International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women

I woke this morning to news that the Britsh government was putting in place educational programmes on violence against women and girls.
I read a good interview with my colleague Nyambura Njoroge about violence against women in the context of her work on HIV with the churches in Africa.

She recalls the sneers she received in Harare, Zimbabwe, at the 1992 All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) Assembly, when she used the case of Pia Njoki, the woman blinded by her husband in a fit of rage so she wouldn’t see other men. She was accused of washing dirty linen in public.
"We had all cried for Pia. When I wrote my doctoral dissertation, the issue of domestic violence had come up. So what was the dirty linen that I was washing at the Assembly?" she asks.
She was the first Kenyan woman to research and document the contributions of the pioneering Presbyterian Church women who stood up against female genital mutilation in 1928 and later, highlighted the rape of students at St Kizito High School.
"Newspapers are good at covering these issues, but what do we do with those reports to change our society for the better?" she asks.
Not many women realise that sexist, patriarchal traditions, practices and beliefs remain in the church and society. And women’s response to them, even in Church ministry, has been shaped through the eyes of men. Speaking out to offer an alternative perspective then makes one the odd one out and is frowned upon.

I spoke with colleagues about the ongoing power of patriarchy in many international structures.
I learnt about the brilliant idea called circles of names from the NCCUSA. Women not as victims but as role models.
My husband wrote an article today that began:
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu has joined a "Network of Men Leaders" set up by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to combat violence against women.
"You are a weak man if you use your physical superiority to assault and brutalise women," said Tutu in a U.N. video clip to mark the launch of the network for the 10th anniversary on 25 November of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

So what have you been learning on this day, exactly one month before Christmas, a season which in many parts of the world sees a big rise in reports of "domestic violence". Maybe you think it's just political correctness and the situation is not so bad. Of course that's the problem, because it's "domestic" it's hidden, "we shouldn't judge what goes on inside a marriage" which of course is an easy way of siding with injustice in such situations.
In the same way we shrug our shoulders at stories of women raped as part of war and conflict. Margot Kässmann has also come out today and stressed how unacceptable this is. So is anyone listening, have you begun to change the way you behave, are you encouraging men you know to join the white ribbon campaign or ist all a bit too embarassing and "domestic" to mention in polite company?

Drum beats, bell ringing, musical notes, bead-threading - act for climate justice

Listen to the drumbeat of creation, weave a rainbow, act now for climate justice make the world leaders hear!
The seven days of creations were the inspiration for the liturgy we've just posted online. 350 drumbeats, 50 for each of the seven days of creation. After each day is read out from Genesis so also one of the great Advent Antiphones is read. Colleagues from different regions of the world have written cries and hopes of and for climate justice.

Here are cries and hopes from the Pacific:

Atua! Your Pacific people call out to you, even as the waters continue to rise...
hear our prayer, we who trust in your love!
Atua! Your Pacific people call out to you, even as our land disappears before our eyes...
hear our prayer, we who hope in your love!
Atua! Our strength! Our life! Our love!

Meanwhile the Danish Council of Churches have put together a great liturgy for bellringing including a powerful hymn by Torsten Borbye Nielsen called bells of the world and an English translation by Edward Broadbridge. They've also got a specially commissioned piece of music with 350 notes in it. A stimulus to creativity - will you be ringing bells, threading beads, beating drums, singing hymns - to get the world to hear the case for climate justice?

Here's the two final verses of the hymn:

For though we know
we should rise higher,
we are consumed by our desire;
hear how our earth, ravaged, consumed,
calls for our care, or we are doomed.
May we free Earth from its pain;
give us hope that once again
Your will be done.

In hope and faith
we shall not cease
striving to make a world at peace,
for all that lives, from pole to pole,
from east to west, from soul to soul.
Lord, our God, whose mighty Word
then and now and shall be heard,
renew our Earth!

Does ecumenism make you feel at home or does it challenge you?

