Our Sound Is Our Wound

(Given by Lucy Winkett at "Drenched in Grace"-  Inclusive Church's residential conference in November 2007)

Jesus came and stood amongst his disciples and said, "peace be with you”, then he showed them his hands and his side.  (John 20. 19)

A woman walks onto a stage, her Stradivarius violin tucked under her arm. Her three companions follow her with viola, cello and another violin. They take their seats in a semi circle and the violinist lifts her bow. The packed hall is silent; everyone is waiting for the first note. The players have memorised the first lines and so they're looking, not at the music but at each other.  They will soon begin the work created by the composer long dead and they will begin it together - absolutely together - mysteriously one chord with notes contributed by all the players....... and so they watch each other,  and they wait for the sign. We have frozen time at the moment before the music begins,  the moment of absolute silence, the palpable silent anticipation of sound. It's a curiously intense experience going to a concert and its full of moments like this, a group of people who will never be gathered together again, a unique company of strangers who for one night experience something unrepeatable. And  for the players it is costly.  They will give much of themselves, they will lay their music at the feet of the audience they will never meet, as an offering, as a gift they feel compelled to give. Suddenly music begins, the silence is broken, and the tension is released. The strings are brought to life under the quickening touch of the violinist. The players are so caught up in the ebb and flow of the music that their bodies sway, their feet leave the stage as they rock back in their chairs, they lean into one another and away when the bowing is full. They are one. For the time that they play, they are one. Connected by their eyes, their sound becomes their wound, so vulnerable are they to the gaze of the audience. In the minds of the audience, a thousand questions are raised by this beauty. How did  Dvorak   know so much truth about life?  How does the violin express so much grief in the arms of the woman who plays it?  At the end of the concert a man in the audience turns to the stranger sitting beside him and says almost in bewilderment and with tears running down his face "that was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard”. They  will never meet again.

I lived for some time in a L'Arche community in Kent.  Some of you will know about L'Arche, an ecumenical community, where adults with learning disabilities live together with assistants like me. Life life and work is shared and although there were in many ways a chasm fixed between some of the members of this community, communication happened verbally or non-verbally and community miraculously was formed and lived.

One woman I shared a house with was called Sal, she was about five years older than me with dark hair and big eyes. Sal never spoke but she shouted when she was cross, and she laughed when she was glad and much of the time she hummed. Her hum was powerful and tuneless, meandering and monotone. One day I was sitting in the garden on the bench with Sal and she was humming and rocking along with me, it's a gift that Sal has given me that I have long been grateful for - to hum and rock at particularly stressful times in my life. After maybe half an hour of meandering humming Sal momentarily stopped rocking and this is what happened … [hum the tune of "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord”  ]

" Sal” I said, "do you know what you sang”? I looked at her and the flicker of recognition that had momentarily been there disappeared and she retreated back to where I couldn't reach her. Our lives had been up to that point and to some extent since absolutely unrecognisable to each other. I don't know what Sal believed, what she thought of God or what any of her thoughts were most of the time -  she was and is an absolute mystery to me. We're both made in Gods image but might as well be from different planets, but for that moment and subsequently,  we found a shared language where her communication to me was suddenly understood, her sound was her wound, so vulnerable does it make her and the connection was all the more poignant when it was gone.

Jesus stood among them and said "peace be with you” then he showed them his hands and his side.

There is a theological connection between the wounds of Christ and the peace he came to proclaim. As Christians, as reformed Catholics, as Anglicans our calling is to pursue all that makes for peace and build up our common life. It isn't easy not to want to give up on this task especially when the reality is, as the theologian Gareth Jones has recently written, some Anglicans hate other Anglicans because of their sexuality, its also true to say that some Anglicans hate other Anglicans because of the views they hold about people who are gay, as we read in Jeremiah 'they cry peace when there is no peace'. Sometimes the tricks of language we can play on ourselves remind me of the famous story that I'm sure you know when R.A.B.  Butler became Master of Trinity College in Cambridge, his wife Molly had a much beloved cat. Cats were not allowed in Trinity College by an ancient statute so the fellows met and in great solemnity deemed the cat to be a dog! We are capable in the Anglican Church, as in Trinity College, of "religion in a wendy house” from time to time, and our language is confusing - they cry peace when there is no peace. The fact is that peace is not quiet, peace is not the absence of war, peace is hard won and difficult to keep, it's elusive, it needs nurture and constant attention and the creation of peace, the resistance of the forces of death in our world, the call to new life, the new creation that we just affirmed in our liturgy is a moment of birth and of change and will require us to show our wounds.

