anger

Roles

Dear Benedict,

I am writing to you. It’s one of my occupations. I’m not sure if it’s one of my roles but that’s what I’m going to write to you about today. The bible reading/remembering today was the story of Martha and Mary. Well, actually a small bit of it. Like most of the gospel we only get small snippets of information into the daily life of Jesus and those who followed.

Everyone in a family has their roles, so too anyone in a community and your Rule has loads on that. But most of all you say it’s not competitive. For example, when the Deans are chosen in chapter 21, it’s for wisdom not rank. Yet as humans we are obsessed with competition. So too with interpreting Martha and Mary. In Luke’s words even Jesus gets hung up on it: Mary has chosen the better part.

I’m suspicious about the gospels (or any religious text really). Luke is seen as a ‘good editor’ for women so why did he write this nasty little snippet in which Martha understandably gets upset when tired and Mary gets commended for the better part which ‘won’t be take away from her’ but ultimately is (i.e. women are stripped of their right to equal discipleship by the Church)? There are a few options but most have the get out clause: sexists society, sexist Jesus.

John comes in later with a different snippet on the family: Lazarus dead, Mary grieving and Martha announcing Jesus as ‘The One’. Different tensions, different words, but still the roles get taken away. Whatever way you look at it, Martha and Mary do not come out of the written gospels with their roles as equal disciples with the named male disciples in tact, at least according to traidtional Church Theology.

Today I played the unassailable role of organist at the small church in the village. Anyone can preach (today my husband) but not everyone can play the organ. Most of the year now it stands in the corner gathering dust. I can play it. I learnt years ago and it still gives me a huge lift in my mood to sit there and thunder out a good tune (even if I do it rather poorly). So you’d think I’d be happy, and certainly as small communities go this is a delightful one.

But I’m still left with my Martha and Mary questions and much besides about roles in any community. There have been and will be many wise ones who will not be appointed to appropriate roles because someone else will get the job due to bribery, favouritism, phobias and other corruptions. Even in the death defying communities that the church is supposed to be, the status quo will predominate. Someone will be slow to embrace change and that will trip us all up.

In my rememberings of Martha and Mary they were carers for Lazarus, the non speaking member of the family who died in unspoken circumstances: the one who gets called out from his own tomb by the Tomb Quitter. These two sisters knew each other well and if 1st century caring is anything like 21st century caring they were both exhausted. One makes and bakes, another sits and listens: roles should be made for us but in family, or community, life is not always like that. Even Jesus struggles to hold the tension together, making promises about discipleship that the Church will eventually fail to honour for centuries.

There was a moment in my organing this morning when I pulled out the trumpet stop in the middle of a verse and blasted it out, because it had all got too comfortable. We were singing ‘Jesus Christ is waiting’ and that moment where it says in the lyrics ‘I am angry too’ we all sounded too nice. This was my ‘hymn of the pandemic’ and I’m still angry, so I let an 8 foot trumpet rip for a couple of lines and felt better. It’s probably a sign that I am completely unsuited to any role in community.

From my remembered bible: ‘I am like a green olive tree’ (Psalm 52: they are known for longevity in harsh climates).

I am angry too!

From a Friend of Scholastic and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees: 17.07.2022, in Longdendale.

Work!

Dear Benedict,

Chapter 48 is one in which you give a detailed account of the sort of daily labour generally expected in community. Once again you are thorough with hours marked out for all to understand. From bringing in their own harvest to quiet reading, everything is covered. Perhaps detail was important for this experiment in communal living.

Now nearly a year after the first COVID19 Lockdown in England, Lockdown fatigue is a real thing. It’s hard to maintain a timetable after all this time, even with a lot of encouragement. Emotions may be running high or low, apathy or anger may emerge in response to injustice. I always thought the third lockdown would be harder, due to the knock on effects of the previous two as well as seasonal factors and the looming anniversary.

Even so, we can become too obsessed with timetables and continued lockdown does give us some opportunities to see the way our time is often colonised by unnecessary activities as well. In pre-lockdown times it appeared too challenging to rein in the proliferation of meetings. Some role expectations ramped up and up. Leisure became a competitive industry.

In these days, simple things can help us reset ourselves: bake a loaf or a cake if possible, take a short walk, listen to some music.

Take time to make a tart: the Yorkshire rhubarb season is very short.

We are more than our work and life is not meant to be all work. Inequality plays a big part and survival might depend on it amongst the poorest. This week we’ve seen once again how inequality is promoted as a means of social control. This is directly contrary to your Rule, which was meant to ensure equal participation and responsibility.

Whilst it may seem harsh that those who neglect their duties, whether manual labour or reading time, should be punished it was consistent with your earlier sections and at the time added up to an honest attempt to create a harmonious whole. What of us now? It’s not just Lockdown that has put work and play out of kilter but it may give us opportunity to review and amend it. One things for sure, we desperately need to undo the bad work that inequality is contributing to communal distress. A leadership that lies and cheats is not going to create fairness and harmony, only more resentment and fear. In the last line of chapter 48 you have words we really need to hear. As for the sick or weak, the leadership ‘must take their infirmities into account’.

From the remembered bible: There is a time to work and a time to play.

In my apathy or anger, take me fairly into account.

From a Friend on Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Something St Paul never wrote…

So what if I can say anything I want, like other people, good and bad, do everyday? If I cannot express my anger, what am I but a hollow dried out gourd, a deflated tyre. I might put all the right words and sentiments together in the right order, I may share bright thoughts and new insights, what I say may cause the earth to change, but if anger remains repressed, what’s the point in that? I may donate everything I own, even my body parts, but what’s the point if my anger, such a key part of me, remains un-noticed?

Anger burns, slowly or quickly and engulfs everything; it blurts out, slaps down, flares up; it ferments, seethes, grows and as a result smothers a lot else; it feeds on injustice, real or presumed, it boils away leaving a painful crust, a life long scar. It’s always there, however faithful, hopeful or loving you try to be.

Anger is powerful and our failure to acknowledge this or give it space strengthens its power. What may have been a positive force for change is demonised and negated and becomes a many headed monster. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, if you do not give voice to anger then it will erupt violently somehow. Ignore it and it may pass, but it will be back.

To some, anger seems childish; part of a repertoire we should have left behind. As adults we are told we don’t need anger, but what if injustice continues? We struggle to understand our current experiences: how will we become whole unless we acknowledge the place of anger? God knows me and God knows anger.

If there are things that remain, like faith, hope and love, so much the better, but you shouldn’t ignore anger.

Janet Lees, 04.06.2020 in Longdendale.

Anthem for doomed workers

I’d apologise to Wilfred Owen if I could meet him, but some how I think he’d understand……

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Along the corridors so clean and pale,

And hear the ping and suck of each machine,

Each laboured breath that’s on the edge of fail.

If you could see in every face the care

Plastered on with sweat to skin so bruised,

Each mark a sign of time spent as you dare,

The insufficient mask or absent veil,

My friend, you would not brief the clamouring press,

With words that hint at some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

JAL. 28.04.2020 in Longdendale on Worker’s Memorial Day 2020