CW88 – Reconciliation: Lessons learnt from Foot and Mouth

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Lessons learnt from Foot and Mouth

By Richard Betton, Regional Director (North), Farmers Community Network

As farmers, the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak is etched in our minds. Our tenanted hill farm, high in the North Pennines was surrounded by outbreaks. We could smell the stench of burning pyres drifting over the hills from Cumbria. In many ways it was like a child on a sandcastle watching the tide come in: would we survive or would we, like so many other farming families, see our stock washed away?

There are many similarities, even with subtle differences, between 2001 and the pandemic. Foot-and-mouth disease saw the countryside locked down while Covid saw the whole country locked down. In 2001 all livestock marts and movements were stopped almost immediately (in February) and didn’t resume until well into the next year. We had to sell our breeding sheep privately as the marts couldn’t operate to a farmer whose flock had been culled. Because of the movement restrictions we had to “put them to the tup” and look after them for a further four months until he was given the all clear by Ministry vets.

As foot-and-mouth disease dragged on both economic and mental health pressure built up for many farming families. If a licence to move stock could be obtained from the Disease Emergency Control Centre it seemed to take ages and then required military supervision and copious disinfecting. In some ways, not wanting to belittle the emotional anguish of “being culled,” losing your stock did bring some easing of those strains as fodder shortages, welfare issues and all the other associated problems of running a business under draconian restrictions disappeared.

Defra developed a system of “contiguous culling” which was then expanded to automatic three kilometre culls around confirmed infected farms. Farmers could reluctantly accept culling when foot-and-mouth was confirmed but it was rather more difficult to accept seeing healthy stock culled because that was what the rules said. In the heat of the moment things were said and blame laid that caused rifts in many farming communities that took a long time to heal.

The closing of livestock auction marts did have some long term and profound effects on the farming community. For many farming families the weekly trip to market was part of life. If there was no buying or selling to be done that week, one could still “see the trade”, order some feed, buy some wormer and get a new pair of wellies! More importantly for many farmers it was an essential part of their social life when they met their neighbour and heard the local news. For people who usually work on their own this was tremendously important for their social and mental wellbeing.

When restrictions did lift many farmers did not resume that weekly trip to the mart: they had got into the habit of not going. They had found other ways to do business and keep up to date with news, largely through the expansion of internet access and social media. Missing out on regular social interaction face to face has weakened the resilience of the farming community. Foot-and-mouth disease had increased the need for organisations like FCN to support farming families: the lifting of restrictions exposed new reconnection and reconciliation problems very similar to what we are facing nationally as lockdown is eased and relationship are renewed. The lessons learnt in 2001 are still relevant in 2021.

CW88 – Reconciliation: Parliamentary column

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By Lord Curry of Kirkharle, Crossbench peer and former chair of NFU Mutual

What a problem it was deciding where to go on holiday this year. ‘Let’s go to Portugal or Iceland because they are on the green list. Oh dear, they have now been changed to amber so we have to quarantine when we return! Why don’t we find a staycation somewhere in the UK instead?’

A staycation! We used to search for a B&B, or a cottage, or a campsite, or a nice little hotel in the Lake District or Devon, but now it’s a staycation – whatever that is! Isn’t it remarkable how new words and phrases become embedded in our vocabulary.

This has been a particular feature of the pandemic. We now talk very glibly about ‘self-isolation’ and ‘social distancing’, phrases never used until 2020. How heartbreaking it has been for so many families when loved ones have died in a care home or a hospital bed, alone. Another distressing aspect has been coping with separation. Separation from family and friends, and worst of all, unable to enjoy much needed hugs.

‘Levelling up’ is another new phrase and is now an important Government policy, but it is a complex issue given the North – South divide and the Government’s efforts concentrated on the, so called, ‘red wall’ parliamentary constituencies.
Sadly, similar divisions exists between rural and urban so if you live in the rural north, as I do, we have a double ‘levelling up’ whammy to be addressed.

