Take the lead - preparing for World Aids Day

Photo (c) Stephen Brown/ENI
I attended an excellent service for World Aids Day in the Ecumenical Centre chapel. It was prepared by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, the World YWCA and local Genevan AIDS groups.

The liturgy was written by three women Rev. Elizabeth Hernandez Carillo, Laura Figueroa Granados, a Baptist theologian, and Guillermina Plascencia Favila, a social worker and advisor to the Semilla de Esperanza, a project that works with boys and girls who live with HIV.

It included a powerful moment when we all stood to look at the red ribbon and remember people we knew living with HIV and AIDS and then turned away from the ribbon one after another literally turning our backs on the problem. This was linked with prayers of confession, and turning back to listening to words of forgiveness and hearing the gospel. It worked well, as did the handing on of small candles to each other saying "Take the Lead".

You can find the full liturgy in English, French, Spanish and German on the EAA website and worship resources from other years here.

Anyway after this powerful service written and led by women we were handed the full text of the World YWCA's Nairobi Call to Action.

Everyone's playing the Vatican board game

I have now found the ultimate Christmas present for my Pope-watching husband it is a board game called Vatican and features six cardinals who seek to become papabile. Sounds fun, no doubt if we did a Reformed one it would involve either preaching very long sermons or working very long hours, or possibly both. Sounds a bit too much like real life to me. The sad thing is that Stephen really would love a book about Joseph Ratzinger's theology for Christmas.

The Templeton prize in Paris

So after travelling round England, drinking champagne and lots of Earl Grey tea, spending a bit of time with family and friends I took train back Paris straight to the Maison du Protestantisme where the Eglise Réformée and the French Protestant Federation have their headquarters. Going there felt more like going "home" in many ways than going the the URC's Tavistock Place headquarters in London. For the first time in many years, though, I felt the pull of London, its energy and vitality, yet travelling back to France did really feel like coming home.
The serendipity of travelling by rail meant that I was coming through Paris on the evening when the John Templeton Award for the European Religion Writer of the Year was being made, so I offered my services as interpreter and had a very interesting evening.
Tom Heneghan was awarded the prize and gave an excellent short speech in which he spoke quite a bit about the difficulties of translation when writing about religion. He mentioned two key terms that I come across in my work very regularly and which are almost untranslateable. the first is the French term laicité - which as he explains, could mean separation of church and state, or secularism. But often laicité in France is a sort of mind set, which justifies excluding religion from the public arena. The other term he mentioned is ökumene der Profile which is a phrase coined by Bishop Wolfgang Huber. Together with the Brown-person I have come up with "profile-based ecumenism" for this (as opposed to consensus-based ecumenism) - but maybe an ecumenism of profiles is better and anyway you still need a good sized footnote to try and get the meaning across. Over supper later we wondered aloud whether ökumene der Profile is more about ecumenism or more about profile - that is confessional profile - I suspect it is just a way of making confessional profile seem ecumenical, but perhaps the point is that you can only be ecumenical if you're really clear where you're coming from.
The point Tom Heneghan is making is that the speaker knows what he's talking about but once you translate this into another language and context it becomes almost un-understandable.
Anyway I promised to link to Tom's blog which is really good and also to leave some comments there, maybe you should do the same.

Bad girls and good theology

The URC headquarters are just round the corner from St Pancras and on my visit there I could not resist spending some time (yes and some money) in the book shop. I bought quite a lot of liturgy books, mainly from Wild Goose publications - the imprint of the Iona community. But one book I bought and then read straight away - on and off all through the night - was Susan Durber's Preaching like a Woman. It was a really heartening and interesting read. I've long admired Susan's sermons and quite a number of them are included in the book. She manages to be both erudite, literary, biblical and relevant to the concerns of those hearing the word.
It is the introductory parts to each section which I found particularly stimulating and helpful for setting out an intellectual framework for preaching. It rang very true for me and I realised reading it how much preachers forget to reflect theologically on the act of preaching itself. I shall re-read it over coming days - in a slightly less champagne-fuelled state. The book really deserves a much wider audience than only those preaching like women. Anyway it's also good that a person so committed to excellent and challenging preaching recently took up the post as Principal of Westminister College Cambridge - a place training future preachers in the URC.
And the reference to Bad Girls has to do with the film that was playing late at night in my hotel room as I was reading Susan's book. It's a movie that offers a different take on the Western with 4 "fallen" women as the strong leads in the film. In a way, as with much that Susan Durber says in preaching like a woman, it is all about telling the story differently, finding a new way in.
Anyway as they say "Good girls get to go to heaven, bad girls get to go everywhere!"

