Discussion Starter for the Lenten series at St Mary’s, Busselton

9 December 1978

I am not sure whether I have drawn the short straw in getting this topic. Whatever I say will be wrong!

There are two questions to ask about sexuality:

·         What are the boundaries?

·         What is the most life-giving expression of sexuality?

Some of the boundaries are prescribed in our Book of Common Prayer. A man may not marry his mother. A man may not marry his sister. These taboos also help with the question about being life-giving: It is not life-giving to have sexual relations with mother or sister or daughter.

We all struggle with questions of what life-giving expressions of sexuality might be.  What is life-giving sexuality for someone who is widowed? I include chosen celibacy among those life-giving options, but I know older Christians who find themselves single give other answers to that question.

What is life-giving sexuality for a young person? It’s too easy to answer that question in general terms, but when the question comes to us as giving support or advice to a grand-child or nephew, it’s very different. Not only do most of us wrestle with the question of our young loved ones who choose to live together before marriage, but many of us have young relatives who want to set up house (or at least a relationship) with someone of the same sex. What is life-giving for that young one? The one you know and love and want the best for. Where are the boundaries for that person?

When I was ordained priest in 1975 and started marrying people (as you do), I discovered a secret. Over half of the couples I was marrying lived at the same address. Other couples asked in front of me, “What address do we put?”  I had been brought up to believe that living together before marriage constituted living in sin. Yet all these co-habiting couples were being married and no-one was complaining or raising moral objections.

Over the last fifty years we have lived through an enormous change in marriage due to the invention of the pill and the sexual revolution of the sixties.  At the end of World War II, most couples subscribed to the idea that living together before marriage was wrong. Now in 2012, a completely different ethic is argued. Young people today believe marriage is an important, even sacred, commitment; a commitment to one person for life. This commitment is so important that it can be made only after a period of living together.

Many Christians, myself included, now accept this ethical view as a way of Christian marriage. The boundaries have changed – or at least, the goal-posts have moved, which may not be exactly the same thing. But it does mean that if I am asked if it is life-giving for a young relative who wants to move in with some else before marriage to do so, I am now almost certain to agree.

The other change that started probably in the sixties was the acceptance of different sexualities. At first, homosexuality was seen as a mental illness and was included in the Diagnostic Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. Treating homosexuality as an illness proved not to work. It was removed from the Manual in 1974. Nowadays psychiatrists see homosexuality as a normal minority variant of being a human, like left-handedness or blue eyes.

Removing this particular stigma from homosexuality has helped to reduce some of the violence against people of different sexualities, but there is still a long way to go. What is life-giving, and the Church should be providing vigorously, is a loud voice against the persecution of homosexuals, bi-sexuals, transsexuals and other people different only because of their genetic make-up. I think it’s important for the Church to add its voice to campaigns like ‘It Gets Better’ and “This Is Oz”. Search for them on the internet. Violence, especially violence against the vulnerable, is out.

But should the church also change its view on homosexual practice?  At their Lambeth Conference in 1998, the bishops of the Anglican Communion said that sex takes place only in marriage, and therefore homosexual people, like every other unmarried person, must be celibate outside of marriage. I think the Church has changed its mind about sex taking place only in marriage – at least, when it is thinking about a male and a female. But doesn’t it also follow that same-sex couples should be allowed to live together and express their sexuality?

This is a dividing line in the Anglican Church today. Where do you draw the boundaries? What is most life-giving for real couples? I suspect there are different opinions here at St Mary’s: some of us believe that sex can take place only in a marriage and then between and man and a woman; some of us believe that marriage need be between two people and they could be of the same sex. I would imagine that some of us hold to the line that True Love Waits, as Buddy Holly sang, while some would say that it is ethically better for young people to co-habit first.

What keeps us in the same Church is that we recognise firstly that people have different views about these things – Wayne and I disagree on gay marriage, for example — and secondly that we are mature enough to respect the different views of others. More than respect: we challenge each other to show that what we believe is based on what is life-giving, and where the boundaries are.

I would send us all back to Genesis Chapter 2, where Adam seeks for a partner with whom he can be intimate; and to Galatians 3:28 where St Paul proclaims that in Christ there is neither male nor female. These passages can’t easily be used as proof-texts of any particular position, but they are each springboards which can help us think through these vitally important issues.

Ted Witham
26 February 2012

Genesis 2: The First Marriage?

From Adam to Noah-The Numbers Game: Why the genealogy puzzles of Genesis 5 and 11 are in the Bible

by Leonard Timmons.

Atlanta, GA: Sliding Stories (2012), Paperback, 256 pages. $AU24.11 on-line. Kindle edition $US20.99

Reviewed by Ted Witham

This ambitious book aims to demonstrate that an accurate solar calendar puzzle has been embedded in the pages of Genesis. This becomes the basis for a new ‘scientific’ way of reading the Bible as the report of a school for insight.

Leonard Timmons is an engineer, and hopes that his book is written with an ‘engineer’s spirit’. The book proceeds by engaging us deeply in the search for the calendar and then opening out the discussion to wider Biblical issues.

The proof that there is a solar calendar hidden in the text is mathematical.  The ages of the patriarchs and the years before or after Noah’s flood are manipulated to show a regular calendar of 365 days with four intercalary days after four years. I found the maths difficult to follow. They depended partly on ‘special looking’ numbers like 777 and partly on multipliers (182 x 2 + 1 = 365). Mr Timmons makes no mention of the fact that Hebrew has no numbers, the letters of the alphabet standing in for them, and I wondered whether the relationship between the value and the shape of the number would always apply. For example, 777 does look somewhat ‘special’ in Hebrew, where it is written 7 hundreds 7 tens and 7, with the seventh letter of the alphabet (zayin – ז ) in the place of the 7.

Overall, I was happy to go along with Mr Timmons’s discovery of a calendar, but I was disappointed that no mention was made of similar uses of the Biblical texts.

1. Kabbalah, the mystic use of numbers  dates back to at least the 5^th Century BCE, and would have been a useful comparison and test of Mr Timmons’s theory.

2. A calendar is presented in the Bible. It seems to have two forms, pre- and post-Exilic, and these calendars are lunar rather than solar. In addition, other ancient civilisations, in particular neighbouring Egypt hid calendar puzzles in their monuments. What light did these other calendars shed on the Genesis 5 calendar?

These would have contextualised and validated Mr Timmons’s findings.

