Goodwill to all

Warkworth has a complex intersection where six roads meet including two which are the Number One State Highway. No one negotiates this intersection safely, although plenty of blokes think they do, and plenty more don’t care. Coming home from 8 am Communion on Christmas Day, I may or may not have yielded right of way to some woman, possibly from Omaha and driving a lurid 4-wheel-drive battle wagon, who then flew into a road rage meltdown and tailgated me all the way to Algies Bay, gesticulating and shouting what the media call epithets. I don’t know whether she intended to garrotte me or simply drive over me -- but she called off the pursuit, did a screeching gravel-spraying U-ey and disappeared, just before I got home.

My best Operational Plan in the event of a direct encounter had been to wish her a happy Christmas. Certainly the official advice, that in the event of road rage you should give cheerful waves through the rear window, does not work very well.

Amid the usual plethora of Christmas Messages from bishops, the Bishop of Blackburn chose to leap to the defence of Steve Kean the beleaguered manager of Blackburn Rovers who have sunk to the bottom of the Premier League and face something called relegation which doesn’t sound nice. Steve has been copping much abuse it seems, with demands for his head to roll. But this is standard abusive response in the UK, and to a lesser extent here. Blind cruelty is an important weapon in the response-kit of many. Logic and rationality are not, and even less are human understanding and compassion. Most of the characters in Coronation Street, on being hurt, blamed or crossed, resort by reflex to aggression and vituperation if not physical attack.

We seem to be getting angrier just about everywhere. There are hideous reports of bullying at schools, videoed and relayed on mobile phones far and wide. Various courses tell people how to react to bullying at work. Bullies seem to be leading a charmed life. Victim Support tries to pick up the results. I would throw bullies out of the school or the workplace without question, but apparently you can’t do that.

I think it is also worth noting how public humiliation, which is another form of bullying, has become the preferred weapon of media. Of course the media have their own pious justifications, but they now routinely seek reversal of suppression orders of names and evidence, and the real reasons are the selling of newspapers and the feeding of the public prurience.

“Contact sport” as it is now called is routinely violent and abusive, and this is generally thought to be the way it should be. Injuries and worse are expected, and we get regular bulletins on the medical progress of wounded sporting “icons”. Top teams have their own doctors who wait below, much in the manner of naval surgeons in Nelson’s time, while the bleeding casualties are wheeled in. Vicious punching, eye-gouging, head butting, spinal dumps, stomping, are still officially frowned on, I gather, and penalties are applied -- but it remains more important that the offender be restored to favour and to the team without delay. “What happens on the field stays on the field” has come to be a noble and manly shibboleth. Boxing, as ever, is without excuse.

It now seems acceptable to be reckless with the sensibilities of others. When someone, often a so-called comedian, is simply rancorous and acrid about other people, it is thought cool. We don’t have decency from such people. In fact what passes now for television comedy is for the most part loud, coarse and deeply unfunny. It is fed by booze and worse. It features repellent men and women still apparently locked in battle with puberty and their hormones. So sad.

God will take care of you

Be not dismayed whate’er betide,
God will take care of you.
Beneath his wings of love abide,
God will take care of you.

This was the theme song of Uncle Tom’s Choir on Radio 1ZB back in the 1940s. It was at least as familiar as the Coronation Street theme is today. There were actually three Uncle Tom choirs broadcasting on Friday evenings, Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings. We all sang:

God will take care of you,
Through every day, o’er all the way.
He will take care of you,
God will take care of you.

Those were war years. There was all manner of anxiety, loss, distress, grief. I as a small boy was only marginally aware of it, but I certainly realise now how comforting it must have been to some when we sang this thing repeatedly.

It was sung the other day at the funeral of 92-year-old Mollie, Uncle Tom’s daughter, whom I clearly remember from those days, well over 60 years ago, in the choir. And a hall full of both her generation and mine joined in fervently.

Through days of toil when heart doth fail,
God will take care of you.
When dangers fierce your path assail,
God will take care of you.

Mollie’s generation and mine, by and large, don’t seem to question this faith. They believe it has been their experience through hardship and toil. God has taken care of them.

But what do they think God has done? God clearly has not shielded them from loss and sorrow. They seem not to ask questions about others along the way who plunged into the abyss of depression or suicide, or whose lives succumbed to poverty, disease, despair or atrocity. Did God take care of them? They mean, I daresay, that God offered them support, strength, comfort... Even so, I have this uncomfortable feeling that their God does not conspicuously comfort people. There are mysteries here, and there are plenty of people not in the church for more or less this reason. A God of love, mercy and comfort seems to others to be a wistful dream.

Lonely or sad, from friends apart,
God will take care of you.
He will give peace to your aching heart,
God will take care of you.

It’s a sad and selective philosophy and it embarrasses me, I have to say. It posits a very western, domesticated God, who pats us on the head and says never mind. Yet it nourishes most of the seniors who remain in the parish culture, and they sing its confident hymns and they live again in days when it all seemed so clear to them.

Others in the parish churches know it’s not like that, and wonder how much longer they can hang on. They are a diminishing number. They strongly suspect God is being misrepresented. They wonder why the minister/pastor/priest/vicar doesn’t identify aspects of popular faith which are manifestly dishonest about God. They wonder about the integrity of prayer which simply asks God for things we want, and assumes that they happened because we asked in prayer, or didn’t because we didn’t... what kind of God is that? A sentimentalist idol.

Not the God Jesus called Father.

It’s blatantly obvious

No it’s not. It’s obvious or it’s not. Learn some logic and grammar. The same applies to patently obvious. Then we have ad nauseam: Don’t get me wrong...to be perfectly frank / candid... I’ll be honest with you... Ye gods, were they not previously? I would be the first to... I am a great believer in... Our old pal Bob McCroskrie of Family First NZ wrote in Granny Herald only this morning: Don't get me wrong - I would be the first in line to condemn violence against women… Good on y’ Bob, hang in there…!

The need for a major grizzle is upon me. I have a brother who thinks I should lighten up. Well, he has his major grizzles when it suits him. I am aged 77 and I will say what I choose.

Six female teenagers at Fairfield College in Hamilton were taken to hospital spaced out and behaving violently from taking ecstasy pills. They had to be restrained and subdued. These pills, which seem to have been available at their homes, were actually low grade and contaminated. The girls’ ages ranged from 13 to 15.

How come our astute investigative and intrusive media don’t find access to the homes and parents of these children to find out what is going on, what constitutes their culture, what these kids are having to survive if they can...? One student who brought the pills to school said she had taken them from her father's stash. So where in the media coverage is the father? Or the mother? Or whoever actually does currently have custody of these juveniles? Anyone?

Next day a couple of these girls showed up back at the school from which they have been suspended, evidently hoping to see friends. But they fled in tears when their mates turned on them with gross abuse. Their mates turned feral. What is this culture?

James Joseph Ruhe Lawrence, known as JJ, was found dead about 11.15am last Monday at the Orakei house where he lived (and seemingly died) with his mother and her boyfriend. He was two years old. JJ died from injuries suffered as the result of blunt-force trauma to his abdomen. This toddler was struck so hard in the stomach that one of his internal organs split in half. JJ depended entirely on the protection of his mother (his father is in prison). That protection failed, lethally. I can’t bear to think what this little child suffered. We are informed that JJ’s mother is pregnant again.

Now that Demi Moore has announced the demise of her six-year marriage, headlines are burning up over what really nuked her union with Ashton Kutcher. Moore, 49, issued a carefully-worded statement last week, ending months of tabloid speculation… Super broody and pregnant? "Hell, no!" says Katy Perry . While she's made no secret of her desire to start a family with husband Russell Brand , the 27-year-old pop singer has trashed tabloid talk she's expecting her first child. Rumours have been…

This is now what passes for news. I have no idea who those people are.

Surreal… incredible… miracle… carnage… The silver lining is bright going forward… that last was in the radio business news this morning.

We have abused language, logic, grammar, ethics. Everything is invaded, raped and set aside.

Last night the General Election campaign ended. It is a merciful deliverance. This morning I voted for the Labour candidate for Rodney, Christine Rose, and my party vote was Green. The Greens it seems do have principles beyond people’s self-interest. I also voted for the MMP electoral system to be retained, although it needs to be reformed somewhat.

TVNZ went to the Whangarei electorate for their final once-over-lightly wrap up of voter wisdom. It was less than edifying. The mums of Ngunguru seem to be clustering around smiling rich John Key. One woman actually informed us that “he hasn’t done anything naughty, yet.” She thought that was hugely witty and wise. Her husband or boyfriend stood there loyally nodding and poised to run any errand she might decree. They were gathered at the local school’s annual Pets Day. We got to see one of the pupils at the microphone lay down the rules for Pets Day. You are responsible for the behaviour of your own pet, she warned us, and you must pick up all droppings. We need that little lass on the beachfront here at Snells.

So New Zealand is flocking to the polls. I was a little alarmed at the few young or middle-aged faces I saw queuing up to vote. Maybe they were not out of bed yet at 9.30 of a Saturday morning. Too many think it’s cool not to vote -- they can’t be bothered, they’re not interested, they don’t even begin to understand the issues, they never read anything and some of them can’t read anyway. In NZ it is compulsory to enroll, although it is never enforced, but it is not compulsory to vote. Well, if you don’t, it seems to me, you forfeit any right to grizzle about the government.

A noisy cafe

Waipu is slightly off the main highway south of Whangarei. It is a settlement in European terms begun by a couple of shiploads of Scottish settlers led by a toxic bigot named Norman McLeod, who came via Nova Scotia. These days Waipu seems to exist mainly as a gateway to the coast at Waipu Cove.

