bath & wells: from the bishop

An Act of Celebration

Pre-Lambeth conference Wells Cathedral July 13 2008.

Yesterday in the Cathedral preparing for today’s service, I was approached by a group of young Americans. They asked me to bless the rosary beads they had bought for their mums in the Cathedral shop. I prayed for the young people, blessed the beads, and asked for God to sustain in faith those for whom they were to be an aid to prayer. Shortly afterwards a young Goth with long hair, leather jacket, Iron Maiden logos also came for a chat. He talked about his love for organ music and how he loved coming into churches, and looking up to the crucifix remarked; ‘There’s Jesus up there. I saw him in some other place recently. He was in a supermarket trolley in London lying down. I think he was sleeping.’

After several other encounters within a short period, I was reminded of the opportunities that simply lie at our doorstep – and how hungry people are for good news of an authentic faith, reasonable truth, and spiritual life that has integrity.

The past few days have been momentous. In Friday’s Guardian a headline read, I’m just trying to understand how I’m going to live. it was the first written interview of Ingrid Betancourt, a French woman who had been held captive by the FARC guerrillas in Colombia for six years. ‘ Six days ago,’ she observed, ‘I was chained to a tree. Now I’m just trying to understand how to live.’ Ingrid Betancourt did not speak much about the privations and ill treatment she had received during her captivity, simply recording that ‘every human being had an “animal” inside them.

What she did speak about was her key possessions – a Bible, and a small intricate crucifix which she had woven from bits and pieces of string she had gleaned from the guerrillas. ‘They need this string to weave belts for their guns,’ she said. ‘I used it to weave a rosary.’For her small things became incredibly significant. ‘The important thing in captivity was to fill the day with activities that could be repeated like a schedule. to give yourself stability in a world of no stability, that was the key.’

As I read this, I found myself reflecting on the fact that Ingrid Betancourt had discovered through experience something that is at the heart of Benedictine spirituality. Stability, or stabilitas is the first of three promises Benedictine religious make when they are professed into the order. It is a commitment to live out a holy life within a particular place. It is a promise to do so whatever is thrown by the circumstances of life. It is a promise to try to understand how to live.

I doubt very much whether Ingrid Betancourt thought much about Benedictine monks and nuns! What she discovered intuitively was that  by holding on to the truth she had discovered in scripture, and the fashioning of the cross which she held in her hand, together with the discipline of living in a spirit of forgiveness in the particular place of her captivity, where fear and the threat of violence were prevalent, she could find the true peace of God.

The Guardian article moved me. I am not alone. I watched Stephen Sackur on BBC News Channel’s Hardtalk programme on the same day, as he interviewed Ingrid Betancourt. He too was evidently moved as she reflected with him about forgiveness: ‘Probably it will hurt all my life..I hope it won’t. The thing I have settled in my mind is that I want to forgive..’

In the way that journalists do, Sackur asked her what she had learned. ‘I am a woman. I am fragile. I have learned I have to take care,’ she responded. It was a profound response, one that was utterly true to the spirit of jesus, who spoke of the necessity of ‘taking care of the self.’ Why? Because only taking care of our selves; recognising our humanity, our fragility, can we care for another.

Growing to maturity as a Christian is always a question of ‘trying to understand how to live.’By recognising our humanity, our fragility, and taking the right care of ourselves, we can move towards others in their humanity and fragility, even when, as Ingrid Betancourt experienced, that humanity can do cruel things.

Perhaps the most significant moment in the Sackur Hardtalk interview occurred when Betancourt was asked how cruelty, hatred and division should be addressed. Her response was simple:‘The things that make us different ( as human beings ) is that we have words. Words must help us to reach understanding.’ She went on to observe that in families when difficulties occur it is words in the end that make new ways of understanding possible, not violence, or exclusion, or separating people from one another.

In our service this evening we heard words from another prisoner, Paul.He spoke of how Christian people should try to understand how to live lives worthy of Jesus Christ. Just as Betancourt fashioned a cross and rosary beads from the simple bits of string used by her captors to make weapons, so Paul invites Christians to see small things as incredibly significant – humility, gentleness, patience, being forgiven, forgiving, keeping unity, making peace. To see Christ as one, not divided. These simple realities are the alternatives to cruelty, hatred and divisiveness. This is gives Christian faith authenticity, and makes it attractive.

Just as Betancourt saw such activity as giving herself stability, where often there was instability, pursuing such activities repeated like a schedule, so if we are to live lives worthy of Jesus Christ, must we.

A little earlier I spoke of the events of the past few days being momentous. Perhaps you thought I was going to speak of the decision to ordain women as bishops when legislation has been drawn up. Well, however you look at it, this is a momentous decision. The next few days will be momentous too for the bishops attending the Lambeth Conference. Few such conferences can have been so hyped beforehand.

For me Ingrid Betancourt’s story speaks directly to that event, as well as to the organisers of the ‘Alternative Lambeth’ recently in Jerusalem, and to those drawing up legislation over women bishops. ‘The thing that makes us different as human beings,’ she said, ‘is that we have words. Words must help us to reach understanding’. The God of the Christian faith calls us from deceptive religious security – consciously abiding safely in the bosom of the church into human freedom. Christian people cannot gain from human bondage in whatever form it presents itself. It is being fully human that we are made in God’s image. It is the God who made us who calls all of us to inhabit new structures with grace and love, not setting up new barriers.

Why is this so important? I gave the clue in my opening remarks – because of the young people who came with their rosaries to be blessed, the young Goth with his half baked ideas about Jesus sleeping a supermarket trolley; for prisoners still held by terrorists, but it is for these choristers from Sydney, the singers from Youthful Spirit, for all our friends from here and around the world, our neighbours in our parishes, for the lost and the little ones from wherever, who crave an authentic Christian loving and living, to sustain them wherever they live, whatever life throws at them.

‘There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.’ The God of authentic faith, reasonable truth, and spiritual life that has integrity.

Rt. Rev. Peter B.Price

Bishop of Bath and Wells.

13 July 2008.