I was a member of the House of Lords’ Rural Economy Committee whose report in 2020 included the need to ‘rural proof’ Government policies to ensure they consider rural communities. Government accepted this, but rejected the recommendation to produce a ‘rural strategy.’ Too often in the past policies have been drafted by those who live in cities with no knowledge of the countryside and those who live in it.

Lots of new bills are progressing through Parliament, having left the EU, such as the Agriculture Bill, the Trade Bill, the Environment Bill and the Skills Bill. All will impact the countryside, in particular the way farming will be encouraged to deliver ‘public goods’ through the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, replacing direct support farmers have received since 1947. It is essential that family farms are given sound advice on how to benefit from this change to survive and, hopefully, prosper.

Many people living in the countryside felt ‘socially distanced’ from their urban cousins long before Covid so the challenge is not new! Indeed, there are lots of biblical examples of social divisions – rich and poor, Jew and Gentile. In the story Jesus told of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10, ‘the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans’ but that social gap was resolved in that instance by a ‘good’ and generous person who cared. Stating we care about rural issues and recognising the concerns about ‘levelling up’, about ‘social isolation’ has to be demonstrated by action on ‘rural proofing’ to ensure rural communities and rural business do enjoy ‘shared prosperity’.

Jesus set the perfect example, of course, through His humility and loving care, and ultimately through His reconciling sacrifice. He gave His disciples and us the personal instruction to ‘follow me.’

 

CW88 – Reconciliation: Healing church division

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Becoming ‘agents of reconciliation’

 

By Rt Revd Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester

Here in the Church of England Diocese of Leicester (a “rural diocese with urban heartlands”), we’ve adopted ‘reconciling communities’ as one of our strategic priorities. It sits alongside our four other priorities: new communities (fresh expressions of church); intercultural communities; intergenerational communities and eco communities. But this one focuses in particular on the divisions which exist not just in our world but also in our church, and it is intended to make it clear that reconciliation is core to God’s mission in this world.

Perhaps the most vivid description of this in the New Testament is the Pentecost story. When the Holy Spirit came on those first disciples, they were suddenly able to speak the different languages of the people around about them. This, then, is a picture of what it means to translate the good news of Jesus Christ into the language and culture of the many different people groups of the world. It is intended to be an image of overcoming the barriers to communication and to understanding within this world. And we go on to see that worked out in other ways through the rest of the book of Acts.

For Christians, this means being willing to have good conversations with one another across our differences. Being willing to listen to one another – and by that, I mean a deep listening, not just listening in order that I can then argue with what somebody is saying. But a listening which is willing to take on board what somebody else is saying and allow their words to really take root within me, such that, even though I may not then agree with what they say, nevertheless I can disagree with love and with understanding.

That requires brave conversations as well as good conversations. Being willing to talk about the stuff which we know is not easy to talk about. Being willing to talk about the stuff which we know is sensitive, which people can easily get worked up about and people can easily get hurt by as well. But we need to be brave in having those conversations as long as they’re done with love and understanding. It means facing up to our fears and our prejudices. It means being honest about the fact that every one of us can be guilty of hypocrisy, saying one thing and doing something different.

But it’s only as we in the church practice these things and develop these skills that we can then be agents of reconciliation within the wider world. And we know we live in a society which is bitterly divided in all sorts of different ways.

So part of our work and our calling as a church is indeed to be people of reconciliation, to invite others to be reconciled with God but then also reconciled with one another. The two elements sit together, just as Jesus summarised the law as love of God and of neighbour. This then, has always been core to our faith, but now, more than ever, we need to make it a priority to learn how to be agents of reconciliation.

 

CW88 – Reconciliation: Occasions come together

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From rift to reconciliation: occasions to come together

Dr Anne Richards

 

National Adviser: Mission and Public Affairs, Church of England

What’s the difference between God and a wedding planner? Well, I was recently at a meeting with a wedding planner who was talking to two young people about the arrangements for their wedding reception. As they pored over a possible seating plan, she enquired, quite discreetly, whether there were any guests who should be kept apart.