We called in there for coffee. I remembered the cafe from years before when I used to escape from my parish to a parishioner’s caravan at Waipu Cove, once a year in February/March, and study German. Now, fascinatingly, the cafe had acquired a neighbour, a real live apothecary. I am not making this up. He has a modern, ordered, attractive shop, in welcoming colours, and he advertises herbal remedies for just about everything. He describes himself as apothecary. So that’s great. Warkworth does not have an apothecary, so far as I know.

But now, in the coffee place, wall to wall noise. Noise seemed to be essential. All the rest of Waipu and surroundings was quiet. In the cafe, however, something that passes these days for music was playing, relentlessly. I suspect no one in the last ten years has asked why. They always play music. Everyone does. Their coffee machine was steaming and roaring. The barrista-girl regularly, every 20 seconds, shatteringly bashed something down, I presume to clear an accumulation of coffee grounds. Locals visiting seemed to feel a need to shout to each other. None of the staff seemed remotely perturbed by this din.

We had recently had lunch in a Thai cafe in Paihia where, although the food was magnificent, the constant din was not. Concrete floor, and metal-legged chairs being scraped across the floor. No one seems able to lift chairs these days. Someone out the back, building something, was hammering...

Well, life tends to be a noisy place. It doesn’t need to be, but it is. I suspect that this level of noise is essential to our culture now. Being at home, for a few of us, means escape from all that. I wrote about silence in this blog once before. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif href="http://">

Loss and sorrow

In the space of about a month there has been a string of bereavements around here. My sister’s wonderful Aussie husband, Lionel, died of mesothelioma. It is a lung cancer from asbestos dust, which no doubt he inhaled many years ago when builders worked with that stuff. Lionel was in his mid-80s, and he and my sister had enjoyed 11 years together.

Then word came that our aged Kiwi aunt Jean had died in California aged 103. She was a wonderful lady. I used to visit her when I could. Jean had known much sorrow and loss. Her husband, my uncle Lex, died suddenly far too early. Her son David later committed suicide -- and that, I think, for a parent, is a grief far too far. Jean battled on, inimitably in many ways.

The same weekend came news that a much loved cousin Nora, in Glasgow, had died, also at a great age. Nora and her husband Jimmie were very good to Mary and me when we lived in Scotland for a while, long ago.

Still absorbing all that, we got news that a dearly loved friend in Fiji, Ethel Naidu, had died. Ethel was a widely loved parishioner and Elder at St Andrew’s Church in Suva, and was known all around the Arts Club, education and musical scenes.

Next, my younger brother Morris suddenly took ill with metastatic melanoma. He went downhill quickly and died last Sunday. Of all of us, Morris was the most remote, yet we feel his loss keenly. He had decreed that there was to be no funeral or other commemoration. It certainly seems strange, but his wishes have been respected.

Perhaps then I have been a little bristly, cantankerous you might say, in recent days. It has not been a smart idea to cross me. And this morning I walked into a local shop into the middle of a general “debate”, actually an airing of clichés and prejudices, about the state of the nation and in particular the wreck of the container ship Rena on a reef outside Tauranga. Thick oil and large shipping containers are now washing ashore on their beaches. Strange, how these beaches apparently were “pristine” -- but that’s just part of the general journalistic abuse of the language and of the meaning of words.

One bloke in the shop immediately tried to enlist me to agree with him that the bloody government bears the guilt of all this. That seemed to be the general default position in the shop. So I said that was absurd, and that we are turning into a nation of chronic grizzlers. Silence reigned in the shop for all of 30 seconds, and then this bloke bawled, What are yuh, some bloody greenie...? He had somehow to reassert dominance and resume being the alpha male. I guess whoever else lives in his home has long since learned to submit. I said, Yes, I’m an environmentalist. Are you not...? And I walked away. This bigot can’t cope with anyone not singing from his hymnbook. He shouted after me, Garn, yuh bloody greenie...

I simply couldn’t conceive trying to explain to this loudmouth that in the rhythms of life and death, loss and sorrow, it’s better to be grateful. We are not starving, although plenty of people are having to watch their spending carefully. Our country is not at war, let alone riven by civil war. We get the governments we vote for, which is more than ever happens in many countries, including Fiji. It is indeed sad about the container ship. It is sadder about Christchurch’s sorrows. But grizzling as a reflex reaction is to be avoided, it seems to me. St Benedict saw that long centuries ago. If people were to live together in community then what he called grumbling was to be actively discouraged. And I am a Benedictine.

Groin injury

We appear to be at the end of the all the Pool Games in the Rugby World Cup, and are poised for the Quarter Finals. I am struggling to keep up, let alone give the impression of interest. Mary on the other hand is entering everything on a large wall chart which permanently occupies our dining table. Yesterday Wales thrashed (don’t you loathe these silly overkill verbs...) Fiji 66 - 0, while Ireland saw off Italy 36 - 6. Poor old Fiji can’t expect to thrive in the midst of an oppressive military dictatorship.

Tonga, usually classified patronisingly as a minnow, on the other hand dismissed France, not classified as a minnow, 19 - 14, to the accompaniment of much exuberance, although we haven’t yet heard from the Tongan king. France is in serious despair, despite the curious fact that they still, rather than Tonga, go forward to the Quarter Finals. Much about all this is veiled from my understanding.

But now it is reported that the nation is in much dismay because All Black Dan Carter, the handsome one, managed to tear his Adductor Longus at footie practice. This is called a Groin Injury. It is somewhat dreaded. I researched this, and it is not the groin at all. Goodness knows where they got that idea, and I hope the All Black doctor has done some anatomy. It is a thigh injury. The groin is further up. We got repeated TV shots of Dan Carter in obvious pain, limping off the field holding the relevant place. Now it seems he is out of the rest of the RWC.

And so a black pall of misery has settled over the land. Almost the whole front page of major newspapers is devoted to it this morning. On radio there are serial interviews with anyone with an opinion or a prognostication. We were already nervous because Richie McCaw, the captain, has been getting niggles from a foot injury. His foot has a metal screw in it which sounds inconvenient to me. Perhaps they need to tighten the screw.

And so my breakfast was made miserable by the Dan Carter lamentations. His estimable parents in Southbridge were unable to fly to Auckland to be with him because there were no available seats. They are distraught. We got reassuring words from some previous All Black citing crises of the past. The All Blacks have to “step up” and “do the business”. I turned to the Concert Programme to save my digestion.

Yes it’s sad. Dan Carter is an icon, a role model, a legend, a hero and a heart-throb. He is also crucial in the All Black game, we are told. It remains to be seen whether he is essential. Meanwhile there are other events in the world that really do matter, and there are a few other good people with health issues somewhat more dire than a sports-inflicted torn Adductor Longus.

God and the RWC

Robert Kitson informs us in the Guardian that nineteen chaplains are in attendance on the teams at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/sep/20/rugby-world-cup-2011-chaplains)

I don’t know where to start. Are they all Christian chaplains, or is there a spread of Moslem, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist? What about an atheist chaplain or two? Or do atheists not suffer the same despair and loss when things go wrong? Among the Christians, do we have a proper range of Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist...? Sorry about all the questions, but Robert Kitson does not clarify these things.

Nineteen chaplains...? That’s one-nine, 19. Have these chaps nothing to do back home? It sounds to me like a nice little travel item. Then, one should ask, any female chaplains? Robert Kitson lists the frequent sources of distress for players, and they include trouble at home, losing a game, getting injured, risking getting injured, pregnant wife or girlfriend back home. Perhaps they simply need their mums, and a soothing word from a female chaplain might be just the ticket.

The article is accompanied by a photo of the Fiji team at prayer before a game. I believe I have written on this before. It horrifies me. One of the tragedies of world Christianity is this domestication of God, co-opting God on the side of our footie game, for heaven’s sake -- the same superstition that pervades so much Christian practice, the assumption that God can be propitiated and coerced into doing what we want when we ask. This god doesn’t exist except as an idol. It is a superstition as ancient as humankind. It is not the faith of Christ.

Somehow I can’t help feeling that these 19 chaplains would be better employed back where they came from, in real Christian ministry.

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It is very difficult for anyone to say what we may be thinking about the continued laments of the families of the 29 miners killed in the Pike River disaster. You can’t walk hobnailed through grief.

But it is 10 months now. The bodies of the miners have not been recovered because the mine is deemed too dangerous to enter. The Royal Commission of Enquiry into the Pike River tragedy is proceeding.

Meanwhile the families -- at any rate, some of them -- are making the recovery of their loved ones, or what’s left of them, if anything is left, some kind of touchstone of everything else. I understand that it is some comfort to get human remains back, although I find it hard to know why. Loss is loss. Why would you want a few scraps of human tissue back? In war, many thousands had “no known grave”. Often unidentifiable remains were found, and these were dignified with the words, “Known Unto God”. Over hundreds of years people have been buried at sea.

Have the Pike River families become somehow locked into someone’s silly and unnecessary agenda -- “get our boys back or else”...? We also get constantly reminded of the West Coast mining culture, which is alleged to be different from others. Those blokes would have charged straight back into the mine to retrieve their mates. They might also have got themselves killed.

I did not lose a loved one in the mine disaster, but I find it hard to understand why this fight is necessary. If the mine is sealed and shut down, then that will be their grave. If the mine is sold and reopened eventually, presumably some remains may be found and decisions will be made then. No one is setting out to be callous and uncaring.

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An exceptional article in the Guardian Weekly of 09.09.11 by Gary Younge is entitled “Americans must learn to get over themselves”. Younge articulates what so many of us have wanted to say for a long time, one test of quality journalism.

