friarmike

It is significant that those who lead our nation appear to have more answers than questions. This worries me. I would feel a lot safer with more questioning and the creation of an open space for conversation. The dialogue might more easily be moved away from positional statements to exploring shared interests and then determining creative solutions in light of those interests. Until then I anticipate monologues of persuasive speeches. I shall return to the silence and listen to the Beloved.

A Time to Speak

Following my first week long silent retreat, I knew that I was required to be silent. Hence no blogs for a while. The silent - or directed - retreat took place at the Carmelite Friary in Aylesford in Kent. The retreat was directed in as far as I had up to 30 minutes available with a spiritual director each morning.

This was a wonderful time in which I could chat about what God was talking through with me. My director, a delightful lady, listened, asked questions and placed some useful resources in my hands. As for the rest of the time it was in silence, including meal times. I found it enriching and deeply engaging. I captured the experience as best I could in my journal. I had arrived with an agenda based around what I describe as the fourth chapter of my life. This may sound strange so allow me to enlighten you.

Chapter One was my childhood and education - happy memories soaked in sunshine as though it never rained. Chapter Two was conversion and christian service, a time of great opportunity, fun and remarkable successes. Chapter Three saw me thrust into the role of conflicted carer as I sought to find the means and the grace to care for my wife Katey as she battled her MS. This paralysing disease eventually demanded her life in 2008. And so to the present - Chapter Four entitled ‘Disconnected and Confused’! Here I had stumbled and ground to a halt - writer’s block - not knowing how to fill the first page of this new chapter. Various attempts such as revisiting the substance and acquaintances from Chapter Two had failed to ‘re-launch’ my life. Here was my diet for a week of silence.

Significantly God had his own intentions for our week together. Notably, whilst retainng my agenda inviting me to look at it through a different set of lenses. The struggles I had been experiencing in seeking to resume my past life were cut away from me. I was invited by the Spirit to consider who I had become through the rough and tumble of the previous years, more especially chapter three. I was freed to once more gaze at and embrace the original calling I had experienced when at Oxford and upon first finding God. This was energising and my whole being relaxed. The call to Christian service was restated and reinforced.

The vehicle I had travelled in and somehow either tumbled or been tipped out of - evangelicalism - could be safely abandoned. My purpose and my call remained intact. My God still beckoned me forward. I might choose the vehicle for the future to realise all God had invested into me. Hence upon returning home I embraced a further period of silence and reflection to better clarify all my Beloved had entrusted to me. I am the richer for that time and shall again begin to write. However, write from a fresh, if not a new place. 

I am grateful for the road I have travelled, and those who proved to be companions along the way. However, my road has now branched off and I will explore alone or until joined by fresh companions for this next chapter. I shall continue to explore Formation and share all I see, feel and discover with fellow pilgrims in search of the heart of God and willing to build the solidarity that is at the heart of all true Christian community. This feels good, if challenging. I also feel alone yet at peace within, secure in the knowledge of God’s call and confident that as I have found grace sufficient for Chapters 1 through 3, there will be sufficient grace for the whole of Chapter 4 as it unfolds.

I have no need of tomorrow’s grace, today!

In Search of Saints

One wonders where the avalanche which is the Murdoch meltdown will end. The very media that Murdoch has championed and fed himself from has now perhaps turned to strike him back. 24/7 reporting has created a voracious appetite amongst news junkies whilst commentators have to find continuous new angles to fill the airwaves.

It is worth reflecting that the series of high profile resignations may be a direct result of this incessant clamour for news print or broadcast material. Is it appropriate that senior police officers in the Met. should resign so suddenly? Especially before the results of a full and frank public enquiry reports! Even the Prime Minister looks vulnerable. It will be left to historians to wrestle with the necessity or wisdom of some of these immediate decisions. News can it appears create the news.

Certainly the instant nature of news and the reach that media has via TV and the internet has created a culture requiring instant reaction and response. The news junkie wants an update or fresh angle each time s/he tunes in; the journalist needs to keep the story developing both to justify their existence and to contrast the present news hour with the last.

The global nature of networked news has immediate effect upon the financial value on News International with their share price having lost 20% of its pre crisis value as of this morning. Indeed this may present the greatest challenge to Mr Murdoch’s continuing control. Shareholders will not be happy!

