On peace being upon us all

Aya Sofya

I attended an Inter-Faith gathering on Friday night, which was interesting. We were an eclectic mix of the world’s religions: some Muslims, a Hindu-looking guy, a Buddhist – I presume, dressed as he was in flowing orange and looking very peaceful – a couple of Atheists, an Agnostic or two; it was difficult to know exactly where everyone stood on life, love and everything else as we weren’t sporting team colours or name-tags denoting our positions. We were however gathered loosely in religiously (or non)-affiliated clusters.

But as always, the conversation was stimulating. At one point Atilla, a Muslim friend of mine (some of my best friends are Muslim…), referred to the Prophet Mohammed as, ‘Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him’. I was responding to this and said Prophet Mohammed, and then I came unstuck: was it okay to say Mohammed alone without, you know, the added phrase? Would it be rude to just say Mohammed? Would it be like someone coming up to me and referring to my Saviour Jesus as ‘ol’ J.C.’? So, in the moment (forgive me, in robust inter-faith conversations, you’re working with fractions of a second to get your thought out) I said, ‘Mohammed, peace be upon him’. I was a little shocked that I said this. It sounded a bit too Islamic. 

I don’t know if I just had not noticed or if my confusing remark started a bit of an avalanche but then others started saying, ‘Peace be upon him,’ so much so that there seemed to be an awful lot of peace now flying around the room, and rather disconcertingly attaching itself to all sorts of different kinds of people. One man, until this moment a rather confident-seeming atheist, referred to Gandhi and then, like with me, hesitated wobbled and then said, ‘Peace be upon him.’ Actually he didn’t say that, he tried to say that but said instead, ‘May the peace of…’ and then rather trailed off, realising there was no good way for an atheist to end that particular sentence. And then I thought to myself: But Gandhi is a Hindu? He isn’t a prophet is he? A holy man for sure but… Is he a holy man or just ‘above average’ spiritually? He needs a miracle to be saint though, isn’t that right? Or is that just a Catholic thing? ... Who decides these things anyway?

And so it goes.

Then Atilla did a rather strange thing: he said ‘Jesus, peace be upon him’. Now one of the first, and rather surprising, things a newbie will learn in inter-faith dialogue is that Muslims hold Jesus in high esteem, as a prophet. So he too gets the phrase, ‘Peace be upon him.’ I found this rather offensive; I felt like saying to Atilla, ‘But Jesus is ours so stop making him sound so, I don’t know, Muslim-y. Just Jesus will be fine!’ Sporting an attitude the equivalent of a petulant child jumping up and down demanding a slow-to-arrive sweetie. I might have said this except the exceptionally smart Catholic had only minutes earlier reminded us Christians that Jesus was in fact not Christian but Jewish and that he had in fact not come to start a new religion; this is true, but unnerving. (As a colleague reminded me as I recounted this conversation, with Jesus not being Christian and John Wesley not being Methodist, it’s very hard for us Methodists to know exactly where we stand.) Inter-faith debates go like this. The ground begins to wobble beneath your feet and if you’re not careful you will lose your balance.

A few days later, while listening to Atilla present on Inter-Faith, he spoke of the prophets – and the prophets we have in common; his slide had the names of the prophets followed by an acronym, PBUTA. I wasn’t sure what that meant till I heard Atilla say, ‘Peace be upon them all’. I realised this was a catch-phrase for all prophets. I suppose religious reverence would soon give way to godless tedium if each prophet demanded a repeat of that phrase every time their name was used.

But I liked that: Peace be upon them all.

And maybe we just extend that a little bit: Peace be upon us all.

Or maybe we can just shorten it: Peace.

When Atilla was preparing to give his talk I said, ‘See you Monday.’ He said, ‘Hopefully’. I looked blankly at him, then blinked. ‘No, not hopefully, definitely. We’re on. It’s been advertised. People are coming. You’d better be there!’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I thought ‘hopefully’ was the correct English translation of ‘Inshallah’?’

‘No, I don’t think so. My Arabic is a little rusty but if ‘Inshallah’ means I could possibly make it but there’s a good chance something else might come up, then yes that is a good translation, otherwise not so much. Doesn’t ‘Inshallah’ mean ‘God-willing’?’

