I learnt today that, apparently, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘a yearning for a lost home’.
All nostalgia is rose tinted. I think we all know that. But it doesn’t stop us being nostalgic. I wonder whether all nostalgia really reflects a desire, lying deep within the human heart, to go back to something even longer ago that none of us has ever actually experienced and yet we all feel like there was a time when we did: a truly perfect world (with no tinted spectacles necessary).
1. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say were the people concerned in the room.
2. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t share publicly with your Christian community.
3. Ensure your online world is visible to your offline Christian community.
4. Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self reflects a self-created identity rather than identity in Christ.
5. Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self doesn’t match their offline self.
6. Use social networking to enhance real world relationship not to replace them.
7. Don’t let children have unsupervised internet access or accept as online friends people you don’t know offline.
8. Set limits to the time you spend online and ask someone to hold you accountable to these.
9. Set aside a day a week as a technology “Sabbath” or “fast”.
10. Avoid alerts (emails, tweets, texts and so on) that interrupt other activities especially reading, praying, worshipping and relating.
11. Ban mobiles from the meal table and the bedroom.
12. Look for opportunities to replace disembodied (online or phone) communication with embodied (face-to-face) communication.
From http://timchester.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/guidelines-for-facebook/
The excellent seven-yearly ‘Up’ series returns this evening on ITV at 9pm for the next three weeks. An important documentary – very rare for ITV these days. I’m sure there will be lots of issues to make us reflect in terms of gospel ministry.
Well done the BBC for publishing another news story highlighting the horrors of North Korea. There seems to be an increasing number of reports in the media about the truly horrific situation in what is as godless society as it is possible to imagine. Do read the story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17767626
A friend of a friend is running the Belfast Marathon to raise money for Christian aid work in North Korea. If you want to sponsor him please make your donations (which will go through the work of Asia Link) follow this link and in the section marked project, please put ‘NK Marathon’.
The ‘Book of the Week’ on Radio 4 is currently ‘Escape from Camp 14′, the true story of a man called Shin Dong Hyuk. He was born in November 1982 (just a month after me) in one of the brutal prison camps in North Korea, the son of a couple who were permitted by guards to ‘marry’ and spend several days together. Shin was born from this brief relationship,
He was born a prisoner. His mother showed him no love. He grew up with no affection for her, nor for anyone else. Everyone in the camps were taught to inform and betray each other, the reward for doing so being extra food (food was incredibly scarce), the sanction being execution (which were seen publicly on a daily basis). He and fellow prisoners suffered unimaginable hardship, being forced to work endless hours, with severe punishments for mistakes (Shin had a middle finger cut off for dropping a sewing machine; on another occasion, when 10 years old, he watched his ill mother beaten again and again around the head out in the fields because she was not working fast enough). In school he witnessed 9 year old girl being beaten around the head for ‘about an hour’. He and some classmates carried her back to her house, and the girl died that night. At the age of 13 the malnourished Shin was tortured in horrific fashion for several days, and then imprisoned for seven months, because his mother and older brother had attempted to escape the prison. Later Shin and his father were made to watch his mother and brother publicly executed as ‘enemies of the people’. Shin could not bear to watch when the moment came – he turned and looked at his father, who wept silently.
Whilst working in a factory Shin befriended (as much as one could I suppose) an older man who told him stories of Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea (unbelievably, Shin had never even heard of Pyongyang) and life in East Germany and Russia where he ate chicken and lamb. Shin was so enticed by the thought of such food that he thought it worth risking his life to escape. Together they plotted an escape through the electric fence during a change of guard. On the day of the escape, Shin’s friend went first, only to fall on a wire and die. The gap his dead friend’s body opened in the fence was enough to allow Shin to fit through. He was the first person who had been born in a North Korean prison camp to escape.
It’s hard to think that for every happy moment I can recall whilst growing up there was a parallel horror happening to Shin, every step of the way. I can remember being 9, being 10, being 13 and being well-fed and happy; at the very same time Shin witnessed and experienced sheer horror. What’s more, I could have been Shin.
And it is happening again today. Whilst my two year old son enjoys a life full of friends, family, fun and contentment, children in these camps the same age will be experiencing, right now, the constant feelings of hunger and sadness; they won’t know any fun, love or tenderness. They will be toddling around seeing people beaten and killed.
It is unimaginable. It is also unimaginable that so little seems to be being done about them on an international level, even though they are well documented now (North Korea deny their existence) . Amnesty International estimate there are 200,000 people in these camps across North Korea.
I wanted to send an email to friends to raise some awareness. Perhaps you’ll be able to pass on the information about these camps, and Shin’s story, to others. Does any one have any ideas about what can be done to raise awareness of the issue on a wider scale?