Discovering the calendar puzzle provides Mr Timmons with a framework for understanding other aspects of the Bible. He interprets the Flood story, for example, as a story not about water but about being flooded by people. The Flood, he claims, is the first time in history a fort (the Ark) was built to withstand a siege.

This is an interesting interpretation: what concerns me is that Mr Timmons appears to believe his is the final interpretation. The idea of a fort fits the text, he says, so that is what it must be about. While I applaud his close reading of the text, I believe other interpretations are possible and readers must keep an open mind.

Mr Timmons would have made these discussions clearer if he had pursued his insight that all the stories in Genesis 1-11 are artifices. Whether or not they describe historical events, stories are made up of words designed to communicate specific ideas. I wasn’t sure when Mr Timmons saw a story as historical (the first siege) and when he saw them as guides to other truths (angels as insights).

The book may have benefited overall from a tighter focus: is it about calendars, or is it about a way of reading the Bible? If it is about both, then the relationships between the calendar puzzle and the framework for understanding scripture needs to be clearer.

It would surely have benefited from conversations with other sources, whether scholarship about other calendars, or the study of Biblical Hebrew and the limits of what can be known.

Leonard Timmins has produced a fascinating thesis about the solar calendar and is clearly enthusiastic to share his findings with a wider audience. In the end, however, he did not provide me with a reason to care about his discovery, and to that extent, failed to carry me into the broader ideas he has about understanding the Bible.

He turned the corner from St Hilaire’s Church as his tall slim figure rushed through a narrow alley towards the great Boulevard of St Genevieve. Thomas had asked to meet him in Rue St Nicolas, but as always in Paris in November, the streets were crowded and it would take Giovanni the time of Vespers to reach him.

Thomas’s message was urgent, but unclear. The messenger had slurred, whether from beer, running too fast, or simply being nervous in his presence, and all Giovanni had understood was “corpus sal… sal… sal-something”.

As he walked under the grey sky, Giovanni tried to unravel the message. “Corpus” was easy – a body. But then, what sort of body would interest Thomas? Certainly not his own great hulk, which had earned Thomas the nickname of “The Dumb Ox”. A corpse, perhaps, but why? More likely a body of work, a new manuscript, or even his ever-expanding ‘Summa’!

And ‘sal-‘ could mean ‘dirty’. It did in their native Italian. A dirty body.  But it could be the start of ‘saliens’, a jumping body, a leaping body, maybe a body in the process of resurrecting. Now, that would be interesting. But then, Giovanni thought, it might be something central to their work as doctores on ‘salvation’: the salvation body. But then why an urgent message, and not the usual scroll? No, nothing really fit.

Students were everywhere, many drunk. The smell of piss was strong on the air. Giovanni heard a  group of young Poitevins, their yellow scarves proud around their necks, abusing Bretons for their fickleness. Leather-jerkined German youths shouted boisterously that they were proud not be drunk like the English. Giovanni felt homesickness pull at his stomach when he heard an Italian accent in the crowd. It could even have been a Viterban from Giovanni’s home province just north of Roma.

Giovanni pushed his way through the rowdy crowd. Some made way when they saw his brown habit and tonsure. A friendly voice greeted him, ‘Ave, Magister!’ and he recognised a student from his class seated on a rough chair in the shade of the building. ‘Ave, mi fili,’ he called back cheerily and hurried on.

Giovanni loved this town, its chaos, its boisterous students, its love of learning, its devotion to God and the saints. He turned the corner of La Marche, the Lombard College, into Rue St Nicolas. The smells of stale beer turned to cabbage from the kitchen where the cooks were preparing stew for their resident students.

He saw his friend straight away, standing and waving to him from a doorway. ‘Salve, Tommaso,’ he smiled. ‘In here,’ Thomas waddled through the door. Giovanni followed, his mind still trying to work out the message. ‘Sal-, salve, maybe, but surely Thomas wanted to say something more than just ‘hi’.’  Greetings were rare in Thomas’s conversation.

Thomas filled most of the dark room, and Giovanni could just make out a body on the floor. ‘Mortis,’ Thomas grunted in Latin. A large sword had entered the body just below the rib-cage. Illumination flushed through Giovanni, almost as though he were deeply embarrassed. ‘Corpus alienum,’ he whispered. A medical term. No wonder the messenger had macerated it. ‘Oc.’ ‘Yes’ in the language of the south. ‘Corpus alienum in corpore,’ finished Thomas.

‘But why call me?’ asked Giovanni ‘What has it to do with us?’ Thomas lit a small torch from the one candle in the gloom. ‘Perspice. Look,’ Thomas pointed to the floor next to the body. Giovanni was feeling queasy, and the flame showed a large pool of blood. Thomas saw his friend hesitate. ‘Concentrate,’ he said, ‘It can’t hurt you.’ On the edge of the blood was a piece of scroll. The blood has soaked into it part of the way, leaving a few words visible:’…gne Dominus diiudicatur et in gladio suo …’

‘Fratre piccolo,’ Thomas’s choice of title was intimate, ‘you know your Bible.’

‘Quia in igne Dominus diiudicatur et in gladio suo ad omnem carnem et multiplicabuntur interfecti a Domino.” Giovanni quoted fluently.

‘I knew you’d know it, I knew you’d know it,’ Thomas jigged incongruously about in the small space. ‘The prophet of Emmanuel, isn’t it?’

Giovanni was surprised, ‘Yes, the great Isaiah. But my friend, you didn’t recognise it?’

‘No,’ Thomas replied. ‘But now I do.’ He repeated the verse, ‘For by fire will the Lord execute judgment, and by his sword, on all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many.’

‘Some one believes this is judgement,’ Thomas continued, ‘but I do not believe it. I do not believe it, because I know it cannot be true.’ Thomas crossed himself, and Giovanni noticed a tear beading in his friend’s eye. He couldn’t bear to hold Thomas’s look and turned his eyes back to the corpse. The robes were grey, like Thomas’s. The face was young, much younger than the two doctores. The hair had not been tonsured, so this young man could be a novice or postulant.

In horror, Giovanni asked, ‘Who?’

‘Brother Corrado,’ Thomas clenched his teeth as he mentioned the name. ‘They think I did it.’

‘Who? The university proctores?’

‘Non,’ whispered Thomas, ‘mi fratelli. My brothers. That’s why I called for you.’