‘Okay then. See you Monday night, ‘Inshallah’.’

When Monday was finished I was saying goodbye to Atilla and his colleague Abdul, who lately has been everywhere Atilla is sporting always a smile, saying never a word. (He is a deeply helpful young man though silent as the grave.) I had neglected to give Atilla a gift for his presentation that evening and was arranging a coffee during the week to hand a gift over.

I said, ‘I’ll phone you mid-week and arrange to see you Thursday?’

Abdul looked at Atilla then looked at me and spoke only the second sentence I had ever heard him speak: ‘Hopefully,’ he said, sporting a smile so broad it made him float.

On the fat and juicy life

I went to the dietician last week. Every now and again, like most people my age, I get filled with this overwhelming sense that a detox is in order – it normally hits me after my third cup of coffee that I take while having my first breakfast.

I was ushered in to the office. I sat down. She pricked my finger and placed the results under the microscope and onto this intimidating computer screen. I have been through the detox motions before so I knew what was coming. Before my poor blood cells could be examined, on the screen was the perfect representation of what good blood cells look like: really smart, healthy looking blood cells, the George Clooney of the blood cell world. They were free floating, hippie-like in the bonhomie of bumping loosely into each other, large, plumpish, at-peace-with-themselves blood cells. Mine? Well. Mine were not very much like that at all. Think polar opposite.  After the paradise of the first cells, mine were ushered onto the screen. An apocalyptic wasteland: anaemic, stuck together, none of them bouncing against each other – rather all strung together lethargically like a chain-gang after a long stint in the sun.

I looked at this and considered the sheer miracle of me still able to sit there and draw breath. What was most disconcerting though was the music playing in the background – it was a horrible instrumental version of ‘Amazing Grace’. This seemed a little manipulative. Just looking at those blood cells made me consider my mortality; I hardly needed the help of ‘Amazing Grace’. What next? While taking my blood pressure would she forward to ‘Abide with me fast falls the eventide’? As my wheezing cells spluttered and hiccupped their way across the screen I softly sang the words, ‘When we’ve been there ten thousand years…’

I left the building with an invoice for fourteen hundred rand and a suitcase full of pills.

I mention this because I’m scared that I’m falling victim to a trend: this health and eating habits trend. This obsession with what goes into our mouths – how much, when, to what degree, sometimes to the detriment of common-sense which, for me, seems to be solution enough.

Mary belongs to a Weigh-Less group. These three fine young women are constantly talking about going for weigh-ins that happen through the months with charming irregularity. The irregularity of the actual weigh-ins is matched by the resolve of these three to continue the process; calories are constantly counted, portions carefully considered, cake strangely still gets eating (at least in my household). They also chirp each other about this process. They can say things I can’t which is hard because the scope of these conversations allows for a volley of witticisms, none of which I’m allowed to speak. They can mock each other, bystanders however – especially male bystanders, bystanders married to one of these three – are absolutely forbidden to comment. If they do, it won’t end well. They call themselves Fat Club (their whatsapp group comes replete with an image of Miss Piggy and actually, they spell it Phat Club) and as we all know, the first rule of Fat Club is nobody is to talk about Fat Club. My wife asked me about a pair of jeans she was wearing the other day that were by all accounts a little tight; in an inspired moment, after her inquiry, I remarked, ‘Well I am considered the Pants Whisperer and I can tell you, those jeans are screaming.’

That did not end well.

But I see this kind of infatuation with body and eating all over the place. There is this show on television where three chubby fellows chomp their way through various exotic delicacies prepared by a group of usually young, nervy, sweating, newbie chefs. It always seems to end with a highly emotive taste-off where one of these three, normally the largest one - always sporting a cravat - is smooshing the food around his mouth. But this is not the part that gets me. The part that gets me is the seriousness of the moment. This moment has all the severity of a child sacrifice on an Incan temple altar. It is normally at this moment that I look at Mary absolutely puzzled and say, ‘But it’s just food?!’ This is normally followed with her instructing me to shut up.

