Candlemas Meditation

How many times in your life have you heard those haunting words,
'Lord, now you let your servant go in peace,
Your word has been fulfilled,
My own eyes have seen your salvation,
Which you have prepared before the face of all people,
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles 
And the glory of your people Israel.'
Luke 2.29-32

What do these words evoke for you? Memories of school? Your favourite cathedral choir? The scents and light of a summer evening? The dark shadows of a winter night? Or you may think of John le Carre's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the haunting theme tune from the TV adaption. Or T. S. Eliot's rather dark poem A Song for Simeon?

If you're a clergy person then the chances are you've read those words hundreds or thousands of times as you've led the coffin from the church after a funeral. 'For my eyes have seen your salvation..' the hope toward which life is directed.

Ripon Cathederal

What a wonderful text. You couldn't find a richer one, could you? It has three central themes

• peace - personal and between nations
• salvation - the hope that God's purposes will triumph
• glory - the full slendour of God, the shimmering  presence (or 'shekinah,' the Hebrew word) of God among the people.

Almost too rich a gift for the musical imagination, yet what wonderful things composers have done with it down the ages! So where did these ancient words come from? The Nunc Dimittis is one of a set of three canticles or songs embedded in the narratives of Jesus' birth in Luke's gospel. Three early Christian hymns based closely on Old Testament texts yet pointing forward to the future

• the song of Mary - the Magnificat
• the song of Zechariah (John the Baptist's father) - the Benedictus
• the song of Simeon - the Nunc Dimittis

Luke's narrative tells us specifically that Zechariah and Simeon were filled with the Holy Spirit and, of course, Mary had received the angel's news that her life was to be 'overshadowed' by the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit, when she accepted her call to become the mother of this strangely conceived child. These three songs and the characters who sing them represent the turning point between the ancient traditions of the Jewish people and the coming of Christ; they are songs that herald the birth of the Christian tradition. They form a link between aspects of the old faith of the Hebrew people (notice the reference to Abraham in the Magnificat and Benedictus - the father and symbol of faith) and the expectations and hopes that surround the coming of the Christ, Messiah - the One who would show the people what God is like. The texts of the songs together sum up most of the Gospel - the good news that Jesus preached and embodied.

Candlemas is when Christians all over the world remember the bringing of the infant Jesus into the Temple for his dedication - the occasion on which Simeon utters the words of the Nunc Dimittis. It's a strange story veiled in the mists of time and half-forgotten legend. Who was Simeon? Who was Anna? Where did they come from? Why do they seem to have a special prescience - they know things, they see the future. The text tells us that the Holy Spirit has promised Simeon he will not die until he has seen the Saviour. This strange story is pervaded throughout by the Holy Spirit who is mentioned three times (unusual, in that the Spirit is not often explicitly mentioned in the gospels.) This baby's birth has been the work of the Holy Spirit and it is the Spirit who propels Simeon into the Temple on this particular day. After a life of payer, he's inspired by the Spirit to grasp the moment and to do what his whole life has been leading to, namely to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, the One uniquely sent to show people what God is like. And Anna, the old prophetess is also wise, supernaturally wise beyond all knowing. Notice the gift that accrues to the Christ child from her encounter with him is that he 'grows in all wisdom'. Simeon and Anna are Spirit and Wisdom. This moment is the culmination of their lives, the moment toward which everything they are has been moving. Having seen Jesus and spoken the words of Spirit and Wisdom, they are liberated to 'go in peace'. The Spirit shimmers in the shadows of the Temple; the glory, the shekinah of God is present in the Temple just as our candlemas candles remind us of God's presence and glory in the snowy depths of winter.

And yet...that is not the whole story. The radiance and the peace are shot through with a very real sense of fear and warning. Isn't is true that often our most glorious moments are tinged with an awareness of human frailty and mortality? An anxiety that present joy and assurance will pass? Certainly these emotions are present here. In Simeon's words, there is an awareness of the struggle in this child's life that will lead to the cross. There's an acknowledgment, ahead of time, of the struggle His life will bring to individuals and nations . 'And a sword will pierce your heart,' he says to Mary. 'Many will oppose him' and He will bring division to the world. A moment of painful prescience and luminosity, a fore-knowing and a forth-telling. Just imagine the priest saying something as disturbing as that at a fmily baptism today. Mary, stunned, stored up these words in her heart and, harsh as they were, no doubt they helped her make sense of her strange and unique child's life and to support Him through it to the foot of the cross.  