The situation was beginning to become clear to Giovanni. He knew his friend evoked a variety of strong responses among the Dominican brothers. Some, particularly the novices of latter years, believed him to be a saint and a genius. Giovanni suspected they might be right. For other brothers, Thomas was a cause of fun, the lumbering ox who couldn’t tell a lie, the social incompetent who, while dining at the royal palace, simply because a thought struck him, took out his scroll and quill. Many were jealous, especially those who knew that he had turned down the Holy Father’s invitation to be a cardinal. Others, knowing that his writings were known throughout Christendom, took an ignorant pride in their local celebrity. It was this group that was pushing for him to be Regent of the University of Paris, a position Thomas knew could bring him into conflict with his friend Giovanni and the Little Brothers, and so was resisting this pressure.

Thomas and Giovanni had agreed that the times were becoming dangerous, but had determined whatever the politics to continue as friends.

For the first time since entering the tiny room, Giovanni looked to the door. Two burly novices stood there, one nearly as big as Thomas himself. Thomas followed his eyes. ‘It is so,’ he said, ‘you and I need protection, and I want you to help me survive what’s happening.’

Giovanni was moved by the pleading in his friend’s eyes, but felt bewildered. ‘What can I do for you, mi caro, besides locate a quote?’

‘Help me unravel it, fratello piccolo. It’s a puzzle, and if I don’t understand it, then who knows who else could receive a corpus alienum thrust through their ribs? When will it start; the many being slain by the Lord?’

There was a commotion at the door. ‘Brother Thomas, Brother Thomas, it’s time to go,’ one of the novices said, ‘Come with us, Brother Thomas, come with us, Brother Giovanni.’

Without thinking, Giovanni scooped up the torn scroll from the flag stones and thrust it into the interior of his habit.

As Giovanni came back out into the street, he noticed that dark was fast approaching. The two novices threw their cowls over their heads and set off at a pace, the two doctores having no difficulty keeping up. Both were fitter than they appeared, accustomed as they were to walking to Rome every three years or so. They headed up with the crowd along the Great Street St Vitor, and headed towards the great complex of St Vitor. A side gate opened and suddenly they were out of the noise and crush and in the monastery garden. Birds were singing in the trees, and they could hear the mighty Seine lapping on its shore over the great wall.

‘Wait here, Brothers.’ Brother William rushed into the kitchen door of the monastery, and returned several minutes later with Brother Cook.

‘Will the Benedictines come to our aid?’ whispered Giovanni to Thomas.

‘Indeed,’ said Thomas. ‘Brother William is the brother of the Cook.’

‘Ave, Brother Thomas. Ave, Brother Giovanni. Dominus vobiscum.’ The Cook inclined his head in a reverent bow, and kissed the hands of each of the mendicant brothers. ‘The Lord has brought us together,  and salvation is on His mind.’ He smiled. ‘At least, I can help with your present salvation, Brothers. The kitchen barge awaits you on the other side of the wall. Brother William will take you to the barge-driver, and will escort you down river. Your destination will become clear. But go, the swords of the Lord are beginning to gather.’

A few moments later a small gate on the river side of the garden opened. The two novices ushered the older friars through the gate, hurried them down the barge path, and jumped on to the barge. Thomas and Giovanni followed.

‘Brothers, an honour. But there is no time to waste,’ the barge-driver rasped out in his Parisian accent. He cast off, ran to the back of the barge with a huge pole and guided the flat boat down-stream. They slid under cover of the growing darkness under the looming tower known as Latournelle.

Soon the lights of the monastery of Notre Dame de Paris and the great church itself were coming into view.

‘Notre Dame?’ queried Giovanni.

‘Non. Before then, I think,’ said Thomas. ‘The great church stands out, but St Denis de Paris comes first.’

St Denis shares l’Île de la Cité with Notre Dame. In the citadel of St Denis, French kings were buried, but it was the monastery at which the barge tied up.

‘Le bon Dieu te bénisse,’ Thomas bowed to the barge-driver, who was clearly surprised that this scholarly cleric would address him in his own dialect.

Brother William escorted the doctores off the barge and directly to the reception room in the abbot’s house. He and Brother Novus bowed to Thomas and Giovanni ‘We leave you here, good Brothers, where you will be safe, at least for tonight. Novus and I are attached to Notre Dame, so we can make our way home without drawing attention to your presence here. May our Lord Jesus bless you and keep you safe, holy fathers.’

They withdrew, leaving Thomas and Giovanni alone in the room. They looked about them at expensive furnishings and draperies. A huge gold crucifix hung over the main door, and a lavish tapestry showing the foundation of the monastery of St Denis covered the main wall. The room was lit by an opulent candelabra and twelve sconce candles along one wall. A large fire burned in a huge fire-place, and for the first time that day, Brother Giovanni felt warm. Both men knew that few places in Paris boasted such space and comfort. They moved to the fire, took their hands out of their large sleeves and held them to the warmth.

After some time, an internal door opened. A Benedictine appeared, his rank immediately clear by the pectoral cross glinting about his fat middle. Both friars bowed, muttering, ‘Dominus vobiscum, Pater’, and receiving a quickly traced benediction in reply.

‘Welcome, little brothers,’ the Abbot began smoothly, ‘I am glad you have been brought here. You will be safe. Dedicated to your studies, you may not have noticed passions are inflamed at the University, and you are unwittingly the cause of them. ‘

‘Labbra lusinghiero,’ the Italian phrase came unbidden to Giovanni’s mind, ‘Flattering lips.’

‘There are certain factions among the Dominicans, Brother Thomas, who would have you appointed as Regent to the University. As you now know, the faction has started to use violence to push your claim.’

‘Father,’ said Thomas impatiently, ‘You know I cannot accept the appointment. Such a move would cause great division between the Preachers and the Little Brothers, some of whom are representing  Giovanni here to be Regent.’

‘No,’ gasped Giovanni.

‘Neither do I wish our brother here to be elevated to Regent. I fear our Master could not control the Dominicans if a Franciscan were appointed, and our scholarly work would be lost in the ensuing hostilities.’ Thomas spoke passionately. ‘It has always been the Benedictines who can supply the balance and continuity for these great positions, and there are one or two and at Notre Dame who would be much preferable to either of us humble friars. Dom Justine, for ex—‘

‘No,’ the Abbot cut across firmly though courteously. ‘There is no monk who brings the same intellectual and scholarly weight to the position as you do, Brother Thomas. The name Benedictine would be a laughing stock if I even proposed the name of Dom Justine. And there is another reason that you must accept.’

