Here is the opening blessing from the Insurrection tour. Written and spoken by Pádraig ô Tuama.

My friend Jonny McEwen posted this on his facebook this morning. It is simply breathtaking…

There was once a minister who loved nothing more than relaxing on a Sunday afternoon by playing a round of golf. However, so as to maintain his reputation and ensure some peace and quiet, he would pretend to everyone that he really helped out with a charity after church. So, every Sunday while his friends, family and congregation thought that he was busy helping the poor, the minister would be secretly enjoying a leisurely game of golf.

After a year or so some of the angels noticed what was happening and, in their monthly report, informed God of the deception.

‘This is indeed a problem’ replied God as he put a note in his diary, ‘I shall have to teach him a lesson’.

While it is well known that God hates sitting though church, He made a point of going to the Ministers service the next Sunday so that He could witness what would transpire afterwords. Sure enough, once the service was completed the minister announced to everyone that he needed to go serve at a charity for the remainder of the day. Then he jumped in his car, waved goodbye to his family and drove straight to his favorite golf course.

But this Sunday was different for God had decided to quietly help the minister. As a result each stroke he made was flawless and every ball found the hole with one shot. Only when the game was finally over did God silently withdraw.

All the while the angels watched the game in disbelief.

‘We thought you were going to teach this man a lesson’ they shouted, ‘but instead you helped him to achieve the greatest golf score in the history of the world’

‘True’ smiled God, ‘but ask yourself this, who can he tell’

——————

I have offered an interpretation of this story here

One gift has been given me and in such a degree that I can call it genius it is the gift of conversation, of being able to talk with everyone.

This happy gift was given to me in order to conceal the undoubted fact that I am the most silent man of my day.

Silence hid in silence is suspicious, arouses mistrust, it is just as though one were to betray something; at least betrayed that one was keeping silence. But silence concealed by a decided talent for conversation as true as ever I live that is silence.

                    Soren Kierkegaard, Journals

Today the majority of us take it for granted that it is possible for us to hide our interior experience behind our public expressions, i.e. that our true self can be veiled behind what we do and how we act. However, such an idea was not always taken for granted.

It is perhaps Homer who first articulates the possibility of hiding ones true self behind ones public acts when he wrote of how Odysseus, while listening to stories of his own battles in the court of the Phaecian King Antinous, was overcome with grief. However, rather than showing this, Odysseus conceals it. Crying on the inside while remaining composed on the outside. This was not however described as a natural ability, rather it was presented as a unique gift, a supernatural feat in which he was able to divorce his true self from his external appearance.

Yet the very thing that Homer described as a miracle is what we take for granted today as normal. Hence we think that it is hard for us to see the truth of others motives because they have the ability lie to us (i.e. hide their true identity from us).

But what if the ’self’ is not hidden behind our public actions (idealism), nor simply the sum of our public actions (crude materialism), but rather is hidden within our public actions? This is what Freud described when he commented that, if one really pays heed to a person, one will find it hard to believe that humans can lie. For even if a persons lips spill forth lies their tapping fingers, subtle glances and bodily gestures will confess the truth.

When listening to the other, or to ourselves, the lesson here is that we must not get carried away with believing conscious descriptions of events (or manifest acts), but rather pay heed to what lies hidden within them.

Of course it is hard to see the truth of the others motives (and our own). But this is not because the other can fundamentally lie to us, but because we can so easily lie to ourselves. In other words, rather than being creatures who long after truth (Aristotle) we often cannot bear it and hide from it.

The double enigma of human subjectivity (see previous post) is not to be thought of as an enigma because the true self is somehow hidden behind our gestures (in our consciousness), but rather because who we are is hidden within them (one of the fundamental lessons of psychoanalysis).

So then, when Kierkegaard penned the deeply melancholic words above we should not jump to the conclusion that his silence was impossible to perceive (because it lay behind his words, in his consciousness). No. The point is that his silence was embedded within his words (and within his consciousness). There, for anyone who had ears, to hear it.

Of course there are very few who can truly touch our subjective world, who can touch the secret that we are to ourselves.

