FROM THE BOUNDARY

A discussion of ‘values’ is probably not everyone’s idea of a fun Sunday, but it might just beat being admonished to your knees at St. Mug’s Church. As I suggested last week, our ‘values’ strike at whom we really are. They’re the things which underpin the way we think and behave. They’ve become a hot topic because many think society is now so weak without them that it’s falling apart – so if we’re not careful we’re done for.

 In particular last week, I offered some reflections on ‘respect’ guided by some suggestions of Bishop John Holder in his Synod Charge of last month. There he said that religious belief “enhances” the enduring quality of mutual respect, which he understandably seems to think is an ‘old value’ which must be preserved at all costs.

 

 I suggested that for the young the idea of ‘mutual respect’ is not at all how they understand the ‘respect’ that’s expected of them; that, in fact, ‘respect’ is demanded as a way of propping up an ordering of society which is rooted in ‘Yes Sir-ism’, the idea that respect is one-way, that’s it’s due to you only because of your age, status and power over us and irrespective of whether you really deserve it.

 

Yet who’s to say what you do or don’t deserve? That’s a difficult one because our answer might be rooted in self-interest. One criterion, I suppose, is whether in everything you say you’re truthfully reflecting what you actually do. Imagine a pastor, for example, who preaches the law of love but who practices discrimination and tells lies. The young pick this up very quickly and, in their natural rebelliousness, are not afraid to tell you. Experience tells the rest of us to keep quiet and just say ‘Yes Sir’. It would be a wonderful world, wouldn’t it, if all of us, Christian and non-Christian, would speak meaningfully like the Rasta of ‘One Love’ and signal our respect for each other with a ‘knock’?

 

But sadly life’s not like that, for most of us are still ruled by a paradigm in which society is a pyramid with God at the top from whom all authority descends, a society in which everyone knows their place and must obey someone else, the ‘squires’ of our lives. It’s a very Old Testament way of viewing the world. At times, it all has an air of unreality, like the idea of repressive dress codes in church as if this God, who created a universe, is really phased if you’ve got a bra strap showing. We make him so very small to match, I suppose, our own small-mindedness, hypocrisy and fear.

 

On fear, how often do we hear things like ‘This is Barbados. It’s a very small society’ as a way of indicating we’d better shut up and behave ourselves – lest some nameless person ‘out there’ will ‘get us’ – to protect the corrupt world in which they move? Actually, experience tells me it’s not peculiarly a Barbadian thing. I’ve met it in all the countries in which I’ve lived. Sometimes, we know very well where danger lies. It’s the ‘man at the top’. He – or she – might be the Dean of a Faculty, the line manager, even a bishop. How can ‘respect’ generate from fear or from the misuse of power?

 

Mercifully, in employment situations we have some protection through legislation or contractual grievance procedures. Invoke them, you become a trouble maker. Speak out and you’re a marked man. But at least there’s a form of protection. Even the Prime Minister is answerable to the law, to Parliament, to the press, to the electorate.

 

Paradoxically, I want to suggest that a bishop is probably the most powerful man in our land. His discretion is virtually unlimited. In practical terms, it’s almost impossible to check his misuse of power. No informal grievance procedure protects priests from his perfidy. The rules which bind the rest of us – in contract, in employment and administrative law – have only a limited application to him in his capacity as bishop. In theory he can prevent a good man from being ordained or being accepted for ordination training. He can routinely discriminate, remove or suppress documents, commit breaches of natural justice, misrepresent his intentions, promote his cronies or relatives, fail to answer letters, ‘fix’ agendas, cause a man who falls foul of him to be treated as a pariah, and much more – and all of this despite his vows to promote unity, peace, justice and love, to be merciful, and to guide and strengthen those in his care. The fact is that he may have more Herod in him than Borromeo or Edward King despite all his saintly smirks.

 

Is such a man immune from complaint? Well, no, in theory. You can say, for example, that he’s violated his vows. How do you prove it and where? As to ‘how’, it must be very difficult – for complaint from my examples would not be made of any public act of his which stands or falls by itself, like disseminating heresy or false doctrine, and proof will be a problem. As to ‘where’, well of course it’s the Ecclesiastical Court. However, its deliberations are held in private and – here’s the rub – complaint must be sworn and presented by two other bishops or five priests from the Diocese. Good luck! Isn’t it time to bring a bishop down to size? 

 

Wherever there’s fear from power there can be no respect. My belief is that young people, the lovers of life, are tired of it all. Oh yes, they know instinctively there are no guarantees in life, no certainties, so that the juice has to be squeezed from every moment. They know very well that tomorrow belongs to them and are tired of all the ‘put downs’. Thank God for people like our Governor General who, in the schools, practices lifting them up. It’s what clergy and everyone else should be doing to tease out the best in them. 

 

Surely one way of showing respect to someone who doesn’t deserve it is to tell them so. Answering back, prima facie just cheek, may yet be a blessing. It’s a caution which says: ‘Look you are wrong, you’re out of order. It’s not good for you to believe you have absolute power over me and I have a duty to tell you so. If you don’t like it, tough. Nothing personal. Ok?’ In its way, then, it’s an act of love which drives out fear, mine as well as yours. We both need to grow. Didn’t Jesus, with fire and sword, do it all the time?

 

Well, go safely then... until the next time.

 

Choice from the boundary: Choose either – “Two and two will continue to make four despite the whine of the amateur for three or the cry of the critic for five” (Whistler) – or – Employer to job applicant: “What’s two and two?” Answer: “Whatever you say it is Sir.” (Tony de Mello). Over to you.