He paused, and rang a small bell. A novice nervously entered and bowed to his Abbot.

‘Show our visitor in, Brother,’ the Abbot ordered.

Just as quickly, the novice disappeared. The door opened again and a secular man in fine, brightly coloured court clothes entered, and bent to kiss the abbot’s ring.

‘Dominus vobiscum,’ said the newcomer.

‘Benedicamus te,’ replied the Abbot. Giovanni gasped as he recognised the newcomer and registered the Abbot’s ambiguous phrase. A benediction, of sorts, true, but it sounded like the Abbot was condescending to the royal person by arrogating the royal we to himself.

Giovanni bowed, ‘Altissimo,’ he breathed.

Thomas grunted.  ‘Domino mi.’ Thomas’s obeisance was considerably shallower than Giovanni’s. Giovanni could see Thomas’s decreasing patience with what appeared to be an elaborate courtly game.

‘Highness,’ said Giovanni, ‘Father Abbot says one of us must accept the position of Regent. Both Brother Thomas and I are highly flattered by this attention, but must decline if only because the appointment of either of us would inflame the situation between Franciscans and Preachers. What can Your Highness say to attempt to change our minds?’

‘Brother Giovanni,’ said the Dauphin, ‘You saw the man who was killed. The corpus alienum. Did Brother Thomas tell you the man’s name?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ Giovanni replied. ‘Brother Corrado.’

‘And his last name?’ queried the Prince. Giovanni looked at Thomas, who averted his gaze.

‘No, my Lord.’

‘Would it shock you to know that ‘Brother’ Conrad was not a brother at all. His last name is d’Aquino.’ Thomas continued to look away from his friend.

‘Thomas,’ said Giovanni ‘Your kin.’

‘And not just cousin to Brother Thomas, but son to the King of Sicily. A prince, like myself, sent to discover the court in Paris.’

‘Then, Lord, what caused Prince Conrad to …?’ Giovanni’s question trailed away.

The Dauphin looked at the two friars grimly.

‘Our cousin the King of Sicily sent his son to be under our protection,’ the Dauphin explained. ‘Conrad quickly became bored with our court and wanted to experience the University. But he was a prince, and we could not allow him to mingle with the students when there was a threat of violence. We approached the Master of the Preachers and persuaded him to disguise the Prince as a Dominican novice so that he could pass unnoticed  through the streets. But somehow…’

‘Somehow,’ Giovanni continued ‘the pro-Thomas idiotes picked him off.’

‘No, Brother,’ the Prince shook his head. ‘It is more complicated than that, and that is why we sent for you to help us unravel the mystery. We believe the hand that plunged the sword into Conrad’s heart is working to undo the court of my father the King of France. It is convenient for him to have us believe that it is motivated by the cause to promote Brother Thomas. ‘

Giovanni withdrew from under his habit the scroll, still soaked on one corner in Prince Conrad’s blood and examined it thoughtfully using the light of the chandelier.

‘Do you see this mark?’ He pointed to where the paper was torn. The Prince saw as if engraved into the paper a crude shield with a crown above and a griffin on one side. Presumably a twin griffin was on the other half of the shield.

‘A watermark,’ said Thomas. As scholars, both were intrigued by this new technology.

‘Sicily’s arms,’ exclaimed the prince.

‘It does confirm what your Highness has told us,’ said Giovanni.

A bell tolled, its great voice muffled by the thick stone walls of the Abbot’s house. Giovanni pictured several hundred monks blearily rising from their cots to make their ways to the great churches on the island, those of St Denis and Our Lady.

‘Only the Holy Father can command,’ continued the dauphin,’ but you would earn the gratitude and friendship of this prince if you could discover who committed this ignoble murder, and reflect on the invitation to you both to serve as Regent of the University.’

The prince turned and swept out of the room. Giovanni and Thomas made their bows to his retreating back.

‘But I do command you,’ said the Abbot smiling, ‘you are my guests and you must stay overnight or until the culprit is found. Here you will be safe.’

Thomas thought for a moment that such hospitality was akin to that of the governor of a jail, but forced a smile nonetheless.

‘We are honoured to be your guests,’ said Giovanni, reflecting that St Francis would have accepted the offer of hospitality with an open heart and deep gratitude.

A novice showed the two mendicants to the Abbot’s guest room.

Both Thomas and Giovanni ignored the beds with their soft furnishings and took covers and laid them on the wooden floor as sleeping mats. Not only was this in accord with their Rules, but they were more comfortable sleeping as they normally did. Just before he blew out the candle, Thomas reached out an arm and lassoed a pillow to place under his head. Giovanni smiled in the darkness.

The two brothers lay in silence for some minutes. Giovanni was not about to sleep.

‘Thomas,’ he said, ‘remind me of why the Trinity is indivisible.’

‘It’s after Nocturna,’ grumbled Thomas.

‘You know that I am not permitted to attend your lectures, and it would give me great pleasure to hear you lay out the argument. ‘

Thomas grunted, and sat up in bed, ‘Questionis: Cur Trinitatis indivisibilis?’ he began. ‘Responsus: Primo: Each member of the Trinity is bound to the other and is ever found in company with the other two. Secundo: The Trinity itself is uncaused, but the action of one member on another causes movement in the world. With each action of love in the world, there may be a different face of the Holy Trinity, but the effect of its action is one. Tertio: ergo, the effects of the movements of the Trinity in the world will appear consistent as they arise from an indivisible first cause.’

‘Sequi,’ Giovanni smiled. ‘I follow. When you see a unified effect, the three elements of a trinity have acted in concert to produce that action. Thank you, Brother.’ He fell silent again.

Some minutes passed. Giovanni could hear the earliest roosters greeting another day. It was still dark in the guest room and would be for some hours. The roosters were full of optimism, but Thomas began to snore.

‘Brother,’ said Giovanni, ‘help me again.’

Thomas rolled over on his mat, and tried to settle into sleep on his left side, the pillow tucked up between his shoulder and huge neck.

‘What, Brother?’

‘Tell me the tale of the disgraced Sicilian.’

‘Now, Brother?’

‘If you please. You tell these stories of intrigue so beautifully.’

