Here is a beautiful, rich and poignant piece of theo-poetics from Pádraig ô Tuama given during the Insurrection pub tour. The music that accompanies this piece is called ‘Found and Lost’. It is from the Insurrection EP forged from the boundless imagination of artist/musician Jonny McEwen. This dark, ambient EP beautifully captures the spirit of the tour. Both Pádraig and Jonny are active participants in ikon.
Earlier in the year I took to the road for five weeks on a pub tour with the artist/musician Jonny McEwen and singer/poet Pádraig ô Tuama. At one the events the filmmaker Bala Boyd recorded some of the content from the evening. He did a great job. Here is a clip of Pádraig.
If you like this you can get his new album “Hymns to Swear By” from Proost.
I have recently been reading Jean-Michel Oughourlian’s beautifully crafted book The Genesis of Desire. A work that carefully blends the authors extensive psychiatric expertise, the theoretical depth of René Girard’s philosophical anthropology and recent developments in neuroscience to explore the interrelated themes of love, violence, and rivalry.
If one wishes to delve into the murky waters of our most intimate relationships to discover why they are often beset by the most intense obsession, conflicts, love triangles, compulsion, revulsion and jealousy (sometimes all at the same time) then you will enjoy this book.
Of course when it comes to such things as romantic love we can be wary of books that expose the inner workings of our most sublime feelings. But such knowledge does not have to rob love of its beauty. Something Oughourlian points out when he writes,
When we go to the theatre we certainly have no wish to see the gears hidden behind the scenery; we prefer to surrender ourselves to the pretence of the representation and not let ourselves be distracted from the pleasant illusion in which we are immersed. And yet, we know that it is an illusion, and that knowledge does not prevent us from experiencing each time a renewed pleasure, becoming once again an enchanted spectator
At its core this book offers a clear description of mimetic desire (the mechanism by which humans learn what to desire). By showing how our desire is always another’s desire (i.e. always connected with, constructed by and modified in light of other peoples desire) Oughourlian provides a way of understanding the origin of all human conflict and the birth of the concepts good and evil. An explanation that is supplemented by a subtle and interesting psychological commentary on the creation story found in Genesis.
I would like to offer a brief and partial reflection on the following quote from the theologian/philosopher Paul Tillich,
The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt
In order to approach this let us begin with the rather benign claim that things exist. More than this, some of these things are conscious, i.e. there are some beings in the universe that sense the universe. And then there are self-conscious things. These are beings that are aware of their consciousness. Perhaps a way to understand the difference between mere consciousness and self-consciousness is through the phenomenon of ‘blind sight’. In blind sight a person who thinks they are blind can actually see. While the individual in question believes that she is blind, when asked to make guesses about her environment, she will be able to describe it with a degree of accuracy well above what could be considered chance. Here the individual can see while not actually perceiving themselves as seeing. In short, ‘sight’ is taking place without there being any awareness of it.
With the awareness of our existence comes the awareness of our own potential non-existence. In other words, self-conscious beings are aware, to different degrees, of their own potential fall into nonbeing. Tillich writes about how this awareness is manifest in different types of anxiety. Anxieties that, in their most acute state, are felt as despair.
He writes that anxiety is distinct from the phenomenon of fear. For while fear is always directed toward an object (enemies, spiders, enclosed spaces etc.) anxiety has no object (it arises in response to the foreboding shadow of nothingness itself).
Tillich writes of three anxieties (that are simply different ways in which nonbeing makes its absence felt). There is the anxiety of fate which, at its most extreme, is encountered in a despair that we face death. Then there is the anxiety of emptiness (where we experience our various projects as unfulfilling) that can degenerate into the despair of total meaninglessness. And finally there is the anxiety of guilt (where we feel that we fall short of our own being). An anxiety that, at its most all encompassing, is felt in the despair of condemnation.
In response to these sometimes crushing anxieties there are a host of religious answers, i.e. answers that attempt to address the questions cast up by our awareness of nonbeing. These answers come in many forms, and yet even if they were intellectually persuasive (which, Tillich would argue, they are not) they would never fully banish these deep anxieties. We can of course repress them, but then they make themselves felt in different ways (in bursts of aggression, self-loathing, over-eating, phobias, substance abuse etc. etc.)