I was interested in this, because I have been at funerals where social workers and even police have been on hand in the expectation of trouble, but when I talked to the wedding planner, she said there had been not a few, but many occasions, where, fuelled by alcohol and emotion, tempers fray and family rifts flare out, spoiling the event and causing tears for everyone. Now, the planners ask beforehand to try and iron out potential confrontations and difficulties by seating people who are known to be unhappy with each other out of their direct eyelines and putting distance between difficult relationships.

We think about the occasional offices as events which celebrate and mourn the big moments in people’s lives. We rejoice when a person, child or adult, is received into the Christian church through baptism. We are filled with the feeling of new beginning and hopeful future when two people are joined before God in holy matrimony and we weep and give thanks at the closure of a person’s life as we commend them to God at a funeral.

In rural places, these events are often the bedrock of a village or town’s engagement of the church in relation to the community. I have been at events where every person in the village has turned out to celebrate a marriage or stood outside in the rain to mourn a long-known person at their funeral. Such events can draw churchgoers and non-churchgoers together and cement a feeling of social solidarity radiating outwards from the church. But the other side of it is also there. Occasional offices can be places where family history and rifts going back generations can flare up. Some of those things can be family breakdowns and separations, and friends who land on one side or the other of the division. Sometimes it’s jealousies and competitiveness or lost loves that burst outwards in the face of others’ happiness. Sometimes it’s just an inability to hold back emotion or resentment, or a life of poverty or pain that makes someone start something that escalates.

Talking to a rural vicar just recently, he mused that the worst fight that ever broke out in church was over a disputed decision in a cricket match on the village green two years previously. All kinds of things from huge trauma to the completely trivial can become rivers of resentment carving canyons of bitterness etched into long memories. So ministry which offers the space and time to express joy and wonder before God also has to consider an underbelly of negative emotions which can be simmering away and which themselves need addressing.

How then, can the occasional offices of the rural church be occasions for joy, for mission, but also for healing, for reconciliation?

In Unreconciled? a book I wrote with my friends and colleagues in the Mission Theology Advisory Group, we looked closely at the sort of rifts and unhealed divisions which perpetuate in the Church but which are rarely, if ever, really addressed in Christian reconciliation.

One of the things we noted was that reconciliation is not just about patching things up, papering over the cracks, or even getting relationships on to an even keel. It is about more than mending, but the creation of something new in which everyone concerned can now flourish as God intends us to flourish. That place of mutual flourishing which is such a powerful witness to God working among us, is the place we need to get to.

So suppose we think of every baptism, wedding or funeral, as a place where brokenness and pain can be laid to rest and then transmuted into new peace, freedom and joy. It’s all very well saying it like that, but nothing in that process is automatic; it takes real preparatory work, careful pastoral care, sensitivity to the performative nature of liturgy, its spaces for acknowledging falling short and occasions for forgiveness, and the creation of room for the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of all who attend.

As we emerge out of the pandemic, we are obliged now to think of the further damage that lockdowns and isolation have inflicted on people. There has been trauma, increased family tensions where people have had to spend time struggling with work and school at home, occasions of fragile mental health, bereavements, separations, guilts and fears.

People have fallen out about whether churches have been open or shut, whether the vicar phoned enough, whether their Christian neighbours helped enough or not. All kinds of issues now lie behind attendance at Church and these need a place and time to be addressed. And so we are now faced with a complex task, but also an opportunity. What skills in reconciliation, restoration, forgiveness and assurance in the faithfulness and steadfastness of God, do we now need in order to create something new? How do we make the things the rural church is often so best at, in creating and sustaining community, the basis of real reconciliation for people which leads us all from pain to peace and joy?

What is the difference between God and the wedding planner? Psalm 23 says that God restores our failing lives and that God comforts even when we walk in the darkest valley, the valley of the shadow of death. But more to the point, the psalm ends with a table being set in the presence of the psalmist’s enemies. And there, the cup overflows in safety and security where all can flourish. It is enmity that the wedding planner hopes to mitigate; with God, enmity means nothing in the face of God’s overwhelming, forgiving love. Let’s choose God’s way.

