To be a Pilgrim: An experiment in inclusive language

Let’s take the text of a favourite hymn, and subject it to a grammatical/linguistic experiment.

In the original version, the first verse of Bunyan’s ‘To Be a Pilgrim’ goes:

‘He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.’

Of course, the words ‘he’, ‘him’, and ‘his’ are problematic, as the pilgrim could just as easily be a woman:

‘She who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,
Let her in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make her once relent
Her first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.’

But this is just as exclusive as the first version. So we try a version that does not specify gender:

‘They who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,
Let them in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make them once relent
Their first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.’

Or, in what I am told is the emerging feminist consensus:

‘Zie who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,
Let hir in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make hir once relent
Hir first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.’

On balance, the slightly dodgy grammar of the third option wins over the sheer strangeness of the fourth. So the third person plural comes to be treated as if it were a gender-inclusive form of the second person singular.

A fifth and final option:

‘If one would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,
Let one in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make one once relent
One’s first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.’

While it has the virtue of being grammatically consistent, this version has little warmth or vigour!

To you to decide…

St Joseph of Nazareth, 19 March

“Did they tell you stories about the saints of old?
Stories about their faith?
They say stories like that make a boy grow bold
Stories like that make a man walk straight”
- Rich Mullins

The story of Joseph is not heard often enough. Here is a man overshadowed by his wife and his children, and neglected throughout most of Church history. Yet Joseph speaks with fresh relevance to all of us, and especially to twenty-first century boys and men…

Ironically, Joseph never actually speaks at all. Not one word of his is recorded in the gospels. He simply hears and thinks and acts.

In a world of sound-bites and marketing and mass-communication, words rule.

But how often is there a disconnect between our words and our actions?

Joseph shows us the difficult path of action. St Matthew calls him ‘a righteous man’. We might say he was a man trying to do the right thing. And in weighing up the right thing, Joseph considers the demands of his conscience and of his society, as well as the needs of those he loves. He was a caring man, unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, but we can tell that he agonised over this decision for his sake and for her’s.

Because Joseph was a faithful man. He tried to keep his commitments. He only had to hear God’s difficult call and he obeyed without question. He received God’s last-minute instructions and responded, even when it meant risking death and becoming a refugee!

And in all of this, Joseph is a model of strength and generosity. His model of fatherhood has never been more relevant than in our times of broken and re-combined families.

What about us? Are we men and women of righteousness and faith? What thoughtful and caring action can we carry out today, inspired by the example of St Joseph?

Lectionary readings for today:
2 Samuel 7.4–16
Psalm 89.26–36
Romans 4.13–18
Matthew 1.18–end

Local authority cuts – an ongoing debate

The following is a summary of recent email correspondence on the topic of local authority cuts and the lack of a shared sense of purpose in our society…

From: Joel
Sent: 01 March 2010 16:20
To: Richard
Subject: Blog about local government cuts. 5 actions proposed.

Hey guys,

J

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 5:27 PM:

Good Afternoon,

I agree with most of your points but in reality with the amount of debt the country has taken due to the systematic failure of the banks the government will have to be cutbacks somewhere, it was only a matter of time and as the economy is now pulling out of recession these cutbacks in local government were always going to be implemented.

R

Sent: 03 March 2010 07:47

Hi R,

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 6:55 PM:

Hi J,

Tell me about it, with a child on the way and potential cuts in the child benefit system and obviously the slow decay of the school system over the next few years it will impact us as well which we in turn will not be happy about. But these areas will also be hit so no one will escape unscathed from the downturn.

I think more reform in the way things are done and run, I read an article the other day that said one council sent out questionnaire at a cost of several hundreds of thousands of pounds asking how they could cut down costs in the local government / councils …. The response was a rather unsurprising stop spending insane amounts of money of surveys and actually get off you backsides and do something!!

If councils were regarded as a business entity rather than a government service it would highlight areas which would benefit from radical reform which in-turn would be able to cut back on costs rather than quality of service / job cuts. It’s what the governments always say they will do but they never manage to stamp out the inefficiencies.