We can all witness the reach and the power of new media - how best to enhance this remains a critical challenge. The whole of the UK seems to be swift to decry the evil of the Murdoch community - and by inference assume people in responsible positions are somehow, by virtue of that position, moral and ethical by default. Sadly this is not the case - humanity reflects its perennial fracture in every field of human endeavour. The disappointing fact is that no one seems to tire of the consistent failure of the humanist, secular experiment. Christianity remains in many ways ‘out of bounds’ yet offers a positive alternative to all that confronts us.

The church most surely has its faults, but tarnished saints are preferable to no saints at all. 

 

The Lost Discipline of Forgetfulness

I was unwinding in the hot and heavily scented water of my bath the other evening. I literally felt the stress flowing out of my muscles. It was sheer delight and wanton luxury. However, lest I offend a hapless reader let me pause there! The bath is really incidental.

It had started with the normal frustration of realising I had forgotten to remove my spectacles. I only remembered when lifting cupped hands of hot water to me face I collided with my glasses frame, now precariously perched upon my nose. No damage done. However, the frustration was less the fact that I had left them on than the fact that, once again, I had neglected to remove them.

Again somewhat of an unreasonable emotional reaction to something so insignificant. Yet here I was ‘stressing out’ over my lapse of memory,'stressing' over an irrelevance and only increasing the number of reasons I was taking a relaxing bath in the first place.

Now if the very action embraced to reduce stress becomes in and of itself a source for further muscle tension what’s the point?

Well this is not the point. I got to thinking as I was soaking. Why are we so harsh upon ourselves when we are forgetful? I notice it in older people all the time, forgetting names, locations, TV programne details and the like. All of no real import save in the eye of the oublieux. Yet often creating quite an acute and negative personal reaction within them. So here I was getting older and more forgetful and more stressed, fulfilling the stereotype - now that is not a good idea!

Then the moment of realisation. This art of forgetting is in fact not a curse but a sign of emerging spiritual maturity. It is in fact what I have now named the ‘Lost Discipline of Forgetfulness’. And before I receive too many criticisms it is quite evident as such.

Those followers in the way of Jesus will be familiar with the fact that God both forgives and forgets our shameful acts of disobedience. Hebrews 8:12 is explicit in this regard - ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more’. 

If this is the practice of the triune God than I guess it is something I too must master. Both forgive and forget my momentary lapses of memory and travel on celebrating the forgetfulness as a sign of spiritual growth.

Forgetfulness as a spiritual discipline is something I shall now practice vigorously! I shall celebrate each memory loss and respond with a smile.

Now where did I put those glasses? I do believe I am beginning to laugh!!

Silence & Solitude

I have safely and recently arrived back from the USA. A trip with various objectives. Principal amongst these was to participate in a Silence and Solitude retreat led by a very dear friend, Jeff Pratt. As many will know, I am a part of Axiom global monastic community, which was founded by Jeff. My own journey in community living and embracing the life of a Friar over the last several years has landed itself alongside Jeff in seeking to give both support and leadership to Axiom. Hence I am a member of Axiom, and the Friary here in Southsea an Axiom House.

The retreat was an opportunity to participate with others in what Jeff facilitates so well. Describing himself as a ‘contemplative activist’, Jeff has plumbed the depths of God’s presence over the years and offers retreats birthed from his long and rich experience of walking with God.

For me, this retreat arrived at a good time. I have, as many people are aware, been applying for jobs in the years since Katey passed away, yet without success. Over sixty applications with a handful of interviews have failed to secure any opening through which I could comfortably deploy my call and my gifts.

However, in April this year I closed the door on further applications believing that I was invited by God to continue to pursue the contemplative road more intentionally and work with Peaceworks in mediation and Peacebuilding - this latter for three days a week. 

The retreat therefore came at a time when I had agreed this way ahead with God and  wanted to commit myself and all I am to this new road of faith and adventure. It was an enriching time with a wonderful group of fellow pilgrims - about 17 of us in all.

Jeff’s leading - a light touch with honest illustration and wealth of rich experience - provided an outline enabling us all gently to pursue a path of encountering self before encountering God. The scene set during a brief Friday night session located in the context of a comfortable, candlelit room before the Saturday journey to a retreat centre on Enders Island. Here we had the run of the grounds, surrounded by the ocean, to pursue our journey in solitude and silence. This challenge supported by a focussed article to initiate our time through a private reading and the opportunity to meet together in groups at the end of our time to reflect together on all we had discovered - and for everyone in my group this was positive.