CW88 – Reconcilation: Rural Roundup

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Vicar organises climb ‘over the hill’ to meet neighbours.

Residents who live in villages situated around the base of a large Somerset hill, but are not interlinked, decided the best way to get to know each other was to put on their walking boots, head out of the house and hike up the hill to meet the people who live on the other side.

Revd Annie Gurner, of Ham Hill Villages benefice, who organised the event on Ham Hill says, “We wanted to build back social recovery and encourage people to re-engage with each other. So many have been isolated and lonely. We have a necklace of small villages around this historic hill and we wanted to organise a safe way for people to enjoy the countryside, meet each other and make new friends.”

A starting point was organised from every village and once on the hill the groups could decide which route to take.

The gathering also wanted to highlight and raise funds for people in Uganda who are similarly battling the pandemic but who lack basic services such as good sanitation, drinking water or hand washing facilities. Their efforts raised £27, 685 for the cause.

Revd Annie says, “Ham Hill village churches have a long history of supporting both African communities, and water projects – our churches share every baptism collection with Wateraid and in recent years have raised thousands of pounds. Several of our churches lack their own toilets but that hasn’t stopped them ‘twinning’ their planned toilets!

“Our walk was one of 12 across the UK organised by members of the Watsan Uganda supporters. We invited teachers and pupils from our local schools and youth clubs and members of our seven village churches. Many non-walkers from the local villages also generously donated. We want to do what we can, not fester about what we can’t!”

 

CW86: Growing Together in Townend Community Garden

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By Mary Craner

On a prayer walk a couple of years ago, Lorraine Brown found herself in a conversation with members of Chapel-en-le-Frith Methodist Church about their vision of converting a small field the church owned into a community garden. Interestingly, the Minister of the church had already mentioned this idea to her a year or so earlier, so she knew God was stirring this church up. Were they brave enough to move into outward-focused mission?

Yes, they were!

Following consultations with the church and community, a planning group was formed comprising both community and church members. They applied for planning permission as the field was part of a conservation area and started fundraising.

Once planning permission was granted in July 2019 the project really took off, and in September a very successful open day was held on the field. Over fifty people attended on a hot sunny day, tea and cakes were served, everyone who came was very enthusiastic, and we were excited when ten volunteers signed up to join in with creating the garden.

A generous donation from our Methodist circuit, a Methodist Insurance grant and local fundraising had already raised a total of £10,000, so work on the main structure of the garden started in October with the building of raised beds. A low wall around the communal area went in over the winter and the orchard was planted in February by some enthusiastic volunteers, undeterred by the pouring rain.

The church, Girls’ Brigade, local primary and high schools, a local centre for adults with learning difficulties and a mental health support group were all keen to enjoy the benefits of working and playing in the garden. We agreed dates for each of the groups to start dates but then COVID-19 hit, and the project had to stop for a while.

As time went on and restrictions eased, volunteers were able to start caring for the garden again, planting beds, preparing a wildflower meadow, and creating fully accessible, safe paths.

Because of the garden project, Chapel-en-le-Frith Methodist Church was able to gather for worship once national COVID-19 restrictions began in lift. On Sunday afternoons during August and September, two of the ministers in the town shared an act of worship outside, allowing isolated church members a very welcome time of sharing in a safe outdoor space.

In time, local groups will be welcomed into the garden, and we hope that in spring 2021 we will be fully open to all. Our mission is to be a safe, accessible haven of peace and friendship where we can contribute to the health and wellbeing of local people.

The enthusiasm from our volunteers has been heart-warming. The mother of one family told us, ‘the garden has brought a fantastic feeling of community pride in what we have achieved. I am so happy my children have been part of it’, while the father of another family said, ‘my daughters and I love being outside. Attending on a Saturday morning puts us all in a great frame of mind for the rest of the day.’ A gentleman of 84 told us that he had ‘hugely enjoyed the companionship’.

What wonderful accolades!

