On Going to See Shakespeare

Last week we went to Sheffield to see The Winter's Tale. The Crucible Theatre has a thrust stage and we had seats close to it. It always takes me a few minutes to get used to Shakespearian language, but in this environment so near to the action we could hear everything clearly. It was a great performance: such a pity that the theatre was half-empty.

Winter's Tale is a favourite play of mine. It's one of the late dramas that are not easy to classify, as if in his maturity Shakespeare is reaching beyond straightforward categories. It starts out as a classical tragedy where, like Othello, the tragic flaw is jealousy. Leontes imagines that his old friend Polixenes is having an affair with his wife Hermione. The drama vividly depicts a man eaten up by self-absorption jealousy, his rapid disintegration bringing about the collapse of a family's whole world with the deaths of his wife and his young son.

But then comedy breaks into the hopelessness. The famous stage direction  'exit, pursued by a bear' seems to introduce a note of parody, hinting that nothing is quite what it seems. There is a clown and lots of flirtatious dancing, and all is set for a happy ending with paradise restored and broken relationships mended. But (spoiler alert) Shakespeare gets there by using a device that has puzzled critics because it seems as if it resorts to trickery. At the climax of the play Paulina brings the statue of lost Hermione back to life. It's a tease, for we don't know whether she was ever really dead or had simply been hidden away and looked after by Paulina. Anyway, in a beautiful recognition scene she and Leontes are reunited and the drama achieves its resolution.

Does the play itself 'lose its mind', disintegrating from the high art of tragedy into what at times feels close to farce? Does the comedy, following hard on the heels of so much grimness, mock what went before as if to say, don't take any of this too seriously: it's just illusion, a ceremony to mark the passage of the seasons? Perhaps it's a parody on both tragedy and comedy: the scarcely believable speed at which things go wrong at the beginning, the sudden lurch into an apparently careless comedy complete with songs, ballet and pick-pocketing slapstick and a miracle (if that's what it is) to end with and undermine belief still further.

Or is Shakespeare, far from being careless, showing his mastery of dramatic form by merging the two genres in one art-work and making what is unbelievable at one level credible at another?

Here's where I find the drama especially telling. As a theologian, I see profound resonances in The Winter's Tale of the central Christian story of the passion and resurrection of Christ.  It's not that any one figure is an image of Jesus (unless it is Paulina whose action in the drama is to bring about both judgment and redemption). It is the drama itself that feels irresistibly Christological, taking us through a passion-like experience of suffering and pain into a realm of laughter, reconciliation and dancing that suggest resurrection and the kingdom of God. So the play is a great transformation scene, leading us out of winter into spring and summer, bringing colour into the sombre monochromes with which it began. This is one way in which the movement from tragedy to comedy is not just credible but ultimately necessary. (See F Buechner,  The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale.)

Paulina says near the end: 'it is required you do awake your faith'. Which is why, when the statue comes to life (and who envies the actor who has to stand there so still for so long?), you can smile at the ludicrousness of what is happening, or else find yourself believing in it and being deeply moved. Theatre is always an act of faith for playwright, actors and above all, audience. In The Winter's Tale, we seem to be summoned into an act of faith that draws us into the life of things, into God. Either parody or gospel - or maybe both, because in an important way the gospel parodies the silliness of self-important human lives and says: look beyond this and see something that is not transient but eternal. Shakespeare is always big enough for there to be endless possibilities in the way we respond. And by keeping us guessing, he always has the last laugh.

Marvellous theatre. Why don't I go to see Shakespeare much more often?

'People are saying...': on being criticised

A few days ago a fellow priest tweeted that she was having a tough time in the parish because she was finding herself criticised and misunderstood. Which of us hasn’t been there, and not just clergy but anyone who has a public leadership role of any kind?

I can’t pretend to be an expert on how to deal with these difficult experiences (ask my wife!). However, age does bring a certain perspective which I find helps. So I thought I’d reflect on what I’m trying to learn about this. Here are eight points, offered tentatively because this is a lifelong journey in the making. 