Saturday ended with a splendid dinner at Mystic Pizza altogether (the restaurant famous for the launch of Julia Roberts acting career) and then on the Sunday one final session enabled us to reflect together on where God would take us next with all that we had discovered.

For me the lessons of the retreat were again the value of participation alongside others whilst having the space for self reflection and engagement. It was wonderful to take the time to examine who I was and how I showed up - to note significant changes even over the last few months - to confront my own fractured ego again where it still fought to fill my space without the true me. Again the sense of the freedom we enjoy in Christ overwhelmed me, whilst I saw just how wedded I remained to certain rules and conventions - some social, some religious - that offered neither hope nor redemption. 

There is also the recognition that each of us must accept the person who we are - warts and all - rather than seeking to suppress that part of ourselves WE deem ungodly or inappropriate for public show. No matter what the dressing, this remains basically who we are and we need to remind ourselves that this is who God accepts. Loving self is not about some idealised saint coiffured by bible verses and designer church. No! Loving self is accepting the warped and wicked person I am and knowing that grace suffices and through relaxing in and considering God I can find the rhythm to grow into the maturity and fulness God offers. This is a work of the years only accomplished through personal encounter in contemplative prayer and action.

So rested in this reflection it was good to confirm with God that I am willing ready and able to offer quiet days and retreats in the Friary in Southsea, travel to provide support and encouragement to those on the journey or requiring a contemplative journey within their own space - alone or with others - and to join in facilitating pilgrimages. Nothing is more satisfying than knowing where one begins and ends and what therefore one can contribute. A time of joyful contemplation marked the start to my USA journey and I remain today the richer for it.

The Intimacy of Aloneness

It was a fine evening last night. I set out for a walk around my beloved Southsea just as the daylight was slowly ebbing away. Its departure heralded the arrival of dusk, that strange in between time when darkness gently creeps in to fill the void before finally shrouding everything with its inky black creating a sombre silence.

In this ‘in-between’ time, I took Dylan, our black and tan Chihuahua, for a walk. Dylan is physically exceptionally small and yet has the largest personality proportionate to size of anyone,  
animal of human, that I have ever met. And he is keen to assert that ego on any and every occasion he might. However, last evening he was comfortable trotting along exploring the sights and smells of the verges and to treat passing quadrupeds with arrogant disdain as opposed to engaging in a barking competition.

As we walked toward the sea, we were confronted by a most beautiful sight. Rising above the horizon and casting an elongated shadow of light across it, was an almost full moon. However, this moon presented itself in the most translucent pink and created a stunning sight. We both paused, although I think I was alone in admiring this phenomenon of nature.

It was whilst I stood and gazed that I was overwhelmed with this huge sense of my own diminutive size against the vastness of nature, and also its constancy against a backdrop of change and human mortality. The moon and the sun revolve continually and have done so from that moment when they were called into being. Whilst our lives are snuffed out in a moment, dwarfed against this monumental staging of the diurnal/nocturnal dance of the centuries. 

Indeed, as an aside, it is this growing awareness, aided by the passing of my physical years I am sure, that has provoked me to stop engaging with ‘the news’. This latter is of course not news but rather those things carefully collected, collated and then finely crafted by news agencies before being presented to us, the public, as significant events. We, the consumer, obediently accept this categorisation and presentation. As a result they become the substance of our own conversation and assume a meaning within our own existence that is far beyond and substantive importance they might have. As with beauty, this management of news is purely in the eye of the beholder. When standing in the vast theatre of creation, dwarfed both by its immensity and its longevity, the machinations of politicians and the efforts of sportsmen and women shrink away as a minor irrelevance - irritation even -  an insignificant diversion from the main act of life and living.

Returning to my walk and gaup confronted by this most magnificent moon, I realised again how alone I was - any of us are - within this immense creation. I may chase intimacy in relationships; I might seek to make meaning of my life within the interactions such relationships provide (both good and bad) yet my reality and purpose can only be found within the heartbeat of creation itself. 