‘Seven summers past, a Sicilian called Gennaro Luigi from Roccasecca, my town, came to the University. He was an aspirant for us Preachers. He did some study, but he was a wild man, and assaulted some of the King’s men in the street. The Prince sent him back to Roccasecca in disgrace. But Gennaro Luigi was a clever man, and vowed to take revenge on princes everywhere. News about his disgrace had travelled before him to Sicily, so he changed his name to Cropus Aliud – the Other Cropus, borrowed a brown habit from a passing friar, leaving the Little Brother naked on the hills outside Rome, and continued on to the court of Sicily. There he claimed to be a priest, a doctor like us. His Latin was polished, and his appearance sufficiently ecclesiastical, for him to gain entry to the court. He involved himself in all manner of scandal in the court, robberies and assaults, and disappeared about two years ago when the King of Sicily threatened to have him imprisoned. No one has  seen or heard of him since. Now, why all these questions, Brother?’

‘A trinity of things is acting together,’ Giovanni replied. ‘The watermark on the blood-stained paper, the quotation from the Prophet, and the message brought to me. The paper can only have come directly from the Sicilian court, which is where Cropus has been making havoc. The writing can only be that of a literate man who has attended this University, or perhaps Padua or Genoa. The quotation was of revenge. And the messenger told me his name. Not corpus sal, but Cropus Aliud.’

‘But where will we find him?’

‘Here: in the monastery of St Denis, pretending to be a monk, and hiding as near to the French court as possible.’

Thomas was waking up, ’So Father Abbot was wrong to think we would be safe here.’

‘Indeed, Brother, this is the place of least safety in the whole of the city of Paris. And more than that. Father Abbot of the flattering lips knows Cropus is here. Brother, we are not safe.’

‘He will not act against us while the Prince knows we are here,’ Thomas stated. ‘But we will not be able to leave this place until the Highness if informed.’

The two friars listened as the monks shuffled to Lauds and back and then to Prime, and the sun eventually rose over Notre-Dame de Paris, bringing a new crisp day. The friars recited their offices in the guest room.

Well before Terce, Brothers William and Novus appeared. Giovanni related to the two brothers the conclusions that he and Thomas had reached during the night.

‘Go to the Dauphin with a message from us,’ they asked, ‘and request His Highness to come here to the Abbot’s house. Only he can ask the Abbot to deliver up Cropus Aliud.’

An hour later, an embarrassed Abbot stammered to the Dauphin that he hadn’t really known who the stranger from Italy in the other guest room was, but he owed him the ministry of hospitality.

The Dauphin called soldiers while the Abbot summoned the accused. The moment Thomas addressed him in Sicilian as Frate Gennaro, Cropus turned to the dauphin and begged for mercy.

‘Do come and enjoy the ministry of hospitality at the palace of St Denis,’ the Dauphin said grimly and nodded to the soldiers to escort him to a lower level of the citadel. ‘We will keep him there for some time,’ he assured the Brothers. ‘You may now go home with our thanks and friendship.’

The two friars blessed the Prince and he bade them godspeed.

The next day a messenger from the Prince arrived at the Dominican friary. ‘The Dauphin thanks you for the service rendered to him and his father the King. The court is more deeply convinced that you are the only one who can be Regent of the University. Would you consider the post if a tabulam of Benedictines and Franciscans, led by Dom Justine of Carcassone, care for the University day to day, and you would then be free to continue your lectures and be for the University as symbol of the best it can be.’

Thomas grumbled, but to the Dauphin’s surprise sent back a message of acceptance.

Ten days later on the Lord’s Day, the Franciscans had celebrated their great Mass, and then gathered in the refectory to break the fast together. Giovanni took his turn in the kitchen, and plunged his hands into a great bowl of water filled with dirty plates. He smiled, thinking of his friend Thomas, who had been asked not to present himself for kitchen duty at the Dominican friary. Too many plates were broken, and too often the dishes had to be done again. Thomas composed his Summa in the kitchen, as in every other place.

There was a disturbance behind Giovanni. ‘The Pope’s messenger,’ excited voices called to him, and indeed a messenger pushed into the kitchen, knelt before Giovanni and extended to him a red hat. ‘His Holiness has work for you in preparing for the great Council,’ said the messenger.

There was a long pause. All in the kitchen were silent.

Giovanni smiled, ‘Hang the hat on the tree outside until I’ve finished the dishes,’ he said,’ then I will wear it in all humility.’

***

Historical note: Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (baptismal name Giovanni) and Thomas Aquinas were the two leading intellectuals in the University of Paris through the 1250s. They graduated Master in the same year and must have at least been acquainted with each other, but the historical record does not speak of any friendship such as I have described here. Thomas was first appointed Regent Master in 1257.It was actually not until 1274 that Bonaventure finally accepted the Cardinal’s red hat. He was elected the Minister General of the Franciscan order in 1257.

Published  in dotdotdash 08 (December 2011)

I chose to learn French by myself growing up in the fifties in Tambellup. An unexpected gambit, even for me, I suspect, the fourth son of farmers. The family plan had been drilled into me. I was not to inherit part of the farm, but would complete High School and go to University, so that brothers one, two and three could have their share.

While I made a conscious choice to be bilingual, the wheat-belt community of Tambellup insisted on being monolingual, even in the face of the everyday evidence. After collecting me and my brothers, the school bus bumped a mile down the gravel road to collect the Nyungar kids from their humpies on our bottom paddock. When the school bus rolled into town an hour later it passed the twenty 10’ x 8’ duck tents of the town Reserve lined up in two rows with smoky fires between.

Tambellup’s strategy for maintaining monolingualism was simply to not talk about the Aboriginal presence. True, every fourth pupil at Tambellup School was Nyungar and my brothers and I could see the McEvoy’s camp from our farm house. They simply weren’t there and nor were the Nyungar words that seeped into our talk: wadulah, gilgie, boondie and bardie grub. I didn’t even know that the word gidgie for a forked fishing spear was a Nyungar word.

French was invisible.

It was as if English had a stubborn claim on the landscape, which could only be described in summer as a tawny wheat crop stretching to a far horizon shaped by Yates and rivergums, or in winter as Jack Frost making icicles and lace between the strands of the fences. I felt subversive the first time I identified un chien and saw les moutons in the paddocks and watched les nuages float across the sky. And to find the word for ‘paddock’ required a furtive chase.

I first discovered French between the pages of Arthur Mee’s Encyclopædia for Children: a lesson at the end of every chapter. I worked systematically through those lessons.