 

Mary Craner, Project Co-ordinator

Chapel-en-le-Frith Methodist Church

maryinhighpeak@hotmail.co.uk

 

Deacon Lorraine Brown, Peak Park Rural Officer

peakpark@sheffieldmethodist.org

 

 

This article first appeared in Country Way 86: Mental Health & Wellbeing, February 2021. Go to arthurrankcentre.org.uk/country-way for more information about how to subscribe.

CW86: CALMtown Wellbeing Movement

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By Revd Matt Finch

 

‘A minister, a mayor and a pub landlord…’ sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but actually it sums up the start of a wellbeing movement in the market town of St Ives, Cambridgeshire. It is called CALMtown, a project that seeks to raise awareness of mental health issues and become a community where everyone is comfortable talking about their mental health or listening to someone who needs to talk.

It began with like minds coming together. I was about to turn forty and my sons had challenged me to cycle from London to Paris. As a Methodist Minister I was increasingly meeting people struggling with their mental health, and so I decided ride for the suicide prevention charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably, thecalmzone.net).

As I was beginning my training, Tim – the aforementioned mayor – was talking honestly and publicly about his own mental health journey and his desire to support people when they struggled. Around the same time, Phil, the pub landlord, tragically lost one of his patrons, Carl, to suicide. St Ives is not the exception, and in the UK around 125 people a week will take their own life (thecalmzone.net/about-calm/what-is-calm).

As community leaders, Tim, Phil and I realised we could use our influence and connections to make a difference. So, one Monday morning on market day, we met over coffee to see what we might do together. We decided to dream big, and CALMtown was born.

We began meeting others in the town and on a cold November evening we invited them into the warmth of St Ives Methodist Church for a drink and the opportunity to hear about what we hoped to do. It is fascinating how easily we overlook the gift our churches can be to our communities, simply through offering a cuppa and a space to gather. On this occasion, the tea, coffee and biscuits were provided by the local funeral directors who wanted to support our initiative, motivated by their first-hand experience of the impact of suicide on families.

I had no idea who would turn up, if people would be scared off by a dog-collar, if people even cared about the mental health of St Ives. Perhaps it was still too much of a taboo subject, almost like the word ‘cancer’ use to be; the ‘C-word’ no one would speak about.

Looking back now, it felt like a moment when, if the walls could speak, they would have said ‘here is the answer to all those heartfelt prayers for the town over 200 years; this is why these bricks have stood so long, to hold this community when it needs care’.

A young man in a leather jacket stood up and shared his struggles; a headteacher spoke of her hopes for her pupils; a young mum spoke of her post-natal depression; worried people spoke of wanting to support struggling friends. Sharing together in this way was not about finding a solution but the beginning of acknowledging that we could all make a difference.

So, with the vison affirmed the work began. The plans were grand: big events, every person joining a wellbeing group, the entire project being setup in a year; in reality, it has been a long and at times frustrating journey. We have seen ‘mustard seed’ responses, micro-actions aimed at tackling a huge problem, an invitation to every member of the town to make their contribution and, together, making a big difference.

The CALMtown team meets regularly to guide the project. Once or twice a month a group of us – the landlord, the mayor, a mum, a headteacher, a personal trainer, a local businessman, a property developer, a student and a solicitor – gather in the Floods Tavern. We’re planning small things that encourage people to get help and reduce the stigma around mental health.

So, what does a CALMtown look like?

 

The most successful initiative so far has been Meet the Street, a simple way to reduce the isolation which is one of the key factors in poor mental health. A couple of weekends a year we encourage one person on every street to put the kettle on and invite their neighbours in. This low-cost idea has seen people connect; folks who have lived on the same road for years and not known one another’s names now stop for a conversation. Our last Meet the Street happened three weeks before lockdown and many have said that getting to know their neighbours at that event made a huge difference to that experience.

It has been important to signpost people to the help that is there already. Through social media and in the local printed press we have repeated the message that it is OK not to be OK and that there is plenty of help available. Local GP surgeries have told us patients tell them that CALMtown is the reason they’ve made an appointment.