Perhaps, for Kierkegaard, there was only one who ever could hear the gentle silence in his speech: his beloved and beautiful Regina. A woman who he was separated from in life but with whom his body shares a space in death…

I am currently working with the artist Layren Bakker on an exciting little project (more details to follow shortly… although here is a hint). Anyway, today he sent a twitter sharing the video below. It is beautiful…

Firekites – AUTUMN STORY – chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

On Easter Sunday ikon offered a gathering in the Black Box entitled ‘Judas’. Here I offer a small virtual tour of the evening.

Warning: the following audio clips contain strong language

The room was sparse, with little more than a long table running from one end to the other. At the centre of the table stood a large wooden chair draped with fine purple cloth and covered with wild ivy, ivy that weaved its way around the chair and spread out onto the table. The table itself was laden with fresh bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Black candles slowly burned down the tables narrow centre. Ambient music filled the room and a large image of two lovers embracing was projected onto one of the walls. The video clip was originally less than a minute long but had been slowed down so that it lasted for the duration of the gathering. The mesmerising visual looked almost like a still image, but as the night progressed the lover’s lips gradually met.

To the left of the large wooden chair stood another empty chair. On the table, in front of this second chair, lay a large old bible, two bowls and two small white towels. One of the bowls was filled with a dark red wine while the other held crystal clear water. The old bible was closed.

After people had bought their drinks from the bar they took their seats around the table and began to eat the bread. At each setting there was a slip of paper and a pen. On the paper it simply read, ‘What would you do for four months wages?’ People were asked to write an answer while they waited for the evening to formally begin.

After a few minutes these pieces of paper were gathered up. Then a young man, who was sitting in a dark corner of the room, brought everyone to silence by singing ‘Until the End of the World’ by U2 (a song describing a conversation between Judas and Jesus). When he had finished a young woman stood up and approached the empty seat to the left of the large chair in the centre. She carefully washed her hands in the red wine before opening the old bible in front of her and reading from it. Saying,

(Written and spoken by Kellie Turtle, music by Rothko)

After this she again washed her hands in wine and then left. The music continued to fill the room, mixing elegantly with the words and with the silence. After a few moments another woman stood and began to read out the answers that people had given to the question, ‘What would you do for four months wages’. Some of the answers are included here.

People were then given a second question, entitled, ‘What have you been blamed for that wasn’t your fault?’ We were all were asked to write an answer to this question. These were then collected up before a man, who had moments before been sitting near the end of table, stood up and went to the chair that had just been vacated. He washed his hands in water before reading from the book in front of him, saying,

(Written and spoken by Jon Hatch, music by Rothko)

After this he washed his hands once more in the water and left. Again the answers to people’s questions were read out,

At this point a third question was handed out, which asked, ‘What is the most screwed up thing you have done in the name of God?’ People were given a few minutes to write something and get another drink before these answers were collected. Then a woman stood up and approached the empty seat where the other reflections had been offered. She slowly washed her hands in the wine before reading from the book in front of her,

(Written and spoken by Cary Gibson, music by Rothko)

After this she again washed her hands in wine and left. The answers to the previous question were then read out,

People were then given a final question and told that these would not be read. The question was, ‘What have you done for love that has brought you pain?’ After a few minutes these were gathered up before a man sat at the same empty chair as the others. He pulled up his sleeves and washed his hands in the bowl of water before reading from the book in front of him, saying,

(Written and spoken by Peter Rollins, music by Rothko)

Again he washed his hands in the water and left. Then the two bowls were lifted from the table and placed at either side of the room. The final answers were ceremonially placed into the bible, and it was slammed shut.

A short liturgy, referencing the four different readings of Judas, was repeated by everyone in the room three times:

‘I have betrayed, I have been betrayed, I have been misguided, I have been faithful’

Lots were then passed around and, depending on the lot that was drawn, people were invited to wash their hands in either the wine or the water. For those who washed in the wine, the words ‘Christ’s blood stains your hands’ were spoken over them. For those who washed in the water the words, ‘you have been cleansed’ were offered.