He begins with the chilling news that Condoleezza Rice on 9.11 ordered her national security senior staff to come up with ideas on “how to capitalise on these opportunities” -- leverage immediately, to maximum political effect.
But since 9.11, ten years on, writes Younge, we are able to see the limits to enormous military power, America’s relative geopolitical decline, and its hopeless polarised political culture.

And he identifies the pervasive element of narcissism in America’s national grief. It persists to this day in the 10-year commemorations. Grief becomes a badge of existence and identity. This couldn’t happen to Americans. Revenge was the only option. “It was as though Americans were unique in their ability to feel pain, and the deaths of civilians of other nations were worth less.”

But one of the most compelling pictures for me of the 9.11 atrocity was none of that, not even the sight of the towers burning, memorable and all as that was as we watched it on the TV in our hotel room in Berlin. It was the sight of George W Bush sitting down reading with the kiddiwinkies at some infant school. Was he reading to them or were they to him? Then some aide whispers in his ear the news that the nation is under attack, and Bush sits there with his stunned mullet look.

Valiantly, like Drake continuing his game of bowls, he finished the reading lesson lest any of the kiddies got upset.

America’s response to that event has been a global disaster. We redefined a word, rendition -- it used to mean that your church choir tackled some anthem slightly beyond them, and now it means hauling suspect terrorists secretly by air to somewhere they can be tortured. America established its own atrocity, Guantanamo Bay. What happens there doesn’t matter so much if it’s not on American soil. Islamaphobia in some quarters has become pretty well compulsory.

Now we have President Obama fighting what looks like a rearguard action for sanity against the utter loonies of the Republican Party. That is what’s terrifying. It is as though these people never learn anything over the years, about race and unity, about religion and sense, about simply being kind, understanding your enemy, tackling the sources of poverty and injustice in the world... or waking up to the fact that most of the world are actually glad they are not Americans.

Biffo, etc... Miscellany

Rugby football is a game [in which] each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench. (P G Wodehouse, 1930)

It seems that over the weekend there was an important game in the other code, League, which featured a major brawl. Two players sent off resumed their dispute beyond the sideline, “back in civilized territory” as one writer put it, and were joined by many others.

I find all this seriously unedifying. Neither I nor people I associate with ever raise their fists, or imagine any issue is properly dealt with that way. Yet on or off the rugby field, or league, it becomes what the sports writers call a little bit of biffo. Sometimes it is the way blokes handle things. Never mind that it’s illegal, even in League. It happens, it is understood evidently in the male sporting psyche, and a good referee is one who is not too scrupulous about common assault.

Well OK, but it’s lost on me.

. . . . . . . . . .

Michele Bachmann, one of the Republican candidates for the US presidency, heaven help us all, has claimed that the recent earthquake and the hurricane that shook the eastern seaboard of the USA were messages from God. What was the message? We've got to rein in the spending, she said. God arranged a mediocre kind of earthquake, and a somewhat serious storm, to get the attention of the politicians, says Michele.

This woman seriously hopes to be President of the United States of America. She gets messages from God. It’s early days yet, of course, and she has to beat down the candidacy of the Governor of the State of Texas, Rick Perry, who seems to be a really toxic religious fruitcake. As governor, Rick has consented to hundreds of judicial executions as a righteous thing. He wouldn't have got elected if he hadn't vowed to kill condemned people. Rick proclaimed his presidential candidacy at some major fundamentalist religious rally. Incidentally, what happened to the constitutional separation of church and state in the USA? I only ask...

Sarah Palin is also a candidate evidently, in a wide choice which includes Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich… It is as though God is saying to the Democrat Party, your sacred role is to protect my people, my world, from such a fate. Anyway, that’s what I think God is saying.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The Rugby World Cup starts here at the end of next week. The Fiji team arrived yesterday. At Auckland airport the visiting rugby teams emerge via a separate, special gateway which leads onto a stage, rather in the manner of returning astronauts. They stand there while hakas are endured and the media get their fill of them. The rest of us, hoi polloi, emerge from our flights in the usual way.

The land has gone curiously silent on the fact that the All Blacks have just had two consecutive serious losses in the TriNations tournament, first to South Africa, and then to Australia. I have no idea what this means, although I was under the impression that these were the All Blacks' two major foes. Well they each just beat us. Senior All Blacks, heroes, icons, role models as they are, have been getting “rested”. It’s like the lull before Waterloo. A frisson of fear quivers through some of the faithful.

Meanwhile I have set myself, at this late stage of life, to discover and learn what the game of Rugby is actually for and about. I consulted the rules, on Wikipedia and other sites. Do not go there -- it is terminally boring. I printed out a 2-page article on "Offside", and find I understand, maybe, the first sentence. The first sentence reads: Offside rules in rugby union are complex.

The blooming looming rugby world cup

The blooming looming Rugby World Cup is now fewer than 28 days away. It’s unstoppable. NZ Post Philatelic has just announced its first ever 3-dimensional stamp at $15 a lick. The image is a closeup of the Cup itself in all its glory, and in 3 dimensions. Oh, joy. You can also have a solid silver commemorative coin for about $135. This depicts a few beefy All Blacks in their haka.

Some Aussie rugby writer, pathetic and peeved witless at the All Blacks’ latest 30-14 defeat of the Wallabies, says the haka immediately prior to an All Black game should be disallowed, as it gives them an “unfair physical advantage”. The whole game of rugby is about male dominance over another man, and they're yelling and screaming and threatening and you've to sit there and go: 'Umm, this'll be finished soon’, said this bloke. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

It seems that we are sending less than the All Blacks full strength to South Africa next weekend, so as to conserve some of the top players. (I had to do a little research to find out what is happening in South Africa -- something called the Tri Nations.) We are constantly updated on the players’ joints and groins and other important places, and I entirely agree that wherever possible they should reduce the tearing of tendons, rippage of nerves, fracture of bones. The sight of one of these hulks, in clear agony, being helped off the paddock is less than edifying. Of course they are in a tradition which tells of one historic rugby icon, injured in the game, who refused help, insisted on playing on, and it was only at the end it was discovered he had dislocated his shoulder. This sort of stuff is admired.

Down at the Viaduct in Auckland they have installed a couple of immense TV screens in The Cloud, the strange sluglike edifice that seems to have beached itself like some slow primeval amphibian vertebrate. These screens are the size of half a footy paddock, presumably in case any of the devotees are short sighted. They cost about a million dollars we are told.

We are now emerging, everyone hopes, from the latest pre-tournament crisis. Adidas was charging a truly extortionate $220 for the official RWC All Black jersey. Some Whakatane retailer realised that customers could buy the jersey on line for much less, and promptly dropped his price. He said, it was not only to achieve sales, but also in defiance of the greed of Adidas, in which cause he was prepared to take a loss.

The question then was whether Adidas would drop their price or tyrannize the retailers -- and they blundered straight into a stunning PR disaster which surely has their American bosses incandescent. I don’t personally care about any of this, but it’s delicious to watch. The Rugby Union bosses, caught between their indignant fans on the one hand, already having paid through their bleeding noses for seats at the games, and Adidas’s serious sponsorship money, simply gibbered. Not what you want, less than a month out from the RWC.

It’s interesting to me from listening to the Adidas bosses, that their generous sponsorship of rugby year by year was always actually dependent on Adidas making money from rugby sales of their gear. So it was never altruistic, and I was simply naïve to assume it was. Of course, Adidas’s donated millions are an investment to make money for their shareholders. How silly of me. These gents will pull the plug whenever it suits them.

However, none of this solves my problem -- how to escape the hype, the hysteria, the rivers of booze, the excruciating “values” of professional contact sport and machoism, the endless mindless prognostications about imminent games, the hassles about public transport, the huge demands on the police and others, the endless environmental consequences of all the world travel, the bondage and obsequiousness of the media and its sports writers, the relentless dumbing down of our culture…

And the sheer noise. It may be only faintly audible here at Algies Bay, except on radio and TV. I can get the Concert Programme on Sky much better than by radio, so that’s good. I have plenty of books. For food we need go no further than Warkworth.

The best thing would be to go to Niue for maybe 4 weeks -- but of course, that’s not going to happen, idyllic and all as it would be. Yesterday morning the Concert Programme suddenly and delightfully played Eric Coates’s By a Sleepy Lagoon, a Tropical Moon… I do have a couple of commitments here. Anyway, in Niue they would probably all be sitting around a kava bowl in front of a giant TV screen generously supplied by the Chinese consulate…

Miscellany 4 - The American People, etc

The American People... It is apparently compulsory that any politician or public figure making a statement in the USA must make explicit and devoted reference to The American People. The Canadian People, for instance, or the Australian People, simply does not have the same resonance, although I suspect The German People once did. The American People is an entity surrounded and held together by powerful mythologies such as The American Dream, whatever that is.

It seems to be an amalgam of what they call democracy and the posturing and fraud Americans call the political process, the more sanitised versions of their history since Plymouth Rock, Hollywood, Davy Crockett and steamboats on the Mississippi, the flag and misty-eyed celebrations, and American Lives being lost at Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Tarawa, their rationalisations of the horrors of slavery and racism and attitudes thereby that persist to this day... Every people’s history, as told, is a little dishonest in places.

Americans rarely seem to realise that the rest of the world winces when they talk as though an American Life lost is somehow more costly than anyone else’s life lost.

It is apparently just and right that other nationalities should submit to the demands of international justice and the courts of The Hague, but no American Boy will be subjected to any foreign court.

Well ain’t it a goddamn shame.

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One day, in Paris, in a tour bus, we were swinging around into the square in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. In the seat behind us were an American couple maybe in their 70s.

Elmer, is that that Noeter Dayme...?

You got it, Gloria.

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I went to a family funeral this week. I got to speak at it. It was the funeral of my brother-in-law, as fine and gentle an Aussie man as you would ever hope to meet. He was an unassuming Christian believer, and he was always very active in his church and far beyond.