Our poetry project has displayed snippets of inspirational poetry in shops, pubs and schools. We have a CALMcouch that pops up at key events, and in key spaces, in the town, raising awareness and demonstrating that in St Ives there will always be someone available to sit alongside you.

During the autumn of 2020 we focused on enabling people to feel comfortable talking about mental health, and local business and community groups have begun a program of mental health first aider training. Our hope is that eventually every business and community group in St Ives will have a mental health first aider, and we have asked every business to train one person and pay for training for one community group. Over time this will build into a network of mental health first aiders, able to spot the signs that someone is struggling and be there for them.

As a teenager, the passage that convinced me of God’s interest in my life was John 10:10: ‘I have come that they may have life in all its fullness’. The Church has a message of hope for those whose lives are hard, that God cares and longs for them to know fullness of life. CALMtown is just one small part of sharing that message.

 

 

Revd Matt Finch, Pioneering and Church Planting Officer

Methodist Church

 

 

This article first appeared in Country Way 86: Mental Health & Wellbeing, February 2021. Go to arthurrankcentre.org.uk/country-way for more information about how to subscribe.

CW86: ‘Not Good for Man to be Alone’: Reflections on COVID-19 from a Catholic Parish Priest

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By Revd Rob Taylorson

The proclamation of the book of Genesis ‘It is not good for man to be alone’ (2:18, NKJV) is a sound foundation for a COVID-19 lockdown anguished cry of lament. It shows up the flaws in any attempt to live with ‘self’ alone at the centre of our perception of everything else. The human spiritual nature is incomplete without others. As Christians, having received the revelation that our essence is made in the image and likeness of the Trinitarian God (Genesis 1:26-28), the awareness that we are made for relationship is profound. As with God’s divine life, the relationship dimension of human life is deep and essential.

The life of priests

Today’s Catholic parish priests in the UK generally live alone. I am currently blessed to share accommodation with another priest, but much of my 31 years of priestly life has involved domestic solitude. The incompleteness and vulnerability of the solitary state is usually mitigated by the central day-to-day focus of communal worship, relationship and human/divine interaction which centres on the celebration of the Mass, the gathering together as the body of Christ in the Eucharist.

Most priests normally celebrate between six and ten masses each week. In city parishes this would include school masses and perhaps prisons, convents or hospitals; in rural parishes it more usually involves several church congregations. These celebrations are the springboard for taking Communion to the sick and other pastoral visits, for further community prayer activities, for awareness of the needs of the community and wider world through shared intercession and conversation. The Mass gives spiritual nourishment from the Word of God and Sacrament to the parish community.

The effects of COVID-19 restrictions

COVID-19 restrictions have deprived us of much of our incarnate interaction with others. For many Catholics the loss of the Eucharist is an added deprivation. Yes, Mass is celebrated in church buildings, but – depending on the restrictions in place at any given point – with limitations on the size, or complete absence of, the congregation, often only in front of a live stream camera. Jesus’ words ‘unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you‘ (John 6:53) bring an echo of sadness in times when the Eucharist cannot be shared. Lacking the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood we are weakened. We, as Church, lack a central element of life.

Stress and anxiety have intensified for most of our communities: jobs and businesses disappear; socialising and other activities dry up. Lockdown is widely recognised as having contributed to a rise in domestic abuse, and the National Board of Catholic Women’s booklet Raising Awareness of Domestic Abuse has been acclaimed as timely. As with other denominations, many Catholic groups have developed and intensified pastoral schemes for supporting the needs of others. My own parish has seen a big increase in the number of parishioners who are getting involved in local food banks or volunteering to shop for, or deliver prescriptions to, those who are shielding. Social phone calls have also increased.

Priests’ lifestyle means that for them domestic arguments and violence are unlikely. Neither are we going to be made redundant, though for some their parishes’ financial viability is challenged by the current diminished weekly collections, so financial worries have increased. My own diocese, in addition to inviting priests to discuss any parish financial problems with the diocesan finance department, has circulated reminders to priests of the availability of counselling services for clergy. It is good to be reminded of them.

