“Faith cannot be taught by any method of instruction; we can only teach religion. We can know about religion, but we can only expand in faith, act in faith , live in faith. Faith can be inspired within a community of faith, but it cannot be given to one person by another. Faith is expressed, transformed, and made meaningful by persons sharing their faith in an historical, tradition-bearing community of faith……the schooling-instruction paradigm works against our necessary primary concern for the faith of persons. It encourages us to teach about Christian religion by turning our attention to Christianity as expressed in documents, doctrines, history and moral codes”
John Westerhoff ‘Will our children have faith?’ (p 35)
Landlords from hell
 |
| The Nativity by Korean artist Woonbo Kim Ki-chang raises question of “where was Jesus born?” |
Coronation Street has a story line about the politics of casting for the local Nativity. (Hopefully Simon will get the role of the innkeeper). The innkeeper is always cast in a good light. He is the one who found room for Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem when everyone else was shouting “there isn’t any room”. For Mary and Joseph this innkeeper is the landlord from heaven. For us, he is one who found room for Jesus.
I suspect that many greet a roof and bed with a sigh of relief, particularly after long travels, or through being made homeless, or through economic migration. Mary and Joseph would be no exception. Often the shine soon rubs off as they realise that they are trapped by landlords from hell.
This week’s Channel 4 documentary Landlords from Hell highlights the shameful conditions many people have to live with. Good housing seems essential for good mental health and physical wellbeing, and it is such a shame that those who are most vulnerable in our society, and have such little control over their living conditions, are subjected to really squalid shelter. I know how much I value my home and how important it is that it is comfortable, clean and reasonably orderly. That means that I have a place to relax and recover. That would seem to be a basic human right. The programme is part of a Channel 4 campaign to expose the Great British Property Scandal. Shelter’s Chief Executive, Campbell Robb writes:
Every day at Shelter we see the devastating impact these landlords have on peoples’ lives as families remain trapped in homes that cause misery, and, in some cases, put lives at risk. What’s more, we believe thousands more families could suffer as changes in the Localism Act will see councils placing more vulnerable homeless households in private rented housing.
 |
| Beulah House Hotel featured in Landlords from Hell (Beulah comes from a Hebrew verb meaning to own– ironic!) |
Jon Snow was the presenter of the Channel 4 documentary. Before his career as a journalist Jon Snow worked for New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre for homeless young people in central London (with which he has remained involved since). At a time when we are so hacked off with journalists and the abuse of their power, Jon Snow’s example is a refreshing reminder of what good journalism is and what good journalism can do to bring to the light of day those things hidden in darkness. He confronted some of the guilty landlords with the grim realities of his findings, and hopefully they will take steps to put things right. I hope they will do that without recriminations, though I fear for those whose landlord threatens his tenants with the baseball bat.
 |
| bedbug from hell (photo by liz.novack) |
I wonder how good the landlord in Bethlehem actually was. We aren’t told how much he charged for the room. We aren’t told whether he moved another family in after Mary and Joseph had shown him the potential for letting the room out. And it did have a misleading Michelin star over the door. I suspect that it is more helpful to be shown the rooms in the Apollo Guest House and the Beulah House Hotel (featured in Landlords from Hell) as the place of our Saviour’s birth. After all, they are the places for those for whom there is no room – bed bugs and all.
Friend Karin – @KarinLyle1 wanted to comment to this post with photos – couldn’t, so I add her comments as a PS and with thanks.
Just wanted to reply to your “Landlords from Hell” Blog with two pictures of “Hospitality from Heaven”. Neither image does justice to the ‘peace’ and the ‘fragrance’ in these two pictures, nor to the graciousness of the hosts.If only we could offer a welcome like this to the weary and outcast in our society.Love Karin
The Fruits of Sandra’s Garden
Bedroom view from St. Beuno’s
Football supporters
The tragic death of Gary Speed, has, according to Peter Kay, Chief Executive of the Sporting Chance Clinic, prompted other footballers to become conscious of help they need to cope with the issues of footballers’ lives. Kay says “Footballers suffer illness in exactly the same way as the rest of society. They can become more detached from the outside world because of the money they earn. They are as vulnerable as the next man. In the light of Gary Speed’s terribly sad death I hope players who recognise they have a problem will put their hands up to ask for help”.
