Year: 2023 (Page 2 of 2)

I remember, many years ago reading a poem by David Whyte entitled ‘Faith’:

I want to write about faith
About the way the moon rises
Over cold snow, night after night.
Faithful even as it fades from fullness
Slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
Sliver of light before the final darkness.
But I have no faith myself
I refuse it the smallest entry.
Let this then, my small poem
Like a new moon, slender and barely open
Be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

I was in conversation with a friend recently and, in passing, she said of me “You’ve left the church”, and I was taken aback & immediately said to myself “No I haven’t”,

But quickly responded “But I can see why she might think that.  I rarely attend worship in church, I’ve returned my ‘Permission to Officiate’ to the Bishop so I am no longer authorised to lead worship in church, and I’ve gone ‘feral’.  But I still don’t think that I’ve “left the church”. So why not?

I find myself in hospital, in a 4-bed bay. In the bed opposite is Sardar Ali, an 81 year old Moslem gentleman from Pakistan. He has few words of English. His son tells me he is in Huddersfield visiting his son and family; he visits them twice a year. His son visits his father in hospital twice a day – on his own at lunchtime, and with his wife and young son Esa in the evening. 

A year or so ago a young woman whom I had known as a child and a teenager re-emerged in my orbit of friends. She had had a traumatic, abusive life and had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was 45 now. She had been back in touch with a couple of her several estranged sons. She had recently converted to Islam. She was living in a loving, caring community housed in a number of simple terraced houses in a small street in Bradford. ‘Our TLC’ offers residential care for learning difficulties, mental health and substance abuse. God breathes through the pores of ‘Our TLC’!

One of the benefits of being feral is that I feel freer than before to think creatively about my faith. I’ve done that with my thinking about Jesus’ death, and through Holy Week and Easter this year I’ve found myself wondering about Judas, whom I fancy may has had a raw deal from the Church. He’s been vilified as the betrayer, but was he really that much worse than the other male disciples? Peter denied Jesus, the others, bar Peter, James & John, fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, all of them ran away when Jesus was arrested, and apart from John none of them seem to have been present when Jesus was crucified.  None of the male disciples covered themselves in glory. Why put all the blame for Jesus’ death on Judas? Who would benefit from doing so?

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The www.feralspirituality.uk web-site began life last autumn, and this Lent, among other things, I’ve found myself mulling on what its existence has meant for me personally. To my surprise I realise that its opened my eyes in a number of ways.

Firstly, simply by naming ‘feral spirituality’ publicly, has meant that I now see it everywhere.  That’s a common experience I think. I remember years ago when I bought a Skoda car. I’d never really noticed Skoda cars, but now driving one I was aware of lots of them on the road. Naming something often allows a greater awareness of the thing named. So it was for me with feral spirituality.

Recently I was staying in London and a friend told me about the ‘Gaia Exhibition’ in Southwark Cathedral, a focus for thought & prayer for the care of our planet. It’s a travelling exhibition that’s been in other cathedrals, and the entrance was free. I was ordained in the Cathedral many years ago so it’s a place that has significance for me.

The Bishops of the Church of England have been struggling with the question of who should be allowed to marry in its Churches.

The answer is simple. Jesus did not command his followers to all believe the same thing, and we’re never likely to do so. Christians disagree on a whole range of matters.  But Jesus did command his followers to love one another. The unity of the church should be based on mutual love, not on some notion of a non-existent doctrinal purity.

So the answer is for the Church of England to allow the marriage of all in its churches, but not to make it obligatory for individual clergy & congregations, rather allowing them to make their own decisions as to what they deem appropriate.  As the saying goes “ All may, some should, none must.” 

Not all will respond in the same way, but the church would expect all to exercise Jesus’ love for one another & to respect a variety of views. 

This seems both consistent with Jesus’ teaching, and a message & example that the world desperately needs.