In January it was announced that North Korea would grant an amnesty to some prisoners to mark the birthdays of its two former dictators, but how many, what sort of prisoner and whether indeed it actualy happened is not knownhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16481003
I have signed a petition on the gov.uk website here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31662
You can read more about Shin Dong Hyuk here http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/16/escape-north-korea-prison-camp
and here http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm (this is probably the most disturbing thing I have ever read).
Please do something – even if it is to pass on the news about this to someone else, and encourage them to do the same.
In the public imagination the working classes of post-war Britain were those with a rich ‘street community’. Women chatted as they hung the washing out, children played football and hopscotch safely in the street, the friendly milkman stopping at each door with the morning pint.
It was on the basis of such conjecture that the ‘streets in the sky’ council flats (such as the notorious Park Hill flats in Sheffield) were built, planned to re-create that same community spirit of the terraces only now in a 1960s tower block. However, as cultural historian Joe Moran points out in his paper ‘Imagining the street in post-war Britain’, by the time these tower blocks were being built the type of working-class community described above was quickly dissapearing, and the streets in the sky concept was doomed.
What caused this change? Moran (from his cultural-historical perspective) says it was largely due to consumerist aspiration for things like TV sets, washing machines, tumble driers and motor cars. This aspiration had already begun to grip the middle classes between the world wars but in post-war Britain consumer items started to become within reach of the working classes (often on Hire Purchase agreements, but that’s another story).
This made the working class house ‘turn in on itself’ according to Moran. For entertainment people could stay at home and watch TV. Women were less likely to talk to their neighbour whilst hanging the washing out when a tumble drier could handle the load. The friendly face of the milkman each morning was under threat when a pint could be purchased a penny cheaper at the new supermarkets. Even cars became affordable to the more afluent working classes, meaning families (i.e. dad, mum and two kids) could spend increasing amounts of time away from the street.
It is interesting to reflect on how the pursuit of the modern consumer lifestyle has affected the sense of community, especially among the working classes where it was once considered so essential. I’m sure Moran is right in what he says.
But while the community-erroding pursuit of mammon continues seemingly unabaited, even in the midst of this ‘economic crisis’, people nostalgically long for the community the working classes once apparently had in abundance. "Call the Midwife", the recent BBC drama series focussing on the ups and downs (and ins and then outs!) of a team of midwives in early 1950s east-end London, was a huge ratings success. The families we encounter via the midwives in the programme dont have TVs, washing machines or cars. They often live in very poor conditions. But they have that community spirit that people today long for, but no longer know how to obtain because it belongs to a time before aspirational consumerism. Perhaps that is the key to the success of a drama series that was otherwise genteel and lacking in plot. So many other soaps and dramas trade on this desire for community too. The TV that inverted households back in on themselves now taunts them with pictures of the community spirit it in part stole.
It would be futile for Christians to totally eschew TVs, washing machines and motor cars in order to create a stronger sense community in our churches. We are called to minister in the present day, not a bygone age. Moreover, we would just become at best a peculiarity and at worst a laughing stock.
However, it is worth considering how we can take steps to mitigate against the community-erroding effects of modern living. Simply being aware that our TVs, mobile phones, cars, washing machines and dishwashers gently, unwittingly lead us to live lives in isolation is the first thing. The next is to begin to take steps to actively work against it: car share, eat together at the end of a days work, watch TV together, even give the dishwasher a break and enjoy doing the dishes by hand together after a meal. Let’s take steps to make sure the modern aspirtational lifestyle that has robbed us of community spirit on the streets of Britian does not rob us of the same in our churches.
In attempting to really understand working class culture, I want to watch some films that explore the working class way of life.
I watched the 1963 film ‘A Kind of Loving’, the screen play of which was based on Wakefield writer Stan Barstow’s book of the same name. It is considered one of a number films that constitute ‘British New Wave’ cinema, a period between 1959-1963 during which a number of landmark films were released exploring working class life in a realist fashion, rather than the tendency towards entertainment and escapism that predated it.
I really enjoyed this film despite that fact that it will be 50 years old next year. I’d even go so far to say it was in my top ten. Not that I have watched a lot of films.
Synopsis
Set in the early 1960s, Vic (Alan Bates – who is brilliant) is a working class man with a ‘white collar’ job as a draughtsman. His desire is to rise above the way of life that he has come from; but he is sort-of-attracted to a girl (Ingrid, played by then newcomer June Ritchie) who works in the secretaries office. They begin a relationship, and in time she becomes pregnant. They marry, as Vic feels it is the right thing to do, even though his feelings for Ingrid have petered out.