1              Accept that criticism is a completely normal part not just of public life or parish life but life. Don’t think of it as unusual or exceptional. It’s the consequence of having views, making decisions and acting on them, being your own person and not subject to other people’s whims, fancies and directives. If you are not being criticised, take it as evidence that you are not making an impact, are subject to others’ power over you, and have not yet begun to live as an autonomous grown-up.

2              Stay in role. Try hard not to begin by taking it personally, but see if you can discover what aspect of your role is under scrutiny here. A leader is a symbol of the institution or community of which she or he is the visible representative. Symbolic people always attract unconscious projections and transferences, especially in the church which is itself a richly symbolic environment. It may be that whatever is being criticised may have more to do with what you represent than with you personally. It may have historical dimensions you are unaware of. There may be unacknowledged authority issues for your critic. Sometimes you can distance yourself and say that this genuinely has nothing to do with you personally.

3              Don’t let your natural hurt or resentment get in the way of your emotional and spiritual intelligence. Being self-aware is all-important.  Ask yourself whether the issue may have something to do with your personal style or attitude in leadership. If it does, you may still be entirely content with how you are, and how you handled whatever it was that provoked the criticism. On the other hand you may want to ask yourself if there was anything you could have said or done differently, or some way in which you could have been different in the way you exercised your ministry. That's always a good question to ask.

4              Don’t be rough with your critics. Try not to be defensive. Above all, show that you are listening carefully.  Look them in the eye. Answer with questions that will help you to clarify what is at issue. Don’t get into a heated argument if you can help it, especially if the language of right or wrong starts creeping in. Don’t raise your voice, even if you are angry. ‘A soft answer turns away wrath.’ If there is a genuine disagreement, by all means debate it, and don't apologise for having your own views even if they are unpopular. But stay in your head and don't shout.

5              Identify accurately when you need to apologise. If saying sorry is necessary, then don’t delay: say it as soon as you can. But don’t apologise for something you know in your heart you shouldn’t apologise for, even if others are exerting considerable emotional power over you. You must never sacrifice your own integrity. But when you apologise (not ‘if’ - who doesn’t have to say sorry from time to time?), resist the temptation to explain yourself. ‘I’m sorry’ is often completely disarming. ‘I’m sorry, but I need you to know why it happened’ less so.  

6              Reflect on the experience of criticism. It’s not comfortable to do, but we have a lot to learn from it, both about the dynamics of relationships and organisations, but also about ourselves and how we cope with negativity in our roles. If you got angry, notice it and ask why. If you have a supervisor or someone in an accompanying ro le towards you (maybe call them a ‘critical friend'?), take it to them for discussion. Hearing ourselves talk about bad experiences with a skilled listener can be both healing and informative.

7              Don’t indulge in feeling misunderstood or criticised. Nothing is more destructive of good leadership than harbouring grudges, especially when you are up against the same few (and it’s usually a few) who want to find fault time after time. In the psalms, the antidote to resentment is gratitude. It’s good to foster the habit of finding things to be thankful for in the workplace despite the challenges.  One day it may be possible to be grateful for what you learned through others’ criticism of you: despite what it felt like at the time, it may have given you insights you didn’t have before, and helped you to learn.

8              Finally, always cherish your integrity. It is the most important gift we bring to leadership. It’s vital that we can way when criticised that we meant it for the best and had at heart the welfare of others. When I mess up, this is what I come back to. Most people will forgive our mistakes if we acknowledge them, and they believe that our motives were altruistic and not self-serving. The psalm speaks about ‘truth in the inward parts’. It’s not that we can’t deceive ourselves (‘and the truth is not in us’), but taking seriously our human and spiritual development will help us recognise self-deception when we see it. And own up to it where we have to.

Like I said, it’s work in progress.  In leadership, in ministry, it always is.

The Students are back in Durham!

I walked into the town centre today. The streets of Durham were thronged with young people enjoying an afternoon out in the balmy October air. For the students are back at the start of another academic year in the University. This little city of ours is awakening out of a long dreamy summer ready for the bracing air of autumn and winter.