So, we had a Christian funeral. That is to say, the point of the service was the Word of God about life and death, comfort and hope. We heard words from the Bible, words from people of faith. We sang Christian hymns -- we did not play horrors from the current pop catalogue or what someone thought was trendy. It was in a Christian church, not in some football club rooms or school hall.

Above all, we did not have a string of people getting up to make scarcely articulate speeches about his life, their selective memories of him, telling silly inaccurate and sometime offensive stories and jokes, desecrating the place with their total inattention to the demanding challenges of life and death. In our sickeningly superficial culture, most people now become surprising heroes after they have died. We think somehow we owe it to them. We don’t. What we owe them is the truth.

Those of us who organised my brother-in-law’s funeral decided early on that we would not have a string of testimonies to someone who everyone already knew had been a good, even exceptional, person.

So it was a Christian service, and that was a huge relief. It paid attention to the facts of life and death, of love and hope. It paid tribute to my brother-in-law’s life, and his final illness. It marked his service as a Christian man, which was considerable.

It was all that needed to be done.

Miscellany 3

Last night as I recall we were 55 days away from the start of Rugby Heaven, the Rugby World Cup. A huge excrescence seems to have come ashore on the Auckland waterfront, like some liquefaction from the abyss of the Kermadec Trench. This is called The Cloud, I believe -- no one seems to know why -- and it’s purpose is to function as a giant bowser station for pumping Heineken and Steinlager into the bloodstreams of the faithful. The Prime Minister called it Party Central. It will be a very noisy place.

Given that any actual rugby event will be kilometers away, this place must be solely dedicated to booze and noise as a kind of adjunct -- or what in another context might have been called peripheral damage. It is a comment on our culture, that the malignant RWC metastasizes into separate islands of indulgence at vast expense, as though the simple enjoyment of watching football game were never enough, or even the point. There will be pubs and clubs and other venues everywhere, with wide TV screens, dispensing alcohol to the devotees.

Daily on TV we are seeing happy happy people holding up their blue RWC tickets. We have ours, have you got yours? The slogan seems to be You gotta be there. No I don’t. Bad mistake.

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Then I thought to consult the RWC websites. There is a place where they have clearly gone to some trouble to organise the national anthems to be sung at the rugby events. Somebody thought to mobilise some of New Zealand’s choral talent for recordings of everyone’s national anthems decently and in order. This is excellent news. It means that we won’t be subjected to the cringing embarrassment of some swooping talentless soprano, trained, if that is the word, in the hip hop school of tuneless noisemaking, destroying whatever merit there may be in God Defend NZ, or Allons Enfants, and getting flatter and flatter. The recordings you can hear on the website are very brisk and professional, with decent orchestration. We are given the words in the home language. All of this ensures that I will, if I’m around, tune in to the start of the games to hear the anthems.

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Dr Richard Worth, the cabinet minister who resigned last year after allegations of sexual impropriety, has been confirmed as Honorary Consul to New Zealand for Monaco. Well, there’s a certain tantalising fittingness about that. Dr Worth has just returned from the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco and Charleen Wittstock. The body language of Charleen and Albert at the festivities, I thought, said it all. It is as though they loathe each other. They honeymooned in Durban, not merely in separate rooms but in separate hotels. Their honeymoon was cut short because Albert had to get home to have blood tests in a paternity suit. Isn’t that wonderful.

I seem to remember Sir Robert Jones, in one of his books, writing that among the people he would never employ are those who wear sun shades pushed back to the top of their heads, and anyone called Charleen. Ah well, no doubt Charleen’s role is to produce an heir.

Someone may know why Monaco needs a consul in NZ, honorary or otherwise. Why does NZ consent to clutter up its diplomatic corps with representation from Monaco? Do we have representation from Chad, Upper Volta or Albania?

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Manu Samoa beat the Wallabies 32-23. There is delirious rejoicing in Apia and Auckland. And I believe they did it on merit. The Aussies were simply outplayed. And outmuscled, I imagine. I try to avoid schadenfreude, but these moments in sport seem to demand it. Former Samoan rugby hero Peter Fatialofa said he might have a beer or two even though it was Sunday. This is big stuff. I knew his mother, Tui Fatialofa. She was a lovely, brave and noble woman who was the first Samoan woman to be ordained a Presbyterian minister in the face of much tut-tutting in the patriarchy. Tui, I think, might have made a Sunday exception too.

Fifty dancing virgins

As I write, the actual Cup, the Webb Ellis Cup, the Rugby World Cup, is down at Bluff about to start its pilgrimage northwards through the land for the homage of the faithful. First, today, they carted it across Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island where the primary school kids did a haka and had their photos taken individually alongside the Cup.

This is very moving stuff. They have modified some large cartage van as the centerpiece of their cavalcade, and it seems that worshippers in Hokitika or Havelock, Dannevirke or Dargaville, can form orderly queues and file through the van for a reverential glimpse of the Cup.

It is reminiscent of the ancient Hebrew narrative describing King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant up into Jerusalem. He sacrificed bullocks along the way and had the Ark preceded by dancing singing virgins. David himself danced the Ark into Jerusalem, naked, and subject to some public ridicule. He was just happy, that’s all.

So at least when the Cup is in the approaches to centres with sacred rugby turf there could be some local dancing virgins. About fifty should do it, if they can be found. A reduced number might be necessary at Taumarunui. Solemn barbecues with Heineken could substitute for sacrifices, although I would personally prefer a properly spit-roasted bullock. But that would take too long.

The Cup is an elaborate silver thing with a lid, and I was intrigued to learn that its two handles have silver representations of a satyr on one and a nymph on the other. This could be seen as sinister. The only connection I can think of between satyrs and nymphs on the one hand, and world Rugby on the other, seems to me strictly off-field and causes considerable angst from time to time, with players sent home. One has to ask why this design was chosen. Perhaps we will never know. One possibility is that, as happened in the building of old cathedrals, carvers and engravers, artisans and decorators, often left their own little secret jokes.

Well, now it proceeds north. With only two months to the opening of Rugby Heaven and its ancillary horrors such as Auckland’s Party Central -- to say nothing of the media’s sickening obsequious and sycophantic devotion -- it has become a case of sauve qui peut. There is no escape committee I know of.

An item in the NZ Herald today says there is some trouble recruiting enough people to serve beer. I imagine there are sufficient people to drink it.

Fleeing the football, part 2

As long ago as 8 December 2009 I wrote a blog entry about the looming Rugby World Cup entitled “Fleeing the Football”. Already, back then, I was starting to panic about the abyss of booze and hyper-silliness into which the RWC threatens to plunge us all.

I mentioned having seen a kind of countdown clock in Christchurch Cathedral Square which was already, even then, proclaiming the number of days and nights before the advent of Rugby Heaven. Has that thing survived the earthquakes? If it has, can anyone get near it in the CBD Red Zone to see it and worship? Anyway, I can announce that it is now 79 days to the opening ceremony -- we get the countdown every evening immediately prior to the TV One 6 pm news.

Moreover, we now have stories of “wannabees” auditioning for dance troups and the like for the RWC opening ceremonies. I might consider auditioning to dance at the closing ceremony... But here were all these odd and ofttimes apparently talentless people prancing around in the hope of free entry.

We have dark debate about whether Eden Park is up to it. The only time in my life I have ever been near Eden Park was in 1981, protesting the All Blacks’ final test against the Springboks. The police made very sure we never got into the park. But that was the day of aircraft low-level flour-bombing of the park, and much violence. The protesters that day were sorted initially into groups of graded willingness to get batoned by police and otherwise assaulted. Barrie MacCuish and I joined the group with the most nuns and people in wheelchairs. It was a great day on which we said that some things matter more than Rugby football.

Christchurch’s facilities are of course no more, and there is much grief about that.

There remains no solution about escape from all this, unless I am willing to cough up whatever it costs to take a cruise down the Rhine, or spend some weeks on Niue. The thing is going to last for weeks. I have not had the courage to find out how long it lasts.

Possibly, for all our Rugby tradition and fervour, the country is just now too preoccupied to be greatly bothered, and all the hype will end up struggling for attention. Everything about it seems tiresome to me -- such as the report tonight that most of the “Kiwi-made” artifacts and mementoes on sale in the tourist shops are actually nothing of the kind. They are made in China or Vietnam, fake, cheap, embarrassing. It’s trashy and sad.

We have huge problems to occupy us in NZ at present, some aspects of them bringing out the best in Kiwis. It’s hard to see how the RWC will be anything other than a nuisance, and some occupational therapy for the sports-mad and simpletons.

Hymnody

For some 19 years Maureen Garing has run a half-hour programme on Radio NZ, early Sunday mornings, called Hymns for Sunday Morning. Well, I imagine it was never intended to appeal to our country’s growing throngs of unchurched and agnostic, most of whom would be profoundly unconscious anyway at 7 am on a Sunday. Hymns for Sunday Morning is for memories and nostalgia chiefly among my generation perhaps.

But to get to the point… Last Sunday Maureen Garing presented her final programme. And to mark this she played a selection of her own favourite hymns. They were all wonderful -- George Herbert, Purcell, Handel… The best of all for me was the one she chose as the representative Scottish Metrical Psalm, the end of Psalm 72, His name for ever shall endure. I am unable to find words to describe why, with all that has happened over the years, I still respond immediately and instinctively to this spirituality, its robust faith, the songs arising from mists and hardship.

