Seasons of Durham Life: March

March in Durham means two things above everything else: Lent, and St Cuthbert.

I wrote about Lent in February. This year, Easter falls in early April, the Goldilocks period that is not too early and not too late. Which means that all of March is Lent. And although the spring equinox has come, and with it a paschal new moon to eclipse the sun, it is still wintry. High pressure has brought sullen gunmetal skies and keen winds from the north and east to chill to the bone. Late snowdrops and crocuses hang on, mingling with courageous daffodils. Spring comes late in North East England.

Towards the end of March Lent is feeling long. Those high aspirations with which we began this journey on Ash Wednesday now feel like hard work. The Chapter has its annual budgets to approve, always a demanding process that falls appropriately in Lent. People are longing for sunshine and warmth. We are ready for a break before we go into the toughest part of this pilgrimage, Holy Week itself. Mid-Lent, Mothering Sunday, is known as Refreshment Sunday. But here in Durham, we do more than enjoy some gentle mid-Lent relaxation. For it’s St Cuthbert’s Day on 20 March. And that means one of the highest and holiest festivals in the entire year.

Whatever the date of Easter, St Cuthbert’s Day is always in Lent. Because of this, the Church of England wanted to move the festival to Cuthbert’s other day, 4 September, the anniversary of the dedication of his shrine in Durham Cathedral. But North East people were not having this. Cuthbert died, Bede explicitly says, on 20 March and this is when we should celebrate him. So we do, with enthusiasm and élan. There are even alleluias at the big services (the service sheet explains to the shocked why we allow ourselves to use the forbidden a-word in Lent). We say a Te Deum and sing the Gloria and other joyful music and big hymns like ‘For all the saints’ that lift the spirits.

Cuthbert’s shrine behind the high altar is the spiritual and emotional heart of the Cathedral. People came there in vast numbers in the middle ages to ask for his healing and his prayers. Today, pilgrims still come to find inspiration in his life of holiness, devotion and gospel simplicity. To the people of the North East, he has been a companion and fellow-traveller since the seventh century. So at the eucharist on the eve of his day, and at evensong on the day itself, we go in a long procession to the shrine and remind ourselves of his importance by listening to what Bede tells us about a life that was so extraordinary and so beautiful as to be remembered by all subsequent generations. 

The monks of Durham saw themselves as the guardians of his memory, the living successors of those who bore his body across the north of England to Chester Le-Street, Ripon and finally Durham’s rocky peninsula. This is still how we see ourselves today at the Cathedral. Which is why, ten years ago, we boldly reversed a sacrilegious act of Henry VIII in the 1540s and put Cuthbert’s name back into the legal title of the Cathedral. It’s why the Lindisfarne Gospels, written in his honour shortly after his death, are treasured in this place where they belonged for so many centuries.

Cuthbertstide isn’t simply a time for great liturgy. There is a range of other activities on offer: a market of local produce in the cloister, children’s story-telling based on the Saxon saints, ‘show and tell’ presentations on the Lindisfarne Gospels (using the facsimile presented to us in 2003), and demonstrations by stone-masons in the cloister garth. Visitors (and there are many) can enjoy Cuthbert’s Slice with their coffee or tea in the restaurant. Young people have constructed a model Cuthbert shrine to go into our great LEGO Cathedral. 

And there is a little spectacle to take part in. Each year, the Northumbrian Association organises a St Cuthbert’s pilgrimage from Chester Le Street to the Cathedral, retracing the steps of the Saxon community upstream along the River Wear as they brought his body here in 995. Led by pipe and drum and the St Cuthbert Banner, we end the journey in Cuthbert’s shrine where there are prayers and readings. It affirms this Cathedral’s rootedness in this evocative part of England.

This time of year holds special meaning for me because I was installed as Dean of Durham on St Cuthbert’s Day 2003. That year March was warm and still and springlike, not like 2015. Sadly, this year’s will have been my last because this is the month I have announced my retirement later this year. But that's another story I've written about already. 

