Yesterday I found myself at the Bank of Ideas, a space claimed by Occupy London to discuss and imagine and plan for a fair, sustainable future.  I was there to take part in some discussions about the future of our economic system. 

As was to be expected there was some staunch anti-capitalist sentiment in the room and although named “Beyond Capitalism” I think it is fair to say that amongst the myriad of ideas there were also advocates of a system built upon ideas of capitalism.

A common criticism towards those – of whom I count myself among - was that we were unable to see beyond the current system.  The feeling amongst the anti-capitalists was that capitalism is rotten at the core and any expression of the ideas and system will be exploitative.  And so the evolution of the system, policy or regulatory changes would all fall short. It is time to scrap it all and start again.

I hope to evaluate the truth of these claims over the coming months.  It was interesting to me that no viable alternative was presented.    There were many aspirational ideas such as scrapping money and politics, underpinned by the belief that we could all pull together and work for each other.  Aspirations and hope are important but I could not see how these things were possible.

I have experienced anarchist spaces – they are fun when you are young but it can all get a bit chaotic – thinking festival carnage. Looking at some of the collectives and communities that started in the 60s and 70s, they flourish to begin with but it seems that things do not always last as the realities of human relationship and issues often related to power emerge.  These were only small communities so I cannot see there being scope for this working on a very large scale.

But I thought the space set up at the Bank of Ideas for dialogue, the cross pollination of ideas and imaginings can be a fruitful one and I think it is important within that to hold onto our diversity.  The things that connect us are our values and I hope they continue to be greater than our differences.  We all want a society that is fair, where no one slips through the gaps.  One that allows all people to fulfil their potential.  Recognising the root of the issues are usually within ourselves we want to live in a society where greed and power lust are tempered but there is freedom to create, express, pursue dreams and live well.

I felt energised to think outside the box.  To think about the changes that should happen over the next few years but to also dream about what world my grandchildren might be living in.

Occupy the internet!

Whilst perhaps not famed for their ethical approach to business, the catalogue and online retailer Littlewoods have shown a truly distasteful side with their christmas marketing campaign.  Here is the TV advert:

The initial striking feature is an awfully cringe-worthy song but there are darker elements to the advert.  Targeting families with limited income, Littlewoods promises “to make what’s new affordable right now”.

Tugging at the heartstrings of “mummy” in an already glutinous materialistic culture, Littlewoods are striving to generate that feeling that only the latest x-box or smart phone will do for Christmas.  Pursuing this and offering such easy access to cheap credit is deeply irresponsible.  

They send the message “if you love me mummy you will buy me an x-box for Christmas, if you do not have the money do not worry, Littlewoods provide an easy way into debt!”

Shame on you Littlewoods.

As protesters rally for Occupy Wall Street for the fourth week it is just another sign that we are living through a time of significant transition.  The world is always in flux but there is a strong sense that global society is shifting more than has been seen in many years.

From the contagious uprising in the Arab world, riots and protests in southern Europe to the looting and riots on our own streets in Blightly people are reacting with the ubiquitous words of Zack de la Rocha “if we don’t take action now, we’ll settle for nothing later”.

It occurs to me that we are at a cross roads.  What we take action on or settle for now will affect the state of the nations in the years to come.  There are competing forces at work and it is a great opportunity to be seized.

People are protesting in Wall Street and other centres of money and power because they are angry.  They are angry because of the growing inequality between the rich and the majority, there is massive unemployment particularly amongst young people and there is a feeling that politicians do not represent them but serve the needs of the wealthy.  And they blame the avarice of Wall Street and all it represents.

There is a wide spectrum of protesters of different hues and persuasions. Most people do not want communism or anarchy and to overthrow the White House but are just sick of our greedy form of capitalism, they want the things that really matter such as the environment, jobs and opportunities and equality to shape governance more than the interests of the rich.

Inequality is becoming starker.  In America the top 1% takes home 25% of the total income, and look after 40% of all wealth. Just 25 years ago the top 12% took home 33% of all income.  Despite the bigger pie argument the median income has fallen and all the growth in the last 25 years has lined the pockets of the rich.

In the UK, a recent report by the IFS (Institute of Fiscal Studies) has forecasted that middle incomes will fall by 7% by 2013 with the number of children living in absolute poverty rising to 23% (3.1 million).