One of the themes I return to as I take groups of visitors around the ecumenical centre is the theme of being at home and being challenged.
When I first walked into the chapel in the Ecumenical Centre my first reaction was "oh this is like home". I should explain that I grew up - church wise at least - in what is known as a local ecumenical project. Churches came together and built a new building as part of a brand new town centre shopping complex. In it Methodists, United Reformed and Anglicans could worship together, it was open to the community and part of the life of the town. I hadn't realised that our church council came to Geneva before building work began to have a look at the chapel. Not surprising that the layout of the place I worshiped most Sundays was so similar to the chapel of the place I work at the moment, nor that I should feel at home in it.
That sense of being at home can also speak about how at home we feel with ecumenism.
However, if I feel at home in a space will I then assume that everyone else should, will I even notice that some don't feel at home, if some feel at home do they take all the available space, who might be excluded? If I am busy feeling at home - will I even notice the challenge that comes from others who worship Christ differently from me? Without the challenge that comes from seeing that other Christians think, pray and practise their faith differently from the way I do perhaps no glimmer of ecumenical understanding is possible. Today I often wonder what it means when I, a middle aged, rich woman from the dying churches of the North, feel at home in the ecumenical space - be it the chapel, a meeting or an event. If I maintain my presence in the ecumenical space who might not want to come in, who would feel very uncomfortable? Does it also condemn ecumenism to being something taht is dying?
Lots of questions.
When it was first built the ecumenical centre chapel was really quite Reformed, certainly quite Protestant. Gradually several icons, an inconostasis, an Indian oil lamp, an Armenian cross and much more besides have come into that space. The iconostasis in particular was a real challenge to some Protestant sensibilities when it first came in (I remember Fred Kaan moaning to me about it when he knew we were moving to Geneva).
On the positive side I suppose the Protestant space could be seen as open - a canvass open to all to add their influences. Yet I do wonder alot about many of the assumptions behind that. Assuming that the Protestant space can essentially be adapated to be an ecumenical space is quite a dangerous supposition. Do we suppose we are somehow more "naturally ecumenical"? I know how cross I sometimes get in France when Catholicism expresses itself in a way that assumes it is the only ecumenical space available or when the Church of England assumes that other churches don't need to be taken into account much. Perhaps as a Protestant part of the challenge is that I need to be able to see how unecumenical I can be too.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it is sometimes hard to hold on to the dynamic ecumenical interface of feeling at home and feeling challenged - being sure enough of oneself to want to encounter others and be challenged by them.
Understanding and unity are important. For them to have any chance of flourishing we need to come up against and alonside one another. As we open ourselves up to feeling at home and challenged by one another we need to keep our eyes open to notice who is not there. We need to realise that the way we converse and do business in the ecumenical space excludes many.
So are you at home or challenged ecumenically?

Copenhagen - lies and truth ...

As I listen to the media preparing us for nothing much out of the Copenhagen, and despair, I came across this quote:

Man darf die Wahrheit, nicht immer auf den neusten Stand der Lüge bringen.

One should not always take truth to the most up to date level that lies have reached ...

By that famous author "Anon".
Like Cassandra those who tell truth are often not listened to, and yet we try to hope ...

Will light dawn in CERN's tunnels as they switch on the HADRON collider once more?

As I came back from the bakery this evening I was having problems just seeing to the other side of the road - the Genevan fog is out tonight with a vengeance. Some of our neighbours work as physicists at CERN and I nearly bumped into one as she was leaving in a hurry and great excitement to get to the laboratory - the fog really is bad.
Here's hoping that the scientists will not be in the fog as they turn on and test the Hadron collider in the tunnels beneath us tonight and over the weekend. Perhaps some glimmerings of understanding will begin to shine through the fog of information, figures and results that the experiments will generate. Anyway I hope it's not another big switch off because of over-heating magnets. Perhaps someone will be bringing home news of the elusive Higgs boson through the above-ground fog.
I do wonder though whether all this underground high tech activity and overload on the local electricity and commications infrastructure might not be the reason for our rather flaky high-speed broadband connection at the moment. Probably not. The real reason for that is the non-service agreement any internet provider seems to write in invisible yet indellible ink into all contracts - "No we won't sort out any problems but we will go on charging you. Merci!" In this household at least the future is certainly not france telecom Orange. I really want a sort of organic, wind-generated and fairly traded broadband connection - or maybe generated by the heat from my compost bin, or driven by the enzymes the worms in it produce - is it too much to ask scientists to look into this?
Not sure that finding the Higgs boson would even resolve the crazy issues I have! But hey let's focus on the meaning of life, the dawn of time and the God particle. After all we need some relief from the post-service economy global monopoly capitalism seems to offer. Maybe that's all religion can try to do too!