In John's gospel, in  the story of Lazarus as Jeffrey John has reminded us, (The Meaning in the Miracles p 219) the cry of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb is an unusually strong verbin the Greek. The same word is used to describe the baying of the crowd to be given  Barabbas  instead of Jesus. The cost to Jesus in  tears as he yells to Lazarus to come out of the tomb is an unusual feature of this story. He is a vulnerable and emotional saviour.  . It's evident that to bring another to life is a painful and costly process. The Benedictine Mark Barratt has reminded us too (Crossing ch 1) that there's a tradition in Cyprus that after Lazarus was raised from the tomb he never smiled again. Even when we consider the fate of Lazarus, "the only human being who had to die twice”    this is a curious teaching until we reflect that it is perhaps part of the human condition to want to stay in the tomb. Its not automatic or easy to live in the light. It's safer to stay in the dark, a little below par, not quite being all that we suspect we could be. It's  much more of a risk to walk out of the gloom and into the light, even in response to a screaming Saviour.

We've heard about the misuse of scripture, about the competitive quoting of what James Alison has called 'clobber texts' (Faith Beyond Resentment pub ) . Scriptural truth is so often characterised as the Ephesians sword, with which we attempt to run one another through. I have long found it fruitful  to imagine Scripture not so much as a set of written books, translated as they are from the languages of antiquity, but as a  "soundscape”;  poetry and stories and proclamations that have been cried, shouted, sung and whispered over the centuries by so many voices. Like the sheet of music in the concert I described in the beginning, the music that is in the composer's heart finds its way onto the page and the notes and the cadences are captured and set down for a season -  translated and shared. But it is not music again until the players pick it up and play it and  set  it free from its ink and parchment. Similarly Scripture lives in the lives of those who learn it and know its forms, its cadences and its wisdom. Is it not our delight and responsibility in the church to listen for the beautiful, irreducibly sad music of the Spirit, to sing and play the part the Creator has given us, to be silent when we're asked to rest in order for another's voice to be heard, but to be caught up in lifting the music off the page to sing to a world aching to hear the songs of the angels telling of the good news of peace. As Sheila Cassidy has commented there will be times when some individual lives in their discipleship of a crucified saviour are hollowed out to make a reed pipe on which is played the music of the universe. (Good Friday People p    )

In the play Shadowlands, which tells the story of the relationship between C S Lewis and his wife, C S Lewis' famous phrase that suffering is God's megaphone to the world is given poignant expression. The first half of the play is dominated by the low hum of the academic common room, the discussions of God and theology and suffering that are in the end inconsequential in the lives of the fellows as they wend  their  late-night way home. But the second half is dominated by the visceral cries of a woman  - Joy -  whose pain as she suffers the cancer that eventually kills her is given powerful expression. In metaphorical and real vestries up and down the land the sound in the first half has been the low hum of Anglicans pondering theological problems;  but now in  the debating chambers of synod and church halls and in vestries where bishops gather the tone ranges from shrill to pleading, from bullying to hearty and all the time there are some in quiet despair whose silence is not chosen.

On a lighter note, I'm reminded too here while we're on the subject of vestries of the distinction with which I'm sure you're all familiar  - and for which I'm indebted to my friend Mark Oakley  - that you can always tell which denomination's vestry you're in by what is hanging on the wall; in a Roman Catholic vestry you'll see a picture of Jesus the  sacred heart, in a Methodist vestry you'll see a picture of Jesus the good shepherd and in an Anglican vestry what you'll invariably find on the wall is a full length mirror.