The issues of footballers’ lives was explored on White Lines with reference to an article on Nigel Reo-Coker’s working week featured in Guardian Money. White Lines summarised the working week:
Monday: A “warm-down training session. You’d probably be out there on the pitch for and hour, an hour and a half.” This runs between 10.30 a.m. and 12 p.m., and is followed by lunch (“prepared by chefs”). After lunch, “the rest of the day is yours”. By 1 p.m., he’s gone.Tuesday: As for Monday.Wednesday: Day off.Thursday: As for Monday and Tuesday.Friday: A light training session, “an hour maximum”.
 |
| The drive to Castle Eden |
So much time. So much money. So much possible isolation. When Roy Keane was looking for a house for his family in the north-east while he was manager of Sunderland, the Sunday Sun ran an article suggesting that Castle Eden would be worth looking at. One look at the drive shows that there’s not much in the way of neighbours. The house looks the perfect fit for the Downton set, but Downton is anachronistic. The castle of former times would be home for a whole community. Now the castle has been nuked with the nuclear family being king of the castle in isolation from any supporting cast.
The idea that wealth is the cause of isolation is explored by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations and by Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby. The gated communities of East Cheshire, home to many famous footballers, may be the envy of many, but they are gated communities (if they can be called “communities” defended against others, whether neighbour or prying reporter.
 |
| Castle Eden |
We isolate our footballing celebrities on such dangerously high perches. Football supporters cheer them on for their performance. But that support is only for the team. The team members are only cheered for their part in the team’s win. Then adrenalin buzz of turning it on for 40000 people must give such a high, but also be so scary with the knowledge that the winning streak has to end and the recognition of the risk of a slide down the divisions into oblivion.
What are we doing as football supporters? I would suggest that every sad footballing story (and there are so many) should encourage us to become footballer supporters recognising the complications of wealth, time and isolation. Many footballers and celebrities are able to take care of themselves, their time and their wealth. Many have set up charitable foundations, and many prepare themselves for careers beyond their playing days. But others are not so lucky.
Do you see me? Or are you just looking?
We are drawing to the end of Prisons Week (Nov 20th-26th) – something organised to promote prayer for all those involved in the nation’s prisons. The theme of the week this year is “Do you see me? Or are you just looking?”. This draws attention to the fact that prisoners are constantly watched and under surveillance, they are rarely seen. It is indeed very difficult to “see” someone in prison. There is a real security rigmarole involved in visiting and visiting rights are severely limited (part of the punishment). But the most fundamental obstacle preventing the prisoner being seen is that in being locked up they are locked out of society.
 |
|
Guard Tower & Walls of Robben Island
which locked Nelson Mandela out for
18 years but which didn’t prevent him
from being brother through
walls of prejudice and hatred.
(photoby Joe Barbosa) |
I have often invited prayer for prisoners (there are currently 87,652 men and women in UK prisons – a rise of 2424 from 12 months ago). I am usually met with the hostility of a few who insist we should be only praying for the victims of crime. They follow the sight line of the secular media: the prisoner should not be seen and his or her cry should not be echoed in our prayer.
This week, someone was telling me of her pre-ordination placement experience in a “category A” women’s prison. She recalls her feelings of consternation after her first Communion in the chapel with a congregation of about eight when she was introduced to her table companions – including a much villified serial killer. This group of women have been seen by God. They have heard good news and a certain freedom even though they now they must be locked out of a society that wishes for them only to have bad news for a harsh and punishing sentence.