Twenty years ago today I was crossing Checkpoint Charlie

Dr B and I were still the only couple separated by the fallen Berlin wall. You can read about it over on Holy Disorder.

Religion gives you fever - and plenty to read

The much awaited issue of Philosophie magazine on the gospels, Paul and revelation has made its way to our household. It's a splendidly eclectic selection of short articles by philosophers on biblical themes. Stanislas Breton says that Western religion gives you fever "the Bible which is the book of humanity also justifies holy wars".
I was really attracted to the title of Vladimir Jankélévitch's article which is "Felix Culpa!" - how can joy be born out of sin. It's an interesting reflection on guilt.
I shall also open up some of the Paul Ricoeur on our shelves upstairs having read the short extract here called "tales of normality" referring to the new testament parables and saying how these normal stories open up the extraordinary.
I'm also looking forward to reading Rosa Luxemburg writing about John Chrysostom and looking at why Christianity failed to bring about the revolution.
Anyway lots of great bits and pieces here to make me think I might one day have time to follow up on some of this ... perhaps there will be time for philosophy if I make it to retirement!

An evening on the role of the churches in the GDR at the Eglise Réformée in Ferney Voltaire

On Friday evening this week Stephen and I will return to our former residence at 13 rue de Gex here in Ferney where Stephen will do a presentation/discussion on the role of the churches in the fall of the Berlin Wall and I will read some extracts from my diary - translated into French. Of course you can go on reading his reflections in English on Holy Disorder. But if you speak French and are in Ferney on Friday evening the Temple Protestant in just 5 minutes up the hill from Voltaire's statue.

Venez nous rejoindre!

Cette semaine, nous avons beaucoup entendu parler des événements du novembre 1989 en Allemagne. Mais que savons nous sur le rôle important qu'avaient joué les églises d'Allemagne d'Est avant cet changement?
Le journaliste Stephen Brown vivait en RDA dans les années 1983/1984 et en était témoin. Il a consacré ses recherches à cette influence et a obtenu son doctorat pour ce travail. Stephen Brown nous présentera cette période d'histoire le vendredi 20 novembre à vingt heures au
presbytère de Ferney Voltaire.

Blogs - for daily bread and greater campaigning solidarity

This week the WCC is holding its UN advocacy week in New York, alot of my colleagues from Geneva will be there. However to get a fuller picture of some of the international work involving campaigning by NGOs and others at the UN I've been reading the Ecumenical Women at the United Nations blog for quite a while. There are some fascinating posts there - you can find posts from Cambodia, Kenya and the Middle East among other places: comparing the role of women disciples of Jesus and female followers of Martin Luther King; about female condoms, child brides, shopping and fashion justice, the rich poor divide and much more besides. A few months ago the blog adverstised for new writers and as a result posting is much more regular and more diverse than in the past. It's a useful window onto international campaigns but with personal insights from the authors.
One of the new writers there is Paola Salwan, Programme Assistant for Africa, the Middle East and Europe at the World YWCA and co-founder of the blog Café Thawra, Her blog is in French and English and offers insights into Middle East issues - a special dossier on the Lebanese communist party, where the left is in Middle East politics, as well as promotion of social entrepreneurship.
The Women's desk at the Lutheran World Federation is preparing for next year's LWF assembly with a blog on Give us Today our Daily Bread. As the women in ministries network prepares to meet on the theme of food for the soul perhaps someone would like to write something for their blog. As the issue of food security moves up the world agenda how do women, who grow, harvest and prepare much of the food eaten in the world, think about food justice and spirituality. I'll admit that as a woman who has spent most of her life eating far too much the "stuffed and starved" agenda is one I find particularly challenging. What does the promise of the heavenly banquet mean to those of us who live in permanent food plenty? Lots of issues around food will develop on the blog as preparations for the assembly in July next year advance, so why not drop by from time to time and join the discussions?
(this is a cross post from the Women in Ministries blog)

How to get rid of Nicolas Sarkozy? A passing thought ...