 I would like to suggest that in listening for the music of the Spirit, the church has a problem, which is that it has developed tinnitus. As a tinnitus sufferer myself I can sympathise. Tinnitus is the condition that leaves the sufferer with a high pitched whistle or hum constantly in their ears, it happens after experiencing loud noise for sustained periods, sometimes gunfire or the legacy of too many nights in the club.  I'll leave you to decide which one caused mine.   It's hard for us to hear the music of the Spirit and like Sal in the L'Arche community the melody is snatched and brief - but  we know it when we hear it. Without taking too oppositional a stance to the society in which we're embedded I'd like to suggest that in part our tinnitus is a consequence of our distraction. In his study on Richard Hooker, Rowan Williams has written of a characteristic of his spirituality and thus a foundational aspect of Anglicanism, it is that of contemplative pragmatism. (Anglican Identitites p24 ff)  Archbishop Rowan himself makes a  theological defence of contemplative pragmatism. In relation to Hooker's writing with reference to an orthodox understanding of the person and work of Christ, Rowan Williams writes  'a congregation which applies strict and clear standards of acceptability for its members stands in danger of two major errors which would undermine the classical Christological synthesis Hooker takes for granted. First it would allot no practical significance to Christ's assumption of a complete humanity, second it would leave no intelligible room at all for sacramental practice since it would ignore the fundamental repeating pattern of divine action as revealed in the incarnation, created events that carry the effects of divine decision and initiative. (Anglican Identities p 31)

Where can we look for resources to help us with our tinnitus so that we can hear the music of the Spirit? We look within Scripture of course, and we mine the traditions from  which we come.  If  I may offer a   Scriptural picture of contemplative pragmatism and perhaps even in doing so claim one of Jesus' closest companions as the forerunner of the Anglican Settlement I would point us to Martha.  She's forever associated with the pejorative descriptions of household tasks, a misogynist reading that trivialises the work that is predominantly and still predominantly done by women. But Martha is more than that, yes she's the pragmatist, she provides for the visitors when her sister sits at Jesus' feet, she's the one who reminds Jesus that Lazarus will be stinking because he's been in the tomb for four days, one more day even  than Jesus would spend, she's the one who doesn't wait for Jesus to arrive but runs out to meet him and flings her fury at him; "If you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died”  (John 11. 21) . But she's also the one who contemplates Jesus and tells him the truth, "You are the messiah” she says, " the one who was to come into the world” (John 11.27).    She spoke of her grief, her resentment, her practical concerns and she did theology in the presence of God.

Being Anglicans within the Church of England, we're embedded in the society we serve and it's not on Scripture alone that we lean when we try to interpret this present age. We are not a separate institution that provides diversionary activity for people to choose in their spare time. Our relationship to our local and national context is symbiotic and in resourcing ourselves for the communication of  an inclusive gospel we have to learn to read ourselves culturally. I hope you will permit a reference or two from this precentor about liturgy purely as a practitioner not as an academic, which is a primary way that we Christians before God make peace not only with our maker but with one another and with the earth. Liturgy is the foretaste of the heavenly banquet made visible and embodied now on earth, a place where right relationships are rehearsed, a place where we rehearse justice and peace, and biblical justice is not so much a focus on individual rights but a making right of an unjust society with a particular focus on the  anawim  - the poor,

All our liturgy is embodied and enacted in the context of the sun that shines by day and the moon by night. And liturgy embodies our belief in God beyond us and God beside us, Yahweh and Emmanuel, transcendent and  immanent.  Our liturgy, the way we pray, is necessarily influenced by the society in which we're set. Its not so much, as the Bishop of Durham said in the  recent General Synod debate about women bishops, a vague intention to keep in touch with modern society that drives us, but a recognition that we are human beings who live in the world as it is now.  Scientific advances, changes in perspective, social attitudes will be reflected in a liturgy that seeks to be properly incarnational. One commentator has put it this way,

 to know Christ sacramentally only in terms of bread and wine, is to know him only partially in the dining room as host and guest it's a valid enough knowledge but its ultimate weakness when isolated is that it is perhaps too civil. However elegant the knowledge of the dining room may be, it begins in the soil, in the barnyard, in the slaughterhouse amid the quiet violence of the garden and fat spitting in the pan. Table manners depend on some things having been grabbed by the throat, a knowledge of God that ignores these dark and murderous human gestes is losing its grip on the human condition. (Aidan Kavanagh)