For all the problems our government face with stagnant growth and the deficit there is a broader opportunity to create a new kind of society, a fairer banking system that serves the people and sustainable approach to how we live and do business.  In the US there are different problems but similar opportunities.  I just hope we can take up the challenge – I for one am going to be part of it!

I should begin by saying that my church community has never been very regular about it’s Sunday meetings but has recently pushed the boat out and begun meeting nearly every week.  And I think it’s a great thing.  There are a lot of people that appreciate meeting regularly, people who lead busy lives and want to hear someone of wisdom, learning and experience who has considered a topic share some ideas.  Some people love singing together and experience and express their relationship with God in this way.  People enjoy having this connecting point on the Sunday, and are energised for the rest of the week.

I think it is also recognised that the focus of faith is not on the Sunday but how it lives and breathes during the week.  So I should say that my frustrations are not caused by my church community where the Sunday meetings are but one aspect of a rich spectrum.  Although I think it is always important to be aware of the risks…

When I consider what church is I think of my life of faith worked out in a community.  I think of meals shared, pints in the pub, meeting to pray, to discuss and to think.  I think of the ways we serve our community and how we grow as people, become more generous and more understanding and in all these things hope that we are part of embodying the Kingdom of God.

Very far down my list of what church is would I put Sunday meetings.  So I find it strange and frustrating that if you ask almost anybody what church is they will either talk about a building or a service.

A church can pay lip service to ‘community’ and ‘lifestyle’ but much like a city and urbanisation, Sunday meetings can often begin to drag in all the life, the people, the money and the opportunities.

What I find intriguing is that the shape of church is usually understood in light of Paul’s letters and the story in Acts.  These are cracking books, they are engaging and speak wisdom into communities rather clumsily living out this life of faith.  They tell a story of real people in real places.  But I sometimes wonder if we take the (perhaps limited) understanding of Paul and the early church and apply it too simply as a filter over our Sunday meetings.

For me the picture the bible paints of church has to be the life of Christ - we are his body after all.  Jesus had it right; Paul did not have it all right; the early church did not have it all figured out.  Paul understood more than most and had a tough job trying to teach people how to live together and pursue God and we need to all continue to learn from his ideas.

But the full revelation of God was not Paul nor was it the early church.  It was the man that spent time with people, reasoned, discussed, served people, got angry with the religious leaders, loved well, brought children to the centre, prioritised people on the edge and was prepared to let go of everything.  Jesus did not control, manipulate, restrict but gave life, taught freedom and brought energy.

And so I hope we continue to seek this model of church that seeks to know Him better, to serve our community and be the body of Jesus.  And to not try to fit all these things into a meeting on Sunday.

Russell Brand’s thoughts on the riots:

“… The only question I can legitimately ask is; why is this happening? Mark Duggan’s death has been badly handled but no one is contesting that is a reason for these conflagrations beyond the initial flash of activity in Tottenham. I’ve heard Theresa May and the Old Etonians whose hols have been curtailed (many would say they’re the real victims) saying the behaviour is “unjustifiable” and “unacceptable”. Wow! Thanks guys! What a wonderful use of the planet’s fast depleting oxygen resources, now that’s been dealt with can we move onto more taxing matters like whether or not Jack The Ripper was a ladies man? And what the hell do bears get up to in those woods?

However “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable” it might be, it has happened so we better accept it and whilst we can’t justify it we should kick around a few neurons and work out why so many people feel utterly disconnected from the cities they live in.

Unless on the news tomorrow it’s revealed that there’s been a freaky “criminal creating” chemical leak in London AND Manchester AND Liverpool AND Birmingham that’s causing young people to spontaneously and simultaneously violate their environments – in which case we can park the ol’ brainboxes, stop worrying and get on with the football season, but, if as I suspect, there hasn’t, we have, as Human Beings, got a few things to consider together.

I should here admit that I have been arrested for criminal damage for my part in anti capitalist protest earlier in this decade. I often attended protests and then, in my early twenties, and on drugs, I enjoyed it when the protests lost direction and became chaotic, hostile even. I was intrigued by the anarchist “Black-Block”, hooded and masked, as in retrospect, was their agenda but was more viscerally affected by the football “casuals” who’d turn up because the veneer of the protest’s idealistic objective gave them the perfect opportunity to wreck stuff and have a row with the Old Bill.
Big Brother isn’t watching you

That was never my cup of tea though. For one thing policeman are generally pretty good fighters and secondly it registered that the accent they shouted at me with was closer to my own than that of some of those singing about the red flag making the wall of plastic shields between us seem thinner.

