FROM THE BOUNDARY

We are all children of God no matter the evil we do. Whatever life throws at us, we should know that we’re ever valued and cherished, and that though we sink into the pit of our own making there are always footholds to climb back into the arms of love. That’s what it is to be grounded in life and so in the family of God, and even though we slander it all most wickedly and falsely in the name of everything that’s good and true and beautiful, which is to say religion as it should be. And yes, we’re free to make our own mistakes, to learn the hard way, for God ever gives us room to be ourselves and may only laugh at us in the doing, and though we’ve become a curse to life itself. Anything less would not be love. Ultimately, life will sort us out however foolish we’ve been. And if only we’ll stay awake to ourselves, knowing instinctively what’s right and wrong, resurrection will come.

 

When I think about it, what I’ve just written mirrors something of the family life I experienced as a kid. I didn’t live in a home of rewards and penalties. ‘Thou shalt not’ was not written on the wall of my bedroom. I was never lectured about ‘respect’ but was listened to. The rod was spared. The words ‘obedience’, ‘submission’ and ‘fear’ were as meaningful as Esperanto. Of course I could be naughty, though hands were only very rarely raised against me, and whether good or bad I never felt bereft of my parents’ love. In that love, I learned to distinguish right from wrong though none of us were churchgoers. Dad could be severe if he chose, though rarely, and in those circumstances mom ever stood by me. They must have trusted me enormously because they let me go my way without too much interference. They were very ordinary working class people, good, honest, hard-working people. Dad was a very fast bowler in cricket and won prizes for it. He nurtured my interest and we’d play in the garden on summer evenings. Once he was selected as a prospective parliamentary candidate and that prompted my interest in politics. Mom showed me what loyalty is and bequeathed me the fighting spirit. Both they and my brother sacrificed a good deal for me. I loved them then. I love them now. What was your childhood like?

 

How does the family life I’ve just described square with the idea of God as a stern father figure issuing orders backed by threats in a relationship rooted in fear, rewards and penalties and couched in the language of admonition and nagging? How does ‘law’ square with ‘love’, with membership of a family? 

 

In crude political terms, the Roman State understood the dilemma very well and so created Praetors, magistrates, who adapted the strict rigour of the “ius civile” to new conditions and introduced principles of equity, fairness, and good faith. English law followed suit with the Chancellor’s equitable jurisdiction. And what of Jesus who came to “fulfil” the law by smoothing the rough edges in the name of love? Yet there are still those today who wag their fingers about this and that, and appeal yet to the harsh provisions of Biblical law, and talk about what God ‘commanded’ as if Jesus had never been, and as if we are all still imbeciles in nappies who can’t possibly exercise right judgment without it all. They’re people who think God stopped ‘speaking’ two thousand years ago and more, and that the culture of those times really hasn’t changed a jot – at least when it suits them. Oh dear. What was that Jesus said about Scribes and Pharisees and the beam in your eyes?

 

Yet the language of ‘obedience’ and ‘submission’ still seeks to control us as if we’re all still little kids who’ll never grow up and ever need ‘lashing’. And it’s all made so little difference to the world.

 

The other day I bought a copy of George Herbert’s ‘A Priest to the Temple’. It was written, I suppose, between 1630 and 1633 when Herbert was priest at Bemerton Church, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, where it’s said he was deeply loved. As we know, Herbert turned directly to the Church after his ambitions in Court life floundered. In his poetry, he sought to drape religion in “Venus’ livery”. He was a close friend of Francis Bacon, who mentored him, and Bacon’s ‘Psalm Translations’, discussed in my book ‘Francis Bacon: A Fragment of a Life’, were dedicated to him. I wonder if you know Herbert’s poem ‘The Collar’. It’s on the Internet. Herbert begins the poem by wrestling with the Angel of God and ends in the arms of love: “I struck the board and cried no more ... Me thought I heard one calling, Child/ And I replied, My Lord.”

 

Here’s how Herbert begins his ‘The Priest to the Temple. “A pastor is the deputy of Christ for the reducing of men to the obedience of God. This definition is evident…” And later: “The country parson is in God’s stead… Thus there is nothing done well or badly whereof he is not the rewarder or punisher.” God often changes the order of things, he writes, “as he sees fit, either for reward or punishment”. God sends bad weather, he says, and sets fire to things. For yes, God is an autocrat who “delights to have men feel and acknowledge and reverence his power”.

 

Things haven’t changed much down the centuries have they? Do we still see priests as stand-ins for God, as Jesus be-alikes? And are they, do you think? Mind, in his poem ‘Discipline’ it’s worth mentioning that Herbert, though crabbed by his caricature of God, exhorts God’s compassion as if it were a rare commodity. “Throw away thy rod,/ Throw away thy wrath: my God./ Take the gentle path.” 

 

But I must to theses. The idea is that we must move beyond the externals of ‘religion’ to what I’ll call ‘religiousness”. It’s an idea I’ll return to often and, in truth, it’s really what these Columns are all about.

Religion should be about the flowering of the heart, of godliness, in love. Religion can’t be confined to a book or set of doctrines. Religion is not about the past. It’s about the eternal now. Science cannot be the enemy of religion. Religion is ‘true’ so far as it’s experienced. No one faith tradition provides an exclusive way to truth. Religion isn’t about denial. It’s about saying ‘YES’ to life. Religion speaks not with authority but with compassion. Joy overrides creeds and giving alms to a beggar overrides Sunday worship. If religion puts people to sleep and empties churches better say ‘bye’ to it.

Well, there’s 10. Only 55 to go!

 

Go safely, then – until the next time.

 

Dire warning from the boundary: Beware the thief in the night who comes to steal your dreams.