The worry that we have as Anglicans is that our church life could become so driven by fear that our liturgy is tedious and our public engagement shrill and irrelevant. Many people would say that church is boring and while being boring is not the greatest sin in the world,  it is a problem for us and it's born of under confidence and fear. The opposite of boring is not diversionary, an all singing, all dancing eucharist on ice! The opposite of boring is authentic.   Our liturgy and theology, as in the quotation I've just used, should never move too far from Gethsemane. This  is what God is like, this is what its like to be involved in the salvation of God's world.  (cf Rowan Williams Resurrection ch 1)  It's sweating blood and trying to keep awake when all you want to do is go to sleep. And what are the sounds we offer to the world in our liturgy? Its really important because apart from meeting the vicar in the pub, perhaps this is where most people in society encounter the Church of England, (other than its pronouncements in the media of course), at funerals, at some weddings and baptisms, and on TV.   Our current predicament in the UK with our own internal and shrill conversations remind me of the story reported in the press last week of two men in Mexico who are the last known speakers of an indigenous language, they'd fallen out with each other and are not speaking and as a consequence, the very language they speak is under threat.   That tragic story can be translated into a situation where the disconnection between church and society in twenty first century Britain is clear. You will know of the ordinand who was told by his bishop that before the next time he saw him, he wanted him to go into a betting shop and place a bet. The  ordinand was outraged, what possible good can that do, he would refuse and anyway it might even be immoral. The bishop insisted "go into a betting shop and place a bet”. Three months later the ordinand returned

"well how did it go?”,

" It was horrible, I couldn't find a betting shop at first but then I did see one on the high street, I walked up and down outside and I really didn't want to go in.  Eventually I plucked up courage and I did go inside. There  were a load of men watching the race on TV.   I didn't know what I was supposed   to do, but I went up to the counter  - in the end I was too scared to ask anyone.   I placed the bet and watched the race, I couldn't wait to get out, my heart was pounding”.

 "Never forget”, said the bishop, that's how most people feel about going into church.

Liturgically and theologically with the disconnect between church and society in England the fact that hymns are not known by which previous generations learned the theology and redemption and salvation, generations of young people and adults are not educated in the faith as we heard this morning, and are  much less aware of what might actually happen inside a church building. The spiritual gifts of awe and wonder, worship of something greater than ourselves, are being lost to a generation that is  in fact resolutely credulous and whose spiritual instincts are directed not so much towards God within any religion as towards a fantasy world of dark materials and Hogwarts Academy. Its not that society is becoming increasingly secular  - the secularisation theory is being challenged by sociologists. The world is as furiously religious as ever and the paradox of the increase in fundamentalism in all religions in late modernity is a conundrum that church leaders and sociologists alike  are struggling to understand. We don't proclaim Christ crucified when we parade our anxieties about relevance to a bemused population. In claiming the right and voice to comment critically on the cultures by which we're surrounded,   the public face of the church -  our liturgy -  our liturgical language  -  can be confident, profound and inclusive, a place where we don't try self consciously to be counter cultural or to join in. And as far as our sounds are concerned because of our anxiety about our own vocation and place, we adopt either an oppositional stance culturally, (which can leave us on an island on which we build our faith and our case) or we do try to engage with popular culture sometimes enduring that special ridicule reserved for maiden aunts who wear a baseball cap in an effort to join in.  (cf Ian Hislop)  I speak as a maiden aunt!

I enjoy music of all kinds; plainsong, Tallis, and  Byrd, Howells,  all jazz, Abba and particularly Macy Gray. We talk in the church about modern music. We  don't mean modern music, we mean the Carpenters! Late seventies and early eighties soft rock.  There's  nothing wrong with that in its place. Or,  we are resolutely Radio Three with a purist zeal defining what's "appropriate”. If our sound is our wound with which we must make peace,  what are we saying when the songs we sing to God include the same cadences that advertisers use to sell chocolate?   If I may put it like this, in a suffering world and after Auschwitz it is not appropriate that every rhythm is comforting or every cadence resolves. How can we inhabit authentic liturgy when our tinnitus is preventing us from hearing and playing and singing the music of the Spirit?.