In response to this Tillich questions the idea that the way of Christ provides religious answers to our existential questions. Rather he attempts to show that Christ invites us to participate in a way of being that enables us to live beneath the shadow of these questions. Joyously embracing life while fully acknowledging their presence. Living in such a way that they are deprived of their weight and sting. In doing this he points to the possibility of a God arising from the ashes of the death of the religious God. A God that can be described as the source of our ability to live fully in the midst of our existential doubts.
This possibility of fully living in the midst of these anxieties will be something I explore in my forthcoming book, The Uprising of Christ.
I have just finished rereading Paul Tillich’s book The Courage to Be. It is a rich work that is both intellectually satisfying and personally challenging.
This evening I watched Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island. The film itself was a powerful cinematic expression of some of the ideas that Jay Bakker and myself were exploring in Revolution last week. Be warned that this post contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the film you might want to watch it before reading the remainder of this post.
Just as the Hebrew scriptures speak of being unable to stare into the face God, in Shutter Island we confront the idea that we are unable to stare into the face of our trauma. To avoid such a confrontation with our own darkness we create fictions that insulate us from the truth of our deepest scars. These fictions are then taken as the truth of who we are. Fictions that may be deeply elaborate and obscure (involving conspiracies etc.) or rather mundane (that we are happy in our present relationship, job, etc.). But regardless of what they entail these fantasies protect us in some way from ourselves. Such fantasies are not a problem but rather the solution to a problem. Yet it is a solution that fails to deal with the fundamental issue.
What is more, the darkness that we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves is made manifest in disavowed ways. We all like to think of the communities we are part of (friends, family, political movement etc.) as some kind of reflection of Eden. Others are unforgiving, distrustful, ungracious, greedy, arrogant etc., not us. And yet so often we place these judgements upon others as a way of avoiding a confrontation with them in ourselves. And all the better if the accused is really guilty of these transgressions, as this can make it even easier for us to avoid confronting them in ourselves. For the simple reason that we feel justified.
The path to healing and transformation involves the painful process of glimpsing the Real of our own darkness. Glimpsing our wounds, and giving language to them. Wounds that are hinted at in such things as our dreams and our drunken conversations. More than this, it involves being able to do this in an environment of love.
So what would it look like to have a community in which we allowed our darkness to be seen? A community where we would be confronted with the truth of who we are? A community that was therapeutic, not despite the fact that it gives space for this horrific self-disclosure, but precisely because of it?
At Revolution I got a chance to share a little about these ideas. Jay then led the way by showing the type of strength needed to become vulnerable. After this people were invited to reflect upon their own wounds. During a song Jay ripped out pages from the back of a Bible and passed them around the room. Those present were invited to write something that reflected their own darkness. Then we gathered up the paper, read these glimpses into the Real of our hurts and placed them back into the text. We finished by binding the book and reflecting upon how our present suffering binds us to the suffering of those who went before us.
This sacred gathering was not about providing some glib answers for our suffering, but rather about providing a place for them to be shared. In this way shining a little bit of light upon our darkness. You can listen to the talk below. I will finish this with a quote from Henri Nouwen,
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of offering advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand”
On Sunday I took part in a discussion with the Rev. Vince Anderson at Revolution NYC concerning questions to do with love, violence and inclusion.
One of the issues that I was touching related to the idea of a community where everyone would be provoked to examine their actions and challenged to be transformed. In short a community in which each individual embraces the idea that they are there to be evangelised, to be transformed and renewed. This talk explores in slightly more depth some of the issues that I raised in my last post. Click below to give it a listen,
In January 2010 the infamous New York mobster John “Junior” Gotti claimed to have finished a children’s book while in prison entitled Children of Shaolin Forest. This contrast between his public acts and the writing of a children’s book can strike us peculiar. Here we are confronted with the image of someone accused of murder, conspiracy to murder and armed robbery sitting in a cell writing a touching and sentimental story for children. This is not dissimilar to a situation that was well noted back in my homeland of Northern Ireland. There it was common knowledge that many of the Loyalist paramilitary leaders had a great sense of humour. In contrast to their more serious and sombre counterparts the Loyalist groups where known to make biting jokes at their own expense and, over a drink, exchange an unending litany of funny, self-depreciating anecdotes. This was also true of many of the Protestant fundamentalist leaders and was something that I got to witness directly a couple of times.