Reports are coming in this week of Ségolène Royal sacking her closest aid on her wing of the French socialist party - after a huge row. That wing of the party was apparently called espoir à gauche, hmm perhaps nul espoir à gauche is more fitting - the hopelessness of the left. There really does seem no hope for the left to gain power in France ... or maybe there is...
This evening Dr B has come up with a cunning plan and a unity candidate. The only person he reckons could really bring people on the French left together is Danny the Red - also known as Daniel Cohn Bendit, a fascinating and rather fun idea because he has the potential to get support from the far left to the centrists. He's a clever campaigner too.
It probably wouldn't work though, because people will prefer Sarkozy's venality, celebrity and nepotism.
Anyway if Danny does stand as the Left's unity candidate remember you heard it here first!

Advent liturgies, prayers and songs on the theme of peace

"Telling peace"some new resources for Advent on the theme of peace have just been posted to WCC website. This year the material was prepared in Asia. There is music to listen to and learn all available under creative commons license.
Included are liturgies for the four Sundays of Advent and worship outlines, prayers and ideas. The music is available in MP3 and pdf format.
You can also access last year's Imagine Peace material which was prepared in Latin America.

The Archbishop of Canterbury on human well-being and economic decision-making

Rowan Williams has been giving a lecture today at the TUC Economics Conference. Its powerful stuff - as almost everything Williams writes is. Here's an extract which struck me particularly as we heard today that in Copenhagen a binding decision on climate change may not be possible:

'In reality', writes Kenny Tang, a leading Asian expert in sustainable development, 'there are only two sources of wealth in the world today: the wealth that flows from our use of the Earth's resources and ecosystems, all powered by incoming solar radiation (our natural capital); and the wealth that flows from the use of our hands, brains and spirits (our human capital)' (CRISISnomics, Credit and Climate, p.114). It is a sharp reminder that exactly the same threat lies ahead in both the ecological context and the human – the exhaustion of resources, the depletion of natural capital and the shrinking of human capital by the abuse of brain and spirit that results from social fragmentation and from personal stress and lostness in inhuman patterns of working.

Word of the day "Tankstelle für die Seele"

epd reports that a second motorway church may be inaugurated on the A9 in Germany. This time it is a Roman Catholic Tankstelle für die Seele that is being planned. The phrase made me smile as I'm sure someone had alot of pleasure coming up with it. "A filling station for the soul" would be a translation I suppose, I like the idea, perhaps because I have spent most of the day beginning to sort out various medical matters. I could do with a filling station for both body and spirit!

Using literature to understand organisations and selling experience

The two most important things I learnt on my course in Rome were: that poetry may contribute more to understanding organisations than scientific description can and that organisations have emotional lives - they can be depressed, harrassing, passive, aggressive, well-balanced, manic, joyful, laid back etc.
Over the weekend I've been reading a fascinating essay in The Expressive Organisation by Barbara Czarniawska "Identity lost or identity found? Celebration and Lamentation over the Postmodern view of identity in social science and fiction". It really encourages people who are thinking about organisations to use new models, expecially those from literature and the social sciences.
She ends by supporting the ironic view of understanding organisations (or perhaps life?). Irony as an interpretational tool for understanding organisaitons is actually even more liberating than poetry for me!

I stand by the ironists and shall draw support from Anthony Giddens who says 'in general, whether in personal life or in broader social milieu, processes of reappropriation and empowerment intertwine with expropriation and loss.' It is not up to us to make the final count, but to depict and interpret the phenomena of the postmodern era. In order to be able to do that, we have to abandon time-honoured frames of reference and look for new ones, not out of disrespect, but out of curiosity, to better catch up with the times.

