{"id":480,"date":"2021-11-13T17:15:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T17:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/?p=480"},"modified":"2021-11-13T17:15:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T17:15:53","slug":"remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/2021\/11\/13\/remember\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear Benedict<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re at that time of year we keep for Remembrance. It something that, having started up about 100 years ago, has gathered pace recently. I called today\u2019s correspondence Remember because there\u2019s a lot of that in your Rule. Of course you can turn to the text as often as you like if it\u2019s accessible but memory also plays a part in living by the Rule. There are some bits I remember better than others, that see sort of foundational, like the beginning. Working backwards is harder as I don\u2019t always get to the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Just one of thousands of names remembered on the Menin Gate at Ypres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Which brings me to a\nfew thoughts about chapter 69 and not defending other community\nmembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like others\nfollowing the Rule today I find myself looking at the commentaries\nand reflections published by those doing their following in different\ncircumstances to me. Some are helpful, some less so. On the whole\nwhat I find unhelpful is a sort of detached \u2018suck it up\u2019\ninstruction. \u2018Get on with it\u2019 is not a very good encouragement to\nkeep going in community if it seems difficult. Yes, I accept that\nhardship and challenge have their place in developing resilence in\nadult life. But so does justice and if I might be so bold as to say\nso, I find you a bit light on that, and some of your more recent\nfollowers seem like that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps you have all\nlived in \u2018good enough\u2019 communities. Maybe no one abused their\npower and everyone got on as well as they might. Goodness flowed and\nmental, psychological and spiritual health were available in\nabundance. I suspect that\u2019s somewhat niave especially when\ninterpreting chapter 69.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t get caught up in the conflicts of others\u2019 we are cautioned by one commentator. Well here I am again failing at living the Rule of St Benedict, me and many others too, if that really is what you meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
At a Make Poverty History demonstration in Edinburgh in 2005<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the last 20 days\nan ordinary man has been on hunger strike outside the Foreign Office\nin London, silently and with as much dignity as possible, asking for\nhis wife, being held hostage in another country for over 6 years,\nmight come home. I\u2019m not related to him. He\u2019s not a member of my\nfamily. I don\u2019t live near him. I\u2019ve never met him. But I have\nwriten to him several times and I am caught up in his unjust\nsituation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s just one of\nseveral examples I could point to. A number of my former colleagues\nstill contact me to discuss the injustices they experience, bullying\nand other forms of power abuse, in their ministries, often because\nthere are unjust silences held over such issues. Don\u2019t talk about\nit. Endure. These are not healthy messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not clear\nthat chapter 69 recognises this. One commentator tells us that life\nis not perfect. Indeed it is not. But it is one thing for life not to\nbe perfect and quite another to stand by and see others destroyed by\nthe abuse of power in communities. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I write this\nCOP26 in Glasgow is nearly running on empty, as one rewrite after\nanother waters down the language of change that is required to really\ntackle climate change. This is a global abuse of power. Once again\nthe most vulnerable loose out. Are you really saying in Chapter 69\nthat I shouldn\u2019t take sides in any of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me that\u2019s a\ndirect contradiction to the gospel where Jesus encourages his\nfollowers to side with the vulnerable and marginalised. Why would we\nnot do that? Why be bystanders when we could make a difference for\njustice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not planning to escalate a community conflict but neither would I be willing to stand by and see injustice go unchecked. In my remembered bible, there\u2019s a story about a widow and an unjust judge. The widow keeps pleading and the judge keeps ignoring her. Yes, she seems strong, but the judge in the story really is a sod! Jesus makes it quite clear that God is not like the judge and by extension we should not be either. But equally we should not just stand by and see the widows or similar in our communities just take it because it will make them stronger. I shudder at that thought. It is when the churches have been silent on issues of justice, particularly those within their own communities that they have failed in their gospel witness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remembrance bring us face to face with the outcomes of the escalation of global conflict, and urges us towards peace. But peace and justice have to go hand in hand. In the psalms I remember they even kiss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
One hundred years later in a small cemetery in northern France<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I hope I won\u2019t be violent in community, but I also hope I\u2019ll not be standing by while power is abused and people are damaged. Chapter 69 and some commentaries on it may need a rewrite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From my remembered\nbible: Justice and peace join hands<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Help me to remember and to live justly<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a Friend of\nScholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Benedict We\u2019re at that time of year we keep for Remembrance. It something that, having started up about 100 years ago, has gathered pace recently. I called today\u2019s correspondence Remember because there\u2019s a lot of that in your Rule. Of course you can turn to the text as often as you like if it\u2019s … Continue reading “Remember”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-remembrance","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/notesfrombambi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}