When I knocked on the door of the house attached to St Matthew's Church in Westminster to see Canon Precentor Jeremy Davies, Father Peter opened the door! Upon hearing I had a meeting with Jeremy Davies, Father Peter showed me up to what is clearly his family's lovely sitting room and invited me to wait. The dog was frisking and people were running around - it clearly is Grand Central for the Church by its side.
Jeremy Davies is the Canon Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral and is responsible for the music and worship at the Cathedral. He is a deeply thoughtful man who makes every effort to speak from his heart and is guided and driven by his profound Christian beliefs. As a gay Anglican priest he has struggled with the concepts of virtue and goodness in a Christian context and has come to an understanding that virtue is more than doing good deeds, although eventually it does come to be goodness. Virtue, for him, is the set of actions we take and attitudes we adopt when we strive for perfection, as God asks us to do. As such, it is both a deeply spiritual concept and a set of practical actions that benefit others and serve God. Jeremy has struggled with this for a long time and has come to be comfortable with his understanding of it because he is open to the grace of the virtuous "Other" which holds, supports, loves and guides him for who he is. When behaving in a virtuous way, or seeing virtuous behaviour, Jeremy feels his humanity is being affirmed. He feels alive and loved. He feels joy.
He is quick to add that virtuous behaviour is practised all the time by people with no sense of the "other". You don't need to be a Christian to be a good, virtuous person (in fact it can be quite limiting). This is because a shared understanding of virtuous behaviour has become embedded in our culture and as such is well understood and recognised by most people. If you are in a society/community with a clear structure and shared behavioural norms, there is a general expectation of how to behave - you don't have to think about it because it just is. Currently, however, he senses that there is a yearning "out there." People are becoming intrigued by altruism and they are looking for heroes. However, he sees there is also a great deal of fear and insecurity that lead people to hide their vulnerabilities, stop learning, and ultimately may lead to their corruption and their corrupting of others.
People in institutions (schools, churches, companies, families...) must play a role to guide and support members, setting expecations and role modelling behaviours through the example of their own flawed selves. Virtue is "caught as much as taught".
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries, please see an earlier post: Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
General information: http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/news.php?id=291
Jeremy used our virtue conversation as a basis for one of his sermons: http://tinyurl.com/n78dbb
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Mystery
God and I
have an understanding.
He is comfortable with it
which should be good enough for me.
That's God for you.
have an understanding.
He is comfortable with it
which should be good enough for me.
That's God for you.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Summary of the interview with Father Nadim Nassar
Father Nadim is an Anglican priest, journalist, and director and co-founder of the Awareness Foundation, which "was established to help Christians make sense of their faith in the 21st Century, and to increase awareness of their neighbours' faiths and cultures, so that they can live in a diverse society without fear and without compromising their beliefs" (Awareness Foundation website). He welcomed me warmly into the Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square before accompanying me to the Sloane Club where he was made a member by the generous grace of the club, there being no church hall at Holy Trinity Sloane Square. It was a delightful place to have a cup of coffee and talk at length with Father Nadim about being a Syrian christian, the Awareness Foundation, and of course, virtue.
The definition of virtue, as found in a dictonary, is not adequate for Father Nadim. For him, virtue is found in all positive and fruitful relationships. He chooses his words carefully and is thoughtful about how he expresses this view, taking time to emphasise that of course relationships are difficult, of course people make mistakes and of course we do not always behave virutuously. However, in seeking to build contructive relationships and working to make them so, virtue will be found. It is the tension between the postive and the negative, the cross and the resurrection, that is the essence of virtue for him.
For Father Nadim, virtue is exciting and dynamic. It includes the whole spectrum of human behaviours and because it includes the recovery from sin, it must perforce include sin. Virtue, as defined in this way, makes Father Nadim feel alive and aware of his humanity, his vulnerabilities and his strengths. Indeed, he maintains that in order truly to live a virtuous life - one that seeks and maintains positive, progressive relationships - requires the ability to be vulnerable (and thus open to being loved) as well as to be responsible (and thus able to love). It is only when we are aware of the true nature of our longings that we will seek and maintain virtuous relationships as opposed to trying to shop our way out of them, for example! The catalyst for this change in behaviour, if it is needed, is usually some kind of loss. The cure does require faith in the fact that our longings will be relieved through progressive relationships.