R

Sent: 08 March 2010 20:40

Thanks R,

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 1:32 PM:

Afternoon Buddy,

If you propose not to cut the local government budgets what areas would you “balance the books” to reduce the deficit in Gordorn Browns back burner?

I agree that councils are not run to generate a profit but how much value are we receiving for our money??? I’m sure there are areas were processes and red tape can be cut down without impacting the staff numbers and classroom sizes.

The fact that some of the banks are 80% owned by the taxpayer hopefully in the next few years once these are turned around we will see some dividend back in the form of the initial bailout money and some interest, there are also some deals still going through for instance the Iceland banking refund to the English and Dutch governments who bailed out their respective countries savers, but again until the deal is agreed and the money starts to flow back into the treasury cuts will be made across the board.

Interesting to read that council tax will not be rising in London, not sure about Cambridge in 2010, I’m sure this will have a further impact on the cuts that will be mad.

R

Sent: 10 March 2010 23:22

Hey R,

J

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 10:16 AM:

Hi J,

Yes that’s fine by me, no need to change my name … I’ll have a little think about the below and get back to you off to Venice next week so It maybe a few weeks

R

How to write and interpret history – Book review

Mark Day, The Philosophy of History: An Introduction (London: Continuum, 2008)

If this book has done nothing else, it has at least introduced me to the work of Paul Ricoeur.

But it has done more than this, by showing how questions of epistemology and hermeneutics have been discussed in the field of historiography.

This in turn is suggestive of ways in which hermeneutics and epistemology need to be considered within the field of theology. Indeed there are direct parallels or even areas of overlap within what Day writes.

If the writing is aimed at students of history, the ideas are nevertheless of much wider application.

In particular, I am interested in Day’s analysis of historiography as narrative, which links with Christian Salmon’s Storytelling and with the BBC series ‘The Tudors’, as well as tying up nicely with Ricoeur (and Rowan Williams?) with regard to theology.

The public good: just another 25,000 jobs or the gradual erosion of our society?

According to BBC News, local authorities may be looking to save money by cutting up to 25,000 jobs. Councils are keen to assure residents that job cuts will not affect so-called front-line services, but rather managerial and back-office posts.

This is far from comforting.

In a country where public services are already over-stretched and under-funded, these cuts will drop local provision below acceptable standards. There are already potholes in our streets, which are already dirty. Our parks are not well cared for. Teachers do not feel valued. Provision for the elderly, the homeless, and the mentally ill is already sketchy.

Even if local authorities are right, and the only jobs to go will be administrative, this means less support offered to front-line staff, less oversight, less quality control, slower responses to requests and complaints from the public, and less strategic planning. In short, cost-cutting exercises of this type will only sow the seeds of a larger disaster in the medium- to long term future.

So what can we do?

The last thing we should do is to continue ‘covering’ for our councils and central government – however good or bad or needy they are. Third sector voluntary agencies are excellent at noticing gaps in provision, or in providing something extra, different, or experimental. Their role is not to replace statutory provision. Neither should members of the public or local communities fill the gap, either through individual/voluntary action, nor through optional top-ups to public funds. Local service provision is the job of local government.

The second-to-last thing we should do is to sit tight. Doing nothing is what got our country into this state in the first place. So we cannot be silent, or passive. We must speak out!

Fortunately, systems still exist in the public sphere for exactly the kind of feedback I am envisaging.

1. Writing to local government organisations (city council and county council), protesting any cuts to their services – front-line or otherwise. We will not be fobbed off by the false distinction! Local government should be urged to petition central government, while we as citizens do the same.

2. National government has a responsibility to support local government, particularly in order to even out inequalities in the demographic make-up of each geographical area. This is exactly the kind of injustice that will be exaggerated under Conservative proposals (such as easyJet-style top-ups for optional services).

Where mechanisms for the fairer distribution of wealth already exist, they should be used. Where they do not exist, they should be created. If national government can bail out commerical banks, thus guaranteeing the wealth of senior executives and city brokers, why can’t it see council services as ‘too important to fail’, and bail them out too? If government fails to do this, it is sending the message that some rich people are more important than the ordinary citizens of this country.

Worse, it is saying that the fabric of our society is not worth saving. It is the end of society as such and the (re)introduction of a rabidly antisocial capitalist model. Therefore I will also write to my MP, saying precisely this.