As I stood and stared I was immediately aware of my own mortality, yet unafraid. For many years I think I have pursued relationship for fear of loneliness, and yet those with whom we forge the closest of bonds must eventually abandon us, or we them, as our life fractures and fragments into handfuls of dust. In that moment last evening I was reminded of the intimacy of aloneness - not loneliness. I sensed my own self as a powerful reality, and recognised that the only intimate relationship that would never die was that with the creator and director of this vast theatre of nature. Although unseen this person is not unknown to me. That relationship is indeed the source and substance of the intimacy that lies at the heart of aloneness.

I set out to return home, turning my back upon that wonderful moon, yet deeply impacted both by its visible presence and the mystery that lay behind it and in fact originally gave it birth. I walked home alone, accompanied by Dylan of course, yet I walked home complete. Dylan to date has not shared his reflections with me - but maybe its best if we keep such things to ourselves and simply benefit from the personal enrichment they bring!

 

 

Transforming Values

This title is taken from a booklet written by my good friend Laurence Singlehurst. For many years he has dedicated his thinking to the issue of how the historic Christian faith might once more become an attractive consideration for a new generation.

Succinctly stated (57 pages) Laurence has attempted to unravel the reasons why a faith that has framed the British way of life for so many centuries is now so out of fashion it risks being abandoned by all. A bleak future that Laurence, alongside the puritan non-conformists he so admires, wants to ensure we avoid.

The book is aimed at both the individual at a loss to connect faith with life in 21st Century Britain, Europe and the USA. It also provides a useful primer for those supporting people exploring the Christian faith. Finally it will also gives a challenge to all who seek to communicate the relevance and value of this ancient Christian message of Good News in a material, secular society.

In summary, Laurence presents a thesis that recognises that a world in which half remembered biblical stories and the moral framework they supported has disappeared. Today’s youth emerge into a world that lacks any overarching values. 

Where the youth of the 1960’s cried ‘freedom’ and discovered ‘youth culture’ with its commitment to throw off the shackles of formal social norms, they did so with a nagging suspicion that what they did may not have been ‘right’. Stirrings of conscience troubled them, and therefore made them receptive to a Christian message of ‘Imperative based living’. Simply put this ensured that their half remembered Christian morality, inherited from RE lessons, sunday school or family mores, provided a natural landing strip for a message of hope that appealed to a Christ centred altruism.

As time passed and a new fluid morality emerged, so a rising generation learnt that morality was flexible, like a credit card. You could purchase now and pay later; and payment could be deferred or was offered on easy terms, albeit with the additional cost of interest. Laurence calls this ‘Enthusiastic dualism’. They were helped into this state by the tragic failure of nerve and leadership within the vibrant church that emerged in 1970s Britain. A morality that morphs into the shape that the surrounding landscape requires. Passionate worship at the sunday meeting can be followed by equally passionate love-making; and both sincerely offered and sincerely meant.

Psychologists increasingly emphasise the importance of mirror neurons. In short this means that my behavior ‘mirrors’ that of those that surround me. What we see and what we experience determines what we do! And this is far more influential than genetics or the nurture we have received at home or through the church’s programs.

Laurence therefore calls for ‘a journey of readjustment’. It requires us all to take time to identify the values that inform our choices and hence our behaviour. Once identified he calls upon each of us to participate in a three step process.

First we are to reflect upon the values we espouse and implement. This reflection is often provoked, and always enhanced and enriched by the engagement of others. 

Second we enter a period of honest appraisal about the authenticity, consistency and constructiveness of such values - evidenced as he says by our behaviours.

Finally we need to acknowledge what we have discovered - an acknowledgement that forms the basis of a confession as the ancients would have it; this confession being a clear verbal statement in front of those same friends who have challenged us since stage one. I would add that a signed written agreement might also be part of this process of transformation.

We then get to the meat of the book - the formation of values. Laurence draws his four ‘Key Values’ from his own biblical and evangelical background. He articulates the need for 

A High View of God

A High View of Others

A High View of Self

A High View of Sacrificial Love

Laurence establishes these key values from four characteristics of the Christian, triune God. So taking these ‘Key Values’ in order,

God as the source of all life (Genesis story) provides an external authority for truth and therefore acts as a point of accountability, ultimately effected through judgement.