This text looks backwards to antiquity; it's based on even more ancient texts behind the Greek text that Luke gives us. It connects us to 5,000 years of Jewish and Christian history. Yet it looks forward and warns of what is to come in Jesus' time and of what, for us, is still to come yet. But more than that it invites us to live our lives as a part of what will happen within the complexity of God's purposes. In Lutheran churches, this song is sung or read after the congregation have received communion. It forms a dismissal - 'go back out into the world in peace and live as those who expect and are beginning to know God's salvation; show the glory of God in your living, the beauty of souls rescued from the worst excesses of human behaviour and the luminosity of lives given to God.'

No wonder this text speaks so profoundly to our experience, appeals to our hearts and to our intellect. It travels with us from our deepest and most ancient roots to our personal and communal and global futures and it whispers the hope of eternal life. 

The Hippocrates Initiative

It's always good to discover something completely new. I was intrigued to stumble across a website for the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine the other day while on an early morning bus in Lancaster (on-bus wifi is a wonderful thing!). The Initiative is all about encouraging people involved in the medicinal and health care professions to write poetry. A prize is awarded annually under three categories  -  to someone who works in the NHS (or has worked there), to a young person aged between 14 and18, and to anyone who enters, globally. In previous years there have been some wonderful poems about the limits to which explorers and athletes push their bodies as well as poems about aspects of caring and what the performance of medical work does to the person practicing medicine.

http://hippocrates-poetry.org/hippocrates-prize

The reason I was so thrilled to find this site is that ever since my early days as a nurse on some very high dependency units, I have found that an excellent way to come to terms with some of the things you see and experience is to write poetry about them. Of course, this doesn't usually see the light of day in the form of publication, but it has often been a way to integrate emotions and to reflect on difficult, sad or challenging situations. The medics I've worked with have often had their own particular creative outlets for the high degree of pressure they face. I've had colleagues who are excellent artists and musicians - one could even be heard practising in the hospital chapel in the mornings before operating. There's something extremely relaxing and restorative about engaging in right brain activity when so much of your professional life involves detailed left brain activity.

One of the great powers of poetry is that it allows you to inhabit a story - to tell it and to reshape in over and over again. (Kirkegaard did this in Fear and Trembling with the profoundly difficult story of the sacrifice of Isaac.) As you retell the story, the narrative enables you to see different aspects of it and this can be a therapeutic exercise, helpful in allowing you to create meaning and revisit or discover the different emotions that a situation gives rise to.

There's always a debate about how far medicine in a high tech setting is a science or an art. Most of us would acknowledge that the best doctors blend the two approaches to what they do, utilising the skills of an artist in finding creative ways to communicate and motivate their patients and also in keeping their own reactions to the inevitable pressures and drama of medicine healthy.

I've been inspired to revisit some of the poems I wrote years ago while nursing and to re-live situations that even now I find it hard to forget. Many of the poems remind me of people and events that have had a lasting impact on my own sense of self - this is the gift of patients to those who care for them. It's been heart-warming to re-live some of those moments from over 30 years ago and to be surprised by the joy and insight and sometimes the sadness they bring. This body of poetry now has a very special place in my life and plays its part in shaping thought and prayer about what I do in the present.

It's a bit late to enter for this year's competition as the closing date in 31st January. However, I now have something to aim for for January 2016! The site can be found at Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine  It's well worth listening to some of the entries from recent years and I found the stories about the people involved inspiring. This is a unique site, hosting information about what has become one of the most influential poetry prizes in the spectrum, linking as it does medicine and poetry, science and art, technical knowledge and imaginative insight.

Walk for Water

Care International are inviting us to walk 10,000 steps every day for a week between 18th and 24th March. In many countries countries women and young girls have to walk further than this simply to fetch water for drinking and cooking. The idea is to try to walk the equivalent of about 5 miles every day for a week in solidarity with them. At the same time you can raise funds to help provide clean water for more communities. If you tramp hospital wards each day, you may find that in fact you could double this target. If you register on the site below, you can order a tee-shirt and pedometer or simply register your intent to take part.

I thought I would give it a go, maybe finding a place I need to go each day and walking rather than driving. Other suggestions include volunteering to walk someone's dog, walking to work (my brother-in-law walked nearly 22 miles to work a couple of years ago starting out in the middle of the night!), taking the stairs, buses and trains (this can clock up a surprising number of miles) or organising a friends and family walk in your neighbourhood taking in a local fun spot/beauty spot. Share your ideas!  

