Trick or Triskaidekaphobia?

Homily preached at Eltham College on Friday 13th November 2009, based on Acts xvii.22-31 and Romans viii.28.

It’s Friday 13th!

Your alarm-clock fails to go off
at the correct time
causing you to oversleep
by half an hour.

You leap out of bed
only to find that
the cat’s been sick on your school shirt
and the only clean one you have
isn’t technically clean
but has been lying under your bed
for the past week
where it has been discarded
after a very overactive game
of Wii tennis and has acquired
a smell that can curdle milk
at three metres.

You race downstairs only to find
that your sister has eaten
the last of the Coco Pops,
the milk has curdled having been
in close proximity to your shirt,
leaving you only with toast
which you have to eat quickly
because you’re late for the coach.

You hurtle to the coach stop
only to see it disappear
into the distance as you arrive.

When you finally get to school,
you find that you’ve left at home
the Latin homework
due in to the Headmaster today
without fail.

And here you are now,
sitting here listening
to a catalogue of your woes on Friday 13th,
worrying about
just how the day has it in for you.

What are you going to do
about all the bad luck that lies in store today?

[PAUSE]

Perhaps you try to ward it off.

Make sure that you don’t walk under a ladder.
Check your Horoscope.
Hope that you’ve packed your lucky rabbit’s foot.

Mug a horse for its shoe.

How do these things really affect your luck
for good or bad?

[PAUSE]

It is possible that there is
some Harry Potter magical connection
between a rabbit’s foot
and having good luck,
but let’s be frank:
it wasn’t terribly lucky for the rabbit,
was it?


A horseshoe may bring good luck,
but not if it falls off the wall
and bounces off of your head.

In our culture today,
there seem to be many
of these superstitions
that still exist.
People are frightened by Friday 13th,
others knock on wood,
or cringe when they cross on the stairs,
others are afraid to tread on the cracks
in the pavement
and so wend their way down the street
skittering about like a sparrow with fleas.

Literally the word “superstition”
means “standing over”
and describes the sense of foreboding
that we get when we know
that something’s not quite right
but cannot put our finger on it.

So, you see,
all superstition has its root in fear,
especially fear of the unknown.

Those who have problems with Friday 13th
are associating a particular day with bad luck
because they have a fear of the unknown future.

It’s true to say to a certain extent
that Friday 13th is statistically unluckier
than other days for the simple reason
that people expect it to be unluckier
than other days.
They engineer their own bad luck,
just as you did when you forgot
to set your alarm last night,
or take your clean shirt off of the floor
out of the way
of a fur-ball ridden moggy.


At the heart of every superstition
lies a great paralysing fear
that can seize control over our lives,
cause us to behave irrationally
and make life less enjoyable for us.

Let’s face it,
we’re going to have some days when things go well,
and days when everything seems to go wrong.

That’s what life is like,
and we cannot escape it.

The best thing we can do
is to look rationally about what we can do
to make the best of the bad times.


We are all afraid of the unknown
– that’s natural.
But think of the fears you’ve already conquered.

Arriving here at Eltham College for the first time,
meeting new faces,
and most chilling of all,
coming face to face with Mr Roberts.

But you got over them,
and you did not need a lucky horseshoe
to get you through them.

[PAUSE]

Sometimes,
life’s bad luck can get very hard,
and lots of people turn to God for guidance.

It’s true that some people think that
if we please God,
then we’ll get good luck.

However,
Christian worship of God is not about
trying to gain His good favour
like some kind of grovelling little toady,
but rather it is about entering into
an active relationship with God.

Christians believe that
because the Lord Jesus has died on our behalf,
there is no need to appease God.

We are already in His good books
if we truly work at a
committed,
sincere
and loving relationship with Him.

However,
that doesn’t mean we escape
bad luck in this life.

There is nothing wrong
in praying to God for good fortune,
but it may be more important for our benefit
that we do not receive what we want in life.

We do not pray to God
just to get our own way
and in order to avoid the bad things
that happen to us.