Surveys of priests through the years have generally indicated that their level of happiness is higher than that of the general population. This does not mean, however, that we are immune from the stresses and frailties of life; the frailty in mental health which has grown in the general population in the last six months is a reality for us too.

Just as in wider society, pastoral care concerning human mental frailty has in recent years become a more prominent issue in Catholic circles. One good example of this is the Catholic Mental Health project (catholicmentalhealthproject.org.uk); their COVID-19 resources are good and worth using beyond denominational borders.

The formation of priests and the human person

One of the changes in the formation of priests in the last thirty years has been an increased awareness of, and formation in, a deeper understanding of what it is to be human. Following worldwide meetings with bishops, in 1992 Pope John Paul II issued a document of clergy formation, I Will Give You Shepherds (Pastores Dabo Vobis). It explored four dimensions of priestly formation: human, spiritual, pastoral and intellectual (faith seeking understanding), with the human dimension being the basis of the others.

Of course, scripture, theology, biblical languages, prayer and liturgy, canon law, church history and a myriad of other subjects and activities still make up the usual six-year full-time formation for the Catholic priesthood. The fullest revelation of God, however, is in the person of Jesus Christ. This includes his desolation in his passion during which he makes the words of Psalm 22 his own: ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46). The faith we have and share is faith in a God and God-revealing human person, who is Christ, and is lived by a person (fully human) who is myself, Christ’s follower.

Lifestyle changes bring the need for more support

Forty years ago, many rural inhabitants of the UK knew their neighbours well, with their work, social life, extended family life and prayer life all located in one community which often became a strong support network. This network is generally weaker today as different dimensions of our lives frequently involve different geographic communities. In many villages household size, too, has reduced as the proportion of young families diminish. More supports are now needed.

A similar changing scenario has occurred with Catholic priests. Training for the same diocese formerly meant a large group living together, cheek by jowl, for six years whilst in formation. The friendship bonds formed often produced golfing partners, holiday companions, and ready-made support networks lasting till retirement (usually aged 75) or beyond. In addition, larger parishes usually had several priests living together in the same household, so friendship support continued to grow through living in company with others.

Such support is now weakened. First, the number of priests currently in training and being ordained is less than a fifth of what it was forty years ago. Second, with parish amalgamations and clustering making much larger pastoral areas, the geographical distance of priests from each other is greater. Third, priests living together are now a rarity. In the same way that society needs to actively forge support networks and mental health awareness, so too priests.

 

Revd Rob Taylerson

Parish priest in the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham and trustee of the Arthur Rank Centre

 This article first appeared in Country Way 86: Mental Health & Wellbeing, February 2021. Go to arthurrankcentre.org.uk/country-way for more information about how to subscribe.

CW86: Honest Conversation: Trauma, Lament, God and the Church

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If the Bible were a person, it would be a person bearing scars, plated broken bones, muscle tears, and other wounds of prolonged suffering […] This person would certainly have known joys and everyday life, but she or he also would bear, in body and heart, the wisdom of centuries of trauma. He or she would know the truth of trauma and survival of it […] that person would not be pretty to look at. We might be tempted to avert our eyes. But for most of us, there will be a time when we need that person’s wisdom.

David M. Carr, Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins

 

By Revd. Carla Grosch-Miller

During challenging times like the current COVID-19 pandemic, one of the tasks of leaders is to connect people to their resources. The pandemic will have been traumatising for some individuals, but it has also been a collective trauma that impacts whole communities, even nations. Fortunately, we have a Bible and practices for just a time as this.

Over the last twenty to thirty years trauma studies have become a big thing in biblical scholarship. A careful analysis of our sacred scripture reveals that it was substantially created and shaped by traumatising events: the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in the sixth century BCE, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. This means that our Bible is robust and resilient when it comes to adversity.

Through the book of Job, Lamentations and the psalms of lament it even provides us with a language for sorrow and suffering, yet the contemporary church in the West rarely prays these psalms. Though about one third of Psalms are individual or communal laments, few are present in the Revised Common Lectionary. Even then many churches omit the psalms in Sunday worship, preferring to streamline them out so that people can get home to their roasts in the oven.