Champagne, gossip and decadence

So here is a not very good photo of Europe's longest champagne bar which is at the new St Pancras station - the Eurostar trains pull up alongside and the the seats in the booths are heated. How do I know that? Well I spent four hours in the bar gossiping and catching up with a colleague from the United Reformed Church on the night before I went back to Paris. And you need those underseat heaters, some of the waitresses were wearing gloves and it wasn't only because the champagne is chilled! Despite the decadent setting we nevertheless talked quite a lot about theology - well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The complexities of going "home"

Well I have returned to Ferney from my travels round England and France.
Getting away from being umbilically attached to my computer and the internet was definitely good for me. Travelling through the landscape of my childhood and adolescence also aroused quite complex feelings. Things change so much and going back to Britain is almost like visiting a foreign place for me. I suffer from something like reverse culture shock, as if I totally belong and completely do not.
But the thing I love most about being in the family "home" - apart from my mum of course - is the view from the back of the house. Living now in the fabulous and dramatic mountains round Geneva I sometimes long for the rolling green landscape I grew up with. The view stretches from the garden over 80km to the Malvern hills and the Welsh black mountains - well it does on a clear day and as you can see on these photos the weather was rather more mixed while I was there this time! Fortunately on the day Stephen and I got married the view was perfect and the garden holds many happy memories of the wonderful party with friends and family. Don't know what we'll do if and when my Mum decides to sell up and leave.
So it was restorative to wake up in what used to be my brother's bedroom and see what the view was doing. Meanwhile the family cat was dying of kidney failure, my mother tripped over and smashed a saucepan and gratin dish into her chest and we went shopping.

Talking to Gertie

My Dad's sister, Gertie, or Keukch as we call her, now lives in a residential home in the north of London and I spent a couple of hours with her yesterday. It's over a year since I last saw her. Apart from mealtimes she no longer gets out of bed and is handicapped mainly by terrible arthritus but also by the wasting effects of a small stroke a few years ago.
Above her bed in the home is a wonderful photo of her in her white lab coat performing an experiment in the school chemistry lab where she taught. It's a great picture of her in her prime, surrounded by chemicals and strange glass bottles, and completely in her element.
I was tired yesterday by the time I got to Rickmansworth and cross with myself that I hadn't thought a bit more about what we could talk about. Health or how she is feeling isn't a good issue, not becuase she complains overmuch about herself but because she sometimes imbues my own illness in rather saintly terms, as if I either need to be treated as a hero or with extra compassion and I prefer to avoid that. I suppose too that I know that she is really very unhapy to be living as she is now but I sense somehow she doesn't have the physical or emotional energy to approach a conversation about that. She has lots and lots of visitors and yet somehow remains lonely and seems not really to know how to say anything more than banalities.
In the end we talked about family history, who in the family had married German-Germans and who Jewish-Germans thus sealing their own and their children's fates. Keukch and her two younger cousins Renate and Anne-Marie are the last ones left in Europe of that generation, a final cousin Greta lives in Buenos Aries. None of those female cousins had children of their own. Yet Gertie played a very important role in Richard's and my life when we were young children, playing brilliant games with us and taking us around London in the school holidays. Travelling up to see her going through Baker Street and Harrow on the Hill and all those stations on the metropolitan line was extraordinarily evocative of childhood for me: catching tadpoles, walks in the woods, learning to play scrabble, picking vegetables from the garden, going to Kew gardens and of course exploding experiments in the school lab. She was extremely generous with both her time and her money. And we were generous with our indifference and irritation as we became teenagers.
I left feeling more than usually guilty, promising to myself that I will try and go and see her soon, knowing that I will get too involved in work again to make that time. I can tell that visits which focus on family history and stories from the past help her - and they also interest me. Somehow I feel that if she had been a person in one of my congregations the visit might have been a bit more profound, I might have dared to go a bit further in the conversation.