To embed virtue in our society, Father Nadim suggests we should encourage people to ask themselves three questions "Do I love anybody? Whom do I love? How can I express this love for them and how can I expand this love to cover a wider circle of people of people in my life and keep expanding it all the time?" He knows that asking these questions is easy but that answering them and acting on the answers may be extremely difficult for some people.
However, we have to start somewhere and being loved and loving are, for Father Nadim, the obvious places to start.
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries, please see an earlier post:
Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
http://www.awareness-foundation.com/
The definition of virtue, as found in a dictonary, is not adequate for Father Nadim. For him, virtue is found in all positive and fruitful relationships. He chooses his words carefully and is thoughtful about how he expresses this view, taking time to emphasise that of course relationships are difficult, of course people make mistakes and of course we do not always behave virutuously. However, in seeking to build contructive relationships and working to make them so, virtue will be found. It is the tension between the postive and the negative, the cross and the resurrection, that is the essence of virtue for him.
For Father Nadim, virtue is exciting and dynamic. It includes the whole spectrum of human behaviours and because it includes the recovery from sin, it must perforce include sin. Virtue, as defined in this way, makes Father Nadim feel alive and aware of his humanity, his vulnerabilities and his strengths. Indeed, he maintains that in order truly to live a virtuous life - one that seeks and maintains positive, progressive relationships - requires the ability to be vulnerable (and thus open to being loved) as well as to be responsible (and thus able to love). It is only when we are aware of the true nature of our longings that we will seek and maintain virtuous relationships as opposed to trying to shop our way out of them, for example! The catalyst for this change in behaviour, if it is needed, is usually some kind of loss. The cure does require faith in the fact that our longings will be relieved through progressive relationships.
To embed virtue in our society, Father Nadim suggests we should encourage people to ask themselves three questions "Do I love anybody? Whom do I love? How can I express this love for them and how can I expand this love to cover a wider circle of people of people in my life and keep expanding it all the time?" He knows that asking these questions is easy but that answering them and acting on the answers may be extremely difficult for some people.
However, we have to start somewhere and being loved and loving are, for Father Nadim, the obvious places to start.
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries, please see an earlier post:
Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
http://www.awareness-foundation.com/
Saturday, June 13, 2009
In the Transition
Speeches by a president garbed in white
flanked by his brothers
to the left and the right.
Posters, pictures, banners, bunting
fire crackers crack and
the government is hunting.
The press is called
and a minister cries,
"you are a peddler of filthy lies.
We won the war
all fair and square
you saw it all, our press were there.
They lost the war
all right and tight
those terrorists ran out of fight.
Now they’re in camps
and you can’t go
until we sort out friend from foe.”
People speak in whispers.
The sound of fighter jets
is so loud I duck and cover
even if I shout
I cannot be heard.
Young men and women point
machine guns indiscriminately
as they know from experience
that anybody can be an assassin.
Walls studded with shards of broken glass
are crowned with barbed wire
and shod with sandbags
to protect buildings we cannot see.
People speak in whispers.
Emotions, like taste buds,
burned at the end of my tongue.
Like nerve endings,
they ran over my skin.
flanked by his brothers
to the left and the right.
Posters, pictures, banners, bunting
fire crackers crack and
the government is hunting.
The press is called
and a minister cries,
"you are a peddler of filthy lies.
We won the war
all fair and square
you saw it all, our press were there.
They lost the war
all right and tight
those terrorists ran out of fight.
Now they’re in camps
and you can’t go
until we sort out friend from foe.”
People speak in whispers.
The sound of fighter jets
is so loud I duck and cover
even if I shout
I cannot be heard.
Young men and women point
machine guns indiscriminately
as they know from experience
that anybody can be an assassin.
Walls studded with shards of broken glass
are crowned with barbed wire
and shod with sandbags
to protect buildings we cannot see.
People speak in whispers.
Emotions, like taste buds,
burned at the end of my tongue.