I found those protests exciting, yes because I was young and a bit of a twerp but also, I suppose, because there was a void in me. A lack of direction, a sense that I was not invested in the dominant culture, that Government existed not to look after the interests of the people it was elected to represent but the big businesses that they were in bed with…

…As you have by now surely noticed, I don’t know enough about politics to ponder a solution and my hands are sticky with blood money from representing corporate interests through film, television and commercials, venerating, through my endorsements and celebrity, products and a lifestyle that contributes to the alienation of an increasingly dissatisfied underclass. But I know, as we all intuitively know that the solution is all around us and it isn’t political, it is spiritual. Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

In this simple sentiment we can find hope, as we can in the efforts of those cleaning up the debris and ash in bonhomous, broom-wielding posse’s. If we want to live in a society where people feel included, we must include them, where they feel represented, we must represent them and where they feel love and compassion for their communities then we, the members of that community, must find love and compassion for them.

As we sweep away the mistakes made in the selfish, nocturnal darkness we must ensure that amidst the broken glass and sadness we don’t sweep away the youth lost amongst the shards in the shadows cast by the new dawn.”

Read more here

Reading Rowan William’s leader in the New Statesman I was pleasantly surprised.  Not that I had expected to disagree with his sentiments, but having read the reactions and criticism in the media, I was struck by how balanced, considered and intelligent his comments were.

The first thing to point out is that his article was an introduction to an edition of the left-centre New Statesman of which he was the guest editor.  This provided a platform for healthy debate as he actively encouraged the “establishment to explain itself”.  The articles included one written by conservative MP, Iain Duncan Smith.  What was filtered from his article in much of the media were sound-bites ‘blasting’ the coalition.  Even the New Stateman itself was guilty of this, describing his leader as “launching an outspoken attack on the government”.  I have never heard a debate begin by one side agreeing with the other.

The second thing that struck me was that he equally asked questions of the opposition.  He discussed the uncertainty surrounding the direction we are headed and the “anxiety about what democracy means in such a context”.  He went on to say there this is partly due to a lack of  ”achievable alternatives” from the opposition whom it is the responsibility of to state where the disagreements lie.  Although he criticises the use of the phrase “Big Society” and the suspicion that it arouses, he does not say it is the wrong thing and argues that we are “waiting for a full and robust account of what the left would do differently”.

The third important point is that he is speaking on behalf of many people and as a member of the House of Lords it is a responsibility to engage in these debates.  And he is not just representing the Church of England. Political blog Leftfootforward reveals that a Populus poll showed that 55% agree that the government are pushing through reforms that were not agreed to compared to just 15% that disagree.  There are rumblings of discontent and a growing wave of uncertainty of the direction in where we are going.  Williams argument is for a greater level of clarity and for better communication from the government.  This was true of the tuition fee debacle and the orginal NHS reforms in which no one really seemed to know what Andrew Lansley’s proposals were.

The final thing thing is that he was more concerned about the grass roots reality of community and social life.  Rowen Williams is not a politician and this allows him to reflect in an ideological way.  He finished his article by weaving in theological ideas about out treatment of “the poor”, sustainable community and the true role of governance. A democracy should “be one in which the central question about any policy would be: how far does it equip a person or group to engage generously and for the long term in building the resourcefulness and well-being of any other person or group, with the state seen as a “community of communities”, to use a phrase popular among syndicalists of an earlier generation.”

Rowan Williams asked important questions of the coalition and the opposition.  It is a crucial time of social uncertainty and fear and it the right time for a church leader to speak up, advocate and question the role of government.  I think that the church really does have something to say about these things and has an important role in shaping our future.

Read Rowan William’s full article here.

I want to spend more of my time in my creative imagination.

It often seems as though I need books, film or music to trigger this space.   Like reading the Northern Lights books, or Stephen Lawhead’s epic stories.  Wow!  You just cannot create those moments being caught up on these journeys.  It seems to sweep us up into a level of thinking and being that is simply magical!

How can I live in these moments whilst being stuck on planet Earth in real life as a husband?  As my wife quoted recently:

“Imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist.” (John Paul Lederach)

I’m just not sure I want the challenges of the real world!  I want all the magic of the days to come.  I long for that place of beauty and adventure, of fullness of life, of friends and family.  Yet I can struggle to see this when I look at my own life.