I am well aware that this selection of hymns would have been largely incomprehensible to most of the contemporary church, or what’s left of it. What we have now is the generation that arises inchoately to How great thou art, or plays the bagpipe version of Amazing Grace whenever possible. The only psalm they know is The Lord’s my shepherd, but they don’t know it’s a psalm. They don’t know what a psalm is. Maureen Garing’s selection moreover included not one Colin Gibson or Shirley Murray. So of course it was archaic -- and I loved every note of it.

Then I came across another reaction, to a previous hymn selection by Maureen Garing. This is by some Methodist bloke in his parish newsletter:

Not known for her innovative choice of hymnody to greet our waking hours, Ms Garing excelled herself by announcing she was planning to play the hymn without which, in her words, the Advent/Christmas season would not be complete. The hymn? Ding Dong Merrily on High!! As I headed for the shower, I wondered, troubled, what possible relevance such a song might have for bereft families in the mining communities of the West Coast, or the farming communities of Northland facing the arid realities of drought. Not that the rest of the programme had been much better. There had been but one solitary indigenous carol, one in ten maybe. The rest was meringue stuff - light and fluffy, beautifully articulated and modulated by some of the best cathedral choirs in England, but engaging at what point in the cares and struggles of listeners dealing with the sharp and wounding realities of today's New Zealand?

Well, OK. Ding Dong, Merrily on High, if you trouble to read the rest of it, is actually a song of high Trinitarian doctrine. But never mind. This bloke calls it meringue stuff, light and fluffy. He prefers something like that silly NZ carol, Upside Down Christmas.

The church which inspired and motivated me simply isn’t here any more. I love and celebrate its memory. I grieve at its passing, but of course all things pass. Perhaps I romanticize it. Hearing its echoes, however, stirs me still.

Down the hatch

“He said part of growing up was learning how to drink in a mature way.”

I extracted this quote from the current furious debate on how to stop our youth turning up at A & E legless and obnoxious, or jumping off the motorway overbridge. I neglected to note which society pseudo-sophisticate said it. However…

Just how do you ingest ethanol (C2H5OH) in a mature way? Do you have little sips? Is it in a mature way if you are in socially sophisticated company?

“Growing up”, he said. You know when you’re growing up because you are drinking “in a mature way”. Well, isn’t that nice. This chap seems to have missed that they are growing up anyway, however they drink.

Alcohol is inseparable from any human society with the possible exception of the Johnsonville Play Centre -- the tots, you understand, not the mums. The earliest human records show fermentation of grain and the consumption of booze. The same records tell of drunkenness and disorder. The children in Fiji knew how to make a heady toddy from the central shoot of the coconut palm. Plenty of people in every age have gone through life choosing not to take alcohol, but most have happily indulged, many to grave or even lethal excess.

How pompously I am writing about all this. My point is that drinking in a mature way can only mean ceasing when you know you have had enough. “Enough” may mean that you have had all you want right now, or it may mean that if you have any more you will be at risk of behaving obnoxiously, driving dangerously, making an ass of yourself, or simply feeling sick. That point of decision, for whatever reason, is a mature decision, I guess -- and maybe it’s what the societal sophisticate means.

The reality is that once you have already poured some alcohol down your throat your brain has rapidly got less able to make that mature decision. There is also the deep question of will -- if what I want is to drown sorrows and cares, have a joyous time, enjoy getting legless (which is what school kids and others now unashamedly confess on TV), I may be unwilling to obey the call of wisdom and maturity. Peer pressure too may override any sensible decision.

One reaction to recent tragedies among binge drinking secondary school kids was an article by a woman whose name meant nothing to me -- she remembered her own adolescence which was marked by much booze and mayhem. She knew she brought some years of anxiety to her parents and others, and did a lot of damage. “But hey!” she said, “we had fun!” Well that’s alright then. Granny Herald actually published this drivel. We had fun. I didn’t. Being overcome with joy as the room swivelled around at 2 am is not quite the way I recall it.

So I would like to know from our society bloke precisely how he proposes to foster this maturity by feeding free alcohol -- beer and Bacardi, whisky and wine, champagne and cocktails -- to 100 teenagers under “controlled conditions”, before their school ball.

It is idiotic, irresponsible, deeply mistaken, bad leadership and example. Drinking is drinking. No one needs to do it. I personally believe life is better without it. But let’s not fall for this silly myth that you can drink in a mature way, which is innocuous.

Repulsive human activities

I concede at the outset that what is repulsive to me may be bliss to others (eg. “rugby heaven”). I further concede that it is not my function to pass judgement on others, and that even seeming to do so may excite their wrath and indignation. I think we all however should form judgements about various dubious pastimes.

1. Boxing. In the noble sport of boxing the goal is to brain damage your opponent to the extent that he can’t get up off the floor. This is done mainly by punches to the head. Punches around the chest and midriff also help in the general deliberate debilitation, but it is the grogginess that counts, and that signifies brain damage. I can see why this appeals to some people. It excites the worst features, blood lust, bullying, violence, in human nature. It is not noble at all. Morally, medically, boxing is without excuse or justification. I do remember that it is immensely popular in some cultures such as Samoan, and inexplicably with some intelligent individuals such as Sir Robert Jones.

2. Motor sport. This won’t win me any friends either. Motor sport is noisy, polluting, hideously expensive, pointless. I am not aware that it contributes to fitness or social welfare in any way. It is a happy hunting ground for petrol-heads and lovers of inordinate speed, power and danger, and the females who seem to hang about. It was a good day when Auckland decided it didn’t want the annual Formula One event clogging up our streets and bringing the inner city to a halt for days on end. I sense that Hamilton is now starting to regret that they ever took it on. Stock cars and such things seem simply juvenile and silly to me. (Of course there is also the motor bike. I know of one surgeon who reputedly refused to treat any victim of a motor bike smash -- and I know of another one who had a love affair with his Harley Davidson. Motor bikes are here to stay, of course, and I know that many people ride them responsibly. So I’m not including them in my criticism of motor sport.)

3. Foul language. Well, I guess it’s my upbringing in the first instance. We were not allowed to use “bad” language, ever, at home -- let alone “foul” language. But it’s also a matter of good taste, which now seems widely lost. Foul language is now endemic. It has become unexceptional. People now think it is justified by usage. Women as well as men swear frequently and pointlessly in their normal conversation. It fouls the air. It has become part of the general trivialising of words and meaning. My attitude also reflects, I realise, the respect for my native language in which I was raised. The language, well used, is not like that. Are these people chronically short of adjectives, or simply general vocabulary? The English language at its best is built and equipped for subtlety, for shades of meaning and expression. Perhaps people no longer possess subtleties and insights anyway, let alone know how to express them. Anyway, foul language is not used in our home.

Bin Laden is dead

Is there anyone else out there who feels ill this morning? That is to say, nauseated and despairing at the reactions of media, politicians, and thousands of the American People...?

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Hunted down and assassinated by United States special forces, the ones so many Americans thrill to see, bristling with weapons and menace -- Americans feel safe, moral and meaningful. Then these intrepid agents followed through some prescribed procedure for formally identifying the corpse, which they transferred to a conveniently placed United States warship and disposed of at sea with a sickeningly hypocritical attempt at Islamic protocols.

The Land of the Free appears to have erupted with joy. One newspaper, I don’t know which, bannered a headline, “UTU...!” I thought that was a Maori word, but perhaps potentially useful words spread far and wide. Another, the New York Daily News, headlined, “May he rot in hell...!” There was some light relief from Fox News, the TV channel I tune up briefly whenever I want to remind myself how awful the American Republican party can be -- their newsreader evidently misread the cue and announced, “President Obama is in fact dead.” That newsreader must be some kind of over-paid automaton.

Our own NZ Prime Minister promptly announced that the world is now a safer place. That’s curious, because the opposite is the case. It has just got a lot more dangerous because of the deep wells of rage that have been plumbed.

No political leader today dares to say hang on, this may have been clever, but was it wise... humane... just...? No -- for the moment revenge is all. Utu. An eye for an eye. As Gandhi said, it makes the whole world blind.

Justice...? Justice turns out to be a negotiable concept. The Americans claim that apprehending this man, blasting him through the head, disposing of his weighted corpse in the Arabian Sea before anyone else knew, proclaiming it a just and moral thing... is justice...? Ye gods. It is lynch law. It is stupefying to realise that Americans actually do still follow it.

I understand that there may have been serious difficulties in arresting this man and taking him into custody. I see indeed that the processes of bringing him before a suitable court somewhere, and hearing and deciding on his crimes, would have been lengthy, involving all manner of complications. I know that finding a place to house him in secure and somewhat humane conditions might have been difficult. It could all have been done.

The Americans decided on behalf of all of us that it couldn’t be done. They also decided that it shouldn’t. They assumed that the attack on their territory on what they call 9/11 took precedence over all else, and they sent some elite military unit to act as prosecutor, judge, executioner. That is what they call justice.
It is lynch law.

I don’t know what Bin Laden deserved, but Justice deserves better. And somehow the rest of the world needs to be stating to the USA that we do not wish them to be making our decisions for us, that the killing of American citizens is no worse than the killing of anyone else, that we do not recognise them as the world’s moral police, that we do not see their limited and corrupt democracy as a model, and that, in company with Plato, Jesus and Augustine, to say nothing of various better-inspired Americans, we believe that Justice is more than sending in the marines.

But all that having been written... I suspect it is better said by the NZ Anglican bishops this week:

Reflections at the time of the death of Osama bin Laden
The news of the demise of Osama bin Laden has been felt to bring a measure and a form of closure for thousands affected by the acts of terror over the past decade. It is crucial that the acts of terror in any form, including those masterminded by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, be challenged and overcome.