This is profoundly challenging because we share the same bread, and we drink from the same cup. We have been called companions (companions are friends who particularly share bread) and brothers and sisters. It is usually hard to imagine sitting at a table with people who aren’t our friends but God’s choice challenges these preconceptions. Instead we are challenged to see and recognise brothers, sisters and companions on the far side of dividing walls.
Jamie’s Great Britain
 |
| from Paddy’s Marten Inn, Leicester |
I was intrigued by ideas of hospitality and celebration whilst watching Jamie Oliver on Channel 4 last night. I was wearing my metaphorical priest’s hat. Jamie gets everywhere on TV. The British public loves him for his energy and commitment. Last night’s programme focused on my home city, Leicester. Jamie’s comments began by highlighting the prospect of Leicester becoming the first UK city where the majority of the population is non-white. Jamie’s glass is definitely half-full and last night’s programme saw him at the asian veg stall on Leicester market and in the kitchen of Amita Mashru’s Gujerati restaurant eager to celebrate what immigrant communities have brought to us and our cooking and to celebrate the British achievement of entertaining different food cultures, and the spices of our foods picked up from different corners of the world.
Hospitality and celebration are central functions of ministry and defines the people of God, including Jews, Muslims and Christians, and other faith communities. Trace Hathorn reminds us that hospitality defines the people of God. He writes:
The call to welcome the stranger is anchored in the Torah and was a part of themeasure of the Hebrew community’s faithfulness to God. When a traveler came totown, they waited by the well, and it was incumbent upon the townspeople tohouse and feed the visitor for the night.Of course, these travelers were rarelyfamily. … They were aliens, often foreigners, people who had different foods,different clothes, different languages, different gods. Opening one’s home wasrisky. Today we’d describe such a thing as out and out foolish. … Suchhospitality was central to the Hebrew identity. The risk did not define thepeople; their hospitality did, for they knew such hospitality was central tothe character of their God. The same was true in the early Christiancommunities. Paul reminded the Romans to offer hospitality to the alien, and inthe Letter to the Hebrews the people were reminded to show hospitality to allfor in so doing some entertained angels unaware. In Acts, the early deaconspracticed hospitality throughout the community, bringing welcome to those inneed. And in Matthew’s community, hospitality still measured the faithfulnessof the people. Welcoming prophets, righteous ones and disciples (those whomMatthew called “little ones”) was a disciplined practice of the young churches.
What seems to make Jamie such a good host and celebrant is his joie de vivre, the love of his subjects and his love of what people bring to the table. He seems convivial and congenial. Life tastes both bitter and sweet to Jamie’s palate, but his joy in that concoction is infectious. Being entertained and fed by Jamie is intriguing and is challenging my own hospitality and how I play the role of host.
Spiritual directors
Nouwen in Reaching Out is talking about the lack of spiritual directors. I think I would want to include other consultative roles as well which enable our supervision.
“At least part of the reason for this lack .. is that we ourselves do not appeal to our fellow human beings in such a way as to invite them to become our spiritual leaders. If there were no students constantly asking for good teachers, there would be no good teachers. The same is true for spiritual guides. There are many men and women with great spiritual sensitivity whose talents remain dormant because we do not make an appeal to them. Many would, in fact, become wise and holy for our sake if we would invite them to assist us in our search for the prayer of our heart.
“A spiritual director does not need to be more intelligent or more experienced than we are. If is important that he or she accepts our invitation to lead us closer to God and enters with us into the scriptures and into the silence where God speaks to both of us. Often we will discover that those who we ask for help will indeed receive the gift to help us and grow with us toward prayer.” (98)
Cited in centers and margins, prophets and poets blogpost.
Questions of faith
“God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favour.”Jean Jacques Rousseau
“If you comprehend it, it is not God.”Saint Augustine (354-430)
Treasure hunt
At the table with Annie commented on the New Northerners’ post Occupation of the Heart. Her word treasure glistened at me. I actually misread the word, presuming that there was more treasure there, and decided to dig for treasure in the word treasures. I am sure there are words I have missed, just as there is always more treasure to discover. I did discover that there weren’t enough hissing snakes for STRESS.