One other point before I leave the subject of how we pray:  the perspective from which we pray has necessarily changed because of our time.   Perhaps taking a  quick look at one example of this might liberate us in other ways.   The example I'd like to offer is from the natural environment.  You'll  remember that a couple of years ago a whale swam down the Thames in London. The  whale had lost its way and despite efforts to rescue it, it died. We know from antiquity that the great fish "Leviathan” was interpreted as the personification of evil, Leviathan in the Psalms and the swallowing of Jonah to take two examples. One of the most interesting interpretations therefore of the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the great fish, is that being swallowed up by evil is something that we don't necessarily recognise as bad while its happening. Evil is not necessarily repulsive like a great festering sore on our morality, its often seductive, attractive and disguised, it looks perfectly reasonable and we're drawn towards bad decisions and abusive behaviour because we might think we'll find rest from responsibility. George Orwell wrote about this in his 1939 essay ' Inside The Whale' he identified what he thought was probably a wide spread fantasy,

The historical Jonah he wrote if he can be so called, was glad enough to escape but in imagination, in daydream countless people have envied him. It is of course quite obvious why. The whale's belly is simply a womb big enough for an adult. There  you are in the dark cushioned space that exactly fits you with yards of blubber between yourself and reality able to keep up an attitude of the completest indifference no matter what happens, a storm that would sink all the battleships in the world would hardly reach you as an echo, even the whale's own movements would probably be imperceptible to you. Short  of being dead it's the final unsurpassable stage of irresponsibility.

GeorgeOrwell: Inside the Whale'

First published: Inside the Whale and Other Essays. — GB, London. — March 11, 1940.

With this interpretation in mind it leads us to meditate on the seductiveness and attractiveness sometimes of what is wrong, the choice between right and wrong is not so easily identified. After all the commemorations this year marking the 200th anniversary of the act abolishing the slave trade we might as well ask ourselves what collective fantasy are we in the grip of to the same degree as those christian leaders who justified and supported the system of slavery, have we closed our ears to the cries of the suffering ones drowning in the ocean outside, what is it about our church that people in two hundred years time will say, did they not know, how could they not have seen that they were in the belly of the fish. Now of course,

whales are not seen to be a symbol of evil, whales are a totem of the conservation movement, we feel affection for them, they inhabit a mysterious environment about which we know very little - the ocean, they're millions of years old, they hold the ancient wisdom of the earths origins and they've seen dinosaurs. We've invested whales with human values that we think we've lost in western society, we idolise whales who look after their own sick family members and each other's young. Whales are vast, sociable and friendly they have their own childcare system, and whats more they even sing.  (cf Arne Kalland, Professor, University of Oslo "Eleven Essays on Whales and Man” 26 Sept 1994.)  

So all this explains that when a whale swam down the Thames in the eleventh century, Londoners set upon it and killed it because they thought evil was visiting their city. In the twenty first century when a whale swam down the Thames, crowds stood on the bank and cried as it struggled and eventually died. The intercessions in the diocese of London would have been very different in reaction to exactly the same event one thousand years apart. What I am trying to  illustrate here is that while we still pray ancient prayers from our tradition in the words of those who thought the world was flat or that God was a man on a throne sitting out of site or that women didn't have souls or that slavery was natural,  we have to acknowledge that we pray, that we teach the faith,  in the light of what else we know and experience, and in the light of the character of the society in which we're embedded.     We should not be worried or ashamed about this. Much is said about falling congregations, the pension crisis, disinterest from the general population, and the church is characterised as dying - I do not think the church is dying. It lives and breathes in the ordinary men and women who bury, marry, baptise and pray for their people, and in the ordinary women and men who volunteer to contribute to the building up of community and church. The church is not dying but I do think that it might be grieving and as an institution we're doing what grieving people do, we're concentrating on the small things, we're getting disproportionately furious and we're losing perspective. We're grieving a time either when the early church under persecution knew its vocation and had a common purpose or the post Constantinian church where considerable power was in the hands of its leaders. We're grieving for a fantasy though.  Ever since Paul sailed away from Barnabas over the role played by John Mark in Acts 15,  the church has disagreed with itself.  That fact does not lead us to complacency - far from it, but it will lead us to take the long view. In the UK we've moved over the last four centuries from a society where priests mediated revealed truth to an illiterate people,  to a situation now where religious leaders suggest analysis of modern society as one contribution in a complex and subtle public conversation.  Most  people in Britain live their lives without reference to organised religion and without an acknowledged need for religious mystery or beauty. But the church is embedded in the modern society we serve. It's  an unchallenged  commonplace that the competitive dynamic of the market is that which produces the best economic system for the majority and the collateral damage of "late capitalism”, the people who can't or won't compete,  is deemed to be a price worth paying. The church has much to say about this kind of society, our ideologies about sex, relationships and sexual practice are also informed by the society in which we are set. There is of course a huge frustration with the way church leaders are fixed on sexuality and gender particularly as talismanic issues, but in a way, I'd like to suggest we are also reflecting an anxiety in society at large.

