Tag: privilege

White Lotus – a parable of vanity and futility

David HerbertLeave a comment

I enjoyed catching up with the last episode of White Lotus – the last episode of the 3rd series. There was much to admire. Also, there was much for the devil to admire from his hideaway above the White Lotus resort in Thailand—a place he’d convinced the wealthy was a paradise they had somehow earned.

“Good things happen to good people”. That is what we are tempted to believe. And they’re the words used by a son to persuade his newly minted mother to break a promise she’d made to a prospective business partner.

A mother follows the same line of thought as she encourages her daughter to get over unease at the unfairness of the world. Wealth and comfort are a matter of luck, she suggests. “Enjoy it” becomes the best advice that she can offer her daughter as she lowers her resistance to the smug arrogance of her mother and elder brother.

Of course, the opposite must also be true in this mindset. If good things only happen to good people then bad things only happen to bad people. Follow that line of thought and you’re already looking down your nose at those who suffer bad things – refugees, the poor and all those who suffer the abuse and neglect of the powerful and wealthy.

I watched White Lotus with Holy Week on my mind. This is a week which undermines the devil’s myth that good things happen to good people. Jesus’ crucifixion turns that on its head. In this world bad things happen to good people because of people behaving badly. Jesus’ crucifixion embodies the suffering of the good. His love endures the suffering and has become the constant encouragement for those who have no resort to any sort of paradise island.

These are bad people at the White Lotus. I wouldn’t want to be in the same pool as any of them. These are people who think they come first, who think they’re entitled to comfort. Don’t turn to them if you need help because all appeals for help will fall on deaf ears. Theirs is a wealth without commitment. These are selfish people who do nothing right and everything wrong. This is a paradise where noone listens to anyone. This is the devil’s playground. It’s not paradise..

White Lotus is a great watch on the vanity and futility of our times. When the wealthy succumb to the temptation that confuses wealth with worth so many suffer devastating consequences.

The Negative Spaces We Forget

David HerbertLeave a comment

I didn’t know what “negative space” was until I joined an art class and discovered just how important negative space is. Negative space is the space that surrounds an object in an image. Negative space helps to define the boundaries of positive space and brings balance to a composition.

We highlight what we do. In conversations we talk about what we do, showing some things, hiding others. In our work meetings we report on what we are doing. But what is going on in the negative spaces? Do we get asked to share what we are conscious of not doing? What are the things that lie in the shadow of those things we highlight? What about those things we don’t have time for, or can’t find time for? What happens when we scrutinise the composition of our negative space?

When I think of my own negative space I am conscious of the thinking, the theology, the sharing I could be doing but can’t because of a mixture of my laziness and my preoccupation with other things. I also become conscious of the people I have forgotten and who have receded into the shadows, the neighbours I should know, the circumstances I should understand and empathise with.

It is not a pretty picture. Like many in pastoral ministry I am sure that I failed to take account of negative space. It was the people in front of me who got my attention – those who could talk, those who could demand a hearing. It was the people who were privileged enough, well enough to walk the same streets as me. The assumption was made that if you didn’t see someone they were OK. So we judged how well bereaved were coping from what we saw – the evidence before our eyes, sometimes forgetting that the very reason we don’t see some people is because they are hiding (or being hidden), because they are not well enough to be “out”, because they don’t want to be a burden or because they are shamed by a society that only seems to know positive space.

We forget that positive space is a privileged space, a space for those who are able to stand proud. Negative space, on the other hand, is a much larger space – a pit of not knowing, ignored and forgotten by those who don’t occupy such space. In the dazzle of positive space it is easy to forget God’s light shines in darkness. It is easy to forget that there is much love in that negative space.

The image of The Bomb, is by Israeli artist Noma Bar