A question that these observations raise concerns the profound limitation of the idea that listening to another person’s story will turn a stranger, or even enemy, into a friend. In light of the above there seems to be a problem with this statement, not in terms of its actual claim but rather in its desirability.
For what if this statement is largely correct? What if, with the exception of people with serious personality disorders, individuals like Gotti are likable once you have had a chance to really chat with them? What if, under the right circumstances, I really could enjoy the company of most people and even come to consider them a friend? Is it possible that, at a subjective level, others are really not that dissimilar to me? They too love children, care for their friends, give quietly to charity, buy drinks on a night out, tell jokes, share their sufferings etc. etc.
If this is the case then we must ask whether we should put ourselves in a place where we can become friends with certain people. People who actively participate in and affirm systems that lead to the oppression or outright destruction of others. Or perhaps, while being their friend at a subjective level, whether we must maintain enough distance to be able to attack them viciously in public.
Take, for instance, the phenomenon of those slave owners who were known to be kind to their slaves (calling them by their real name, showing generosity etc.). The radical move is not to try to expose how this subjective attitude is inauthentic, but rather how it acts as a veil that covers over the objective violence at work in the material nature of the relationship itself. In many respects the first act of defiance involves the dangerous act of the slave refusing the friendship and acting like the oppressed person they are (i.e. not allowing the true violence to be hidden in subjective relations). In this way the slave-owner is unable to hide behind a subjective friendship but is confronted by his or her fundamental violence.
One of the things we witness with the rise of social networking media is the emphasis on the subjective (not to mention the TV programmes and films that concentrate on the subjective story of criminals, e.g. The Sopranos). Now we can know public figures at an intimate level through their twitter updates and facebook profiles. We can see that they shop in the same places we do, listen to the same bands, also have embarrassing photographs of themselves and get into funny predicaments when they have had too much to drink. This focus upon the subjective is often celebrated as a step towards a type of global community of acceptance: something that fundamentalists have stood firmly against.
Within Christian fundamentalist circles there is a fear of a one-world government bringing worldwide peace and harmony. Initially this fundamentalist fear can seem absurd, for why would they stand against global peace. However, nestled within their irrational diatribe is an obscured insight. For what if such a unity (in which we encounter each other as all part of the same family) can actually obfuscate the need to stand against injustice and speak up for those who have no voice? In short, what if the concentration on bringing about subjective peace (a deep ecumenism) can actually stand in the way of opposing violent structures?
To concentrate on subjective peace (a more liberal stand) is thus perhaps only a little better than standing against it (a more conservative temptation). And that instead we need to reclaim the Pauline insight that our battle is not against flesh and blood but rather principalities and powers. In short, that our interest in subjective relations (by which I include myself and the movement I am a part of) should not get in the way of the fact that we need to fight tooth and nail against unjust systems. There is a complex relationship between flesh and blood and principalities and powers that needs to be unpacked here. For the later exists only as they are expressed in the former, yet cannot be reduced to them. This is not dissimilar to the relationship between the ‘sinner’ and ‘sin’ obfuscated in the evangelical phrase ‘love the sinner hate the sin’. I may take this up at a later time.
So, in conclusion, what if we must be wary of the popular claim that church should provide a space where we listen to each others stories and rather attempt to foster a place in which we come face to face with the role we play in society as material beings (i.e. whether we are instruments of love or hate in the world)? Admittedly the two spaces can have a lot of similarities and so we need to do some work drawing out the subtle differences.
These are some issues that I explore in more depth in my upcoming book.
First of all let me apologize for my lack of blogging lately. Truth be told I am concentrating on some writing projects. The main one being my new book. On top of this I have been on the road for a while presenting some of my new material to select groups in order to gauge responses and hone it. The most important part of that process was embodied in the experimental Insurrection tour. I will let people know a little more about the new book soon, but for now I wanted to write about an amazing ikon gathering that took place a few weeks ago called “Naked”.
I was in the UK at the time and planed to be there, but the ash cloud sadly prevented me. Anyway, I eagerly listened as some of the ikon folk explained what happened. I loved it and was reminded that ikon continue to create beautiful, disturbing and challenging theo-poetic explorations.