 An American journalist Ariel Levy published a book called  ' Female Chauvinist Pigs' (Pocket Books 2005).   Her  particular concern was feminist, post feminist female sexuality but it's pertinent to our meditations on peacemaking in the church. She identified in late capitalism what she has called 'raunch culture', "only thirty years ago” she said "our mothers were burning their bras and picketing playboy, suddenly we're getting implants and wearing bunny logos as symbols of our liberation”. (Female Chauvenist Pigs p 3).  Women and men she argues are free to objectify each other and sexual activity is commodified along with everything else in late capitalism, "we don't even think about it anymore” she said, " we just expect to see women” and I would add increasingly men "flashing and stripping and groaning everywhere we look” (p 4). In the 2000 film Charlie's Angels, the stars in their interviews talked about empowerment and strong women, the main characters in that film dressed variously as porn stars, massage parlour geishas, dominatrix and yodelling heidis, the film grossed 125 million dollars in the US. She quotes Traci Lords, a former adult film star "when I was in porn” said Tracy "it was like a back alley thing now its everywhere” , It's  not as if we're embracing something liberal” is her argument   This  is not 'free love'. , "Raunch culture”  is not about opening our minds to the possibilities and mysteries of sexuality,  it's about endlessly reiterating one particular and particularly commercial short hand for sexiness”. (p 30).

One other point she makes which is relevant when we consider a Christian  response to this, is that the only alternative to being ok with this is not being ok with this, that is uncomfortable or embarrassed. Raunch culture isn't an entertainment option; it's a test of uptightness.

We're reminded here of the observations of the novelist Sarah Maitland, who identified within the church a dynamic of competitive vulnerability, my pain is bigger than your pain. She helped us to remember that in terms of our own expression of faith and discussion of our spirituality we all have a different tolerance of our own nakedness. Some people are happy to be naked in company; others are not comfortable naked in their own room with the curtains drawn. (Sarah Maitland in conversation 1999).  The prevailing ideology within a "Raunch Culture” is that any discomfort with the highly commodified image of sexuality that's presented is ridiculed but the reality of maintaining that culture is very different. A former penthouse cover girl Alex Arden describes the scene as she models "when you get yourself into the really contortionist position that you've got to hold up and your back hurts, and you've got to suck in your stomach, you've got to arch your back, and stick out your butt all at the same time and hold your breath, you don't feel sexy you feel pain and you want to kill the photographer. (quoted in Female Chauvenist Pigs p 42) In such a society where attitudes towards sexuality are commodified and skewed is it not surprising that the church finds itself led by a male leadership whose reactions to the  prevailing culture are confused and brittle. Where is the theology that argues from first principles that sex is a gift from God and that the infinite variety of subtle variations in sexuality are reflective of the God who made us and redeems us from our unhealthy tendencies to dominate, use and commodify? 

In the pronouncements that Christians make publicly regarding human sexuality, our sound is our wound, as we reveal centuries of what one commentator has called 'sexual pessimism'. As an agent of social control the church has always been uncomfortable with the reality of ungoverned (and ungovernable) female energy ( cf Marina Warner Six Myths of our Time).  This goes for the variety of sexualities in men and women ever since.