Meanwhile, in Durham, this wonderful festival is over for another year. It is time for the Cathedral to return to its Lenten simplicity. Lent is very Cuthbert-like. If only we could imitate him more successfully in this complex world in which we live. Which means imitating Cuthbert's Lord whom he loved so fiercely and followed so faithfully. Holy Week will show us how. 

Seasons of Durham Life: February

It's March, and I haven't yet written the February blog. 

February is the shortest month, but pace T. S. Eliot, I've always felt it to be the cruellest. (He believed it was April, which is to disparage the month of my birth.) It is Lent, and althought the old English word means 'spring', up here in North East England it is still definitely winter. And cold. Not the fierce iciness you sometimes get at this time of year, just that relentless damp chill that creeps up from the river banks and clings to the peninsula. Maybe I am just feeling my age. 

However, the snowdrops have been spectacular this year, carpeting the precincts and river banks in a delicate white. Now, aconites and crocuses are bringing back the colour we have missed for so long. The sun is rising higher in the sky and the days are longer again, even if its rays have yet to regain their warmth. When we reach the end of evensong, it is still daytime. 

The month begins with a burst of celebration and colour. On the 2nd we keep the joyful feast of the Presentation of Christ. It commemorates Joseph and Mary bringing their infant Jesus to the temple to be blessed. The story tells how aged Simeon took the baby in his arms and spoke of him as a light for the nations. Hence the traditional English name of Candlemas. At the service, the Cathedral is lit by two thousand candles (tea-lights if I am honest). It's an extraordinarily beautiful sight - even if it's quite a job for the vergers. You see the building illuminated as its builders always intended, its magnificent vaults, arcades and piers lit from below. It's a luminous experience, literally and spiritually. 

Not many days later it is Lent. You couldn't have a starker contrast than that of Candlemas and Ash Wednesday. This solemn day is our Christian equivalent of the Jewish Day of Atonement: a time to reflect on our sin and wrongdoing, our falling short of what God wants us to be and what we know we could be. The Cathedral is stripped of decoration: the hangings and vestments are of plain sackcloth-white, the flowers are gone until Easter, the music is understated and we don't say alleluia.  At the Ash Wednesday service the choir sings the haunting Miserere of Allegri, Psalm 51, that outpouring of guilt and shame that the psalmist feels might be beyond forgiveness and healing. We try to pare things down to their essentials and ask ourselves: what is human life? What is discipleship? What ultimately matters as we walk with Jesus as his followers and friends? 

We read about the age-old disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in Jesus' teaching at the Ash Wednesday eucharist. We receive the ashes on our foreheads as we hear the portentous words that speak of our mortality: 'remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.' But we don't take our eye off the goal of it all. For that is Easter, the very centre of our faith, so we give these six precious weeks of Lent to prepare to celebrate it. 40 days. Not counting the Sundays of course, because every Sunday is the Christian memorial of the resurrection. And Lent, while it is a solemn time, should never be joyless or grim. A good Lent is a cheerful Lent. There is simplicity, but there is also joy. As George Herbert puts it in a memorable paradox, 'Welcome, dear feast of Lent!'  

So Lent will see winter give way to spring. At last. Not just the cold and the wind, the sleet and the rain, but the wintriness in our souls. R. S. Thomas has a poem that talks about the frost and rime that encrust our hearts. The liturgy and the personal discipline we adopt for Lent help us face this fact of life. They hold out the promise of transformation to come, a springtime of renewal and resurrection. 

Here's how I put it in a Lent poem I wrote some years ago. 

Lent is no fast time, but a hard long prising

Out, from winter’s fist, of spring’s gestation;

A slow, waiting season, new life’s birthing,

Atonement’s womb, Easter’s incubation.

It is year’s shaping, scaffolding under skin,

Bones bearing body, strong and spare;

Like earth’s ancient rocks, world’s silent discipline

Exposed when spirit’s topsoil is scraped bare.

Lent’s lengthening light, concentrated and clear,

Lean as plainsong, sharp as east-wind’s keenness,

Shrives air astringently, calling passion near

To wash the ashen soul in fat white cleanness.