Like nerve endings,
they ran over my skin.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Summary of the interview with Stephen Venner, Bishop of Dover
Today I interviewed Stephen Venner who is the Bishop of Dover and, thus, the Bishop in Canterbury. He welcomed me most warmly into his office at the Canterbury Cathedral and over cups of coffee we discussed virtue among many other things. He is an extremely honest man - both intellectually and emotionally and I found him brave and generous in what he told me of himself and the opinions he expressed. The Bishop wears many different leadership hats: nationally in the Church of England, in the diocese, in the local community, amongst organizations involved in the care of children, and in the business community where he works with business leaders on a range of commercial and non commercial issues.
It is not surprising that leadership, for the Bishop, is central to the challenge of embedding virtue in our society.
For the Bishop, virtue is "developing the gift of experiencing and bringing into reality all that is good in our hearts" where good means treating others with kindness and generosity: trying to make the lives of others a little easier at whatever cost to oneself. He believes that from birth all humans are pleasers who naturally seek to be in positive relationships with other people and do, therefore, at our core, seek to live in a virtuous way. The Bishop is no different and freely admits that behaving in a virtuous way, whilst it fulfils his genuine desire to please God and the people around him, also meets one of his fundamental emotional needs which is for recognition as a good person. He likes to be held up as a positive example, takes great pleasure in being told his words and/or deeds have a positive, lasting impact, is somewhat fearful of disappointing God and the people around him, and does think from time to time about what may be written about him in an obituary. Clearly, he is a very human Bishop!
Whilst other people may not actively seek to live virtuously (or would not necessarily give it that name) the Bishop returned to the point that we seek, as humans, to forge positive relationships and, to that end, we need to behave in a way that integrates others into our lives in a positive manner for all. It is this that makes us happy. He sees clearly that many people need to change in order to do this and believes that, with a tiny number of exceptions, we are in control of our behaviour and our choices. The trigger for creative introspection and, therefore the opportunity for behavioural change, is life events, most specifically endings (bereavements) of any kind. One potentially positive aspect of our celebrity culture, in his view, is that many people are avid followers of celebrities and have relationships of a sort with them through the pages of the tabloids and the celebrity magazines. Readers identify and empathise with the stars they admire and when something terrible happens (Jade Goody's death came up in our conversation) the fans genuinely grieve and, in doing so, will contemplate their own behaviour and, ideally, choose to make changes for the good. In religious terms, in every generation people look for saints – people whom we admire, would like to be with, would want to be like.
Although the individual makes his/her own choices, the Bishop is clear that institutions must play a larger role in encouraging and embedding virtuous behaviours. An institution is a collection of individuals and, as such, is in a powerful position for good or for ill. Institutions, in his view, have a responsibility to look beyond the bottom line and to help nurture the people who belong to them. Leaders, therefore, must communicate the set of behaviours they would like to see embedded and then lead by example. The benefits will come as people's experiences of the institution change for the better. The leader, however, must make the first step and must continue to stay ahead, enabling people to have something to admire and emulate. The leader must have faith in what seems, at first, so intangible. Like most things, this engagement has a double purpose: not only is it good for the human being involved, it is good for the organization itself.
On a practical level, the Bishop wishes people would be more "glass half full". It is an attitude to life that can be learned with an appropriate personal discipline: actively to seek things, events and people to rejoice in and be thankful for. His experience tells him that if you stick at that it becomes like breathing and then virtuous behaviour, more positive relationships, and deep happiness at the knowledge that you are serving God and that even one life is better because of you, is never far away.
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries, please see an earlier post:
Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
http://www.canterburydiocese.org/people/svenner.htm
The whole interview will be available shortly. Please post a comment if you would like to hear it. Thanks.
It is not surprising that leadership, for the Bishop, is central to the challenge of embedding virtue in our society.
For the Bishop, virtue is "developing the gift of experiencing and bringing into reality all that is good in our hearts" where good means treating others with kindness and generosity: trying to make the lives of others a little easier at whatever cost to oneself. He believes that from birth all humans are pleasers who naturally seek to be in positive relationships with other people and do, therefore, at our core, seek to live in a virtuous way. The Bishop is no different and freely admits that behaving in a virtuous way, whilst it fulfils his genuine desire to please God and the people around him, also meets one of his fundamental emotional needs which is for recognition as a good person. He likes to be held up as a positive example, takes great pleasure in being told his words and/or deeds have a positive, lasting impact, is somewhat fearful of disappointing God and the people around him, and does think from time to time about what may be written about him in an obituary. Clearly, he is a very human Bishop!