3. Where are the political parties that stand for a fairer society, and the protection of essential services? They should be found, or created, and joined en masse!

4. What is the press doing to check the plans of Labour and Conservative MPs who would dismantle our local government services unchecked. I will therefore also write to the press.

5. Direct action? Any ideas?

Earth tones and a human scale – Book Review

Roger Deakin, Wildwood: A Journey through Trees (London: Penguin, 2008; first publ. 2007)

At first this might seem like nothing more than a jumbled collection of essays about trees.

There are chapters about walnut, elm, and fruit trees, of course. But Deakin is also interested in the flora and fauna of forest ecosystems, as well as people who make their living from wood: whether traditional woodland crafts like charcoal burning and thatching, or more twenty-first century activities like tree-art and experimental eco-living.

From these excursions into the woods, we learn about the history and preservation of different varieties of tree and fruit in the UK, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. Yet strangely it only becomes obvious that this is a ‘journey’ when Deakin’s focus finally returns to Suffolk, where he lives, at the end of the book.

There is clearly a structural problem here. Perhaps this book could have been organised around geographical areas: ‘Australia’, ‘Kazakhstan’, ‘The New Forest’, etc. However, this would have forced Deakin to write more sustained narratives, without the benefit of his little journalistic twists or slightly sentimental summaries at the end of each chapter. It might be argued that the present chaotic structure better reflects the organic nature of wild woods, yet Deakin is mainly interested in the interplay between the organic and the human. Order emerging through and delighting in chaos – this would have been a more appropriate structure for his book.

A related criticism is that Deakin manages – quite frustratingly – to be scientific about certain things and deeply unscientific about others. When it comes to Linnaean taxonomy or the evolutionary relationships between different sorts of Prunus, Deakin is right on the money. But there are subjects, such as accurate etymology and the detailed historical contexts of his subjects, about which he is not even curious.

The special strength of Deakin’s idiosyncratic approach is his love of nature in all its vibrant diversity. He works and inhabits his own patch of wood, and respects others who do the same. Deakin writes from within a ‘woodsy’ community, at once local to East Anglia and thoroughly international. ‘Alternative’ or ‘natural’ lifestyles, as Deakin experiences them, are highly appealing, not least because they leave room for individuality and working at a human scale and pace.

This approach verges in places on the gently political, as when he writes about ‘the pleasure, all too rare now in England, of eating food in its natural season and in its own place’ (p. 314), or sings the praises of a life freed from the Western tendency to commodify every thing and experience: ‘Their needs are immediate: food, the harvest work [...] air and exercise’ (p. 320).

The ‘historical’ Jesus? – Book Review

Bruce Chilton, Rabbi Jesus, An Intimate Biography: The Jewish Life and Teachings that Inspired Christianity (New York: Image/Doubleday, 2000)

At the core of Chilton’s study is a true observation. The Jewishness of Jesus has tended to be overlooked, or even deliberately obscured, throughout history.

From such a start, one might expect a critical historiographical survey, or a rigorous reexamination of the evidence.

Sadly this is not what Chilton gives us.

Instead, Rabbi Jesus is an ‘intimate’ biography, which seems to mean a consciously one-sided and impassioned account of Chilton’s own reconstruction of the life of Jesus.

Chilton’s account draws on historical research and archaeological excavations, some of which is no doubt accurate. However, it is treated in a haphazard and unscholarly fashion. Chilton favours the existence of a Galilean Bethlehem about which I had never heard, for example, and helpfully contextualises Herod and Pontius Pilate within the Mediterranean power politics of the time. But Chilton also relies on very old traditions, such as the early death of Joseph, and on apocryphal sources whose authenticity has been questioned since the early centuries of the common era.