In closing there was a song followed by a reflection (written by Shirley Milburne). As with all ikon gatherings, a gift was given out as a reminder of the evening… a small badge with the words – Judas says happy Easter. The badge referenced the original Judas gathering (from four years ago). At that gathering we had given out badges simply saying ‘Judas’. However, at the darkest part of the evening the barman had sarcastically shouted out ‘Happy Easter’. So we combined these two happenings in the gift.

Hope you enjoyed this small tour of our ikon gathering. If you are interested in workshops designed to help your orginisation develop its own unique forms of theodrama then please contact Laci Scott.

If you are thinking… you are winning… (A nice piece of typography inspired by ‘The Flobots’)

Recently I have received a few comments that are themselves worth commenting on.  I can’t actually reprint them as I deleted them for their offensive nature (I want to encourage debate but, as the saying goes, there is a difference between free speech and shouting ‘fire’ in a cinema). However, one of the things that I found interesting about the comments related to the underlying assumptions embedded within them. One of these being that whatever I print on my blog represents my personal view on what is ‘true’.

I am not sure what these individuals would find more frustrating, the fact they disagree with some of the things on my blog, or the fact that I do too (I get the feeling however that the later would be even more frustrating as it means that they can’t pin me down as easily).

It would appear that the people I am referring to assume that the job of someone like myself is to print only the ‘truth’. The fact that I don’t always print what fits with my current thinking, my current idea of ‘truth’ (but rather often things that challenge it, interact with it, expand it and interrogate it) is totally foreign to such thinking. They would prefer to treat theological enquiry as if it were a mathematical problem that we already had an answer sheet for. Where one says, for example, ‘I don’t want to see your working out, just tell me, what is the correct way of interpreting the death of Jesus’?

My hope is that by interacting with my blog the reader will find food for thought rather than a dogmatic system that they need to adhere to. Of course I have my views on political theory, cultural criticism, and theological discourse, and these views will find expression here. But I would much prefer a person to disagree with me in a thoughtful and reasonable manner than unthinkingly agree (this can be described as my metaposition). The obedient disciple, after all, is the one who disobeys.

Recently we had an ikon gathering entitled ‘Convertable’ based upon the phrase ‘You must be born again’. I promised to offer some of the reflections used on the evening, so here they are (along with an outline of the gathering as a whole).

We began in a bar called ‘The John Hewitt’. As people arrived we split them into groups of four and sent them to the front steps of a nearby Cathedral. At the huge, imposing entrance a man offered a 3 minute impassioned sermon on the words, ‘You must be born again’. When he had finished each group was given a piece of chalk, two CD’s (labeled ‘Reflections’ and ‘Soundtrack’) four plain brown envelopes (numbered ‘1′ to ‘4′) and the following piece of paper,

Reflection (written by Jon Hatch, music by Rothko)

Envelope 1

Before going in search of the lonely poet (who sat at one of the tables in the bar and performed poems on the theme of transformation) people listened to reflection 2 (written by Shirley Milburne, music by Rothko)

Envelope 2

In the next venue people had to find a psychotherapist who spoke on the nature of transformation. But before finding him they listened to the following reflection (which can be found in ‘The Orthodox Heretic‘, music by Rothko)

Envelope 3

Before Chalking ‘I must be born again’ people listened to the following reflection (which can be found in ‘The Orthodox Heretic‘, music by Rothko),

The last envelop contained a gift of car air fresheners with the words ‘I must be born again’ printed across them.

As each group finished they returned to the pub. Here we relaxed and chatted about the evening.

The aim of this gathering was to help us all go on a journey with the words, ‘you must be born again’. Beginning with a negative rendering of these words we were subsequently exposed to various, more positive, interpretations. Interpretations delving into the possibility of transformation and change. By the end of this internal and external journey we finished where we had begun, but hopefully with a different appreciation of these words. Returning to the same place but with a different attitude.

Here is a little snippet of live music from the last ikon gathering. Mixed by Rothko (who will be part of the upcoming Pub Tour).