Whilst other people may not actively seek to live virtuously (or would not necessarily give it that name) the Bishop returned to the point that we seek, as humans, to forge positive relationships and, to that end, we need to behave in a way that integrates others into our lives in a positive manner for all. It is this that makes us happy. He sees clearly that many people need to change in order to do this and believes that, with a tiny number of exceptions, we are in control of our behaviour and our choices. The trigger for creative introspection and, therefore the opportunity for behavioural change, is life events, most specifically endings (bereavements) of any kind. One potentially positive aspect of our celebrity culture, in his view, is that many people are avid followers of celebrities and have relationships of a sort with them through the pages of the tabloids and the celebrity magazines. Readers identify and empathise with the stars they admire and when something terrible happens (Jade Goody's death came up in our conversation) the fans genuinely grieve and, in doing so, will contemplate their own behaviour and, ideally, choose to make changes for the good. In religious terms, in every generation people look for saints – people whom we admire, would like to be with, would want to be like.
Although the individual makes his/her own choices, the Bishop is clear that institutions must play a larger role in encouraging and embedding virtuous behaviours. An institution is a collection of individuals and, as such, is in a powerful position for good or for ill. Institutions, in his view, have a responsibility to look beyond the bottom line and to help nurture the people who belong to them. Leaders, therefore, must communicate the set of behaviours they would like to see embedded and then lead by example. The benefits will come as people's experiences of the institution change for the better. The leader, however, must make the first step and must continue to stay ahead, enabling people to have something to admire and emulate. The leader must have faith in what seems, at first, so intangible. Like most things, this engagement has a double purpose: not only is it good for the human being involved, it is good for the organization itself.
On a practical level, the Bishop wishes people would be more "glass half full". It is an attitude to life that can be learned with an appropriate personal discipline: actively to seek things, events and people to rejoice in and be thankful for. His experience tells him that if you stick at that it becomes like breathing and then virtuous behaviour, more positive relationships, and deep happiness at the knowledge that you are serving God and that even one life is better because of you, is never far away.
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries, please see an earlier post:
Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
http://www.canterburydiocese.org/people/svenner.htm
The whole interview will be available shortly. Please post a comment if you would like to hear it. Thanks.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Summary of the interview with Reverend William Taylor
Today I interviewed Father William who is the Vicar at St John's church in Notting Hill, London. He is a lovely man, warm and thoughtful with a devoted flock and a deeply appreciative staff. In my twenty years of living in London he is the only vicar who has ever invited me to church. And so I went. I was thrilled with the sermon - the essence was the imporance of community to us as individuals. As he says, "...outside our relation, we are not."
This, too, is the heart of that matter, for him, where virtue is concerned.
In summary, Father William believes that virtuous acts are actions we do that benefit other people and that require some cost to ourselves. Paying taxes, in his view, is an act of virtue! Cost to ourselves for what we hope is benefitting society as a whole. What makes it attractive for us to do things for other people at some cost to ourselves, ironically, is what we get in return: a sense of community, without which we will lead lonely, sad lives and risk ending our days in isolation. In addition, being in a community makes it easier for us to do virtuous things for that community - and so the virtuous circle is created.
How do we embed virtue?
It is the responsibility of both individuals and institutions to create and help create connections and, thus, to stimulate the virtuous circle. Individuals must recognise that there may be more people in their lives who will be pleased to hear from them than they may necessarily think. It is up to the individual actively to forge those connections: re-contacting people with whom they may have lost touch and/or more actively connecting with the people in their lives, performing acts of service, however small, with no thought of compensation. Father William challenges all individuals to do what they can for others rather than ask what others can do for them. It is up to the institution to encourage, to facilitate, to provide a connecting point, and to give guidance on the foundations of the relationships as that institution sees them. The institution can have a profound impact on the individual but the individual can never delegate responsibility away from themselves.