We do not get good luck
just because we have been good,
or bad luck when we’ve been bad.

God is not a genie,
and our belief in Him has evolved
from this primitive idea.


Christians know that in all things
God works for the good of those who love Him.

This means that even the worst luck
has the potential for making us happy
by making us better people.

It hurts,
but so does having an injection at the dentist.

[PAUSE]

It is Friday 13th today.

Is today really going to be unlucky for you?

Proximity and Consciousness

It seems to me that we are often plagued by this feeling of being far from God.

I'm wondering whether this distance between us and God is simply an illusion. Actually, delusion would be the better word.

God gives us a choice whether to believe in Him or not, and, to preserve this choice, He creates a world which apparently runs without Him, in which His actions are apparently invisible, yet produce startling effects. The existence of the Church populated by sinners is one of the most miraculous things going! The choice is that of Faith which we can adhere to or reject. As I posted below, Science seems to suggest that we have free-won't rather than free will, and this simply demonstrates the presence of temptation that is part of our make-up.

I am convinced that while our mind may indeed be the product of chemical and electrical activity in the brain, our awareness of simply being points to an unobservable existence of ourselves and ourselves as an image of God. But humans tend to reduce ourselves so terribly. If we possess this image of God then how do we really deface this image? Surely it's indelible.

I am inclined to believe that sin isn't so much a defacing of the image of God that we possess (and perhaps we possess it as a single humanity) and rather more a deliberate blinding of ourselves as vessels of God. The final and most awful sin is that we blind ourselves eternally to God. What is Hell but bearing God's image but being eternally unaware of possessing it, searching aimlessly for that which is so close, but never, ever finding it.

I am often told that we are like leaky pots into which the Spirit is poured, but it seeps out again. This doesn't ring true to me. The sacrament of Confirmation is indelible, and for the Holy Spirit to leak out goes against the notion of a God who is always with us until the end of the age.

It seems that it is sin that turns us away from the truth of our spiritual identity. We become more aware of ourselves only as a biological organism which just operates according to the thoughts and feelings that may bubble up in our brain. We lose that sense that we are not all these labels of teacher, student, gas-fitter, fat, bald, straight, gay, homophobe, physicist, learned, stupid, effeminate, coward, happy, sad, man woman or even human being. We are not labels because that is not where our identities lie. These labels we have to give up if we really want to find ourselves.

In sin we become less aware of being aware of who we are, because we are less aware of God, the source of our being and the sole reason we continue to be. We may be clay vessels of the Holy Spirit, but that Spirit will not leave us, indeed He will always strive to convince us of His presence within us, but never coerce us into making a choice which doesn't come from this heart of our very being. Somehow these little clay pots have to turn around and make ourselves aware of the oil that we possess already within us by being still and knowing that God is, and that in Him we live and move and have our being.

...at least as far as I am aware.

Elmore or less

It seems that the community at Elmore are looking to leave the overly large house in Newbury for more manageable premises in Salisbury.

I really admire these monks for their embodiment of persistence, a particularly Benedictine virtue, I'm told.

Of course, it's sad in many ways, and one could get sentimental about ends of eras and what is the future of Monasticism, but this is clearly a community decision in the best interests of the community in order that the community may continue to grow.

Of course, the modern era is obsessed by numerical size, the number of bums on pews. It would have been marvellous if the community had continued to grow in numbers, and I don't believe that this is entirely ruled out, but growth in spirituality is of greater value than the crude head count.

Unfortunately, too many of our Parishes seem intent on trying to increase their numbers (and thus their collection takings) rather than focussing on the spiritual health of the nation which is not very good if all be told. There are many out there who have some spiritual need which isn't being met by Parishes which sell themselves out for the quick pound.

This can't be said for the quartet of Benedictines beetling about Speen who have simply kept on keeping on and just keep growing. In some way, it can be said that they have out-grown Elmore Abbey! Please pray for them, and continue to pray for monastic vocations so that the number of real monks like these will grow as a result of, and further in, good spiritual growth.