From Geneva to Paris and on to St Pancras

So despite the notices to the contrary my train left Geneva on time last night. The most hair raising part of the journey was as ever the taxi ride across Paris to my brother Richard's flat, there were one or two moments when I thought I might never make it across the channel.
This morning I also wondered whether I'd make it onto the Eurostar without breaking my legs on the 5 flights of beautiful but slippery wooden stairs down from Richard's.
The journey by Eurostar was uneventful except it was amazing to be travelling so fast in the uk - the British part of the journey is now really the shortest part and seems mainly to be in a tunnel.
It all rather spoilt me for the onward journey to Birmingham later in the day which was at a rather more usual (UK) train speed.
Anyway here are some pictures - a bit of a mess but I hope technical support back in Ferney will deal with these problems. I'm looking forward to exploring St Pancras in a bit more detail next week when I spend a few days there. Today I negotiated the Metropolitan line and went out to Rickmansworth to vist our aunt Keukch, also known as Gertie.

Taking the trian in strike-bound France

In a couple of hours I'm going to try to get to Paris by train. Many railway workers in France have been on strike over the past few days, but it seems as though my train this evening is still running. Hope so! There's quite a fun notice at Geneva railway station saying "There are absolutely no trains to France" and then giving a list with just three trains that were going to Paris.
So if I'm going to go I suppose I'd better pack!

Calligraphy and catechism

I've just come back from catechism, which was fun for me but maybe less so for the young people themselves! It's interesting in ministry how we all develop our own style - my own is very much what is called "auberge espagnole" in French, a bit of this and a bit of that...
It's a tricky thing, each group of young people is different, some more able to discuss things than others. I think next time we'll have to do more interactive things, painting, drama and so on. I was the only one who got to express myself artistically today by doing some calligraphy of everyone's name. And I hereby publicly note that I must do more calligraphy, it's fun and very calming.

Planting trees with Martin Luther

I went to a press conference yesterday which launched a really great idea for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant (Lutheran) Reformation in 2017. It's called the Luthergarten and will be built and planted in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, the mayor of Wittenberg Eckhard Naumann travelled to Geneva for the launch.
Martin Luther is supposed to have once said "even if I knew that the world would end tomorrow I would still plant an apple tree today". The idea for the Luthergarden is that churches throughout the world could sponsor the planting of one of the 500 trees which will be part of the Garden on the banks of the Elbe and that they could also plant a tree where they are which would celebrate Wittenberg. A way of affirming how much the Reformation in the 16th century influenced and changed the world, the garden is to be a symbol of reconciliation and interconnectedness.


At a personal level it was moving for me to see how creative people in Wittenberg are, how they are trying to use the anniversary proactively to prepare for a more inclusive and long-lasting celebration. I've only been in Wittenberg once on Reformation day, on October 31st 1989. I was living in this rather sleepy provincial town at the time, 10 days later the Berlin wall was to come down and change things for ever, but on that day I remember how many visitors there were to the small town behind the iron curtain, this was a real annual event bringing people from far away. It's easy for me now living in a small town of 8,000 inhabitants with 92 different nationalities to get blasé about internationalism but I can see the power of planting 500 trees which point to 500 other places in the world. Listening to the project I felt as if not all of the creative spirit of the peaceful revolution in eastern Europe had been lost, I think it's a great idea and hope it takes off.