No hasty passing over old world’s loss –

Lent’s unrelenting climb toward the cross.

Even in February the sap is rising. 

Ash Wednesday, the Bishops and the Election

It's tempting to conclude that when the Daily Mail and the Sun scream at you, you've probably done something right. At least, you've been noticed. That can't be a bad thing.

But it's Ash Wednesday. We should give up cheap jibes for Lent. The House of Bishops has issued a Pastoral Letter. It's what bishops do. But you have to wonder whether the fierce reaction from some parts of the media comes from people who have bothered to read even a few lines of it. Sad to say, the voice of sweet reason is already being drowned by shouts of outrage and foul play.

What has motivated the letter? The Bishops write: 'the church has an obligation to engage constructively with the political process, and Christians share responsibility with all citizens to participate in the democratic structures of our nation. We offer these reflections because we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ is enormously relevant to the questions which the coming Election will throw into sharp relief'. 

Straight away I am struck by the tone. It is not strident or hectoring: here is a contribution to a debate that is offered. The letter is part of a conversation, not its conclusion. Throughout, the register is: we want to listen, to participate in the public business of helping to frame minds and hearts before an election. We hope that in turn you will want to hear what we have to suggest. They could have added 'in all humility' because there is something genuinely modest about the way this piece is drafted. 

I want to use the word formation to describe the tenor of the letter. It is not, as the Bishops are at pains to remind us, a shopping list of approved policies. Rather, it's an attempt to shape the minds of the electorate so that at the very least, the challenges facing us can be accurately identified and the terms of a real conversation agreed. 'Decent answers to the questions facing the nation will only emerge when politicians start to promote a dialogue with the people about a worthwhile society, how individuals, communities and the nation relate to each other, and [about] the potentials and limitations of politics in achieving such ends.'

What does a Christian mind bring to the debate about the future of our nation? The first thing is the belief that it matters to God, and must therefore matter to us. G. K. Chesterton famously said that the problem with British elections was not that only a small part of the electorate voted, but that only a small part of the elector voted: so little was the lack of conviction about politics and public faith. The Bishops want us to cast our vote, not in a routine, token way, but by giving the whole of ourselves to this privileged task of decision-taking in a free democracy. 

Formation in citizenship will motivate us to think and talk about 'a worthwhile society and what it means to serve the common good, and how politics helps serve that end'. The Bishops are not dreaming of the unattainable ideal of Athenian democracy under Pericles. They do however dare to hope that we can shed our cynicism and start believing in politics, politicians and political processes again. 'This letter is about building a vision of a better kind of world, a better society and better politics. Underlying those ideas is the concept of virtue – what it means to be a good person, a good politician, a good neighbour or a good community.' That's a good example of how the letter is motivated by a spiritual concern for citizenship, inspired by the theological ideas of justice and compassion in pursuit of the common good.

Are we a 'society of strangers', or are we a 'community of communities it asks? And here's the bit the hawkish press don't like. 'There is a deep contradiction in the attitudes of a society which celebrates equality in principle yet treats some people, especially the poor and vulnerable, as unwanted, unvalued and unnoticed. It is particularly counter-productive to denigrate those who are in need, because this undermines the wider social instinct to support one another in the community. For instance, when those who rely on social security payments are all described in terms that imply they are undeserving, dependent, and ought to be self-sufficient, it deters others from offering the informal, neighbourly support which could ease some of the burden of welfare on the state.' If you examine the context, you'll see that this is not, however, left wing rhetoric, but is based on the vision of David Cameron's 'big society'. What has happened to that noble idea, the Bishops ask, that 'richer narrative of the person-in-community' as they put it? 

The letter suggests that 'virtues are nourished, not by atomised individualism, but in strong communities which relate honestly and respectfully to other groups and communities which make up this nation'. And what is true of the nation in itself is also true of its relationships within the wider world. ' Our politicians have been reluctant to talk openly with the electorate about Britain’s relationships around the world, the realignments of global power, a realistic role in securing a stable and peaceful world order and the tools we would need for the job. In short, we should reflect more deeply on Britain’s role in generating an international community of communities.' 