There is therefore a lack of care in Chilton’s handling of sources. The same can be said of his translations from the Greek of the New Testament. Aiming for freshness, Chilton certainly conveys the strangeness of the text, without necessarily helping us to understand it better (the true aim of translation). Thus he renders the familiar phrase ‘the Son of Man’ as ‘one like a person’, on the basis that Jesus seems to have taken it from Daniel 7:13, where it refers to a creature that looks like a human being. Leaving aside the problematic nature of the word ‘person’ itself, as well as the fact that the phrase ‘son of man’ occurs throughout Ezekiel and also in Daniel 8:17 (where it seems to be a circumlocution meaning ‘you the addressee, as a representative member of human society’), Chilton’s translation seems to suggest that Jesus was not really a human being, but only seemed to be one. Yet this is more or less the opposite of what Chilton means to say, given his view that Jesus was a human being who discovered himself as a son of God, just as all of us can.

On the basis of Daniel 7, Chilton develops the idea that Jesus’ teaching revolved around meditating on what he calls ‘the chariot’ (or God’s throne), although Jesus himself never used these terms.

On the plus side, Chilton emphasises the radical nature of Jesus’ shared meals and shows how much of his teaching revolves around a radical new understanding of purity (which he terms ‘Galilean’ because it bypasses the temple system policed by the Pharisees and Sadducees). Chilton therefore notes the ways in which Jesus himself supersedes the temple, following the author to the Hebrews but with a different spin.

Another plus is that, whatever its scholarly failings, Chilton’s account treats Jesus as a historically contingent human being, responding to political, economic, and cultural events. His reconstructed changes in the location and focus of Jesus’ teaching (Galilee, idealism, Jerusalem, militant radicalism, etc.) are intriguing but textually hard to prove.

I felt there was enough good in this book to make me wish it were better. Prediction: you may react strongly to the ‘intimate’ biography of Jesus!

The Loneliness of the Frequent Flier – Film Review

Up in the Air (Dir. Jason Reitman: USA, 2009)

For Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), flying is the most masturbatory of activities. This is why the film is quite emphatically not called ‘Come Fly with Me’.

Traveling is what Ryan Bingham does. 300+ days a year. Alone.

As the plot unfolds, we learn about Bingham’s patented philosophy for travelling light.

And we see how that philosophy is gradually called into question by the people he allows to get close to him.

This is a touching story of change through human contact and a little honest reflection. Look out for the scene in which Clooney praises St Louis airport!

The biggest pyramid scheme of them all – Art Review

‘What’s in it for me?’
by New Display Strategies
17 February – 27 March 2010
Seventeen gallery, Kingsland Rd. London E2 8AA

Beneath a pyramid structure, a video traces the exploitation of the masses in the creation of such prestige icons as Versailles, skyscrapers, and – of course – the pyramids. We hear a quote from the Chicago Tribune that compares such decadent architecture with eating nothing but cake, and we are reminded of the words of Marie Antoinette to this effect.

Behind us is another pyramid structure displaying… cakes. And pretty decadent cakes at that!

A third and final element in the show is another video which apes a Calvin Klein advert. Various ‘artists’ in jeans pose for the camera, while the offscreen voice of the photographer asks them slightly uncomfortable and inappropriate questions. “So, you’re an artist [...] Have you shown internationally? [...] Do you ever make love in a show? etc.

This show runs until 27 March and is highly recommended.

Passivity and violence – Film Review

Il Conformista (Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/France/Federal Republic of Germany, 1970)

Chameleon-like, Marcello Clerici (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) bends, shifts, and changes to comply with the will of whoever he is with at the time: whether it be his fiancée, his mother, members of the Fascist movement, or even – through a flashback – the man who once tried to seduce him when he was a boy…

Unable to resolve the tensions created by his weakness, Clerici resorts to violence. Or rather, he relies on the violence of other people whom he passively watches as they act on his behalf. Thus he shoots the would-be pederast in his flashback, asks a fellow Fascist activist to deal with the problem of his mother’s lover, and watches as his old philosophy teacher Professor Quadri (the man whom Clerici himself had been sent to eliminate) is ambushed and shot, along with Anna Quadri, for whom Clerici had begun to develop feelings.

We find ourselves confronted with a passive hero, whose only solution is to his own problems is to call upon the violence of others. See Shakespeare’s Hamlet or the novel Endlich Stille for similarly violent passive heroes, and 1979 for one whose violence is turned inwards. on himself

Bertolucci’s screenplay is based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. The film was shown at BFI Southbank on 13 February 2010.