I challenged Father William to tell me how he interacts with both his flock and his peers to embed virtue. Responding about his flock, Father William is clear: it is all about encouraging his parishoners to increase the size of their own and the church's community. To that end, St John's is a church in which people are required to achieve things together and are asked to invite their friends and neighbours to church, that being the best way to increase the size of the community. His peers, he maintains, present a more difficult challenge. He believes that the clergy do not always work well together. They are a profession, like any other, and professional rivalry and jealousy often get in the way of developing global solutions.
In summary, it comes down to individuals in their local community. There they have the real sense of caring and being cared for that fosters virtuous behaviour.
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries please see an earlier post:
Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
http://www.stjohnsnottinghill.com/
This, too, is the heart of that matter, for him, where virtue is concerned.
In summary, Father William believes that virtuous acts are actions we do that benefit other people and that require some cost to ourselves. Paying taxes, in his view, is an act of virtue! Cost to ourselves for what we hope is benefitting society as a whole. What makes it attractive for us to do things for other people at some cost to ourselves, ironically, is what we get in return: a sense of community, without which we will lead lonely, sad lives and risk ending our days in isolation. In addition, being in a community makes it easier for us to do virtuous things for that community - and so the virtuous circle is created.
How do we embed virtue?
It is the responsibility of both individuals and institutions to create and help create connections and, thus, to stimulate the virtuous circle. Individuals must recognise that there may be more people in their lives who will be pleased to hear from them than they may necessarily think. It is up to the individual actively to forge those connections: re-contacting people with whom they may have lost touch and/or more actively connecting with the people in their lives, performing acts of service, however small, with no thought of compensation. Father William challenges all individuals to do what they can for others rather than ask what others can do for them. It is up to the institution to encourage, to facilitate, to provide a connecting point, and to give guidance on the foundations of the relationships as that institution sees them. The institution can have a profound impact on the individual but the individual can never delegate responsibility away from themselves.
I challenged Father William to tell me how he interacts with both his flock and his peers to embed virtue. Responding about his flock, Father William is clear: it is all about encouraging his parishoners to increase the size of their own and the church's community. To that end, St John's is a church in which people are required to achieve things together and are asked to invite their friends and neighbours to church, that being the best way to increase the size of the community. His peers, he maintains, present a more difficult challenge. He believes that the clergy do not always work well together. They are a profession, like any other, and professional rivalry and jealousy often get in the way of developing global solutions.
In summary, it comes down to individuals in their local community. There they have the real sense of caring and being cared for that fosters virtuous behaviour.
For more on the virtue project and links to other interview summaries please see an earlier post:
Behavioural Change: The Way out of this Mess? (for the virtue project)
Related Links:
http://www.stjohnsnottinghill.com/
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Disconnected
Reaching through the narrow
Opening of a ten hour flight
I tumbled into infinity.
It was like putting my hand
Into a box of air and knowing
Something (anything) should be there.
Try as I might
I could not even hit the sides
Let alone pick anything up.
And yet it was all there.
Everything was there.
It's not like there was nothing there.
The intercity hurtles down
the hill at 20 kilometers an hour
enforced by the Speed Detector
in his Speed Detector's hut
mangoes hang from trees
like yoyos at the ends of their tethers
and a little boy in a spider man outfit
chases chickens in the yard
bananas grow up side down and the
worn metal plates that link the cars
screech and the doors that do not shut
rattle and you can stand there
with the wind in your hair
and realise you had
a fleeting moment of peace.
But then I realised
Everything and no one
Was there.
Opening of a ten hour flight
I tumbled into infinity.
It was like putting my hand
Into a box of air and knowing
Something (anything) should be there.
Try as I might
I could not even hit the sides
Let alone pick anything up.
And yet it was all there.
Everything was there.
It's not like there was nothing there.
The intercity hurtles down
the hill at 20 kilometers an hour
enforced by the Speed Detector
in his Speed Detector's hut
mangoes hang from trees
like yoyos at the ends of their tethers
and a little boy in a spider man outfit
chases chickens in the yard
bananas grow up side down and the
worn metal plates that link the cars
screech and the doors that do not shut
rattle and you can stand there
with the wind in your hair
and realise you had
a fleeting moment of peace.
But then I realised
Everything and no one
Was there.
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