However, the death of Osama bin Laden is no cause for gloating, or unthinking jubilation. The biblical record is clear in Ezekiel 18:32: “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live.” We are therefore not called to relish the death of anyone. We are called to grieve the fact that turning and living was not chosen in the first place by Al Qaeda, who chose the way of death, but also to grieve all deadly spirals of violence and fear, hatred and prejudice with all their various causes.

Learning to find a way of understanding the causes of the way of violence and death can, by grace, lead to a measure of God given forgiveness of enemies, as the Gospel calls us to do: Matthew 5:43-44, John 13:34, Luke 6:27-28, Romans 12:14, 1 Corinthians 4:12, Romans 12:17-21, 1 Peter 3:9, 1 John 2:9-10. We need insight under God, rather than vengeance. Vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30). An eye for an eye (Matthew 5:38) and the whole world goes blind. This means jingoism and enjoyment of the death of Osama bin Laden can find no place in Christian prayer or Christian thinking.

We can do no better than end with the words of a Christian leader who gave his life for the cause of justice, freedom and abundant life for all people: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

++Brown Turei
++David Moxon

Archbishops of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

Appreciating the royals

The argument for the British monarchy has suddenly got brighter and better with the brilliant royal wedding -- while the argument for United States republicanism (and their limited corrupt “democracy”) has suddenly got even more difficult with the apparent candidacies of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. Where do they get these people?

William and Catherine showed up on their wedding day looking just what they are, two intelligent and thoughtful young adults, full of life, deeply in love, talented, handsome. The occasion seemed to bring out the best in everyone. Catherine answered all the endless excruciating speculation about the wedding dress by coming beautifully forth in something utterly right for her, relaxed and lovely. William was as handsome a prince as any fairytale fantasy might want -- while brother Harry was exactly who you might want at your elbow right then.

And it was Christian. It was not any kind of sentimental saccharine substitute. It was a solemn occasion in the best sense. They did not get married on a beach or in somebody’s silly garden. They did not arrive already slightly intoxicated. They and their guests, for the most part, did not dress bizarrely. (An exception was the two York daughters who, as one fashionista observed, appeared to be going on to appear in some pantomime.)

There were old and precious values here. The Dean of Westminster, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, none of them ever pompous or preachy, contented themselves to let the great words speak for themselves, which they did. The prayer written by the bride and groom, and read for them by a good bishop, was simple and meaningful. The music was English, Welsh, and lovely. They made their serious vows together right where William’s grandmother long ago promised a lifetime of service. They were blessed by one of the finest archbishops ever to come to Canterbury.

Things do not always go right for the House of Windsor. They have not always gone right for the house of Miller, Smith or Jones. But I will back the Windsors. They wear their wounds with grace and dignity, and truth. They are able to change. They bear the utter poison of the mostly hideous British media for the most part with wisdom and grace.

Maybe this wedding was a punch in the solar plexus of the shallow-waders who are bored with anything thoughtful or meaningful, who airily dismiss marriage vows as “pieces of paper”, who assume serious commitment is entirely provisional and they must “keep their options open”... those who think it important to be trendy and consign “religion” to outer darkness since we are modern and enlightened. “Christian...? Oh god, no...!”

William and Catherine evidently think for themselves and come to decisions. They also seem to take counsel from wise people when they want to.

Well anyway, it gives me hope.

Miscellany 2

On 3 November 2009 I posted a blog called Miscellany. It was a vehicle to help me feel better about various idiocies. If I write it, I can move on. Here is Miscellany...2.

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An early 19th century captain in the British Royal Navy was renowned not only for his seamanship, but also for his Christian piety and his propensity to quote the Bible. It is said that another naval captain, whose ship had been badly damaged in an encounter with the French, had lost its masts and was crippled, saw this man sailing up to his aid. He was flying a signal, and it read, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”

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An utterly irascible Scottish general in the British army in India, David Baird, was captured and held for a while by an Indian rebel leader whose custom was to chain his prisoners in pairs. When this was reported to General Baird’s mother in Scotland she said, “I am so sorry for the poor man chained up with my Davie.”

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I once heard the late BBC raconteur Frank Muir give an after dinner speech at the British Club in Tokyo. He began by saying he was honoured to have been invited, but that it was rather like having been invited to kiss Margaret Thatcher full on the mouth, in that the honour outweighed the pleasure.

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We learn that Donald Trump has already started his run for the Republican nomination to stand for President of the USA. Can there be worse news? We hear he has joined the paranoids committed to the belief that Obama was not born in the USA and therefore is ineligible to be president. This is a curious phenomenon, akin to climate change denial and worship of Michael Jackson. It can sometimes seem as though the collective silliness of the USA might just elect him. It’s terrifying. And now the news is that Arnold Schwarzenegger, having presided for two terms over the disintegration of the California economy, may now look to be president of the European Community. This cannot be so. I trust the Germans, French, Swiss, and even the Albanians, are falling about laughing.

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But back home, there is worse. Don Brash is suddenly challenging Rodney Hide for leadership of the Act Party. Don is not at present a member of the Act Party. The NZ Herald is running a poll on which you would prefer as leader of Act, Rodney or Don... That choice is akin to asking whether you would rather die painfully of a stomach tumour or a liver tumour. Both blokes are buffoons. Somehow (I don't need to understand this) we are also getting threatened with John Banks in the mix. Well, perhaps it is best to have them all in one camp, a kind of political isolation ward -- close to the psychiatric wing.

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We were told that the Rugby World Cup represented riches to New Zealand, and that the fortunes invested would bring dividends enabling us to build roads and set up magnificent sports facilities... Now we have been informed that the revised and improved estimates are out, and they show:

Cost $1.2 billion.
Net Income $700 million.
Deficit $500 million.

Now remind me... I concede that sport is important, although it is supremely unimportant to me. The RWC is about one arguably minor sport on the world stage, Rugby Union football. Most of the world will neither know nor care about the RWC.

It will come, it will happen, countless litres of beer will go down the alimentary tracts of thousands and into the gutters and drains. Something called Party Central (taxpayer subsidised) will operate in downtown Auckland, to the detriment of everything from the environment to the drinkers’ livers, to decency and order -- but not to the detriment of the brewers. Anyone who reaches for words like disgust will be accused of being a party-pooper. The ticket scalpers came out in force weeks ago and the whole event will be marked by increasing corruption. All sorts of necessary tasks in the community will get neglected while people are caught up in the waves of hysteria...

And then it will all go. We are left here with a $500 million deficit. Great. Maybe (which heaven forfend) we won’t even be holding the Cup. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

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Solar bonus blowout to sit on budget bottom line



...Headline in the Sydney Morning Herald, 24.04.11.

Why I am not watching Coronation Street

I am recording it for Mary. Five minutes of it is more than I can stomach. This extraordinary programme was on UKTV when we lived in Carfin in 1964 and someone gave us a clapped out old black and white TV because they had upgraded. I remember watching Churchill’s funeral on it, too, and that agonising climb of the soldier-pallbearers up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral in London with the coffin. But that’s how old Coronation Street is. Ken Barlow is still there five decades on. I am not.

I loathe the way they consistently lie to each other. I loathe the way they talk to each other, abuse each other, the malice always lurking in their relationships, the relentless cruel gossip and the way nothing whatever is confidential. The occasional fist-fight in or outside the Rovers can actually come as a relief -- some resolution at last, maybe, maybe not. I am astonished at the sums these people spend on booze, daily, nightly. A pint of beer in Scotland was expensive enough in our time there -- heaven knows what it costs now. But on Coronation Street they put it away even at lunchtime before going back to work in the Underworld knicker factory. Children are routinely denied the truth, sent upstairs, and no one ever seems to discover that the kids, not being stupid (that comes later) are unfooled.

One of the positive aspects of Coronation Street is that it does from time to time feature social issues in its plots and subplots -- homosexuality, transgender, various forms of criminality, abuse of minors, deafness, terminal illness, grief and suicide... And indeed, just about every character on Coronation Street has some interesting marital and extra-marital history, or a police or prison record. Published albums of Coronation Street give fascinating summaries of the marital and sexual vagaries of various characters over the years.

Does this accurately reflect life in the surrounds of Manchester? One or two of the characters are actually interesting. Roy and Hayley, I think. But Ken Barlow, Rita, and Emily Bishop have become simply predictable. Deidre is excruciating. Audrey also. Sometimes they introduce a character too evil and devious to be credible, even in Weatherfield. Scottish Tony is the latest.

Perhaps I have shot myself in the foot... I seem to know rather a lot about Coronation Street for someone who doesn't watch it. Well, it's part of life around here, or death. You can see nothing of it for a year, and then pick up the plot again in five minutes. For Mary, all those years, it constituted rest and relaxation when she got home from Middlemore, and could sit there with a nice meal on her lap.

Some years ago, at St Luke's Church in Remuera, I ran a seminar called "Coronation Street Aversion Therapy". It was very well attended. All we did was talk about Coronation Street. That was fun.

This is my 50th wedding anniversary speech

We had our celebration a little early, on 2 April. It was a lovely day and a lovely venue, the Ransom Vineyard just south of Warkworth. All our family showed up, and other relatives and friends... a happy occasion. Someone suggested I put my speech on the blog. It seems harmless...

Mainly, Mary and I have a sense of wonder that, almost 50 years following that ceremony on 13 May 1961, we are both still here and still happily together, showing our age and wounds perhaps in some ways, but still with most of our marbles and our sense of irony and the ridiculous, and our love. We are still capable of some faith and wisdom, and still glad of what we once upon a time called the holy estate of matrimony.

One of our grand-daughters informed Mary the other day that she does look like a grandmother in the face, but the rest of her still looks normal. It is a huge gift that we continue loving friends with our three children and our grandchildren. And it is very satisfying to note that this achievement is shared in their own cases by others of our friends and relatives present today, who were married in those days, long ago.