Or you can join the official International Women's Day walk on 8th March. For the details, log on here

Care International

Woman's Touch Not Welcome

My name on Wikipedia comes up with (among others) Philip North, soon to be consecrated Bishop of Burnley. I don't know Philip, we have never met. Nothing I say here is intended to reflect on him personally and I wish him well in his new ministry.

However, this tenuous internet connection puzzles me because my life has been dedicated, among other things, to the quest for a theological and social understanding of the equality of men and women, an equality I believe to be demonstrated in the Gospels and the teaching and actions of Jesus.

Because the Archbishop of York and other bishops ordain women, it has reportedly been requested that they refrain from laying hands on the new bishop at his consecration. Jonathan Clatworthy here writes about this in the Modern Church blog.

There is a very old tradition in Christianity that Eve, a woman, was the first person to disobey God. Down the centuries, this story has been used to explain pain in childbirth (such that some nineteenth century Church of England theologians taught it was contrary to God's purposes to relieve a labouring woman in pain.) It has also been used to justify the belief that women are temptresses and more sinful than men. The impact on social attitudes to women down the ages and, still, today has been incalculable, leading to the persecution of women in many societies. It seems very clear that Jesus flouted and undermined such attitudes. He socialised with women, allowed them to touch Him, accepted their gifts, debated with them and let their words and actions shape His thinking. Finally, He accepted them to the extent that His resurrection was first witnessed by a woman. 

Those who oppose women's ordination appeal to arguments about the necessity for a purely male succession from the original male apostles to today's priests and bishops. It may seem to some a small concession to make. It is not.

A white woman's labour got into serious trouble. The on-call obstetrician was black. When she arrived on the labour suite, the woman's husband said, in very offensive language which I will not repeat, that he would not have his wife delivered by her. Events took over and the woman and baby were safely delivered. The obstetrician gave the husband her hand and he broke down in tears, thanking her. 

What do we have to endure or say or do to get across that it is deeply damaging to have bishops who cannot be touched at their consecration not just by women, but by men who have touched women in consecration? Again, you may be tempted to say that this is a rarified churchy argument. It is not; it emerges from a whole belief system that pervades many societies and puts women down, claiming they are second class, more sinful, to be ruled by men and to be kept within certain boundaries. The impact of this teaching was powerfully brought home to me at Christmas. I listened to a sublime recording of a Kings College Carol Service from the 1950's. The music was wonderful. The first reading was given by a young choirboy who solemnly read the words,

'And the Lord God said unto the woman, 'What is this that thou hast done?' And the woman said, 'Thou beguiled me and I did eat.'…….. Unto the woman He said, 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be for thy husband and he shall rule over thee.'  (Genesis 3 v.13 & 16, King James Bible.)

This was read without any explanation or interpretation by a boy of perhaps 13 - the sin of woman, clearly proclaimed as the reason for the incarnation (Christ's coming to earth). The story is understood by most people as an aetiology, in other words, an explanation, after the event, of the way things are. Scholars saw that women suffered in childbirth and looked for an explanation. However, in 1952, the whole message of the service was clearly that womankind is responsible for God having to rescue us from sin and this message was proclaimed to a mature and intelligent congregation by a thirteen year old boy. I guess that either you can or you can't see the connection between this and the treatment women have endured down the centuries.

It is really not acceptable for the Church of England or any church to go on teaching that it is OK to believe this. If you replace 'woman' with a whole range of other people whose genetic characteristics are different from some traditionally or socially defined 'norm', you may understand how outrageous this is.

I have seen women bleed to death after childbirth who could have been saved if their husbands had allowed them to go to hospital; I have taught English to girls deprived of education because they are women; I have earned three quarters of a man's wage because I am a woman; I have listened to stories of domestic abuse justified by leaders; I have been bullied by those who cannot cope with the reality of a woman doing the job.

I completely agree with the Archbishop of York  that the challenge of our time is to dismantle the massive imbalance in available resources between the poorest and the richest both nationally and globally. If you are a woman or a girl child, you are a great deal more likely to suffer from the multiple effects of poverty. I've recently been reading a book challenging the church to stop arguing over matters to do with gender and sex and to get back to an agenda that agonises and takes action over economic and resource-based injustices. Absolutely. This ought to encompass a priority toward the disenfranchised. Instead of saying, 'Let's sidestep the plight of women and concentrate on hunger/violence/clean water/disease control' (which is a fallacy anyway, as women disproportionately suffer these ills) we should be saying, 'Let's sidestep the requirements of those who see the touch of women as unacceptable in order to concentrate on hunger/violence/clean water/disease control.   