(Photo: © LWB/P. Mumia)

Burn out on the God beat - how can that be possible?

I had lunch today with a really good young translator - he's recently finished translating Bishop Margot Kässmann's book into English for the WCC. We got to talking about why in the church of all places there is burn out, which led me on to say my usual stuff about how church's are often the most difficult organizations - they are just as political as other places and in addition people feel the burden that they should try to seem as if they are being nice or something.
As we were talking though - particularly about the church I am part of in the UK - I realised how sad I am that it is dying, sad that there is not much left for another generation to inherit from English non-conformity. But I see just how difficult that is then for clergy and church workers. It's not easy to admit that an institution is in palliative care, it's also very exhausting to look after it. Often it might seem as if it is in remission and of course really important things still happen and go on even in this situation.
I hadn't really expressed until today how sad it makes me feel that something that has been so important in forming the person I am, may no longer be. Yet I suppose I must trust in some sort of future. Nathan was saying how lively and full the church he goes to in Exeter is.
Anyway it would seem that the God beat is not only exhausting the clergy but also those hard bitten souls, journalists. A sad indictment on Christians that the way we bear witness to our faith drives some away from the last remains of theirs.

Dieu serait-il masculin?

I've been out at an evening at the back neff café in Plainpalais. I was talking about might God be masculine, at the last of a series of three theological cafés trying to find new ways of talking about God. A colleague who knows very little about feminist theology asked me to help him out by offering some reflections.
In the discussion we came up with the usual stuff about God being neither male nor female but "other" (this is easier to say in French than in English). Nice as it was there was basically noone there and when you go to a church you don't know you always notice things you wouldn't if you were on home territory - like no notice anywhere for tonight's meeting outside - no notice on the door saying come in. I think that it probably happens better in France where the theological cafes take place in real cafés with smoke and beer and no doubt heckling as well. Might have put us on our mettle a bit more. Despite the vicious cold it was good to get out and do something a bit different.

La bise bites

The truly terrible bise is back, colder than ever, stronger than ever, freezing us all to death at the bus stops. When I said my usual thing about how it isn't much like a kiss, someone this evening said that they had always assumed it came from the German beissen, which means to to bite. So maybe it's a leftover term from when the Bernois or other German speakers were occupying Geneva.

Kings Cross St Pancras - opening today

Early on Sunday morning I shall take the eurostar from Paris to London and arrive at the new Kings Cross St Pancras railway station, the opening was today. I think that wil be my sixth European capital by rail since early September - Bern, Rome, Vienna, Budapest, Paris, London. I haven't taken the plane for 15 months and counting. So I'm trying to be a bit responsible about my carbon footprint.
Of course Stephen thinks that the only thing really attracting me to King's Cross is Europe's longest champagne bar. Not quite sure that this will be what I want at 11 on a Sunday morning.

More meaning in life - just a dream

This evening I've been preparing catechism class for Saturday - (we call it KT as in caté). We've encouraged the young people to bring examples with them of people they feel have found meaning in life. Of course we've also prepared some material ourselves - we found a French translation of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech on the Nobel peace prize website.
On Saturday we're going to encourage them to dream dreams themselves, to envisage their own future and the world's. I think my colleague and I should probably also write our dreams - not at all sure what mine will be. Dreaming is actually a radical activity, an act of resistance in many ways, it's not escapist but about finding truly creative ways through very real problems.
So perhaps in the spirit of Joel 2.28 we should all dream dreams and have visions and transform the world.

News from Nairobi of a new ecumenism

The Global Christian Forum has been meeting near Nairobi this week. My colleague Theodore Gill has been posting reflections from the meeting giving much food for thought for those of us involved in the current ecumenical institutions and also from the churches in the North. The paper by Cheryl Bridges-Johns sounds really interesting. Theo quotes her as basing her remarks on three concepts:
“The old mainstream ecumenical paradigm is dying”,
“Christianity as a whole is thriving, especially in the majority world”,
“The gifts present in the global Christian movement, when kept in the hands of Christ, are adequate for the task of reconciling the world to Christ”.
Theo then goes on himself to reflect
"For many in the old-line churches, particularly in the western half of the northern hemisphere, it is natural to be overwhelmed by beloved but dying institutions that have been accustomed to gauge their strength in terms of numbers, status and authority within their cultures. For these Christians, it is easy to lose sight of the unprecedented expansion of Christianity in the “majority world” of the global south and parts of the east."