Last weekend the freshers arrived, many accompanied by bewildered-looking parents trying to navigate large cars through the narrow streets of the medieval city (on the Bailey we call it 'Volvo Sunday').  This week over 6000 of them have streamed into the Cathedral college by college for University matriculation ceremonies. It's interesting to look round the Cathedral during these occasions. Some freshers look a bit baffled by it all ('how did I come to be here?). Others put on a big and not altogether convincing show of bravado. Many have already started to hunt in packs: for security in this new kind of world, better to stick together. A few seem determined to be solitary.

This ceremony of being admitted to the register (matricula) is a big rite of passage into adulthood for those who have come straight from school. It's a chance for me to welcome them to Durham and say a little about the Cathedral and what it offers students. I always get a laugh when I talk about this medieval cathedral having a FaceBook page, whose ageing dean tweets from time to time. The president of the Student Union speaks about student life, and the Vice-Chancellor makes them feel good about having got into one of the nation's top universities.

It's slightly trying to drive or walk up and down the Bailey and Sadler Street in October: new students take a few weeks to get the hang of how pedestrians and road traffic have to befriend each other as we thread our way gingerly along. But the leisurely pace allows time for unexpected and pleasant encounters. Today I have had three long and interesting conversations on the pavement. I have been smiled at by one or two teenagers I'd not knowingly met - no doubt freshers who'd seen me in the Cathedral or, if they were from St Chad's, at the College's welcome ceremony last Sunday.

These brief encounters are among the pleasures of Durham life. On a Saturday, it's no use trying to get down to town and back in half an hour for a quick visit to M&S or Waterstones.  When you are the dean in a miniature city, a lot of locals know you by sight, including students. It's an enjoyable opportunity to mingle, bump into others (sometimes literally), open conversations, notice people. Who knows where these unlooked-for meetings and conversations may lead? Especially when, like freshers, you are new to the place?

Students bring great liveliness to our city. I see this as a gift. Sometimes there are stresses and strains between town and gown, and residents become grumpy. But I want to emphasize the benefits students bring to Durham. It's good to have them back. Here's wishing freshers the best of times at university. And a good new year to all students.

Farewell to the Lindisfarne Gospels

It's past ten o’clock on the last day of September. The doors of the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition Durham have closed for the last time. 100,000 people have passed through them in the last three months. Many have spoken about how inspired and delighted they were by what they saw. I want to pay tribute to colleagues at Durham University and here at the Cathedral who have worked so hard to make this summer such a huge success.

The Cathedral worked closely with the University on this project, and as Dean I served on the project board. We were clear that we wanted the Gospels to come back not simply to Durham but to the North East. And this is one of the great achievements of the summer. It has seen an amazing outburst of creativity right across the region with local communities entering into the spirit of the visit with great enthusiasm. There have been celebrations of the Gospels’ art and design, their place in English civilisation and in the history of the book, their symbolism for the North East’s identity and character. Was ever a book so much loved and welcomed back to its historic homeland?

Local churches have played a leading part in this celebration of our Christian heritage. At its heart, this has been an invitation to discover the gospel message in the four gospels. There have been study groups, public readings of the gospels, special acts of worship, pilgrimages to places associated with the saints of the region, lectures and talks, exhibitions and displays, temporary art, street theatre, creative play and themed entertainment.  This has stimulated adults and children not only to learn about their heritage but to read the gospels with a new awareness. The Cathedral has welcomed thousands of people to its own lively programme of events throughout the summer, culminating in an unforgettable flower festival to celebrate the Lindisfarne Gospels, the northern saints and our life together in the North East today.  A Roman Catholic newsletter spoke about how the Cathedral was rising to the challenge of using the Gospels’ visit in an evangelistic way. That pleased us because it recognised the true nature of the ‘gospel-work’ we were trying to do.

Yesterday, I went to Holy Island to preach on the last Sunday of this summer of celebration. It is always moving to walk where Cuthbert walked and pray where he prayed. To do this while the Lindisfarne Gospels were in his native Northumbria added its own richness to the experience.  I spoke, as I have done all summer, about why this celebration should matter to us, and what we have learned about the Manuscript, the Man in whose honour it was written, and the Message of the Gospel Book both then and now. 