What is Tolerance?

Now here's a telling fact. More people took part in today's 'March Against Hatred' in Paris than took to the streets when Paris was liberated at the end of the second world war. (John Lichfield in the Independent.) I suppose the population is considerably bigger today but still, that's a resounding statistic. Three million people wanted to protest at the taking of human life, including the leaders of Middle Eastern, African, Asian and European nations. 

© Christian Today pic.twitter.com/qclgRHNiuv

What has today made me think? 

As a confessing Christian, I deplore the act of taking life to defend one's God; this has indeed been a misguided and shameful part of the church's history, but Christian, Muslim and Jew can surely join together in affirming that love of God is an empty concept without love for the Divine being transformed into love of one's fellow human. And however much you disagree with a person or struggle with anger or jealousy or outrage at what they say, that means upholding the value and sacredness of their life.   

Freedom of speech, freedom to try to express what you think is most true, tempered by the freedom and right to life of another, is the basis on which most Western democracies are built, that, and the requirement to act within the law and challenge it only by non-violent means. To participate in a democracy means living by this code.

I read yesterday of the massacre of possibly 2,000 people by Boko Haram in Nigeria. Moving as it was to see the leaders of the world march arm in arm through the streets of Paris, why do we Europeans not work as hard to show our outrage at the loss of innocent life in other places, on other continents?

The probability of increased sectarianism, racially motivated tension, right wing  extremism and a clamp down on the movement of immigrants and asylum seekers seems to have been immeasurably increased by the events of the last few days in Paris. What can we do to promote open debate between every section of our communities? The responsibility lies with every citizen of whatever cultural, ethnic or religious/non religious background - speak to your neighbour. Find out what they think, what is important to them?

In a secular and religious society how do we live together? I'll give the last word to Voltaire, that champion of freedom of religion and freedom of expression, tonight. 'What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.' 

Leadership Means Partnership

It's been an interesting time to reflect on leadership. While I'm currently in the middle of an MA in Hospice Leadership, the Church of England has produced The Green Report  (nothing to do with ecology!) about senior leadership in the church. Given the coherence and creativity of approach toward leadership training I experience among my hospice peers why, I ask myself, has the Green Report met with such an outcry and so much criticism?

Michael Sadgrove (who has the wisdom of one who's been Dean of two Cathedrals with significant growth) writes a measured blogpost here in which he welcomes the new work that's being done to identify and develop church leaders while being cautious of some aspects of the report, especially its approach to spirituality.  Martyn Percy, long time Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon and newly appointed Dean of Christ Church Oxford, writes in a more critical vein at here about the lack of any systematic theological approach to the matter.

The objections are mainly around what many see as the wholesale adoption of management-speak and the lack of theological and ecclesiological depth. I have  sympathy with this, but let me first say I'm heartened by the fact the Church of England is at last beginning to take the need to prepare leaders seriously. Some of us have been articulating the need for this for over two decades. I've been involved in setting up various leadership programmes and facilitating the only induction available for archdeacons, all on a shoestring/non-existant budget and mostly woefully inadequate. This has happened without any forum for co-ordinated discussion about what kind of leadership the church actually needs. The £2m budget over 2 years with £800k set aside annually thereafter recommended by this report does not seem unrealistic for an organisation the size of the Church of England if it wants to continue to have impact.

My concerns about the report are largely to do with process.

I have no objection to insight drawn from strategic and operational management contexts as long as it's not confused with leadership itself. The role of a leader includes understanding what is required for good management but leaders should not attempt to undertake direct responsibility for the details of its provision. Leadership requires you to spend your best energy in other directions, taking key decisions about where to invest attention and resources for maximum impact. Leaders interpret context, understand the flow of information inside and outside the organisation and use influence to shape finance, funding, governance and accountability structures. They set direction and tone rather than become over-involved in detail. I'm not convinced the report shows that this is understood. Talk (for example) of bishops being involved in the detail of Ministry Development Reviews and even of archbishops participating in the leadership training modules on a regular basis makes me wonder if the authors really understand the relationship between management and leadership. 

The process of training described in the report worries me because it takes an isolationist approach. There's really dynamic thinking about leadership beyond the world of the church but, apart from a non-specific allusion to a 'content supplier' for the proposed modules, the report says little about partnership. It gives the impression of being unaware of the many institutes, universities and companies that promote discussion between leaders and research about leadership. It gives the impression that theological and spiritual insight is the prerogative, primarily, of the leadership of the church; this is far from the case.