Death of a good blog

When I first started blogging, I was supported and enjoyed supporting "The Continuum" blog. However, lately in the last few months it has become quite clear that rather than seeking for Unity, they have been looking more and more to define themselves as the true bastion of Anglicanism at the expense of charitable dialogue.

Fr Chadwick's blog gave me some vital information about one of the most recent posts on the Continuum entitled UK Kool Aid:

Well, I am most disappointed by Fr. Hart's most recent article "UK Kool Aid" criticising the recent decision of the English TAC to respond positively to the Pope's offer. I suppose this priest is inferring that we are drinking poison without the least prudence, as if we were buying a used car from an East-End second-hand motor dealer.

I do try not to be offended, but Fr Hart's latest invective has crossed my threshold and I have reluctantly decided to part associations with that blog. I have asked that their link to this blogling be removed and I have removed my link to theirs.

I have always proclaimed my pride in my Anglican heritage, but it seems to me that Fr Hart's contributions seek to turn Anglicanism into a pure religion, untainted by any "corruption" from Rome who is always regarded as the enemy. Ironically, I have always used Isaiah li.1, the verse that most non-Catholics use to dispute the Supremacy of the Holy Father, to examine the relationship of the Church of England and the Holy See.

I know that Fr Hart can theologically run rings around me, tear any argument of mine to shreds, but I seek something very simple - the Unity of all Christians in the Orthodox Catholic Faith. I see the Roman Catholic Church as been fundamental to that unity and I am delighted by the recent announcement, even if it falls through, because this means that something positive is happening in the field of unity.

As a layman, I have very little option but to trust my bishops who follow the Catholic Faith. I have recently met with a splendid bishop in the TAC who helped me enormously, and who told me to watch this space with regard to Roman-Anglican dialogue. I therefore trust that Rome's offer will be considered very carefully from both sides, and, because I know that they are rooted in the Love of God, I believe that this process will be guided by the Holy Spirit.

Naive? Let me be called Naive then! Personally, I would rather trust in the servants of God whom I believe, though fallible in humanity, carry with them the infallibility of the Church, than to barricade myself into one little corner and call that "Anglicanism".

Ave atque vale The Continuum

Same old argument?

I keep running into the same argument. Simplified, it seems to run as follows:

Aristotle: I claim that P is true.
Boethius: I do not believe that P is true.
Aristotle: You must accept that P is true because you say you follow Catullus.
Catullus says P is true.
Boethius: I certainly accept the authority of Catullus,
but I deny that Catullus says that P is true.
Aristotle: Then you cannot truly follow Catullus.
Boethius: But I do follow Catullus, but not in the way that you do.
Aristotle: There is no other way to follow Catullus, for Catullus says Q.
Boethius: I do not believe that Catullus says Q.
Relabel "Catullus says Q" with P and go to the third line.

I doubt if there are arguments that always follow this interminably nesting form, though it seems to me that some theological arguments do indeed have that quality.

If the argument were to continue, would it ever converge? I suspect that it would if these two followers of Catullus finally hit some atomic statement at the heart of their fellowship with Catullus, an axiom upon which they both agreed, then they would have to work backwards through cycles in order to work out who was right.

This is unlikely to happen in theological discussion, because theology does not seem to be atomic, or if it is, the atoms of faith are not as accessible to argument. I've thought below on the nature of the difference between axioms (assumptions) and dogmata. Assumptions form the starting points of a rational theory; dogmata are statements of belief about reality. Axioms are not open to enquiry, dogmata are.

Thus it is unlikely that Aristotle's argument with Boethius will ever have a conclusion unless the doctrine of Catullus is axiomatic. If it's dogmatic, then there is precious little hope of any resolution. If there is only One True Catullus, then this argument cannot ever really hope to determine what he truly says, though Aristotle and Boethius will both still claim to follow the One True Catullus.

So how is the whole situation to be rectified?

Catullus knows!