I imagine something Tolkienesque drinking ale and banqueting under starlight with companions following a long, hard journey.  Or trying to uncover an Umberto Eco-esque conspiracy in a dingy coffee house somewhere in Europe.  Trying to recreate the first one could turn me into the sort involved in battle recreations, or dungeons and dragons, all the while missing the point (no disrespect to our mead drinking friends - I’m sure its a lot of fun).

Rather I want these longings to inspire and inform my real life and real relationships. What I really long for is this thing, this place, this state of being called Heaven.  I can give it form as I reflect and as I respond to the created things that tug at my imagination.

So what should I actually pursue, long for, seek to be?

I suppose that the point in being so energised and inspired by these books and films is so I learn something about what Heaven is like.  To then move on and model this in my life and relationships having been altered, shaped and informed by the person of Jesus.

I want it to trigger a growing awareness of things beautiful and poetic around me.  I don’t want to feel disappointed with my lot.

I suppose this infatuation with things past, with vintage, with the 50s and 80s is the collective consciousness longing for the Kingdom of God.  It is thirsting for things that are lacking now, that have been forgotten and left behind at some point.

As I write this, a couple sit next to me dressed wonderfully.  He is wearing a suit like Edward Norton in the Illusionist and she is dressed like a princess from Alice in Wonderland.  They have seen something more that they long for and are dressing in order to call this into existence.

It is incarnational.

I have recently been using filters on photos to give them a more magical look.  I was held back from using them with a reluctance to ‘fake it’.  But I think there is something marvelous about looking for beauty around you.  Maybe this is how we should always try to see.

I returned home last night from a visit to meet my new nephew with a huge bag of apples freshly picked from my parents tree.

I am keen on growing fruit and vegetables having planted my first pear tree and grown my first set of potatoes last year.  But what I have not really considered in depth is how to keep these things for longer than a couple of weeks.  Much to my good fortune I have never harvested enough to worry about it - with the exception of a coriander plant of which I hung a sizeable bunch up last week to dry out.

The apples I am unsure about.  With no freezer space I will have to put them in a nice, cold and dry, cardboard box home.

In his blog, Scot Bower talked of the effort involved in growing food and linked it with how Jesus taught using gardening analogies:

“But after you’ve collected all this fruit? What do you do with it? You can give heaps away to friends and neighbours (brilliant gifts! Thanks Doc) but some of it you’ve got to store somehow. I heard the sad story yesterday of some beautiful elephant garlic which had grown nicely and been harvested. But then they had been left without being properly dried out and when Doc returned from holiday they’d turned to French smelling mush! After the harvest the work has to continue: Vegetables are prepared and frozen, dried and stored, magic-ed into jams and chutnies. All this continues to take effort and anyone who’s grown anything knows this, so my logic jump suggests to me that Jesus also knew this (I’m not suggesting Jesus liked or even tried Chestnut Jam but…) can we see in some church settings today evidence that ‘harvesting’ is the end of a process rather than part of it?”

It is interesting to me how often there is so much focus put on bringing people to faith, or perhaps sometimes more urgently, bringing people to church. There does not always seem to be an awful lot of direction after this.  If there is no direction, no purpose, no point then perhaps they will end up like the French smelling mush.  Maybe they should have not be pulled out of the ground at all!

I’m thinking of making apple chutneys and crumbles…

I bought a bottle of water at the Surrey Sports Park - the new leisure complex at my university - and was pleased to read on the label that this one bottle would pay for someone in Africa to drink water for five years!  5p of the £1.20 (yes I was robbed - more about that below) would go towards installing pumps that would supply water to communities.  I could not quite work out the maths but the bottle convinced me it was true.

I wanted to big this up before I saw the following film.  Now I am not so convinced that this is not false ethical economy.  The last couple of times I have been to the Sports Park I was frustrated to be unable to find a water fountain and had to buy bottles.  I think the Thirsty Planet’s campaign is good although it is not quite good enough.  I would still like to commend Paul Martin, managing director of Waterbrands for having an ethical conscience and being aware of the need for corporate accountability.  But bottled water is not ethical, the damage outweighs the good and I am going to write to the director of the Sports Park, and indeed the university to question the absence of water fountains.