A few years ago I attended a Bayswater Institute course on complexity in organisations. It was attended by delegates from all over the world leading public, private and voluntary sector organisations. The sense of vocation to their role was palpable and spiritual issues were very much on the agenda. On the final day, delegates offered seminars in their own field. Almost every person on the course chose to come to a seminar offered on approaches to life after death. This said something to me about the profound degree to which all good leaders do what they do out of a very personal engagement with ultimate values.

The MA in Hospice Leadership I mentioned earlier began with a module on personal mastery which explored the interiority and being of the leader. Leadership wells up primarily from who you are; what you know and what you do follows on. The module gave us experience-based and academically rigorous opportunities to think about our vision, values, motivation and purpose. We spent time meditating, listening, being. 

I'd like to see the group who eventually put together the church's training engage with sectors beyond the church to evolve their thinking about leadership. They should avoid a dualism that correlates church with spiritual and secular with non-spiritual. The report falls into this kind of dualism too often, for example, in the section where it polarises 'professional wisdom' and 'the wisdom of Solomon' or 'God-given wisdom'. Christian theological reflection on society is what the church distinctively offers and its leaders ought to be excellent and persuasive at this. But to develop these skills in isolation means that the church will never have much cutting edge. To contribute theological insight you have to be in conversation with other leaders who will challenge and interrogate you. It's important to resist any tendency for the church to talk to itself. This already happens a lot with so much leadership energy going into the synodical processes of the church which, while very worthy, do not engage the popular imagination or interest.

This report is a beginning. The attempt should be applauded. It's all too easy to criticise, and criticism can stifle the implementation of change. However, I would ask those responsible for acting on its recommendations to

• get into partnership with organisations and enterprises that are already far ahead in terms of equipping people for leadership (not management).
• avoid false dualisms like 'lay talent and ordained talent' (talent is talent), 'spiritual/nonspiritual' (spirituality exists wherever there are people), 'professional wisdom/God-given wisdom' (any human activity can be suffused with God's wisdom).
• be clear about what leadership is and what it is for.  

The hospice movement offers an informative parallel with the church. Hospices are places driven by a strong sense of vocation, they utilise a wide range of skill sets provided by professionals and volunteers working together, they largely generate their income by inspiring people to give, they have a strong pull toward (a much younger) tradition and they are places where faith, symbolism, ritual and strong secularising influences are all in the melting pot. The movement is facing something of its own moment of crisis and opportunity. It was obvious a few years ago that, if the insights of palliative care were to influence the wider provision of health care, then the intentional identification and training of hospice leaders was urgently needed. These would be people who could drive the movement to contribute into the context of a rapidly changing demography, giving it new direction and a much more clearly articulated purpose. Changes in funding, the withdrawal of the Liverpool Care Pathway, greater patient involvement, funding streams and potential changes in the law about assisted dying were all factors demanding a new approach to leadership. Vital assistance and 'direction setting' has been provided by research done by Help the Hospices, now renamed Hospice UK which has commissioned a number of reports reflecting new thinking and co-ordinated and supported the training needs arising from these reports.

The Church of England needs something similar. I hesitate to call it 'Help the Church of England', but the archbishops need to commission some focussed, in-depth, coherent thinking about the future and how the church responds to the interests and needs of a rapidly changing population. Appropriate identification and training of leaders can only happen in a context where there is strong, clear, flexible vision. It would be very sensible to partner with other organisations. I think, for example, of the kind of work the Joseph Rowntree Foundation does in terms of investigating social issues. Hospice UK reports are reasonably readable (though perhaps in the 'could be better' category). The form and language of Church of England reports is notoriously indigestible. In particular, they have a habit of including every conceivable possibility when defining an issue of role. The Green Report falls into this trap; I'd like to see a slimmed down and shrewdly prioritised view of both role and curriculum but I don't see much hope of it emerging from this report. Some serious consideration needs to be given as to how the archbishops and bishops engage in the task of communicating emerging vision (and I sense there is some new vision and wisdom around) to their senior leaders and, through them, to worshippers and those beyond the church. I'm not advocating yet another group or working party - I'm thinking of a loose 'institute' approach with well articulated guiding principles and a number of projects and individuals working in different ways. 

Finally, I thought the little section on suffragans was very telling. This was a point at which some of the shadow assumptions with which the group were working slipped out. The report talks of 'cherishing the role' and 'privilege'. Leadership is precisely not about cherishing roles but rather about creating and developing the roles that are needed to serve the vision. If we think it's about privilege, perhaps we ought to read the Gospels again.