Being Conscious of Consciousness?

I find Science absolutely fascinating and beautiful, and I enjoy how it challenges to make me think about my Faith.

I've found myself getting rather caught up in the study of consciousness lately. This seems a fascinating topic that does seem to upset some people because of the way it seems to reduce human beings to mere biological machines. There seem to be theories of consciousness that suggest that it is a by-product of the way our brains have evolved.

Some would suggest that the sense of self that we have is an illusion because of experiments that seem to be able to "transplant" the sensation of being oneself into another body.

Another fascinating experiment suggests that our brain actually makes a decision before we are consciously aware of it. Rather than having free-will, this experiment suggests we have free-won't in that the decision is made within other processes in the brain, but that the conscious self can veto that decision. This does rather go hand in hand with the old adage "you can't stop birds flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair".

Scientists, on the whole, reject the idea of duality, namely that a human being is comprised of two separate species - body and mind. If the mind were something completely separate from the body, then how can it be associated with the body? How can the will of the mind be enforced upon the body?

The atheists love this idea that we are just biological machinery: our consciousness is entirely explicable, that our social constructs are largely memetic in propagation and that all religion is anti-scientific to disagree with it.

Well, one thing that Science has yet to realise is that the constant reduction of humanity to the level of machinery renders itself entirely devoid of meaning. If we are just biological machines then rationality and irrationality are both processes of the same mechanical processes. Science becomes just as memetic as Religion. It's just there and of no greater significance than what it deems as Irrationality.

Of course memetics itself is not exactly the most convincing theory going. If the concept of memes were true, then they cannot help us know whether the content of memes are true. So if ideas and beliefs are propagated via memes, then so is the idea that Science can observe all that there is. Memetics essentially nullifies any attempt to find out what is true or false. Also, memes seem to be utterly unobservable. Rather like D-brane theory, it seems to be utterly untestable.

I am not convinced by the rejection of duality, principally because I am not convinced that everything that exists is necessarily scientifically observable. But then, I am not entirely bothered by the possibility that my mind is made up of processes in the brain - I am merely a human being after all.

However, I believe in God, and further I believe God. St Augustine paints a picture of the fragility of humanity as beings of infinitesimal existence sandwiched between the nonexistent Past and Future. Likewise, these scientific findings could inspire us to see ourselves as paltry lumps of flesh. It is in God that we live and move and have our being. Indeed our being is hidden with Christ in God as St Paul tells us. We are fragile beings on a fragile world with a fragile existence. It is from God, and from Him alone that we obtain any real substance and a real identity beyond that which we can appear to measure. Our consciousness, thoughts, emotions may indeed prove to be to our existence as the stormy weather over the mountain, but it is God who shows us that we aren't the weather, but rather the mountain.

Mission Accomplished?

I suppose as one who has been praying for and hoping for the reunion of Anglicanism and Rome that I ought to make a comment on the latest developments and the offer made by the Holy Father to Anglo-Catholics.

However, I refuse to make any knee-jerk reactions. If the Holy Father has taken time to consider the position and make the offer, then we should reply in kind and think carefully about what it entails so that we can be resolute and considered in whatever decision we make.

Acceptance of the offer would give us the opportunities for greater dialogue and greater influence in the Roman Catholic Church. Our presence may help Rome to regain what she herself lost liturgically as a result of Vatican II. However, will acceptance of the offer stop us from being Anglicans? I'm worried about the wording of "former Anglicans". Cardinal Newman was always an Anglican and being a Roman Catholic did not stop him from thinking like an Anglican.

What would rejection of the offer mean? Would this be demonstrating that we prize our Anglican Identity higher than our desire for Unity, or would it be a necessary response to prevent absorption?

Personally, the first thing I would want to do is to greet this offer with honest gratitude and embrace the spirit of its generation. I would then like to look for ways and further dialogue to refine it in order to accept it wholeheartedly. This is not something that we should rush into with theological guns blazing, but rather sit back and thank God for the possibilities this opens up for us.