What has been lost in the excising of the psalms of lament is the capacity for a congregation to hold negative and uncomfortable emotions in a communal setting. Somehow, we have gotten the idea that God wants praise, not honesty. The biblical witness is otherwise. God affirms rather than admonishes Job for his plucky challenges. The psalmist rants and raves at God and demands a response. Lamentations ends not in hope but with this plea: ‘Restore us to yourself, O Lord […] unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure’ (Lamentations 5:21&22).

Faithfulness is honest conversation. Faithfulness is turning to God in extremis and giving voice to the full strength of our emotion. When we do that, space opens up within us.

When my daughter was six, I was working in a church that had a well-appointed, carpeted library on the lower level (my office was two floors up). She would play there after school on her own. One day as we drove home, she told me that a church employee had her sit on his lap and told her not to tell me. I swallowed my bubbling fear and rage and asked her to tell me more. It appeared that she was being groomed. That night after I put her to bed, I raged at God, standing with my Bible open to the book of Job, saying, ‘How dare you call me into ministry to put my child at risk?!’

After twenty minutes, I laid down exhausted and heard, ‘Did you really think you would be exempt from the suffering of the world?’ Of course, I would have said no if asked that beforehand, but the events of the day revealed to me that deep down I did expect it. The expression of rage before God opened me to see myself and the world, and righted my relationship with the Holy.

When a congregation, a community, a nation suffers a traumatising event, we will go through a period of disillusionment and de-illusionment. Our basic assumptions about the benevolence of the world, and possibly even God, have been shaken or shattered. Lamentation brings our brokenness to the heart of God and enables movement towards finding a new normal. In The Message of the Psalms Walter Brueggemann talks about how the psalms mirror the human experience. We have periods of stability (orientation), painful periods of disruption (disorientation, such as death, serious illness, job loss) and periods where we find a new normal (new orientation). The practice of lamentation assists us to move from disorientation to new orientation.

John Swinton offers a template for writing a lament in his book Raging with Compassion, based on the work of Ann Weems. I abbreviate it here: address God; make a fulsome complaint; express trust in God; tell God what you want God to do; and if you are ready – laments are honest – vow your praise. You may find that by the time you get to the end of the lament, you are ready to praise.

Brueggemann says that the task of the religious leader in times of cataclysm is to face reality, grieve the losses (lament) and offer hope. Not the kind of hope that says that everything will be all right. But the kind of hope that says: God is. God will not give up on us. God will continue to call us as junior partners in the work of redeeming the times and enabling the flourishing of life.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath give us plenty to think about, to grieve and to hope for. It has revealed the interconnectedness of all of creation, the impact of our animal practices and our vulnerability to zoonotic diseases, structural inequalities, the suffering caused by four hundred years of racism, the vulnerability of supply and distribution chains, our great need of each other and our mortality. There is much reality to be fierce with, some things to lament and a call to offer hope that is grounded in God’s love for all creation. We have work to do and the tools to do it.

 

Revd Dr Carla A. Grosch-Miller

Practical Theologian and team member, Tragedy and Congregations

tragedyandcongregations.org.uk

@cagroschmiller

 

 

Carla is the author of Psalms redux: Poems and Prayers and Lifelines: Wrestling the Word, Gathering Up Grace, both published by Canterbury Press. She also co-edited and contributed to Tragedy and Christian Congregations: The Practical Theology of Trauma (Routledge) and is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Exeter.

 

Further reading

 

David M. Carr, Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins (New Haven, CN and London: Yale University Press, 2014), 250.

John Swinton, Raging with Compassion: Pastoral Responses to the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids MI and Cambridge UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 128.

Walter Brueggemann, Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks (Grand Rapids MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014).

 

This article first appeared in Country Way 86: Mental Health & Wellbeing, February 2021. Go to arthurrankcentre.org.uk/country-way for more information about how to subscribe.

CW85: Anna Chaplaincy

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