I've been wondering for a while if those of us from the North are best placed to reflect on the future of ecumenism. What we say comes very much out of the context of dying institutions and decline, yet doing contextual theology remains a challenge. It means honestly naming what is happening to our churches in terms of the death of the living stones. I can see this is happening to the United Reformed Church yet I would argue that it isn't happening to the Eglise Réformée de France, maybe I'm not honest enough about the church I'm more involved in and part of at the moment. Finding an ecumenical paradigm that can deal with so many different contexts within countries and churches, and around the world is going to be quite a challenge.
Another colleague Juan Michel has written about Wonsuk Ma's contribution to the meeting which I find rather more comforting than Cheryl Bridges-Johns analysis. Ma seems to suggest that the different parts of Christianity are complementary and we need one another. He also likens ecumenism to riding a bike - I'm not sure that this means the greening of the ecumenical paradigm but at least it's an image that speaks to people. Anyway I'm looking forwards to talking with colleagues when they return from meeting in Nairobi, perhaps understanding of new paradigms will emerge over our morning coffee.

From All Saints to All Souls' day.

Reformed Christians don't pray for the dead, nor do we pray to saints but at this time in the western liturgical calendar I recognise in myself an almost physical call to remember those who have died, friends, parishioners, family, aquaintances and "witnesses" from history. People whose lives continue to speak to me even though they themselves no longer can.
Until my close friend Yvonne Workman fell ill with cancer and then began to die I had almost never thought about the meaning of all souls' day. I was living in East Germany when the news reached me that her cancer was incurable, the Berlin wall had not yet fallen and I felt trapped by this personal tragedy, putting away the letter which spoke of death as if this could change her sentence.
A year later, two months before Yvonne died she preached and celebrated communion at Mansfield College chapel on all souls' day. I can still feel the radiance on her face as she preached and then broke bread and poured wine. Now this memory makes me smile with something like understanding - for many years it made my cheeks wet with tears. This seemingly not very Protestant festival gave her gave her confidence and trust in the future, it lent further meaning, strength and brightness to the remaining few weeks she had left. She too would be part of this mysterious crowd of all who have ever lived and be rememebered and celebrated on that day; through bread and wine and remembrance she would remain part of the feast. On that day in the early morning of the cold chapel I began to glimpse something like understanding of what communion of all the saints might be, for a moment I may even have really believed in life after death - and believe me for a rationalist, doubting Christian such as me this is quite something!

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia, we sang that day as she radiated hope and joy.

Yvonne died just after the feast of epiphany. The tiny United Reformed Church in Wheatley was packed for her funeral, Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford who had preached at her ordination had to stand in the church kitchen.

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia, we sang again at the funeral.

This week I learnt with real sadness that Grace Jantzen had died last year. She and Yvonne had been close friends in London. I met her at the funeral, we led the prayers together, wept together and exchanged letters afterwards about singing alleluia - which she didn't like much. I don't know whether she was already a Quaker by then. Looking belatedly at her obituaries I'm really interested in her idea that Christians should be less obsessed with death and more committed to life - less mortal more natal. A feisty, feminist and profound philosophical theology from a woman who despite knowing cancer early in her own life challenges Christians to live, to live, to live. In memory of her, in memory of Yvonne and in celebration of their great intellects I shall buy Death and the Displacement of Beauty, part one of what should have been Grace's 6 volume opus.
The dead still speak to me of remembrance and living life to the full. I suspect this is what Mexicans have been doing on the Day of the Dead for many generations.