Lessons on leadership from nature
“There is a simpler, finer way to organize human endeavor. I have declared this for many years and seen it to be true in many places. This simpler way is demonstrated to us in daily life, not the life we see on the news with its unending stories of human grief and horror, but what we feel when we experience a sense of life’s deep harmony, beauty, and power, of how we feel when we see people helping each other, when we feel creative, when we know we’re making a difference, when life feels purposeful.”
“Over many years of work all over the world, I’ve learned that if we organize in the same way that the rest of life does, we develop the skills we need: we become resilient, adaptive, aware, and creative. We enjoy working together. And life’s processes work everywhere, no matter the culture, group, or person, because these are basic dynamics shared by all living beings.”
“Western cultural views of how best to organize and lead (now the methods most used in the world) are contrary to what life teaches. Leaders use control and imposition rather than participative, self-organizing processes. They react to uncertainty and chaos by tightening already feeble controls, rather than engaging people’s best capacities to learn and adapt. In doing so, they only create more chaos. Leaders incite primitive emotions of fear, scarcity, and self-interest to get people to do their work, rather than the more noble human traits of cooperation, caring, and generosity. This has led to this difficult time, when nothing seems to work as we want it to, when too many of us feel frustrated, disengaged, and anxious.”
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.”
“To resolve most dysfunctional situations, the first thing to do is flood them with information.”
from Margaret Wheatley
Educating Essex
 |
| Passmores School, Harlow – the scene for Educating Essex. This photo from vincentballard |
Well done Channel 4 for the Educating Essex series. (Though the Daily Wail has a rather different take on it).We have enjoyed seeing a vibrant learning community built round dedicated professional teachers: Mr Goddard as Head (he has blogged), Mr Drew as Deputy and Miss Conway as Head of Year 11 who seem dedicated to responding to the emotional needs of this group of adolescent teenagers. It was good to hear Mr Drew telling his Year 11 students “You have no idea how much I like teaching you, you have no idea.” Passmores School, near Harlow, is an “outstanding school” according to Ofsted which has more than met its target of students’ GCSE achievements.
Ryan, with Aspergers, is beautiful, and moved us (as well as his fellow students and headteacher) to tears with his impromptu speech on leaving day when he declared the two years spent in school as the happiest of his life, with the school becoming his family. Here the argument about whether Asperger’s is “disease” or “syndrome” is settled in favour of syndrome – a difference rather than a disability to be cured.
Vinni’s story is told with great senstivity. He is in care twenty miles from school, family and friends. He loses his bet that he will be at the end of year prom by failing to attend school for the last term and so forfeits his right to the prom ticket. He does turn up to see what he is missing. I guess a lot of people would have said “What are you doing here?” Not so Mr Goddard. He greets Vinni with “Great to see you. Sorry you’re not here properly.” Mr Goddard comments that Vinni is only a child – one let down by so many people – including himself.
On a day when the media had been discussing the depressing findings of ICM research published by Barnardo’s, it was good to see youngsters managing to live and work in a community, and to see dedicated professional teachers flexible enough to work close to the emotional and educational needs of the students. That survey suggests that 44% adults agree that British children are becoming “feral”, and that 47% say that the trouble with young people is that they are “angry, violent and abusive”. Oh, the power of the Daily Wail/Fail as the hidden persuader of our perceptions.
I have often noticed the phrase that dates when there were better times. It is “thirty years ago”, and 30 years ago has always been better than today. 30 years could be the measure of a generation, and a way of expressing our fear of the next generation and how they are going to be as members of “our” society. Steven Pinker observes that one of the effects of ageing is to be negatively judgemental about the next generation, and to be inclined to believe that the past (which is our generation) is always better than the present. In his book, The Better Angels of Nature he demonstrates that the (further) past was a far nastier place than we might have imagined and that the present is far nicer than we might have noticed.
Asperger’s Syndrome Foundation
Grits and Grains 