I knew I was a different child. I preferred reading to reaping, books to bailing the cow, so I kept my new interest secret from everyone, and ploughed ahead. My French pronunciation was exécrable but in every other respect, I put myself ahead of the competitive students I met when I was a boarder at the expensive College in Perth.

By Year 12, I learned how to finesse French Oral examinations. We prepared for these tests out of a book with the bracing title Vocabulaire, organised in headings. Under the heading ‘Le Parc’, we encountered le jardin, with les arbres growing in l’herbe. I prepared by glancing at these headings, but not wading through the lists. In the test room, l’examinateur asked me, ‘Que faites-vous dans le parc?’ I nonchalantly replied, ‘Oh, j’aime pas le parc.  Je préfère aller à la plage, où il y a du sable sur lequel on peut se coucher sous le soleil. Je nage dans la mer, et je regarde les jeunes filles.’ I could see l’examinateur lost for a comeback, and when I drew breath, he asked, ‘Qu’est-ce que vous mangez à la plage?’ Well, I didn’t consider the beach a good place for eating, so I took him to another place where the words were more familiar. ‘Je préfère manger à l’école. On nous sert de la viande, des pommes de terre et des petits pois. Qu’est-ce que vous aimez manger ?’

L’examinateur should have taken me back to le parc to answer the question he actually put. He should have thrown me more complex questions to gauge my comprehension speed, he should have rebuked me for asking him questions, but instead he smiled broadly. ‘Vous parlez le français très bien, monsieur. Je vous donne une très bonne note.’ And a very good mark it was too: fifth in the state of Western Australia.  I slyly enjoyed my astute dishonesty.

From sleepy Perth I followed the French riots of 1968, half-adulating Daniel Cohn-Bendt as a hero. I enjoyed graffiti seen around Paris in May 1968: ‘Attention! De Gaulle nous double à gauche’;  Faites l’amour sans lâcher le fusil.’ Nowhere else in Perth could you, vicariously at least, enjoy a good revolution! A new thrilling wave of subversion rumbled through me.

But no native speaker of French would mistake me for one of them. My French teacher in Years 11 and 12, Giovanni Andreoni, was a flamboyant Italian, whose accent temporarily rubbed off on me. ‘Tu parles le français comme une vache espagnole,’ one interlocutor told me. I felt a little squashed being called a talking cow – even if with a Spanish accent.

Some years later, I spent a week in Germany speaking French to my wife’s German cousin. When we then travelled from Germany to Paris, our French hotelier assumed I was Austrian and not Australian.

I went back to study and learned Greek and Hebrew. Unlike the way living languages are taught, the Bible’s languages were taught in English medium. The cultures of the Old Testament and Palestine in Jesus’ time were explained in English. I could make bridges between English and the Hebrew and the Greek. Meaningful translations of alien concepts were attempted. I applied what I learned across the divide between my French and English worlds. I was beginning to find some integration in my life.

But I was still bothered that most of the people I loved could only relate to one of these worlds: my family, colleagues, and most of my friends had their feet and their hearts solidly in Anglo soil only. By contrast, the friends I had through French were much more able to relate to the whole of me.

At 29, I met Rae. We were at a youth group gathering. I was the curate of the parish, Rae one of the youth leaders. I was writing pastoral notes in French as a measure of confidentiality. Rae was looking over my shoulder, and asked, ‘Why are you writing in French?’

‘Well,’ I struggled for a reply. ‘It can be private to me.’

Rae grinned. ‘Not if I can read it.’

I learned quickly to love the version of English idioms Rae’s German mother had taught her. Noticing one of the teenagers devour a sausage in a bun Rae commented, ‘Look at him woofing it down!’  Instead of ‘excuse me’ she would say ‘Shoos me,’ and laugh off  her mother’s bilingual repertoire. ‘She’s dressed up to be nice,’ Rae sometimes observed, which apparently made more sense than the ‘nines’ of the usual English idiom. Her mother had grown up in the dark shadow of the Third Reich. Her father was English. Rae emigrated from England with a plum in her mouth when she was ten, so learned quickly to adopt the Australian accent she retains to this day. We fell in love and married.

A year later we travelled to France and Germany. We arrived at the old town of Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast in mid-winter. We walked hand in hand around the old sea walls enjoying the bracing winds. I bought a replica pirate’s pistol for Rae’s 14 year old brother.

She said, ‘Maybe you were a pirate in a past life.’

Pointing at the jetty, I replied, ‘I can’t really see you as a pirate’s môle, though.’ She smiled. We were conscious that we were exploring not only the outward landscape of Europe, but each other’s paysage de l’imagination.

These days I teach French at the Naturaliste University of the Third Age, and love long conversations with the French immigrants attracted to living ‘down  south’ among the vineyards and cheese-makers. At the Vasse market, my friend Jean-Yves tells me about his passion of pâtisserie, and how ‘c’est impossible d’obtenir ici la farine d’amande,’ – almond flour being the basis of many of his recipes. ‘Les fromages australiens,’ another stall-holder allows, ‘sont aussi délicieux que ceux de la France.’

I read Le Monde, in its version numérique, weekly. I can feel isolated. Sometimes people pay me two-edged compliments. A woman recently told me, ‘Tu parles comme un livre de grammaire.’ Most Australians don’t understand what it means to be bilingual; many of those who do don’t want to know.

But mostly, I am aware of landscapes. I peel back the world of English words and English habits of thinking and there’s a complete and new world, the same but not the same. I can look at the ‘sky,’ for example, and wonder about the sky’s colour, its shape, even its science, in English. The moment I label it ‘le ciel,’ I add to my experience of ‘ciel’s’ other meaning of ‘heaven.’  It subverts the whole world. It joins science and faith.

I see a paddock, and eventually discover that the nearest translation is ‘l’enclos’ which connotes a green space for small animals, not a wide open paddock painted gold with canola. Each enclos holds its whole European history in tension with the Australian reality.

Two wonderful children were born after our trip to Europe. When they were babies, I talked to them in French as much as possible. When they were ten and eight, we lived in Mauritius. Clancy Bissoondeeal was a member of Saint-Thomas church in Beau-Bassin where we worshiped for those weeks. Clancy offered to show us over the school where he worked. We were speaking in French, and I noticed that although the school was called Bon Accueil, Clancy’s title was Headmaster, not le Directeur. The library was labelled ‘Library’, not ‘Bibliothèque.’. ‘Pourquoi les titres anglais?’ I asked. Clancy told us, ‘Most Mauritians speak French at home, or maybe Hindi dialect. But school must be English medium. So we all speak two languages, three pour la plupart: French, English and Créole.’