As people entered the bar everything seemed much like one had come to expect from an ikon gathering. The room was bustling with people, audio soundscapes provided a backdrop to the evening and visuals of naked people from the artist Spencer Tunick filled the walls. Tables and chairs were dispersed throughout the room, the lights were low, candles burned softly and those involved with the gathering were busy readying themselves for what would likely be another evening of symbols, liturgies, poetry, ritual and reflection.
However, once the room was full and everyone had bought their drinks, the atmosphere changed. Instead of someone welcoming everyone and opening up the evening it seemed more like the evening had come to an end. The music came to an abrupt stop, the projector was turned off and packed away. The candles were blown out and the lights raised. Then the tables were removed and the chairs repositioned to form a large circle.
Once this had taken place those involved with running ikon simply sat in the circle and quietly waited for everyone else to do likewise. When everyone finally took their seats in the circle that inhabited the now bare room Chris, one of the ikon organizers, addressed everyone in a delicate and quiet manner, saying,
Most of the time when we are with each other we are covered. We have so much technology now – technology that shrinks the distance between each of us and makes all sorts of new communication possible. And yet a lot of the time we still feel far apart from each other. It is almost as if our virtual selves have become just that – almost selves hovering around our lonely and disconnected interiors. Almost selves covered in the salve of technology bravely telling ourselves that we are showing our real selves for the first time.
But one of the amazing and frustrating things about being a human being is there is always the OTHER and nothing can get rid of it – nothing can span the space, nothing can take away the distance that exists between the OTHER inside and the OTHER in those around us. That no matter how many beautiful words and liturgies we construct, no matter how warm and inviting the atmosphere we provide, no matter how much we want it that we will always be in a state of lack.
And what happens when we set down our props – our candles, music, multi-media and set pieces. What happens when we only have our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our guts, our bodies to know each other with? What happens when we sit down with our lack and the OTHER and try to speak? What would we say?
Tonight…ikon is naked….tonight we are all here with only what is going on in our insides to get us through. Tonight we have one hour to feel, to think, to approach each other with whatever words we can muster.
When I say the words ‘welcome to ikon’ we will have one hour to share an experience, one hour to try to be with each other without the usual fragile symbols that sustain us every month. Tonight we will see if we can find something sustaining in this circle.
Tonight we are going to attempt to be naked….
To us all, each and every one – WELCOME TO IKON
And that was it. For the next hour people sat. Some spoke, some remained silent. But nothing more was scripted. Chris, the man who had introduced the evening, said nothing else until it was time to draw everything to a close.
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what was said and what was left unsaid that night but I did talk to some who found the experience unsettling, tense, fragile, beautiful and honest. In this Quaker-like setting, without all the sounds and lights that often accompany an ikon gathering, people were invited to simply be. So often all our rituals and activities can help us cover over the experience of actually being with another and mask the otherness that we are to ourselves.
I wonder what it would be like if a church pulled a similar move occasionally. I can imagine entering to see all the usual activity taking place. The musicians practicing, the preacher looking through notes, the visuals running, the hymn books and bibles out. A cross over the altar. Then, all of a sudden, everything being removed (from the instruments and hymn books to the altar, the stage and the visuals).
And then, for an hour, being invited to simply be in that space with others and… and just see what happens.
In the aftermath of the pub tour I have launched an iphone app entitled ‘Insurrection‘. Currently it is a lite version designed to whet your appetites, but I am hoping to have the full thing available in a few weeks.
Parables represent a unique form of communication. Instead of merely attempting to change what we think they fundamentally seek to transform who we are.
An effective parable challenges the way we view the world, invites us to wrestle with its meaning and provokes us to respond.
Parables endeavour to close the gap between knowledge and action, reminding us that faith is not primarily about interpreting the world but rather with changing the world. Within the Christian tradition they bring us back to the incendiary idea that hope in the Resurrection means nothing other than participation in an Insurrection.
As such this FREE version of the ‘Insurrection’ app offers you a few short parables to reflect upon. A later version will follow, providing the user with a new parable every seven days over the course of forty weeks.
As time goes on I may add a few audio features to the app. In the mean time you can download the lite version from here.
