Christmas

It's going to be a little bit of a strange Christmas this year. Not having Dad around is an obvious reason. Another, though, is that this is the first time I have felt properly uncanny in the midst of the celebrations - uncanny in the psychological (Freudian) sense of feeling out-of-place-at-home. I talked about this somewhat on my Strule FM radio show last week with my guest Kerill Winters, the way that being an untheist (not an agnostic - I just don't engage with the question) has me reflecting on the habits of a lifetime - the religious ceremonies, the money spent on presents, the hypercorporatism, the Christmas lights that fly in the face of the calls for us all to be more circumspect in our use of electricity, the branding saturation of our everyday with Christian symbolism completely disregarding that there are plenty of people out there who aren't Christians.

I like that we get an excuse to think more about family and relationship. I like that we get an excuse to speak more openly about listening out for people who might (but might not) like our help. But I would like it more if we didn't need the excuse in the first place.

This was the year I found out that many Quakers don't celebrate Christmas like other Christians tend to. It was the excellent BBC drama on Eddington and Einstein that let me into the open secret.

Quakers, Christmas and worship
http://www.newstatesman.com/200612190001

Candles in the Window: A Quaker Christmas Story
http://www.kimopress.com/candles.html

Friends (Quakers) and Christmas
http://www.quakerinfo.com/quakxmas.shtml

Quaker Open Christmas
http://www.thefriend.org/articledisplay.asp?articleid=1748

This resonates very strongly with me, a return to notions of simplicity. In my own terms, perhaps a commitment to a predominantly uncommodifying quality of relationship.

How is it helpful if I buy someone a present yet do not work at being loving with them during the coming year?

There are a few writings out there for a more thoughtful Christmas ...

Reasoning Through the Season
http://thepublicsphere.com/2008/12/reasoning-through-the-season/

Stan Freberg's "Green Christmas"
http://www.wepsite.de/Freberg,%20GREEN%20CHRI$TMA$.htm

What Would Jesus Buy?
http://wwjbmovie.com/trailer.html

The Battle for Christmas, by Steve Nissenbaum
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780679740384.html

Christmas, consumerism, and climate change
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-vision_reflections/christmas_4201.jsp

Christmas Consumerism
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/consumer_culture/54854

Gene Halton from Notre Dame Sociology Department speaking on Christmas (Youtube)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I0QFrWR49uE

A Charlie Brown Christmas
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=icB7_Lh_M-w&feature=related

You are sufficient!

Quite a while ago I mentioned an Inside the Actors Studio interview with William H. Macy in which he states "You are sufficient!" Here it is:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma-lB2NR1vg

New School in Exile

http://www.newschoolinexile.com/

"The original idea of the University in Exile, and the New School in general, was to be a safe-haven for academic freedom and scholarship free of oppressive political regimes, be they in Europe or America, and to be a center for critical engagement with important issues of our times. It was known for its deep thinkers, its innovative academics, and its committment to social and political justice as a bedrock of all other scholarship. The New School, under its current administration, is no longer able to fulfill that role of critical engagement and dissent. This continued betryal of our founding principles cannot be tolerated any longer, and the time has come to revive the University in Exile. This is a call for student action!"

A gem

A primary school teacher friend of mine told me last week that she teaches the children that 'happy people don't do nasty things'. It's so simple, it's a gem.

Time out

I have a copy of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying on my shelf, but I haven't picked it up yet. I holed up for three weeks from the world to work out where I was at, to settle into what it feels like to be a son without a father, and to take time out to work out again what's important to me in a load of areas in my life. I spent the time avoiding public social events, turning down friends' requests to go out, staying in, going for walks, and thinking, a lot, and not thinking, a lot. I suppose I needed to regain stewardship of what was going on in my life, and to allow myself time to cry when I needed to, and I needed to. Losing my Dad sucks.

And all the things you taught me
And all the things you braved
I kept them all inside me
They’re with me everyday
With the things I didn’t say

http://www.janetaylor.co.uk/lyrics_fall.php

A good week

This has been a good week for making connections.