Looking for further enlightenment, I went to the bishop’s house. The bishop’s wife told me, ‘We have French for relationships, we have English for business.’

Our kids are now in their late twenties. On a recent visit to Perth, we stayed with our daughter and son-in-law in their Huntingdale house. My wife and I sat in the lounge room, and over-heard our daughter in the nursery reading French words to our five month old grand-daughter. Her response? Une cascade pétillante of giggles.

False Friends/Faux Amis – Book Two

Elie Malet Spadbery

ISBN 978 1848766 020

I must assume that this is in fact Book One despite the heading on the cover. I received a PDF version of a book that would be much more user-friendly as a real book.

I had a lot of fun reading these lists of words which can cause difficulty for English-native speakers of French. But then, I am reasonably expert in French and am always looking for ways to improve my knowledge of French.

False Friends is simply a book of useful vocabulary lists. I list here the list of its lists – the Table of Contents:  1: False Friends 2: French Expression 3: Twins, Triplets, Etc. 4: Lists 5: Miscellaneous 6: English Expressions.

The false friends are words that look in French like an English word but are in fact different. For example, the verb prétendre means “ to claim”, unlike the English to pretend. The French words for the English ‘false friend’ are also given: the English pretend in French is feindre, or simuler or faire semblant.

Lists like this are always useful, and difficult to claim completeness. I was surprised not to find listed la déception> disappointment – deceive >tromper.

The lay-out of these lists is clean and clear. Lists relating to different areas of life, from birds to cars to football to insects are also useful.

There is a knack to getting good equivalents for French idioms. The translator must often change the underlying metaphor and find an idiom in English with a different metaphor. Elie Malet Spadbery achieves this task well most of the time. She translates “Ça c,est le bouquet” as “ that takes the biscuit”; a different metaphor but a serviceable equivalent.

Much of the humour of False Friends is the way these underlying metaphors are revealed in the process of translation. It is fun to learn that the French think excessive price is not costing “an arm and a leg” but rather, “the eyes of your head”! Rather than “laughing like a drain”, the French prefer to “laugh like a whale”!

It may have been helpful to give literal translations of some of the more obscure expressions.

For other list words, the translations are not so successful. Ms Spadbery translates “Un match de barrage” as  –“a relegation match”. This is a completely different register. You would use “de barrage” is much more ordinary circumstances than the rare and ‘elevated’ “relegation”. In addition this highly unusual English word is not necessary – “play-off” would be the usual translation.

The amusing portmanteau word “un pisse-vinaigre”, literally “someone who pisses vinegar” is also in a quite different register than the translations suggested: ”a wet blanket” or “a skinflint”.

A little guidance as to how to use the little word “le garcon”  ­to address a waiter would help. I gather it is less politically correct than in the past. People now more often call the waiter ‘Monsieur’. Garçon is going the way of “boy” in the US South, garçon being classist, while “boy” is racist as well.

Similarly with the entry,

“Une coupe>a dish, a bowl, a cup – a cup – une tasse“.

The distinction being made is valid, but English-speakers might first encounter this word as a trophy, “La Coupe d’Europe Renault 5 Alpine”, for example, where the natural translation is not dish, but “Cup”.

The word “Luvvies”, even with an explanation mark, is a rather alien word for “theatrical types”. “Luvvies” belong to a particular place and time.

What fun the English and French have with each other’s misdemeanours. “To take French leave” is of course for the French ”filer à l’anglaise”  (English running away)!

I had to look several times at the entry for La miséricorde – misericord in English (and I think miséricorde in French) refers to the bench under a choir stall. This is quite a common meaning, and without reference to that meaning, I found myself struggling a bit with when it takes on the meaning of “pitiful” (English) and when in French “pity”.

I wondered whether the title really fits the book. There are other books called ‘False Friends” or “Faux Amis” which stick closely to words of the “Faux Amis” type. A title for this book reflecting its wider inclusions might be better.

But these are picky complaints in an overall accurate and helpful book.

Who is it for? I would not recommend it to the beginning students in my adult French class, even though we are still reminded not to confuse dessous and dessus. For enjoyment and profit, I think the readers are those whose French is reasonably fluent and are looking to add to their stock of French vocabulary, with a small smile (that’s sourire, not souris) on the way.

I feel compelled to defend Bonaventure against his critics. I have always felt drawn to the attractive saint and scholar of 13^th Century Paris.

Critics dislike three things about Bonaventure. Firstly, they claim that as Minister General Number 7, he compromised important values of St Francis, especially that of poverty.

They also complain that his standing as a scholar ruled him out of the Friars Minor. Francis, after all, was uncomfortable with academic learning, and wanted the brothers to preach from the heart – not the head. Leave that to the Dominican friars!

Thirdly, Bonaventure’s critics point at the Cardinal’s red hat Bonaventure accepted. They grumble that although he had always honoured the offices of priest and bishop, Francis believed that parts of the church hierarchy were corrupt. Cardinal Bonaventure had joined the enemy!

Poverty and our Distance from the Lie of Materialism

Did Bonaventure compromise the central Franciscan value of poverty? The friars elected Bonaventure Minister General because they believed he could hold together the grievously divided Order. Bonaventure had personal authority with both the spirituali and the relaxati.

The spirituali wanted to keep alive the tradition of begging and living in small hermitages.

The relaxati, however, were content to live in convents inside the cities. As they grew in numbers, begging and refusing cash became less practical. Living in convents made the brothers’ pastoral ministry more effective and provided security for precious books and liturgical items. (Cusato, 136)

The problems were obvious. When they lived outside the towns, the Little Brothers distanced themselves physically and spiritually from the economic system of the towns. When they moved physically, they risked losing the spiritual importance of staying out of the materialistic world.

Bonaventure, a realist, recognises the risk of spiritual dilution. He also knows that the Order will not survive in small insecure hermitages.

Bonaventure chooses survival. Without his diplomacy, the Order may have collapsed. Bonaventure could claim that with careful discipline, even in convents friars could remain true to Lady Poverty, but the ‘spiritualising’ party continued to believe that the heart of the Franciscan charism was lost.