I said that what the summer has helped us to do is to understand this great book in the setting of Saxon Christian Northumbria, and specifically, Cuthbert’s shrine. This linkage was fundamental to its meaning throughout the middle ages: it would have been unthinkable to separate the saint from his book. Severed from this environment, it acquired different linkages and has come to be read in new contexts. It’s not that these are less 'valid' than the original Cuthbert context. But the intellectual case for bringing the Gospels back to Durham was to enable us to hear them speak with their original northern accent once again.

In the south aisle of the church on Holy Island stands Fenwick Lawson’s powerful sculpture ‘The Journey’. It shows the monks of Cuthbert’s community carrying his body (and by implication the Gospels) on its 120 year journey that would end on the peninsula of Durham. I thought about the journey the Gospels had made to come to Durham and be reunited with their saint, and how it was now time for them to make the return journey back to London.  The Gospels have always travelled; now they are setting off on yet another valedictory journey. We all hope they carry a return ticket.

On Palace Green tonight, I talked to one of the security guards who had done duty outside the library during these three months. He told me how much it had meant to him to be doing his bit to care for this precious book, how sad he would be to see it go.  Like Cuthbert, the Lindisfarne Gospels touch ordinary lives in ways that are both moving and inspiring.  They have certainly touched mine. 

Lindisfarne Gospels: the Young Person's Guide

Superlative alert…

It’s been marvellous to have the Lindisfarne Gospels in their ancient home of Durham this summer. Around 90000 visitors have been to admire it, and acclaim for the exhibition itself has been matched by enthusiasm for a huge variety of events being held up and down the North East during the book’s residency.  Among them was a spectacular flower festival in the Cathedral, Jewels of the North that celebrated not only the Book and our northern saints but also the life of the region today.

But nothing will have moved me more than the performance I attended in the Cathedral last night. It was called The Young Person’s Guide to the Lindisfarne Gospels. A large cast of children, teenagers and young adults aged from about 3 to 21 gave everything they had to this utterly brilliant interpretation of the Lindisfarne story. There were colour and light, speech and drama, rhythm and dance, ventriloquism and puppetry in an entirely convincing alchemy of fact and fiction, fantasy and pantomime, wit and parody. It was an unashamedly Christian ‘take’ on the Gospels with no attempt to airbrush out their religious significance as if the book were 'no more' than a landmark in cultural history and great art. 

There were many highlights (including the 3-year old in the front row who kept waving endearingly to his family in the nave). Eadfrith explaining to his monks why he was writing his Book, the Viking senior management team launching their campaign, and the Four Gospels Blues with clever montages imitating the evangelists’ portraits in the Lindisfarne Gospels were unforgettable. The commitment of all involved was one hundred per cent. It's clear that the Gospels had vividly taken hold of these youngsters' imagination.

I always find it moving to see young people achieve. We are fortunate to enjoy this every day in the Cathedral as we listen to our choristers sing evensong.  But the cast of Young Person’s Guide were not like most choristers, except for their talent.  The organisation putting on this performance, ‘Enter’, is a Community Interest Company (CIC) works with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to promote personal and social development through the creative arts. 

I learned a bit about the backgrounds of some of these children. You would think there was little hope for them. Yet parents and children tell powerful stories about Enter's impact. For some, the performing arts have brought about a real transformation of their lives keeping them off the streets, giving them confidence and a lot of fun, enlarging their imagination, and imparting life-skills that will serve them in adulthood. It forges them into a community, gives them something to belong to and helps foster life-giving relationships.  I would not have believed what these youngsters were capable of if I had not seen it for myself. It takes inspirational leadership to bring it off, and parents pay tribute on the website to Enter's staff and how they are touching young lives.

I couldn’t help thinking how all this was a metaphor of how the church should be a place of inspiration and transformative life. It was abundantly clear that these youngsters loved what they were doing. It was as if they had given their lives to it. Isn’t this how Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God as a glorious rainbow party that creates a wholly new way of looking at life?

