Poverty | Chastity | Obedience

My local Third Order has been going through the book “Franciscan Spirituality” by Brother Ramon over the last months and discussing a chapter each month. Since I find very little time for reading books at this stage in my life, I’ve always been behind.

During my Franciscan time today I read the chapter “The Evangelical Counsels” which explored and explained the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience within the Franciscan Order.

I’ve always been drawn to the challenge and counter-cultural aspect of Poverty and I hope that my family and I learn to joyfully live much more simple and uncluttered lives. It is certainly a confusing idea at the moment when we are moving to a larger house and where Toby and Milo, 3 and 1, have (and need?) so many toys and books and play things. I’m also aware that Poverty challenges me, and our society, in terms of our technology, devices and gadgets. It’s not so much the cost of these things than the distractions they provide making our lives more complex rather than more simple.

Chastity always felt like the easy one, suggesting simple faithfulness to Mary-Lou. But Brother Ramon suggests:

We know that all our relationships, all our creativity, inspiration, and appreciation of things good, true and beautiful are suffused by our sexuality, which lends warmth, tenderness, and enchantment.

Celibacy, in such a context, is not a denial of sexuality, but a way of sharing that has not only an intellectual, but also an emotional and tender dimension.

My sexuality feels very shallow in this light!

The thing which stuck with me most from Brother Ramon’s writing about Obedience was the origin of the word.

The word obedience comes from the Latin root audire – to hear, to listen. The prefix, making it ob-audire, signifies instant and alert listening.

So the vow of Obedience is to be alert to the voice of The Spirit at all times, and react out of love for God, something I eagerly want to learn.

I Am Power Hungry

I could never had said that before 2 weeks ago, but last week it all changed.

In my work among skateboarders in Manchester I have learned alot about how Manchester is ruled and who the “power players” are. Manchester is pretty much run by The 5 Fathers Of Manchester, 5 men who lead and run the City Council. The undue influence these men have and the thwarting of democracy around them makes me angry.

I was telling a friend of my frustrations in not being able to find any christians who know any of the information I know, let alone any who cared enough to want to change it or research it more. But my friend did know of some and pointed me to this conference I attended last week.

The way I see many things has changed considerably due to this conference and what was taught. One of the first things we learned was to desire power. Now this felt very uncomfortable to begin with. Infact, I believed that theologically we were to avoid power at all costs and serve selflessly instead. This was probably because I have seen those in power abuse it. But then I discovered what power really is.

The primary meaning of the word POWER is “the ability to act or make a difference”.

Now if that is what power is, than I want as much as I can get because there are so many things that need to be made different (better) in this world and I want to help make these changes. I’m talking about making things better for the poor, isolated, oppressed, hurt and dying.

There is huge inequality both economically and socially in Manchester alone, and far greater inequality globally. I see no other Christian response than to do all I can to change this.

And to make a difference, I need power, and lot’s of it!

Religion, Politics and Hope

When I read God’s Politics by Jim Wallis I became hopeful that there were American Christians who thought and spoke sense. It was great to read this challenge to the Church and to have it explained so intelligently and passionately. So I enjoyed this video of him on the fabulous Daily Show:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml

Christianity and Politics obviously conflict alot in America, but much less so in Britain. I have long rued the lack of voice the Church has in both Politics and the Media in Britain. By “Church” I don’t mean the institutional leaders, but the people themselves. The Church has not been speaking out loudly enough over the last 50 – 60 years about social and political issues for many reasons. One might be the rise of the individualistic gospel making faith more of a personal gain and private matter. Another might be the rise of the less needy middle class in the Church which does not have an understanding or proximity to the poor.

Whatever the reason, the Church has become more and more irrelevant to the general public and the number of Christians has declined drastically over the last few decades. Meanwhile, Politics has become more and more capitalist, keeping the poor poor and the rich richer.

But I have seen a rise in young Christians become more socially and politically engaged in this country and this makes me hopeful – both that this nation’s social ills can be corrected and that the Church could become more like who she was created to be.

Please Church, stop naval gazing!

Your Days Of Plenty Are Numbered

I very much enjoyed watching The Edukators this morning. It is a germna film about some young anti-capitalists who break into rich people’s homes and mess with the ornaments and furniture by rearranging them and pilling them on top of each other. They don’t steal anything, instead they just leave a note saying “Your Days Of Plenty Are Numbered”.

Mary-Lou and I have been thinking alot about our finances recently and about what our morals are regarding the poor. A friend who works with destitute asylum seekers recommended Shane Claiborne’s book “The Irrisistible Revolution” as the most challenging book he has ever read. Then he pointed me to this video:

Up until a year or so ago I used to obsess about the problems, injustices and dangers of the global economic system we live under.  It often left me with a sense of hopelessness since I couldn’t see what I could do to change anything. Slowly (which is typical) it dawned on me that engaging locally would mean that I stood a chance to make some difference to some people rather than hopelessly doing nothing.

I’m still trying to figure out how to engage with the injustices I come across locally. We learnt recently that we live on the 7th poorest ward in the country – Moss Side, Manchester. Yet we comfortably live in our own house and have a disposable income each month. What should be our response to that fact?