She also cites the work in the book picutred here, saying that today it is all about selling experience and memory - fascinating ...The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage

The German twitter Bible gives an insight into the best known parts of the Bible

So Dr B has returned from his 20th anniversary tour of East Germany and Berlin with a copy of Und Gott chillte - which is the whole Bible tweeted in German. I've been reading the introduction and it's interesting, though not so surprising to see that there are favourite bits of the Bible which got tweeted again and again. The challenge for evangelisch.de was to get the whole Bible tweeted - even the more obscure bits - as part of the world record earlier this year.
In the end more than 3000 of us contributed tweets - including Dr B and myself. Tweeting in German is quite a challenge as German words are of course longer!
Anyway the introduction to the twitter Bible says that as they started tweeting at the Kirchentag it became obvious that people wanted to tweet the creation story, Noah's ark, the birth of Jesus and passages from the Song of Solomon. Isaiah was apparently not on the favourites list. Interesting that we create our own Bibles which are a reduced version of the original.
Anyway I'm looking forward to reading Und Gott chillte as part of my Advent observance. However, to get the full variety of the different tweets I'll still have to go the evangelisch.de twitter website. It seems that the editors chose their favourite tweets for each Bible passage and haven't published every tweet that was written. Maybe one day there will be some interesting German hermeneutical studies on how these redactional choices were made!

Passing thoughts about thorns, humility and leadership

<sup>I first heard the passage below being read aloud in the chapel in the Predigerseminar in 1989. In the midst of the huge political upheavalof the GDR's peaceful revolution, Gabriele who led that morning's "Andacht" simply let the text speak for itself.
I was surprised and pleased to find it again the other day at the beginning to Stephen Cottrell's splendid little book "Hit the Ground Kneeling". I'm not sure I've come across it in any of our Sunday lectionaries, which is a shame. I have used it in some youth work and training sessions with elders though.
Reading it through again now I wonder about whether bramble or thorn bush would be my favoured translation and I must go and check whether the Hebrew word is the same as the bush which burned and was not consumed in Exodus and whether the Septuagint translation for thornbush is then picked up in the gospel term for crown of thorns. This is how linguists think I suppose - even when they have a bus to catch and must write fast!
None of the other trees wanted to give anything up in order to sway over the other trees - not the olive its oil, not the fig its sweet fruit, not the vine its glorious juice and wine. So the thorn bush, the bramble, accepts. The thornbush is an uncomfortable symbol of humility in the Bible, it is about a different kind of leadership. Today reading this text I was struck rather by the way the supposedly greater trees don't want to take up office, they want to hold onto their current roles and riches and place in the scheme of things and not chance the risk or humility of leadership. Them holding on to their power and riches and roles makes the leadership role of the brambly thorn bush yet more difficult. Easier to be a celebrity than a leader? Easier to hold on to riches than follow vocation?
A fascinating and powerful parable which is deeply prophetic.

The parable and prophecy of the trees in Judges 9</sup>
The trees once went out
to anoint a king over themselves.
So they said to the olive tree,
“Reign over us.”
The olive tree answered them,
“Shall I stop producing my rich oil
by which gods and mortals are honoured,
and go to sway over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the fig tree,
“You come and reign over us.”
But the fig tree answered them,
“Shall I stop producing my sweetness
and my delicious fruit,
and go to sway over the trees?”
Then the trees said to the vine,
“You come and reign over us.”
But the vine said to them,
“Shall I stop producing my wine
that cheers gods and mortals,
and go to sway over the trees?”
So all the trees said to the bramble,
“You come and reign over us.”
And the bramble said to the trees,
“If in good faith you are anointing me king over you,
then come and take refuge in my shade;
but if not, let fire come out of the bramble
and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”

The Russian Orthodox church set to break off relations with the EKD

Evangelisch.de is reporting that the Russian Orthodox church is set to break of relations with the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) because of the election of a divorced woman, Margot Kässmann, as its new leader.

Hmm ...

