective of a Brit.

Firstly, political / radical aspects of Islam are indigenous to the religion itself - indeed Muhammad was not just a preacher, he was also a political leader who was not shy to act militantly.

Secondly, there are plenty of key figures in Islam who have offered doctrinal justifications for militant actions - notable ones are Maududi and Qutb, both of whom justify their actions from the Qur'an and Muhammad.

Thirdly, British colonialism and US imperialism has added oxygen to a dying fire in the last 150 years.

Fourthly, the holistic nature of Islam - the fact that it is to do with the whole of life - can at times put our Protestant, Western, individualistic Christianity to shame for thinking that we can privatize it. In fact, perhaps we only privatize it rhetorically, for religion is still and will always be the heartbeat of why we do politics.

Fifthly, this is an issue that will not go away easily and will certainly not go away if we continue to export hollow Western imperialism as a solution in any form, let alone in the current trend of bombs and soldiers.

What are we as followers of Christ to do? Perhaps something radically Christlike... allow Christ to permeate every area of out lives and live it out peacefully.