Part of this is maintaining the UK's current commitment to allocating 0.7% of GDP to overseas aid. 'For any party to abandon or reduce this commitment would be globally irresponsible in pragmatic terms as well as indicating that the moral imperatives of mutuality and reconciliation counted for nothing.' But it has to do with being an active player on the global stage. The Scottish Referendum and its aftermath are an object lesson in taking great care in this area and not succumbing to the quick fix. And although the Bishops don't commit to a view about Britain's role within the European Union, they do underline our 'belonging' to this continent, a clear message to those who would dismantle our historic and cultural links too hastily.

This blog can only hint at the insight and good political sense that the House of Bishops' letter demonstrates. They have read with accuracy the state we're in. I can't recall a document from that source that was so intelligently written and that spoke with a fairer voice. Whoever drafted it should be congratulated. Sometimes, when I read what comes out of 'the centre' I want to protest: 'not altogether in my name'  Not this time. I believe it speaks for all Christians, indeed, all fair-minded citizens of our country, whatever their political views, in setting out the matters that ought to concern us in the run-up to the election. So I urge you to read it for yourself. Share it with others; make it the theme of a Lenten study group. 

The letter ends where it began, with St Paul in his letter to the Philippians, words that may 'help to defend us against the temptations of apathy, cynicism and blame, and instead seek – because we are disciples of Jesus Christ who long for a more humane society – a better politics for a better nation. Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.'  Amen to that, I say. What better way to launch this season of Lent with its invitation to reflect more deeply, seek truth, practise charity, deepen the ties that bind us together, and learn to be God's people once again?

You can find the Bishops' Pastoral Letter at: 

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2170230/whoismyneighbour-pages.pdf

 

Lent in Black and White

My last blog was about hearing. This one is about seeing. 

What are you giving up for Lent? someone asks. Colour photography I reply, not wishing to be drawn further. An answer fit for Pseuds’ Corner. But I’m serious. Let me say why.

The point of Lent is to go back to first principles, try to live more simply, practise discipline (askesis, whence ‘asceticism’, meaning simply ‘training’). This isn’t an end in itself: it’s in order to prepare for Easter, the heart of the Christian year. So I asked myself: given my love of photography, could there be a way of keeping Lent through the way I use my camera?

One way would be to give it up altogether. That’s worth serious thought: photography takes time, and one of the gifts of Lent can be to create space for other things, especially God. Another would be to focus on a specific theme as a way into thought, meditation and prayer. That would require imagination, but I imagination is needed to keep Lent creatively.

What I decided to do was to turn off the camera’s colour function and work only in black and white. I do quite a lot of monochrome already, but this has always been by processing colour images. To set the camera to black and white exclusively, and not to photograph in colour at all has felt like a real shift in approach. And I have to say that with the advent of bright March days when landscapes are filling up with the fresh clean colours of spring, it has felt like quite a sacrifice.

However, there have been real rewards. As I often say about photography, it’s to do with seeing in new ways, not just looking at the surface of what is there but ‘seeing into the life of things’ as Wordsworth put it. The camera’s lens and viewfinder are already disciplining our way of seeing by making a choice of what to focus on and putting a frame round it. That involves renunciation – think of all the things we’re not photographing!  Using the medium of black and white is a further refinement of that discipline. And when you get used to ‘seeing’ reality as monochrome, it makes you compose images in new ways. So if Lent is about seeing life differently, photography can be a good metaphor of it.

I prefer the term greyscale to black-and-white because it recognises the infinite subtlety of the medium. Greyscale photography is different from colour because it simplifies the image. Colour is a gift, when it forms part of the photographer’s intention, but it can also be a distraction. Too much of it, or too much variety, or colour that draws too much attention to itself confuses the image and make it less clear what it is supposed to be for.

Greyscale, by concentrating on structure and form, texture, lighting and contrast can bring out patterns and meanings in an image. It can sometimes communicate more directly. Before the invention of the colour photograph, this was understood intuitively: it’s possible that mass photography in that era produced better results than nowadays because there were fewer choices to make And of course in the days of film, it wasn’t possible to take hundreds of snapshots ‘just in case’ as we tend to do in this digital age. Digital is powerful, but it does breed photographic promiscuity.