Coupling this obsession with food is the obsession with body shape and size and exercise and running and lifting and nibbling and checking waistlines and muscle powders and… well, the list goes on. 

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is just life and a big part of life is eating and exercising.

But another part of me thinks that we’re doing what we’ve always done when things are a little out of sync: the thing that is there to help us live life better slowly becomes the purpose of life in general. The helpful means to a better life becomes the end goal of life itself. And I suppose to some degree that is okay. I mean, there are worse mistakes to make. But I worry that by doing this, we shrink our worlds. I mean by all means, build bigger muscles and devote lots of time to it if that is your thing but don’t let that be all you build.

I can’t fathom meeting God one day and requesting a moratorium on questions about my contribution to life till after I’ve showed off this dazzling six-pack I’ve spent a lifetime creating. (Hence my firm resolve never to build a six-pack, a resolve I have held to with unwavering determination.)

So those of you who are like me, I offer you a dietary plan:

·         Drink more water.

·         Consume less sugar.

·         Exercise a few times a week.

·         And check the fat content on products. (That seems to be a big thing.)

·         Also, stay off ice-cream. Unless you are using it as a defence mechanism against rapid weight gain, in which case eat as much as you like. And all bets are off.

·         And then swing past my house. I’ve got some pills I want to sell you. Obecalpym©. Special price.

And my last piece of advice is a platitude because this seems to be a part of our world particularly susceptible to platitudes. After my blood was checked I was informed that, I quote, ‘You are not happening to life, life is happening to you.’ This sentiment was offered with such gravitas, so sagely, I could do nothing but wobble my head up and down in agreement. Absolute tosh of course. Not only would I not mind falling on the wrong side of that equation, I just wish it was that simple. My happening to life and life’s happening to me are constantly colliding like an atomic super-conductor super-collider.

 

“Are you happening to life or is life happening to you?”

“It depends, what time is it?”

Another saying that has more helpfully stuck with me is something Anne Lamott (of course) said a while back and something I recently re-read (and paraphrase here): “Don’t forget to have a juicy, creative life.”  (Read this great article on this whole idea.)

So from time to time I will eat a carb and yes – gosh! gasp! - I will do it after seven in the evening, because sometimes that is when a carb demands to be eaten. And yes, sometimes I will eat sugar (refined!) and I will probably live to tell the story, Tim Noakes be dammed. 

“Don’t forget to have a juicy, creative life.”

That and my simple diet plan will have to suffice until such a time that we have, as a species, evolved to the point where a dietician’s opening remarks to me are, ‘Well, with this detox plan you’re going to have to increase your caffeine intake by at least two more cups of a coffee a day.’ That will be a 'Hallelujah moment' unaccompanied by ‘Amazing Grace’.

On the chewing of chappies

“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." (John 21: 18)

These word are about Peter. I wonder if he met them with some degree of reluctance – if, when halfway through and realising this was not going to end well, he put his hands to ears and went lalalalalalala really loudly till Jesus was done. If this was my future, I would much rather you keep that kind of information to yourself thank you very much. Nothing ruins a picnic like the promise of an afternoon storm, even if it is momentarily all blue skies and cannot be seen on the horizon just yet. You still know it is coming.

This might not have come as a surprise to Peter. He was, after all, a follower of Jesus and, as I’m beginning to believe, quite a big part of that following is going where you don’t want to go and doing what you’d rather not do. This is Christian obedience. And to keep this blog as honest as possible I have to confess, for much of the time I’m having to attend to things I would rather not.

I’m not, for instance, particularly good with sick people. It’s not that I don’t like sick people – also, I’m not sure categorising people like that is very helpful – I do, but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool hypochondriac, so illness is a mine-field for me. I have yet to leave a hospital after a visit without exhibiting the exact same symptoms of the person lying in the bed; I’ve changed my hospital exit strategy to avoid the check-in counter as I’m tempted just to book myself with a quick call to my Catholic colleague to come and administer last rites.

Hospital visits. There are ministers who can take a world of pain upon their shoulders and not flinch at all - ministers with high pain thresholds, eyes like flint that absorb hardship with a colossal heroism. 