Generally speaking, at that time, we assumed that you got married and you stayed married, one way or another, unless it was a real calamity -- and even then sometimes. The number of times in ministry one has encountered a marriage which had found some modus operandi, but which was nevertheless a marriage which should never have happened in the first place... There were plenty of those. I came across a rather nice passage from G K Chesterton, written in 1902, in an essay entitled, “A Defence of Rash Vows”. Chesterton assumed that marriage vows, by their nature are rash. Well, anyone exchanging marriage vows with Gilbert Keith Chesterton was indeed rash. He would send his wife a telegram which read, “Am in Bognor Regis. Where should I be?” Anyway, this is what he wrote:

The revolt against vows has been carried in our day even to the extent of a revolt against the typical vow of marriage. It is most amusing to listen to the opponents of marriage on this subject. They appear to imagine that the ideal of constancy was a yoke mysteriously imposed on mankind by the devil, instead of being, as it is, a yoke consistently imposed by all lovers on themselves. They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words -- “Free Love” -- as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word.

For the record... We were married on 13 May 1961, at St Andrew’s Church, Symonds Street, Auckland, by the Rev George Jeffreys. George Jeffreys was a fine minister and friend, and I remember him most fondly today. I had introduced George to his wife Ngaire, and so it was the least he could do for us. Mary and I were living in Dunedin at that time, and we arrived in Auckland only in time for last minute dress fittings and all that. That is by far the best way to do it. If they want you to have a large wedding, an inter-tribal agglutination, something between an Indian Durbah and the Congress of Vienna, for your wedding, then my advice is to do what we did -- stay at the other end of the country, or perhaps in the Falkland Islands, and show up at the last minute, adopt an air of silly bewilderment, and absolutely veto one or two things at the outset. I must have got a new suit from somewhere -- I really don’t remember that, let alone how I paid for it. Our wedding was attended by 15 thousand people including some somewhat unhinged distant cousins and National Party stalwarts.

Mary looked lovely -- I do remember that -- otherwise, I was hanging out to get out of there. We were seriously broke. Mary was still a student for another two years, and I was on an assistant minister’s stipend and had yet to be introduced to concepts such as saving and budgeting.

Over these 50 years we have lived in Dunedin; in Browns Bay briefly; in Whitehill and then in Carfin, both in Lanarkshire, Scotland; in Mairangi Bay; in Timaru; in Suva, Fiji; in Ellerslie, and then in what the land agents called Onehunga Heights during 15 years at St Peter’s, Ellerslie-Mt Wellington -- and finally here at Algies Bay.

We produced our children, each one of whom is different from the others, mercifully you might think different from us, and indeed from all the rest of humanity. They have produced their children, and I guess the generations will proceed. We have been blessed -- which is one way of putting it -- by the clamorous presence of our grandchildren these last two weeks.

Mary found she was able to do things the way she preferred, over the years. So she was a full time mother until we were living in Suva and Rachel went to school, and then she sought a job at the Suva public hospital. She asked them not to be thrown in at the deep end, so they put her in emergency medicine, and Mary came home and said to me this is not a good time to be having an accident in Suva.

When we came back to Auckland she completed a postgraduate Diploma in Obstetrics. That was quite enough to convince both her and us not to pursue obstetrics. So Peter Herdson, a fine doctor and pathologist, persuaded Mary to sign on for the 5-year course for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathology Australasia -- which she got in 5 years, and proceeded as a specialist thereafter at Middlemore Hospital until retirement in 2009. A couple of years before her retirement she was named Distinguished Pathologist by her College, and there is a medal to prove it. I am very proud of what Mary has done.

There are so many important people here with us today. But first I want to honour some who were at that wedding in 1961, but whom we don’t see today. Mary’s parents, and mine... Aunts, uncles and friends... That day we even managed to visit my Scottish grandmother, Leonora Miller, who was able to get to the church but not to the reception. We called on her at the rest home in One Tree Hill. I think that might have been the last time we saw her.

It is wonderful that we have Margaret and Heitia Hiha with us, all the way from Napier.

And of course, this occasion was a reason for our offspring and their families to arrive. Lex and family came out of Japan at a time of huge anxiety there. Rhys and family came from Queensland, and although they were not directly affected by the floods, they certainly saw what happened around the Brisbane River. And of course we have Rachel and family here too.

Our dear cousin Joan Bell has come from her home in Cumbria in the UK, and it is wonderful to see Joan again. My sisters, Marilyn and Barbara are here, with Lionel and Noel. My brother Duncan has come from Brisbane with Genevieve. And my brother Morris has come. It is all good. It is also, I may say, all a great deal more than I ever imagined I was letting myself in for when I feebly agreed to what Mary called a small celebration.

Mary’s cousins Mary and Terry Boyd are here, Judith and Chris Parry, Helen and Don Fletcher...

Then there are our friends -- Barrie and Robin MacCuish, Peter and Barbara Wedde, Graeme Ferguson, Marjory Ramage, and from Wellington, Judith Aitken, with whom we have shared much over these years. (Actually, Judith set out to come from Wellington, but got foiled by Jetstar who cancelled her flight.) We had a message from Kim and Lola Bathgate, in Christchurch, who wanted to be here but had an earthquake.

Deja vu all over again

Another list. I hope it doesn't offend anyone or cause a riot within the tribe. These are mainly idiocies I hear regularly on the radio news and TV, and read in the NZ Herald.

Déjà vu all over again
For free
Grind to a halt
Any time soon
Shrouded in secrecy
Tight-lipped
Focussed
I was like...
Plus (meaning also)
Invite as a noun... a commute, a read, a molest, a rebuild...
Liaise as a synthetic verb
Looked like (meaning looked as though)
Passionate about (equals I like)
Fingered (“Methane fingered in mine explosion” - I wonder what the results were.)
It didn’t improve as much as what we expected. (What as a relative pronoun)
Touted
Munted
Vow (eg. “He vowed to get to the bottom of it” - People are making vows all over the place these days)
Fighting for his life (ie. critically ill)
Quiet cul-de-sac (Has anyone yet found a noisy one?)
Quiet beer (There is usually some faint sound of effervescence)
Albeit...
Unbeknownst (Aarrgghh!!!)
Incredibly (meaning very)
Incredible (when it has happened and is perfectly believable)
Obviously (when it is not obvious)
Of course (as though only a simpleton would think otherwise)
In shock
Closure
Want answers
I mean...
To be perfectly honest / frank / candid
Let’s be honest
Don’t get me wrong (why not say it accurately in the first place?)
From here on in / out
...wise (pricewise... currencywise... careerwise...)
Slate, slated
Accident waiting to happen
Bang for your buck
Iconic (ie. quite well known in some quarters)
Basically (this word has become almost meaningless)
Disconnect (it’s a verb, not a noun, stupid)
Sweet as. Fast as. (As what, stupid?)

Church Liquefaction

In the Shorter Oxford the word means either the action or process of liquefying , the state of being liquefied -- or can mean “a melting of the soul by religious ardour”. I didn’t know that. We didn’t have a lot of liquefaction in my parishes.

One of the NZ Herald’s better writers is Tapu Misa. An articulate, intelligent and generous-minded Samoan woman and mother, Tapu recently became a committed Christian. She does mention this from time to time, but always in a quiet and humble spirit. This differs from another of the Herald’s writers, Garth George, who seems unable to mention his Christian allegiance without one way or another implying lofty moral and spiritual ground. Tapu’s latest article is about religious nutters and her first paragraph reads: I knew I'd struggle with the injunction to love my enemies when I first became a Christian. I just didn't expect so many of them would turn out to be other Christians.

Religious nutters are rising to the surface everywhere, drawn by what seems to them to be the apocalyptic nature of world events, and yesterday I saw someone else refer to this phenomenon as Church Liquefaction, which of course it is. Traumatic events make it ooze through the surface where it lies noxious and entirely unhelpful. These people tend to read books from the American religious right, full of signs and wonders, neurotic and unhinged.

We have our share of ignorant haters here in NZ as well, writes Tapu Misa. In the wake of the Christchurch earthquake an equally deranged group declared that the disaster was God's punishment for hosting "the Lesbian and Poof Week" in Queenstown, among other unpardonable sins. “The Christchurch earthquake was a warning," these people said. "God has decided to clean out NZ of its wickedness, perversion, prostitution, bullying, gangs, drugs, violence, paedophilia and of its witchcraft and black magic."

Well this is when we need to speak up. It is when these sad people start implying, or openly stating, that earthquakes, tsunami, nuclear accidents, with the death and injury, dislocation and terror of many thousands, are the work of a vengeful god enraged at our sin… that it is necessary to say their god doesn’t exist. These people are telling us more about themselves than anything else, their insecurity, their need for order and reassurance and authority. Their need to see others punished. God didn’t do the earthquake. God doesn’t sit on high hurling thunderbolts at us.

But on the broader plane, I still find myself amazed and in despair at the silly naïve assumptions about God held by so many decent people in our churches. Where was God in the earthquake? Everywhere. God neither made nor stopped the tsunami. Life is hazardous, and sometimes it is fearsomely, desperately so. If anyone has the expectation that religious faith somehow confers immunity from pain and suffering, they are out of luck. It doesn’t, never did, and that is not its purpose.

Seismic matters

The people of the little town of Coromandel decided to have their own prayerful and commemorative service for the Christchurch earthquake, the February 2011 one. Of course they assumed it must be ecumenical, and it happened to be the Presbyterians’ turn to host such a thing. The Presbyterians being currently without a minister, some elderly elder took the reins. This was his great moment. He informed everyone from the pulpit that earthquakes and all their horrors are God’s response to our sinfulness. I suppose this self-righteous simpleton has been going to church all his life, and has learned nothing.