There may be an unspoken elitism about black and white photography because of its retro aspect: it fits directly into the classical tradition of the documentary image from its 19th century beginnings. I do not want to pander to elitism, because I believe photography is the most democratic of all art forms. I simply want to train my eyes and imagination to see differently, and to discover how the chiaroscuro world of greyscale is just as wonderful and haunting a place as the colourful cosmos we live in. The light and shadows of black and white can be particularly attuned to life’s beauty and tragedy. It is capable of interpreting them with startling clarity. It can cleanse and purify our vision by simplifying it. And because simplicity and Lent belong together, it could be a fertile way of entering into the richness of this season.

I’ve tweeted some early fruits of my mono Lent; and have also written more about photography on my other blog at deanstalks.blogspot.

Birth and Death In Lent

Jenny and I are like Simeon and Anna in the temple, getting old while we wait for a child to turn up. Not that we are quite ready to say Nunc Dimittis just yet. The child in question is our daughter’s first baby, and our first grandchild. I blogged when we first heard that a birth was on the way. He or she (the parents have opted not to be told which) was due on Shrove Tuesday, so was inevitably nicknamed Pancake. Now it is ten days into Lent, and still there is no nativity. We are learning a lot about waiting.

Meanwhile, a friend and his family have also been waiting in these early days of Lent.  For them, it was the last illness of his mother; the waiting was quite simply for her to slip away peacefully, as they hoped her death would be. We talked about these different kinds of waiting, one of us for a birth and the other for a death. Like T. S. Eliot in The Journey of the Magi, we had seen birth and death and thought they were different.

 

But perhaps they aren’t.  When we keep vigil by a loved human being going through one of life’s sacred passages, when we wait for a birth or a death to come, we realise how similar they are, to people of faith at any rate. We are born, we die, we are re-born in some new and unimagined way. Both usually involve waiting and pangs, and generous helpings of patience, endurance and hope. There is often not much else that we can do than be present to what is happening and to those who wait with us: we must allow things to take the time they take.  

This theme of how we spend time has a Lenten aspect to it. This Lent, a Durham idea about trying to live in a way that is less busy has captured the imagination of a surprising number of people. It was stimulated by Stephen Cherry’s recent book Beyond Busyness. There is a website with resources: www.notbusy.co.uk, and even a red wristband to wear as notbusy people. The Twitter hashtag #NOTBUSY is being well used. All this is to open up space in our lives so that we pay more attention to God and to one another; perhaps, in the words of a slogan we coined in my Coventry days, ‘do less well’ (read those words several times putting the accent on different words).

I’ve found in the first two weeks of Lent that waiting for our grandchild has instilled a keener sense of wanting to be less busy so that I can concentrate on this great event that is about to happen, be present to the experience of anticipated delight and joy.  Of course, everyday life doesn’t stop when someone is born or dies, though it can feel like it – ‘stop all the clocks’ said Auden in a brilliantly observed line of poetry.  For time does change in the way we experience it, which is why we find it astonishing that the world goes on as if nothing has happened to us. 

This different and more sacramental quality is what I am trying to notice.  I want to try and embrace what we might call ‘God’s time’ with its gift of a deeper experience of being alive. And I want to allow this glimpse to make some difference to my ordinary days.  Lent with its intertwining of mortality, springtime, renewal and resurrection hope is an exquisitely rich season. So, waiting and preparing for Easter, and waiting and preparing for a birth or a death, belong together. Lent gathers up so much of life, its shadows and its light and everything in between.

And if ‘death is swallowed up in victory’, then birth too is an act of defiance against all that is deathly and deadly in our world. A birth brings not just delight but hope for the human race: life begins again. The old English word ‘Lent’ means spring. Soon the green blade rises.  

For my recent sermon on not being busy in Lent, see my blog of sermons and addresses at 

deanstalks.blogspot.com.