That’s not me.

“…and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."

So it was that this week I was called out to a meeting that I did not want to attend. If this not wanting to do stuff’ reminds you of the attitude of a teenager who would rather carry on playing XBOX than, I don’t know, going to the dentist or something, I would fully agree and own that. There are glaring deficiencies in this life of mine and some worrying areas of arrested development.

This meeting involved conflict resolution. For my sins I have oversight of a number of churches. I’m in charge of more than just ‘my’ church. Now, having read the above few paragraphs, I completely understand the furrowed, worried brow and the quietly-birthed question tickling the back of your mind: how on earth has he…? (That is a blog for another day.)

Having oversight basically means nobody is interested in you unless there is a problem. So, by no fault of your own, you often assume this aura of negativity, the trumpet blows a flat note when you enter the building. Just the phrase, ‘the Superintendent is coming,’ is a mark of failure, or at least worry.

And I’m not great at conflict resolution. I’m a conflict avoider. Consequently, when those moments of conflict arise I only have so many arrows in my quiver and none of them am I able to shoot with any great accuracy or skill. I sometimes do the passive-aggressive thing, get a little snarky, a little sarcastic, make a curt remark or two - eye-rolling is in my wheel-house. When I do get confrontational I over-egg the pudding to the degree that I don’t recognise myself. People have walked away from me carrying shrapnel, wondering about who this guy is and asking what did he do with that nice minister Andrew Robinson.

Oh, and I shake. A lot. Uncontrollably.

So I was called to this meeting to resolve this issue; because of my limitations I take back-up – my Circuit Stewards accompanied me, my posse as it were. This church with this issue is in an outlying area. One of the leaders of that church, instead of calling the other leaders ‘society stewards’, which they are, kept on mistakenly calling them shop stewards. This unnerved me; this sounded less Methodist and more, I don’t know, Marikana?

So the storm cloud of this meeting that had been building on my horizon since the morning broke at about six in the evening. What I have found in places of conflict is how ordinary most of the problems are. Most problems, even the big ones, are not that salacious: a misunderstood comment here, a stupid text message there, a staggering lack of social intelligence, and a blatant disregard for protocol. Misunderstanding lurking behind every corner, and a little mischief that will interpret that misunderstanding in the worst way possible. These are more often than not the building blocks of a fully-realised conflict.

Like I said, nothing salacious. By way of confession, sometimes I wish for the clarity of the salacious scandal - "He did what?! With whom?! Where!? In the church?! On the ORGAN!? You’ve got to be kidding me!? No?! Seriously!? Well I NEVER! Listen, you’re not allowed to tell anybody…"

You know, truly scandalous stuff that gives birth to fully-fledged self-righteous indignation. Don’t judge me for this, these are the hot sins that John’s Revelation seems to favour over the insipid, boring stuff of trench-warfare disagreements.

One part of the conflict saw one individual chewing gum to the immense disapproval of other people present. Why the disapproval, you ask? Well this was done in front of the church, during a service, and the gum was being chewed - how can I put it - in a particularly aggressive fashion. I understand the disapproval. I hate gum chewing at the best of times. People never look more intelligent for chewing gum. I’ve never once thought, “You know that person looked pretty stupid until they started flapping their gums up and down in that metronomic fashion. And then he blew a bubble. Whoa! Blew. My. Mind.” 

No. Gum-chewing should be banned and let’s start by banning it in church, especially among the clergy, especially when they are sitting up front helping lead worship – so let’s start by banning it there and more the circle outwards till, I don’t know, teenagers are banned from chewing gum while watching T.V. – the final frontier.

Most of us are familiar with a type of gum called chappies and this individual who was commenting on how bad this gum chewing was said that the clergy person was “chewing the chappies”. I like that. “Chewing the chappies.” It has a beautiful alliterative and euphemistic ring to it. It can be used to describe so many situations where people have their noses out of joint or are just sulking.

Where’s John? “Oh, I turned the T.V. off so he’s sitting in his room, you know, chewing the chappies.”

What happened to Albert? “Oh, he voted DA and the ANC smashed the elections. He’s gone off to play golf. Chewing the chappies.”