God expresses his commitment to the ‘stranger’ or the ‘other; and places a special responsibility upon his creatures to put other’s interests ahead of heir own. This is captured by the call to neighbour love in scripture, or more simply as, ‘Do as you would be done by’ in Charles Kingsley’s novel ‘The Water babies’. This is illustrated by God sending Christ to rescue us.

As we discover that we have been created as image bearers of God, we realise hat we have the ability for a high self esteem, the prerogative to exercise assertiveness and the ability to live aspirationally. Here are the tangible benefits of the resurrection.

Finally, there is the real cost of sacrificial love, embraced and modeled by Jesus in giving himself to death on a cross for our benefit. As a result we are invited to live life now as if, ‘...the values of God’s reign were already operative in modern society’. This means we will need to learn to live with loss as much as victory and count the two as creative and coequal twins.

Having established his four ‘Key Values’ from scripture, Laurence then sets out a framework of six behaviours that reflect the operational reality of such values in an individual’s life. These are, Forgiveness, Generosity (not merely financial), Faithfulness (in contrast to success), Stewardship (managing NOT owning resources), Hospitality (the antidote to hostility), and Integrity.

At the start of his book, Laurence states clearly how hard it is to be different - and the Christian call is always to provide a counter cultural alternative wherever culture exchanges promise for pottage. However, if there are handfuls of Jesus’ followers dispersed across society who choose to live differently then the mirror neurons will at least spark a question in people’s minds, one they will wrestle with simply because it challenges the status quo and the assumption that values are merely cosmetic, a means to look good but only ever applied externally for a specific event and washed off as easily as they are applied.

Laurence Singlehurst, ‘Transforming Values’, (Cell UK, 2010) £4.50 from www.celluk.org.uk 

celluk@oval.com  

01582 463232

Walking, not talking

With every day that dawns, when at home I emerge from my nightly rest, complete a Shalom Compass exercise, breakfast the friary community and see them into their day before heading off for a walk. Accompanying me has been my daughter’s dog, Dylan. He is a chihuahua, feisty, with a big heart for humans and a bigger attitude for every breed of dog - big, small, indifferent. 

This morning walk usually takes about an hour and provides a healthy time for reflection. However, reflection has to battle with my head’s certainty that the walk is all about it, my head that is! By which I mean my brain wants to process the day, stray into issues from the day before that I would have liked to have ended with my nightly ‘examen’ process. My head would not want to allow my spirit a look in. This reflects the constant battle between head and heart for me.

Usefully I have learnt a little how to manage myself. It involves not fighting to take control of my head and its multifaceted and inexhaustible, if exhausting, agenda. Rather disengaging and connecting with the centre of my being allowing untold rush hour traffic to fight it out in my brain and ignore the traffic jams and occasional crashes!

Walking has also replaced what was my favourite activity i.e. talking. Well I talk to myself, Dylan and the Trinity, but not to other people. Not quite true, I have been enjoying greeting fellow perambulators as we pass each morning, and stop to participate in a fuller conversation when appropriate and welcomed. However, in the main I mean enjoying the quiet solitude of engaging with my own spirituality rather than being gathered into groups of well meaning and highly articulate communicators. Nothing wrong with such, I have spent more than sufficient years in such gathered groups myself. Perhaps a little dishonestly for there was no voice I enjoyed more than my own. This would be something of a confession if my friends and family hadn’t recognised that reality many years hence! Most such conversations only served to create an opportunity for my head to work harder and drown out my inner centre.

Yet walking is not really a solitary experience. I have mentioned fellow travelers I pass and greet. There is the traffic trundling by as I trudge along pavements. Interestingly it sings a song dependent upon the road surface. Today under grey skies with low scudding clouds carrying a hint of rain in the air, the road surface was damp and the cars ‘swished’ as they passed creating the sound of a snare drum, an irregular beat rising to a sustained crescendo as several vehicles passed one after another. This background beat, together with the rhythm of my shoes, provides a musical backdrop of sorts to my various dialogues with the Divine.