For the Church, I'd like to suggest that it would be much harder for us to address the really huge questions of late modernity, for example the fact that we now possess the capacity to destroy ourselves and almost all that lives on the planet, the eschaton is within the grasp of human beings for the first time in history;  or the fact that the incidence of war is increasing not decreasing, that more people were killed in war in the last ninety years than in the previous five hundred;  that vast numbers of women and children across the world are enslaved and  illiterate, that we pay scandalous inattention to the ecological consequences of our over-consumption. Really to make an impact on this huge agenda and other fundamental aspects of modern life, rampant materialism, the trivialisation of the spiritual, the sexualisation of children,  would be hard, so a measure of what's happening at the moment is displacement activity for a Church that will find it more palatable to stick to its traditional area  - that of the governance of sexual behaviour and the exclusion of the enemy within -  than seriously to take account of the economic, physical and ethical violence done to the poorest in society and pursue what makes for peace.

The American theologian Carter  Heywood has characterised compassion and non-violence as living sacraments within the church. Compassion is not a finite commodity she challenges us. Liberals will claim they have it and the conservatives don't and that's not good enough. Compassion is not a feeling or a spiritualised state of being, compassion involves struggling for the common good including our adversaries and especially those whose ways of being in the world we do not like or understand. Non-violence is a collective public force, which prays for all who wish us harm. For an individual it may not be a healthy or realistic option but as a principle of public good its one that we do well to listen to. (cf Carter Heywood "Saving Jesus from those who are right”  Fortress Press 1994). 

Like Walter Wink, Carter  Heywood reflects on the nature of institutions which are greater than the sum of their parts, institutions are often violent in their language  and abuse power as they try to define their boundaries.

And so what are our resources for peacemaking?  They are an intellectual rigour so that we understand not only the signs of the times but our tradition and where it leads us. They are compassion, forgiveness, and anger, knowing that the other side of rage is the possibility of a just peace. Attempting to live these values will necessarily bring a measure of loneliness (cf Carter Heywood p 186). Loneliness comes from attempting to resist a dominant culture that commercialises sex, that commodifies what cannot be commodified and definitions of community, humility, courtesy, justice can exhaust us if we accept them when they're used as individualistic and purely adversarial. Those who yearn for peace within the Anglican Communion for the sake of the world in which we are set, whatever their views or church tradition are living in a state of social and psycho-spiritual disappointment. (cf Carter Heywood p 188).  Loneliness is a protective wrapping for their souls, this is a place to inhabit even to come to love or accept because the loneliness is paradoxically indispensable to our loving one another, ourselves and God without needing to know everything about anyone or anything including God. This loneliness is the taproot of our capacity to accept the mystery and unknowable dimensions of all that is, especially God. (cf Carer Heywood p 188ff)

 If it is possible I want to suggest that we can together forge relationships on the anvil of profound disagreement,  but only when the fundamental equality of the ones who disagree is recognised. Like the work of an alchemist the precious metals of our souls in the hands of the Creator could provide a model of engagement that produces something more precious than its constituent parts and, as in the story of Jacob and the angel there is integrity in the struggle even when peace proves elusive and the path towards it is wounding. The centre of our life as a communion is the Eucharist. It  is the time when the church dares to stand on the boundary between time and eternity and celebrate the sacramental presence of God. And one commentator gives us a vision for this inclusive action;

Just as I believe bread and wine are transformed so we are transformed into people of compassion, people who see what others overlook, people who can begin to trace the vague outlines of the prophetic vision of the reign of God, where bankers sit next to farmers, border guards converse with the undocumented, ranchers share toasts with environmentalists, where work gloves lie next to linen napkins, hands are scrubbed, feet are washed, thirst is quenched, hunger satisfied and there's no hint of injustice, no whisper of enslavement, no sign of barbed wire anywhere.

James Schmitmeyer (in Liturgy and Justice ed. Anne Y. Koestner p 73 pub The Litrugical Press 2002)

There is an umbilical link between beauty and peace as evidenced by the man in the story I told at the beginning, the man in the audience at the concert. He was compelled by the beauty of what he'd experienced to tell a secret to a stranger and share his tears. So our experience of beauty, the beauty of the presence of God in our prayers will turn us outwards to one another from contemplation to pragmatism, from listening for the music of the spirit to daring to sing ourselves and there is no one, no one who can silence that song.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.