Where is Andrew? “The secretary told him it’s time to do some house-visits to the elderly. He went off not looking too happy. I think he is chewing the chappies.”

"Chewing the chappies" is a wonderful phrase acknowledging that slow-burn we all feel from time to time. That quiet rage. Not unlike Thoreau’s quiet lives of desperation except perhaps a little more aggressive (and a whole lot less poetic).

So I’m going to ban the chewing of chappies. Sometimes in conflict resolution, you’ve got to start small: “Yes, I understand that this could lead to cataclysmic failure but please, for the love of humanity, spit that rubbish out of your mouth right now!”

You’re probably desperate to know what happened at the meeting right? We resolved the issue. At least I think we resolved the issue. Okay, the issue is on the way to being resolved. Okay, so we’ve taken a tiny step forward in what we tentatively believe to be generally the right direction. Everybody got to speak, everybody got to air the chappy they’re chewing (you see, it really works doesn’t it?), and we worked hard at finding the way forward. Now I’m no expert, but I would like to suggest a small model for conflict situations:

     1.       Listen to everybody.

Get it all out there. Give everybody space to speak and make sure that you understand what they are saying. Don’t listen in the fashion of so many people, where you’re vaguely aware the gums of the person in front of you are moving up and down while you’re wondering who is winning the Champions League Final. Don’t listen in the way that makes you tap back into the conversation three minutes down the line now wondering hysterically what the person has actually been saying, praying it wasn’t that important, while trying to hide the ignorant-born alarm sweeping across your face.

     2.       Find the common ground.

It is there. It might seem like you have better chance of finding a camouflaged watch in a forest at midnight, but look for it and when you find it, speak it up. Understand how God values unity and the life it brings (read Psalm 133). You might have to become a contortionist trying to keep people together, but work hard at it.

     3.       Put your pride in your pocket.

This is not about you. If you are doing most of the speaking, you’re probably not doing this properly. If your words – from the get go – are not formulated to bridge gaps, bring healing, and offer possible solutions, shut up and go home and hand the job over to someone else.

     4.       Care.

If you don’t care, don’t pitch up. Using church as the example, you’d better love this thing Luther called the ‘leprous bride’ for it is very, very, very often a mess. As I sat there on Tuesday evening – having resented this meeting the whole day – I was flooded by a sense of how good these people are and how privileged I was to be a part of this. I’ve long lived with the suspicion that as clergy we don’t deserve the people God has put into our care. As each spoke (keeping in mind these are volunteers attending church after their work hours) I was humbled by their sincerity, their commitment, their love and deep desire that we make this thing called church work. Now, not all lay leaders are like this; from time to time you will come across lay leaders who you think would best serve humanity by being drawn and quartered. But that is far and away the exception.

  

     5.        Laugh.

Even the most intense meetings have moments of levity, milk them as they are fuel for the journey and joy in the midst of conflict can be an immense healing balm; it reminds us, when we most need to hear it, that we are not to take ourselves too seriously. We are to take Jesus seriously, but not ourselves.

     6.       Pray.

Okay. In all honesty this came to me a little late. I was putting finishing touches to this blog and thought, “Dude, you forgot prayer!” I imagined some saintly person offering a comment along the lines of, “Maybe prayer should be in there?” You know, in a way both disarmingly low-key but powerful enough to highlight an absence that could draw into question the validity of the entire blog-post. So prayer. (Please know though that I did not just add this to silence critics; I had people praying for me through-out and we spent time in prayer before.) So, in short, prayer is important. Do it!

So there you have it. You might read this and think to yourself, “My giddy aunt, this boy is naïve!” You might read this and think to yourself, “So these are the six impossible things I’m supposed to believe before breakfast.” 

I suppose there are some situations where none of these things will work. Where people are so hell-bent on fighting that not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can put the thing together again. In which case, I don’t know, move, change your name, join the Witness Relocation Program, and hope to live long enough that the nightmares of where you used to be fade into oblivion.

Whatever happens though never be the one chewing the chappies, but if you are please, please only ever do it metaphorically.