Then this timpani falls away as I stroll beside the sea with its gentle yet regular assaults upon the shingle beach - repelled each time and then forced into an equally rhythmic retreat in thrall to nature’s call. Vast, and today unappealingly monochrome, in its grey/green garment, it is yet distinctive and unique in its every breaking wave. Amongst this similitude appears the patterns of the irregularity of  foaming waters thrusting their way in an attempt to overwhelm the shingle shore at the tidal edge. Each one following a different path creating regular irregularity of shapes like my childhood spirograph. These images craft for me my very own stations for solitary reflection.

In each moment I reflect, give thanks, simply observe - always aware of the God in whose grip I reside and towards whose heart I journey with ever greater anticipation.

With such sounds and images now within and beyond me, I return home the richer, ready to complete my reflection, steaming mug of coffee (black) to hand before reengaging my head and returning to the world of work and rationality - a poor relation to the wonders of walking.

So should you wonder why I am absent from so many worthy gatherings it is quite simply that I prefer walking to talking just at this period of my spiritual renaissance. 

A Good Journey

Richard Rohr states that, “A good journey begins with knowing where we are and being willing to go somewhere else”. I came across this quote this morning and immediately the lights went on. I know that my struggle over recent years has been around ‘where I am’ and so attempts to progress ‘somewhere else’ have inevitable ended in frustration.

 Yesterday I attended a transition meeting at a church I had served in for 21 years, a good percentage of these in leadership. My wife, Jayne, was with me and she had been one of those who had originally planted and established it. The meeting went well and of course afterwards it was a joy to chat to many old friends. 

However, one conversation with someone I had known for years, but who was not part of the church itself, completely threw my equilibrium. Within seconds of being asked a perfectly reasonable and natural question I descended into talking gibberish and although from within my head I observed my behaviour with some alarm, I was completely unable to shut my mouth and end the flow.

 On reflection I cannot recall what I said. Rather I carry a somewhat uncomfortable feeling toward the pit of my stomach therefore knowing I neither enjoyed the experience nor can recollect why it took place. It might best be described as a feeling of pain at every level of my being. And then this morning as I began my daily first office, I discover this quote and a commentary emerges in my head. A commentary that I trust will provide healing going forward.

 The person to whom I verbally gushed and who I emotionally rushed, in many ways personified my past journey to this point in time. Until called to care for the lovely Katey, my first wife, who sadly lost her brave battle with MS, I too was fully absorbed in a world of evangelical, house church life, platform, and certainty. However, caring introduced an unwelcome, but oh so timely, fire break into my life's pilgrimage. I believe that yesterday’s conversation captured something I have been grasping at for quite some time. How to effectively move ‘somewhere else’ rather than returning to where I had stepped off my career course with my enhanced learning - practical and spiritual. It is in fact that I have failed fully to let go and release the personification that I was and the places where I had been. Merton would describe this personification as an expression of my 'false self'.

Many years ago my wonderful third order, Franciscan novice counsellor, Kay, had advised me of two things. One that my ‘horizontal’ relating and relationships were very developed and effective. However, my vertical relationship - with God, the ultimate source of value or whatever helps you,the reader, to engage with what I am saying - was impoverished. For me this was God since I am a Christian. I initially reacted quite strongly but alas I believe Kay was more right than I have ever given her credit!

Second, she pointed out that as I journeyed through life the path I was on would soon take a sharp right hand turn. This would mean leaving the well worn track which was easy to walk along and the one that had been walked by many generations before me and was in fact the reason it was a recognised pathway. I would then find myself in open countryside where the only path was the one I forged for myself. Obviously, as one who loves and thrives on change and has a very low boredom threshold, I embraced this thought with relish. Little did I realise just how painful that would in fact prove to be. 

I know I have taken that turn some time back. I have been on the path that demands greater focus upon the vertical relationship at the expense of horizontal relationships. Yet, I have constantly scampered back to the well worn path being somewhat unwilling to let go of the comfort of the horizontal frame of reference, perhaps frightened by the imagined loneliness, assumed poverty and very uncertainty of the path I was being invited to pioneer. 

Today I realise that I have spent some considerable time trapped between two worlds. I trust that I can now move forward on the uncharted path God has invited me to walk. A path requiring that I embrace solitude and silence as my companions and travel comfortably with the discomfort of the unknown. Now I know where I am I feel a rising confidence that I am willing to travel ‘somewhere else’. Perhaps yesterday was as much a release to enable me to transition as it was for one church leader to hand over to another.