Meanwhile, my friends Simon and Simon would I think like to read Margot Kässmann's sermon at the footballer Robert Enke's funeral which took place at a very ecumenical service in Hanover today (You will both have to learn German boys!). The Catholic priest leading the prayers held up Enke's goalkeeper's gloves, given to him by the player. Enke - Hanover's and Germany's goalkeeper had been suffering from depression and took his own life.
Kässman began and ended by citing the football anthem "You'll never walk alone" in a German translation adding that it would seem Enke was walking alone in his own private darkness and depression, but Kässmann also brought the idea full circle, tracing the ways we take in life, talking of the enormous fragility of life, of grief and trying to trust in God, despite feelings of revolt.

Und alle Fans sollten das wissen: Robert Enke würde nicht wollen, dass ihm jemand auf diesem Weg folgt! Er hat das Leben geliebt und wünschte sich Wege zum Leben.

Werden wir daher stille. Bringen wir unser Mit-Leiden vor Gott, indem wir Lichter anzünden, für Robert Enke, für seine Familie, für alle, die gestern Abend mit betroffen waren. Suchen wir Wege zum Leben!

Halten wir an der Zuneigung zu Robert Enke fest auch über seinen Tod hinaus, den wir so schwer verstehen. Über die Schwelle des Todes hinaus können wir ihn nicht begleiten. Aber wir dürfen der Zusage vertrauen, dass Gott uns über diese Schwelle trägt und auch Robert Enke bei ihm geborgen ist. Sodass auch auf diesem letzten Weg gilt: You´ll never walk alone.

Into the promised land or into the desert?

As I think back to the end of the GDR 20 years ago a theme I return to is that of the promised land or the desert.
In large part this is because of an encounter with a lecture by Jürgen Ebach early in my time in Wittenberg. About a week before the GDR was due to celebrate its 40th anniversary in early October, Ebach was on a tour of some churches in the GDR, speaking in particular to ministers, theology students and church workers. He spoke passionately about developing a theology that takes failure seriously - sometimes those who fail are the greater heroes (I remember being rather surprised at the time that he mentioned Scott of the Antarctic in this respect - probably because I assumed it was a story not much known outside Britain). Moses who receives the promise of the promised land never actually gets to live there and only glimpses it from afar before death.
It is only now though that I realise how very carefully thought out Ebach's lectures were and also how deeply pastoral. It would not have occurred to him or to any of us that the Berlin wall would no longer be there 6 weeks later. So underpinning what he was saying was a deep commitment to using the biblical texts about the 40 years in the desert leading to the promised land as a resource for reflection and resistance for the context of the churches in the GDR - perhaps for the next forty years. Are you so sure that you have been in the desert for 40 years? Are you sure that you are not only now leaving Egypt?
I can see now that he was trying to encourage the leaders of the church in local situations to continue to dialogue with biblical texts and let them speak to their situations. In a way he was saying, your struggle is going to go on, how are you going to help the faithful wrestle with the fact that after 40 years there was no promised land - and although I have often thought about and returned to his lectures it is only now that I can sense this layer in the insights he was sharing.
So was the opening of the wall the promised land? I can remember being a bystander as people voted for the first time in March 1990 and then again twice more that same year - the enthusiasm already beginning to wane.
So I wonder ... if Jürgen Ebach revisited his lectures today what would he try to say to the tiny minority churches in the former GDR? Are we all in the promised land or are we in the desert? Is state communism more or less of a desert than social market economies? Is capitalism the only promised land available? Where is the wicked Pharaoh we are fleeing from - even though we also yearn to be back in those fleshpots of the past when faced with the rigors of desert living?
Meanwhile I can't help thinking how very clever the CDU was with its horrible election slogan of Wohlstand für Alle - it really tapped in to desires for the future and offered quite a greedy promise. Of course the biblical land of promise is not one where all have good incomes but rather one in which the basic necessities of all can potentially be met. A land in which there will be pasture enough for you to milk the sheep and pollen enough for you to harvest honey. God won't be raining the manna and quails down from heaven. It's actually the promise of a semi-nomadic lifestyle in a slightly less difficult environment rather than a completely nomadic existence in a mainly hostile environment! Trying to sell that in your political programme may be rather dififcult.