This morning, as I presided at the eucharist in the Cathedral, I thought about the previous evening. The exuberance of that evening had been replaced by the solemn dignity of cathedral liturgy – yet somehow the vibrations had not quite died away. The music of Stanford is not exactly Elvis or the blues. But once again, children were excelling themselves through their singing, and the joy on the faces of the young family who had brought their child for baptism spoke of the same life-changing power of great performance – for isn’t the divine liturgy the greatest drama there is? - and the glimpse it gives us of a world made new.  

Visit Enter’s website at www.entercic.org.

North East England: desolate and void?

We’ve all done it: got on our feet, opened our mouth, heard the words come tumbling out and wished the ground would open and swallow us up. I don’t suppose Lord Howell meant to disparage the North East in his now infamous remark about fracking, though that seems to have been the effect. ‘There are large and uninhabited and desolate areas. Certainly in part [sic] of the North East where there’s plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody’s residence where we could conduct without any kind of threat to the rural environment.’

But as psychoanalysts are fond of reminding us, you may not say what you mean, but you always mean what you say. In an unguarded moment, a whole set of attitudes towards the North East is laid bare. It shows how, in the southern mentality, the ‘idea of north’ is of a remote, strange and essentially alien place, a liminal borderland between what we know and feel at home in, and what we don’t know and are subliminally nervous or even afraid of.

The trouble is that it is a very confused perception. There is certainly ‘desolation’, but it is found not in the remote country but in deprived urban areas that are the opposite of uninhabited: densely populated environments where people feel forgotten and abandoned by a those in power who are supposed to care for the weak and voiceless. By contrast, the remote fastnesses are in no way the 'desolate' degraded places that no-one cares about and which are therefore available for exploitation. Far from it. For it is precisely these landscapes that constitute the North East’s wonderful treasury of national parks, heritage coasts, areas of outstanding natural beauty, historic buildings and a great deal more.

But we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the idea of desolation. The Idea of North is the title of a brilliant book by Peter Davidson. Its elusive discipline of topographics links geography, culture, landscape, literature, art, social anthropology and the history of ideas. And it turns out that this Howellian southern fantasy about the north is in fact close to a widespread ‘myth’ that is found across many different cultures in which ‘north’ with its connotations of remoteness, darkness and cold is an eloquent symbol of what is alien, chaotic and threatening. ‘Here be dragons.’

Some make friends with it and embrace it. For example, W. H. Auden, a midlander, fell in love with the North Pennines as a boy. He was haunted by the wild astringent fell country with its untamed climate and the ghosts of its long-dead industries of fluorspar and lead mining. He would have said that the toughness and desolation of ‘north’ was precisely what pulled him irreversibly into its gravitational field,  'the solace of fierce landscapes'. He found his poetic voice in County Durham, at Rookhope in Upper Weardale where, idly dropping a pebble down a disused mine-shaft, he had a flash of recognition about ‘self and non-self’ and with his new-found awareness began to write. Would he have become a great poet without the North?

As a Londoner, I can echo Auden’s love for a part of England that is not only ‘North’ but is also ‘Not-South’. I wrote Landscapes of Faith: the Christian heritage of the North East as a tribute. But as I said in the book, we must be careful not to romanticise either the landscape or the people and communities who have been shaped by it. It’s important that we speak accurately about the North East and not be seduced by easy cliché. It’s interesting that much of today’s response to Lord Howell has been to cite the canon of Northumbrian beautiful views rather than probe more deeply into what lies under the skin of the North East. The opposite of desolation may not always be consolation. With its complex history shaped by power and conflict, wealth and poverty, privilege and servitude, faith and politics, industry and its decline, there are more ambivalent readings of the region, and these too are aspects of its character.

I don’t know if Lord Howell in some obscure way has intuited this.  Possibly not.  But it is how we as North-Easterners react to this unexpected opportunity to put ourselves on the map that perhaps tells its own important truth about this region and those of us for whom it is our much-loved home. 