 

Egypt Chooses

Choice is a highly valued activity. In the west we take a high view over freedom of choice. Indeed many perceive it to lie at the very heart of our democratic process. Yet freedom to choose is itself often subject to external controls. For there is always someone or some interest that really wants to limit or direct my choices.

UK democracy itself is somewhat flawed. Once a vote is cast, albeit within the protection secrecy affords in preventing external manipulation in the casting itself, its value must largely be dependent upon the capacity of its beneficiary (in this case the elected parliamentary member) to exercise a measured discipline over her/his actions.

Once elected an MP is a representative and not a delegate. Therefore they have a freedom to choose how they will behave on a host of political agendas without in truth paying much regard to the interests of those who cast the vote.  

Naturally they will not ride roughshod over their constituents for fear of failing to be re-elected. However, in real terms I doubt many follow closely how their elected representative votes in representing their interests. Of course in these days of an active global internet it is easy to follow one’s MP by logging onto www.theyworkforyou.com. The fact so many of us don’t says something rather worrying about our own political activism in the UK and is a self imposed restraint upon my freedom of choice. It may also say something about how low a regard we have of democracy - or any political system.

Again, when we discover that we do not like what the parliament is determining we have the opportunity to make that known through an email to our MP or by turning out on an organised protest initiative - and if we can’t find one we could organise one. Here the availability of social media is so very helpful. As are sites such as 38degrees. 

 

Now freedom of speech only exists in as far as we are willing to give effect to those times when we find ourselves in disagreement with the statements or actions of our elected representatives. It takes effort to take to the streets and give tangible expression to such disagreement. Even then such expressions might be noted and then ignored as a million citizens experienced marching against war in Iraq.

Perhaps the answer lies neither with the MPs nor with the people. Rather such a level of unease amongst the electorate should trigger a more in depth and participatory national dialogue. This might secure greater wisdom than the very blunt instruments of either cabinet government or street protest. I wonder if our commitment to democracy and dialogue would allow for such periods of patient conversation with a view to expanding the options before finalising the decision? Technology would certainly be able to enable just such an approach.

And so as we look across at the crowds gathering in a variety of Egyptian cities we face some challenging questions.

Is this the people of Egypt calling for a peaceful change in the  way they are governed? Are their malevolent forces at work, at present hidden, biding their time to take advantage of the instability people power is generating?

Our own politicians, who appear to have been comfortable with Mubarak for 30 years, are slowly changing the tone of their comments as they look on as ‘democrats’ and want history to record them on the right side of the eventual outcome. Yet they also have an agenda that they name ‘stability’. I think crudely this means they would not like an extreme form of government to replace the totalitarian rule of Mubarak and the army for fear of losing ground across the region and being faced with some form of government they find it difficult to deal with. At least Mubarak needed dollars, and dollars secured a measure of regional restraint, which was deemed to be in the West’s interest, if not all the Egyptian peoples who were afforded little choice in this!

So to what extent can we trust people with freedom of choice? Are there greater goods that need guardians, usually elected politicians but in Egypt’s case the army, to secure them on behalf of the people? Is democracy itself fatally flawed if key decisions regarding security, economics etc are left to the people to determine? Is it simply there is neither time nor an appropriate system to facilitate a wider body of citizens from taking critical decisions?

No doubt we all have a view, but as in the rest of life any decision carries a risk - from choosing a job to electing for one form of elective surgery over another. The very point of freedom of choice is that the agreed outcome may not give us precisely what we thought it might. However, I am still unconvinced that the risk of leaving it to a cabal of elected officials reduces that risk to any great extent. If, quite simply, the fewer people that have real power attached to making choices, the accumulation of power in the hands of one person must be seen as a certain guarantee of security. Maybe Mubarak has not got it so wrong after all! By which I mean if the decision making powers are gifted to the few (cabinet) or, as in Mubarak's case, quite simply the power of one we are all in deep trouble. I feel true democratic approaches empower and enable the widest number of voices to participate, however to my surprise and sadness 'we the people' often collaborate unwittingly in such minority decision taking either by default or simple passivity.

We wait with interest to see what the people decide - oh, and also how our political heavyweights position themselves through carefully crafted speeches. Whatever else we can but pray for safety for the tens of thousands who gather together with all integrity to express through physicality that they are choosing change at this time.