It's important for me to meet people in person. I am not terribly interested in championing causes or organisations (does that make me a bad Aquarius?), but I am interested in championing particular textures of attitude or approach. Meeting people allows me to feel affiliations from heartlogic rather than justify them on the basis of headlogic. When heartlogic then gives way to heartpresence, the fun starts! :)

I had the privilege this week to finally meet Hetty Van Gurp, who runs Peaceful Schools International. Hetty was originally brought to my attention after she had a chance meeting with a friend and colleague of mine, Sharon Porter, after Sharon had travelled to Nova Scotia. They got to talking, and one thing led to another, and we all connected up, and so it continues.

The documentaries Teaching Peace in a Time of War (both on Youtube) give a good sense of what Hetty does. There's also an interview with the director of Teaching Peace in a Time of War, which I think is a great introduction.

Anyway, it happened that a friend of my Dad's, Kevin Cassidy, is a member of the Peace People, and I mentioned Hetty's work to him, and he invited Hetty to Belfast for dinner at Peace House on the Lisburn Road, and Sharon and myself got invited along as well. Sharon and myself met up with Hetty for coffee beforehand, and we also got to meet a colleague of Hetty's, Rick Lewis, which was an unexpected bonus. Rick works as a Safe Schools Coordinator in Palm Beach, Florida. I am very interested in his work on emotional climate in schools, on account of my own research interests relating to affectual registers, the tranmission of affect, and emotional intensity. A Google search for information about Rick also brought me to these sites:

Safe School Ambassadors
http://www.safeschoolambassadors.org/

Crisis Response: Creating Safe Schools http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/training/responding/crisis_pg22.html

What I find particularly impressive about Hetty's and Rick's work is that they do it voluntarily, they do not advertise, and they only go where they are invited to go. I have often wondered how to negotiate the notion of 'speak not to those who aren't willing to listen, for your words will be poison', and this seems to be a very practical way. Personally, I wonder whether doing such work voluntarily might be sustainable in my own case. I would hope that it could be, if I could find other ways to ensure that life and limb were sorted.

The dinner with the Peace People was a good night with good food in good company. Led by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan they are working to promote the Charter for a World Without Violence, an open meeting about which is being organised at Peace House on the Lisburn Road in Belfast on the 24th January, 2009, from 10am-6pm. Mairead also told me about the work of Glenn Paige and the Center for Global Nonviolence. Glenn's work looks very helpful for me, particularly his book, Nonkilling Global Political Science.

Doing a search for Glenn Paige also brought me to the name of Petra K. Kelly. There's a webpage dedicated to her memory at http://www.macronet.org/women/petra.html . Her book Fighting for Hope is still available, and the introduction to her book, Nonviolence Speaks to Power, is available online (PDF).

Other books I've come across this week on my cybertravels:

Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea - Mark Kurlansky

Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination - Walter Wink

Peace Is the Way: Writings on Non-violence - edited by Walter Wink

I'll try to comment on some of these as I get a chance to read them, although that won't be before the end of the year, I imagine.

'Soulmate'

Any time I have found myself in an intimate relationship where nurturing and loving are possible, where a commitment to caring and emotional vulnerability is taken up, at such times I am reminded of the notion of a 'soulmate'. It's a word that has certain resonances for me, and not only because I was told by a psychic friend once, in a spontaneous reading, that I was looking for a soulmate when it came to matters of the heart. To be honest, I don't disagree. But I think it's important to draw out some of the nuances of the notion.

I think it's a word that can drag along a lot of unnecessary baggage, the kind of baggage that comes with the worst excesses of soppy love songs (and yes, I have written a few). But I don't think it has to come with that baggage, all that language of destiny and only-one-ness. I think if I lift the word up and look underneath to what it can helpfully mean for me it can speak to a quality of possibility in relationship that is really beautiful.

In the film (pronounced 'fillim' in my universe) Good Will Hunting there is a scene where Robin Williams' character Sean asks Matt Damon's Will if he has a soulmate. Will asks what he means.

SEAN Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you. A soul-mate.

In Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love a helpful Texan offers the following suggestion:

…A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever. Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it (Eat Pray Love, p.149)

Whatever a soulmate is or isn't, what I would hope for in an intimate, caring, emotionally committed and responsible relationship is a person that invites that vulnerability, that transparency, a person that invites me to The Work in every aspect of my life, by simple virtue of their being alive. A person to encourage and support, to challenge and critique, to nourish and cuddle (etc.!).

But I don't know if meeting such a person is something that's too painful, as that quotation suggests. I think that once you sit through the painful part, that's where the gentleness can flourish.

I think I've referred to this before, but Bell Hooks speaks about the practice of love and loving in All About Love: New Visions:

"We can only move from perfect passion to perfect love when the illusions pass and we are able to use the energy and intensity generated by intense, overwhelming, erotic bonding to heighten self-discovery. Perfect passions usually end when we awaken from our enchantment and find only that we have been carried away from ourselves. It becomes perfect love when our passion gives us the courage to face reality to embrace our true selves. Acknowledging this meaningful link between perfect passion and perfect love from the onset of a relationship can be the necessary inspiration that empowers us to choose love. When we love by intention and will, by showing care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility, our love satisfies. ...

"All relationships have ups and downs. Romantic fantasy often nurtures the belief that difficulties and down times are an indication of a lack of love rather than part of the process. In actuality, true love thrives on the difficulties. The foundation of such love is the assumption that we want to grow and expand, to become more fully ourselves. There is no change that does not bring with it a feeling of challenge and loss. When we experience true love it may feel as though our lives are in danger we may feel threatened.
True love is different from the love that is rooted in basic care, goodwill, and just plain old everyday attraction. We are continually attracted to folks ... whom we know that, given a chance, we could love in a heartbeat. ...

"The essence of true love is mutual recognition - two individuals seeing each other as they really are. We all know that the usual approach is to meet someone we like and put our best self forward, or even at times a false self, one we believe will be more appealing to the person we want to attract. When our real self appears in its entirety, when the good behavior becomes too much to maintain or the masks are taken away, disappointment comes. ...
True love is a different story. When it happens, individuals usually feel in touch with each other's core identity. Embarking on such a relationship is frightening precisely because we feel there is no place to hide. We are known. All the ecstasy that we feel emerges as this love nurtures us and challenges us to grow and transform."

Yes, being with someone who is loving also invites me to a loving presencing of myself, also invites me to allow myself the same gentleness, and sometimes that's something I'm just not willing to do. Someone that invites me to acknowledge and accept the more painful parts of myself. Warts and all, as they say. But that's a good thing, no?

The Work

I've been thinking about this a bit. I find that in my thinking I often refer to what I aspire to as The Work. What I mean by this is whatever I can do as a human being to reduce the possibilities of violence, coercion, domination, and oppression in my life, in my relationships. I don't think that there are areas of my life in which that work doesn't apply, and I think that commitment to The Work most helpfully involves a commitment not to just do 'gentleness work' in contexts that are formally identified as places for 'gentleness work'. Learning to live the attitude I aspire to means working to walk with an attitude of listening, with an openness to situations, with an openness to vulnerabilities, whenever I can, wherever I can. I find that hard, because it means I can't pretend that I'm not hiding from that challenge when I actually am. But it doesn't mean that it's always hard, just when I fight it. It's easier when I let it happen, or often when I simply get out of my own bloody way. Does The Work have to be hard work?

Doing and Being?

I do what I do, and there's not much that I can do differently once it's done, but I don't tend to be what I think 'I am', despite my frequent protestations to the contrary. If I protest that 'it's just the way I am', that's surely a low-grade cop-out that facilitates a whole clatter of denials. There isn't an identity category out there that can adequately leave me safe from the change or challenge of circumstance. If I reframe that as 'it's just the way I tend to be', then fine, I can tend to be differently, if I make the effort. I remember reading once, in a movie review, of all places, 'be careful who you pretend to be for that is who you may become'. I would maybe re-word that awkwardly as, 'be careful who I (pre)tend to be as that is (w)ho(w) I may become'.