A couple of days ago news arrived of the earthquake off the coast of Japan. Now we have aerial clips of the tsunami flowing ashore in the north of the island, carrying everything before it, cars, boats, buildings, tonnes of debris. Our daughter-in-law Yuko arrived in Auckland that morning with Fiona and Lucas, but they had taken off from Tokyo shortly before the quake and they didn't know any more than we knew. Our son Lex was in his office when the quake happened, and emailed us to say he was OK, and was about to start walking home. We think it would be a walk of a few hours. He didn’t know if their home was damaged, but the main damage in Tokyo seemed to be to services. The trains and electricity were out.

One of the websites has a helpful interactive map of the world showing earthquake sites as they happen. There is the “Pacific rim of fire”, with the huge Japan quake all fresh and pulsating. The Christchurch quakes look tiny by comparison. While we are living right there on the rim of fire, Australia is off to one side, and according to the map nothing ever happens there. Just to the north, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia look like a seething mass of magma.

A couple of Christchurch emails...

We have a Baptist colleague here whose church has fallen down and whole house has been red stickered as well. Someone asked him what he wanted – was there anything they could do for him? He replied: Yes I wouldn’t mind a Fiat…(latest model car!) I have always wanted one of those.

...the parcel that arrived at our door this morning was fantastic!
90+ daffodil bulbs to give out to people at church as symbols of hope – what a creatively positive idea that was, then acted on!


Lex emailed later on Day One to say he had walked home in 3 hours with a stop for dinner. The apartment was shaken up but OK. Now, a couple of days on, the main problem in Tokyo seems to be getting basic food items. But further north it’s all simply horrifying. The threat from the ruptured nuclear reactors doesn’t bear thinking about.

Mary is wondering about assembling an emergency kit for when we get our calamity -- earthquake, tsunami, plague, invasion from Tonga... I have ordered a solar-powered battery charger from Dick Smith Electronics. That seems to me as sensible as anything. We already have a stock of assorted rechargeable batteries.

Darkest day

Some communications in Christchurch are working. I got a reply to my email from one friend, a fellow Benedictine Oblate, who said they were OK. But her daughter’s family home, three stories and a basement, was grotesque. The basement, she said, had popped out of the ground -- this is the phenomenon of liquefaction we have all become acquainted with -- and the three stories were now on a lean. I gather it is now uninhabitable.

I started to watch the TV when I became aware of the disaster, about 1330 hrs today. It soon became clear that many major buildings in Christchurch were in ruins. Both cathedrals were very badly damaged. Then it emerged that many people were missing, apparently trapped in the rubble -- rescue was under way. The Prime Minister said he could confirm 65 dead, but we all know there are many more than that.

This is Christchurch. We never lived there, and I really don’t know much about the place. It was always associated in my mind with Anglican grace and rectitude. Christchurch had its pockets of unseemliness from time to time, but nothing much.
After the September quake Christchurch was very badly wounded, but no one had been killed. We were just heading into the predictable debates about when the property owners would all get compensated and restored, and things would get going again. There was much muttering about properties on really damaged ground which may now be unsuitable for any building.

And then came today’s quake. Astonishingly it was of lesser intensity, but it was shallower, apparently, and it has done much more damage. I think Christchurch is in real trouble now. Roads and services are all in a shambles. Many buildings and homes are destroyed. We are going to hear tomorrow that many people have been killed. We have yet to hear from outlying areas such as Akaroa. We know Lyttleton and Sumner have been badly affected.

What do any of these people now do? The NZ economy cannot afford any of this. Do they rebuild Christchurch? I suppose enough of it remains to mean that it can scarcely be otherwise. Perhaps it gives some priceless opportunities for venture. A newly visioned central city. But who pays for that?

The loss of the cathedrals in the city may do wonders for the state and quality of Christian profession. I know the Anglican cathedral was much loved by a few. It was actually no great treasure architecturally. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament was admired by George Bernard Shaw, as I recall, and it was indeed somewhat striking. Now, either they have the funds to rebuild and restore these things, or they do without them. I am one who has serious questions about these days spending millions of dollars on cathedrals.

But now we await some account of the fatalities. It is horrific to think of people maybe trapped and alive in the ruins, when night has fallen. The Aussies are coming to our aid, as we came to theirs, and floodlights will be lighting up the rubble and the rescuers. We’ll see what happens in the morning.

At the Hot Spot

The Mahurangi East Public Library has a Hot Spot. The vulgar sort may not know what this means. My wife’s cousin’s husband didn’t. The Hot Spot is where your laptop can access the internet by wireless. In the Mahurangi East Public Library the Hot Spot is down the back. It is undesignated -- you have to ask the librarian. It’s free.

(Note: Not “for free” -- that current trendy silliness that has infected all radio and TV speech...) We ought to enjoy the free services of the public library system while we have them. When Auckland got its Super City a few months ago, that is to say, one municipal authority from the south of Franklin to the north of Rodney, more than 50 public library branches became one system -- all free to ratepayers and residents. Its interloan service means you can order books on your computer at home (if your ISP consents to function) and have them brought from Howick or Helensville, to Mahurangi East -- free. This is civilised living. Now they are getting organised with eBooks for eReaders. But time is short, I fear, before the Super City councillors discover they have a potential revenue stream right there. What fun to make the blighters pay...

But back to the Hot Spot. It became important when we embarked on our spooky warfare with the atrocious Telstra Clear and our exasperating dealings with their “Customer Service” personnel in Manila or Singapore, who appear not to speak English. Then Telstra Clear one Saturday morning simply cut us off. Brian Edwards has a hilarious blog video in which a group of Belgians find a way to subject their tyrannical and incompetent telephone and ISP company to the same treatment they have been meting out. http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2011/01/

Down at the library it was easy to log on at the Hot Spot, download my emails and look at the newspapers. Easy, that is, until a woman came and set up beside me, with much grunting and wrestling with cables and talking to herself. She had hauled her hapless husband along too, and together they were going to log on to some real estate website, find the house their daughter was evidently threatening to buy, and see what they thought of it. I imagine this woman thrives in many of the local clubs, the garden group, the walking group, that kind of thing. She never has an unexpressed thought. Never mind that this was a library -- I can remember when making a noise in the library was enough to get you slung out. Now of course you routinely compete with Rhythm and Wriggle, and happy stories for the kiddiewinkies. She found the house, and then began a litany of “I don’t belieeeeeve it...!” The husband contributed nothing, but sat there wraith-like, poised for instructions.

By the time I reached the pitch of exasperation at which I said to her, “Mahurangi East is really not all that interested in your beliefs”, she had finished anyway, she gave me a black look, packed up her computer and cleared out. She will tell them at the bridge club about that vulgar and so common man she encountered in the library.

Hagiography

John Newton, From Disgrace To Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Aitken (Crossway Books 2007). This is the first book I have read right through as an eBook, on my new Sony E-Reader. Great fun. You can buy it online, pay for it, download it and be reading it in five minutes.

But now, to business... First the author, Jonathan Aitken. He is a British politician who in 1999 was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice, was bankrupted, and went to prison. He had been a war journalist, had got entangled among international arms dealers (in the process he had managed to father a daughter with the wife of Adnan Khashoggi), had been elected an MP and risen to cabinet rank under John Major... But not under Margaret Thatcher -- there is a wonderful story of how he told an Egyptian newspaper that Mrs Thatcher thinks Sinai is the plural of Sinus, after which he enjoyed the view from the back bench in Thatcher’s government.

However, in 1997, after a colourful and chequered political history, to say the least, Aitken got interested in the Alpha Course. This is a study course in Christian biblical understanding and life developed from Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, fairly conservative in its approach, too much so for some, but stunningly successful around the world. Jonathan Aitken however embraced Christian faith in its protestant evangelical format, and then took on serious theological studies including Greek.

Now he has done what I am sure he thinks is a scholarly biography of John Newton. John Newton exists in Christian history as the writer of “Amazing Grace” and many other well-known English hymns of the late 18th century in which he collaborated with William Cowper. He is known as the former slave ship captain who was converted to Christ and wound up as Vicar of Olney, and then of St Mary Woolnoth in London, and was a leader of the Evangelical renovation of the Church of England. John Newton was a great and good man, a man of faith and prayer.

But this is not really a scholarly biography. Both Newton and Aitken, and of course many others, know themselves to have been found by grace, forgiven and transformed. I too am acquainted with the reality of grace. Far more people are than Jonathan Aitken seems to realise. Grace is a reality that the formal church often finds inconvenient and betrays. Grace is something close and real about God. It is of the esse of God. Without grace we are lost. John Newton experienced grace. So did Jonathan Aitken. In evangelical terms, in our need, grace abounds.

But we don’t go on about it. I suppose that is what mainly distances me from the evangelicals... Christ is better praised and loved by quiet love and faith. Newton’s hymns are among my favourites because they tell my story too. But they have never inspired me to prove something against the rest of the church, as Aitken seems to think is necessary. He has a sad view of the “quiet” church which actually includes many thoughtful, changed and deeply spiritual people, men and women of commitment and discipline, and deep love of Christ.

Aitken’s book fails the scholarship test because it reads like a polemic, a tract, an evangelical sermon. It is hopelessly repetitive. Some of it seems to be notes of the author’s own sermons or lectures on Newton and evangelicalism.

I find myself wishing the same story had been researched by some sensitive atheist or agnostic. Anyone but a militant Anglican evangelical at this time, perhaps. We might then have a really serious and objective biography of John Newton. Someone, some time, might undertake a study of the history of human biography, and of how many times a really important story has been wasted because it came to be told by the wrong person. But then, that is just the difference between biography and hagiography.