On Hearing Wagner at the Proms

This 200^th anniversary year of Richard Wagner’s birth has been a great celebration for his admirers. I had better admit that I am one of them. I write this having just listened to a marvellous performance of Götterdämmerung from the Proms. For me, the greatness of Wagner is not so much the theatre as the music. The luminous orchestration, the seamless marriage of instruments and voices, the use of distinctive musical themes or leitmotifs that act as musical and emotional signposts – all this adds up to an incomparable experience.

Someone once told me off when I was an undergraduate for listening too much (as he thought) to the Ring and trying to play parts of it on the piano. ‘It’s like a drug’ he said: ‘before you know it, you’re on a high and risk taking leave of your senses.  Look at Ludwig the Second who was seduced by Wagner’s music and went mad as a result. It’s what led to Hitler (a notorious admirer) and the death camps. Stick to Bach and Beethoven. At the very least, try to have an uneasy conscience about it’   

I’ve blogged on this site about my semitic background, and have paid tribute to my German-Jewish grandmother who was one of the most important influences of my life. Before the Third Reich, her family of assimilated Jews loved opera, especially Wagner. And even after she had survived the holocaust and made her home in England, she could never quite get it out of her system though I think she tried. When I was old enough, she asked me to play for her the ravishing Quintet from the last act of Meistersinger. Then it had to be the Prize Song, and then the Prelude. This gave me the permission I needed.

At theological college, one of my lecturers (Dr Jim Packer) asked if I would like to listen through the Ring cycle with him, one act every afternoon on the 24 (or so - I've forgotten how many it was) LPs of the legendary 1954 Fürtwängler version. (You have to have a lot of time for Wagner.) After each act, there was tea and then an hour’s conversation (more a tutorial) about the significance of Wagner and the Ring. JIP loved the cycle because, he told me, it was a profound myth of redemption. Its central theme was salvation through suffering: sacrifice offered so that the era of the corrupt gods could be ended and a new humanity be born. What could be more Christian than that? he insisted. Coming as it did from a highly conservative evangelical theologian, this was a remarkable insight for me as a raw young biblicist student barely out of his teens. I don’t think JIP ever wrote it up, but I have never forgotten it.

Rossini once said unkindly that Wagner had good moments but bad half hours. He is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially not, perhaps, those who are just as enthusiastically  marking this year’s other bicentenary, the birth of Verdi or the centenary of Britten's birth. I can only say what his music does for me. And that is, to touch me in places few other composers can reach.

I once went to a performance of my favourite of all Wagner’s music dramas, Tristan and Isolde. My wife bought me a ticket for the front stalls as a birthday present but didn’t come with me because, she said, she doubted if she would stay awake. It was staged in a self-conscious symbolist way that for me lost the naturalness of this profound story of human passion. So I decided to close my eyes and listen, lose myself in the waves of sublime music rising up from the orchestra pit a few feet in front of me, and imagine the 
drama in my own way. It was one of those experiences I knew I would never forget.

Should I as a Jewish-Christian man have an uneasy conscience about something that has touched me so deeply? To love the music is not to endorse the notorious self-serving egotism the composer was famous for, let alone the anti-semitism he purveyed. But the Jewish Daniel Barenboim, conductor of the Proms Ring, has had to negotiate this issue for himself. That he could give us such a rapturous series of performances speaks for itself. At the end of tonight’s Götterdämmerung it was several seconds before anyone could bear to break the long pregnant silence that followed the final cadence.  It was truly spellbinding. (Listen to the last 20 minutes on the BBC Radio 3 iPlayer and judge for yourself.)

Like Caiaphas in St John’s Gospel, I think that Wagner’s music-dramas speak beyond anything the composer himself could know. Their universal vision gives the clue as to how our broken humanity can be put back together again.  Wagner spoke about the ‘music of the future’. It is – not just because it was artistically ground-breaking, but because of the range of its perspective and embrace. Like all great art, it speaks into our contemporary lives and dilemmas. It recognises who and what we are.

But for now, as the continuity announcer gently reminded us after the broadcast, ordinary life goes on. Tomorrow it will be Monday morning.