Vic is now trapped – demonstrated through his living with his new wife in his mother-in-law. He hates her: he can’t cope with being under her disdainful eye and her petty rules (‘Don’t smoke in the bedroom Victor’). His evenings are now spent watching mundane, ‘common’ TV game shows. Ingrid miscarries late on in her pregnancy. As the pregnancy was the reason Vic married her, he feels even further resentment because it turned out to him he had never needed to marry her in the first place. Vic feels a resentment towards Ingrid and her mother. They have stopped his ‘rise’ from the working class ordinariness that he desired to escape.
On a evening at the pub he meets an old friend who has a job in sales: it had enabled him to ‘get about a bit’ and he had bought himself a sporty car. Vic is attracted to what he might have been. The two friends embark on a pub crawl. After a drunken night spent on a railway station platform Vic calls at another friend’s house in the early hours, where he confides in a friend’s wife over breakfast. "I should have married someone like you, someone who would have made me better myself, not keep me down." The film ends with Vic ‘doing the right thing’: he and Ingrid desperately searching for a place of their own (there was a housing shortage in the early 1960s) and with some determination to make a fist of it (it would be a ‘kind of loving’). However, the viewer is left wondering whether they ever did stay together; could Vic content himself with living with Ingrid (with the threat that she would increasingly become like her mother)? Would he be able to overcome the feelings of being trapped in a way of life he wanted to escape? (Stan Barstow later wrote two further novels charting the lives of Victor and Ingrid; I’ve yet to read them).
Things that struck me about (early 1960s) northern working class culture
Some reflections for ministry
- If we are a church that does not live a working-class way of life then will we tend to attract and keep those people who are attracted to an opportunity to ‘lift’. This is probably something of the case with me. I was embarrassed of my working class background. My association with middle and upper middle class Christians gave me an opportunity to ‘lift’.
- My hunch is that for every Vic (‘desire to lift people’) there are twenty Ingrids (‘content people’). If that is anywhere near true, then we need to create a church culture where the Ingrids of the world feel more at home than the Vics. Can we create a church culture where working class culture is adopted, enjoyed, ‘redeemed’, celebrated so the majority feel at home, rather than the odd person who is (perhaps unbeknownst to them) attracted to the opportunity to lift that evangelicalism affords.
- Rather than create an occassion for the Vics to lift, we need to enable them to understand that true joy and happiness is not found through a lift in to the middle class world (the world Vic catches a tantilising glimpse of through his ex-school now salesman friend in the pub); at the same time we want to create a culture where learning and improvement are not pursued as routes to a lift out of working class culture but ways to honour God and serve others. You can play an instrument/enjoy reading/study/have a career and still be essentially working class.
- I like how Ingrid has a satisfaction with the ‘ordinary’. What would this look like in church life? People eating ordinary food together; people going to the football or the rugby (league) rather than a trip to an art gallery; church events that are ‘pie and peas’ rather than ‘posh nosh’; people (especially those ‘up front’) admitting to watching game shows and soaps rather than belittling those who watch them.
It is often said that if leaders speak as if unbelievers are at church meetings, then they will be. Believers will think ‘this is somewhere I can bring my friends and not be embarrassed.’ I often wonder whether the same should be said for the ‘culture’ of a church.
We minister in a very working class, northern English town. Are there ways a church should be acting that reflect working class life and that people from a working class culture would feel that they really belonged?
However, before I consider that question I need to know what the northern working class English way of life is. I am concerned that the idea I have in my head is actually based on sweeping generalisations. I want to try and understand working class life better, more deeply, to start to understand how it all ticks. One way I want to try and do this is but examining some of the culturalartifactsthat the working class has produced or (less profitably perhaps) those made by those outside the working class that attempt to explore working class culture (particularly in the north of England). I suspect such things (films, music, books) give a window in to working class life. And then I can start to ask how it might affect our church way of life, for the sake of the gospel in these hard to reach parts.
Today was meant to be the day that a fast, powerful Wales turned up at Twickenham and ‘smashed’ a young and inexperienced England team http://tinyurl.com/7v7hha3. Congratulations Wales; a simply brilliant piece of solo play won them the game. But I suspect the drive back down the M4 was not quite as satisfying as the celebrations at the end of the game would lead us to believe…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/feb/25/england-wales-six-nations-match-report
The future looks very, very bright for England!
A plea not from me but from Alain de Botton in today’s Guardian!
"The all-too-frequent question with which we leave the modern museum of art [is] what did that mean? Why should this veneration of ambiguity continue? Why should confusion be a central aesthetic emotion? Is an emptiness of intent on the part of an artwork really a sign of its importance."
And then he goes on to say, very interestingly, that
"Christianity, by contrast, never leaves us in any doubt about what art is for: it is a medium to teach us how to live, what to love and what to be afraid of. Such art is extremely simple at the level of its purpose, however complex and subtle it is at the level of its execution."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/20/art-museums-churches