Sociological theory about movements started by charismatic people charts their process:

• Man
• Movement
• Machine

• Monument

A Movement will die when as institution (“a Machine”) it loses its sense of purpose. But a movement is fluid, dynamic, in itself uncontrollable. Even Francis was frustrated when he tried to bring his movement back to his original vision.

Bonaventure understood the need for the Machine (the Order) to provide structure for the Movement. If you spend all your energy on the processes within the institution, both Machine and Movement are very soon a Monument, a Memory – dead. The ALP in our day is playing out these dynamics; the Anglican Church is learning its rules.

So to survive you need to intervene not in the Movement, nor in the Machine. You need to focus on the Man, the charismatic founder, and so inspire people again to follow the Man, to take up his ideals, to be the Movement.

Bonaventure spent much of his academic energy re-vitalising the Order’s picture of Francis. He wrote Francis’ biography. His writings capture the meaning of Francis’ spiritual experience. He enthused readers to become energetic participants in the movement with the vision Francis bequeathed.

Did he succeed? The answer can only be in terms of the Order he tried to save. The Order survived, but remained divided. Today’s Friars Minor, Capuchins and Conventuals are all children of the original Franciscan movement.

The questions raised by the critics of Bonaventure still need asking. Have we arranged our lives as an expression of the Franciscan virtue of poverty?

There have always been some who have literally given away their worldly wealth to live “in extreme simplicity” as acknowledged in the Third Order Principles. For most of us, the answer is that we, in First World countries, live more or less in affluence.

St Bonaventure in Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent, accessed 21/03/2006.

G.K. Chesterton (1956) Saint Thomas Aquinas, “The Dumb Ox”, New York: Image Books.

Michael J. Cusato OFM, (1997) Hermitage or Marketplace? The search for an authentic Franciscan locus in the world. Spirit and Life: A Journal of Contemporary Franciscanism, Vol.7, 1997, 125-148.

Brother Michael SSF (date not known) For the Time Being: a memoir, London: Gracewing.

Harrison Owen (2003) The Practice of Peace, New York: Open Space Institutes (on holding space open in non-violent conflict resolution)

Paul Rout OFM (1996)Francis and Bonaventure, London: Fount.

A shorter version of this article was published in Franciscan Angles, the publication of the Society of Saint Francis, Province of the Divine Compassion

Le fleuve

Apprendre une langue c’est comme apprendre nager dans un fleuve.

On commence en barbotant près de la rive, puis en marchant jusqu’aux genoux, puis, lentement, lentement, on nage dans les profondeurs.

Le caractéristique clé d’un fleuve c’est qu’un fleuve est un courant. Il coule. C’est toujours le même et toujours différent.  On ne peut pas attraper l’eau d’un fleuve dans un seau et la garder jusqu’au lendemain.

L’eau coule. Les rivages restent plus au moins les mêmes. Il y a une stabilité fondamentale du fleuve. C’est vrai, les rives peuvent se changent pendant les années, mais ces changements historiques ne trouble pas le débutant.

Ça veut dire qu’on apprend une langue dès le premier instant en l’écoutant.

On sent le fleuve dans les jambes, dans les mains, dans le corps, dans l’oreille.

La mémorisation, l’analyse et le grammaire sont tous les outils utiles, mais le facteur indispensable d’apprendre une langue c’est l’exposition.

Alors la bonne nouvelle est que :

• Vous connaissez TOUJOURS plus que vous vous rendez compte de connaître.
• La langue elle-même est votre professeur. Elle se corrige ; la tâche est de rester dans le courant.
• Vous avez bien des chances à être exposé à la langue (nos leçons, la radio SBS, l’Internet, au marché de Vasse, etc.)
• Vous pouvez vous amuser à jouer près du rivage. Alors, amusez-vous bien !
• Toute personne qui parle le français est en train d’apprendre nager. Nous sommes tous dans une gamme du bébé au maître ! J’ai une facilité assez avancée en français, mais je rencontre tous les jours les rochers (les paroles que je ne connais pas), les rapides (un idiome, une expression) et les virages (nouvelle signification d’une parole que je connais) et beaucoup de plus. C’est amusant, et souvent frustrant.

Le fleuve qui est la langue française et un beau fleuve élégant, souple, séduisant. Vous avez bien choisi quand vous avez choisi de nager dans ce fleuve-ci.

The River

Learning a language is like learning to swim in a river.

We begin by paddling near the bank, then walking up to our knees, then slowly, slowly, we swim in the deep.

The key characteristic of a river is that it is a current. It flows. It is always the same and always different. We cannot trap the water of a river in a bucket and keep it until tomorrow.

Water flows. The banks remain much the same. The river has a fundamental stability. True, banks can change over years, but these historic changes don’t trouble the beginner.

This means from the first instant that we learn a language by listening to it.

We feel the river in our legs and hands, in our bodies, in our ears

 Memorising, analysing and learning grammar are all useful tools, but the indispensable factor in learning a language is being exposed to it.

So the good news is:

• You ALWAYS know more French than you realise you know.
• The language is your teacher. It corrects itself. The task is staying in the flow.
• You have many opportunities to be exposed to the language (our classes, SBS radio, the Internet, at the Vasse Markets, etc.)
• You can have fun playing near the bank. So have fun.
• Every person who speaks French is in the process of learning to swim. We are all on a range from baby to master. My fluency in French is quite high, but everyday I come up against rocks (words I don’t know), rapids (a new idiom or expression), and sudden turnings (a word with a new meaning) and much more. It’s fun and often frustrating.

The river called the French language is beautiful, elegant, supple, seductive. You chose well when you chose to learn to swim in this river.
]]> http://thoughtsprovocateurs.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/le-fleuve-the-river-thoughts-on-language-learning/feed/ 0 tedwitham http://thoughtsprovocateurs.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/tags-and-ayrabs-welcoming-the-stranger/ http://thoughtsprovocateurs.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/tags-and-ayrabs-welcoming-the-stranger/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 06:45:11 +0000 tedwitham http://thoughtsprovocateurs.wordpress.com/?p=37 ]]> In hindsight, I can see that I didn’t take the graffiti on the church seriously enough. I certainly remember seeing it when I arrived last Thursday to collect the gear for a bedside communion. I even remember thinking how sad it is that our society values its young people so little that they feel compelled to do things which annoy adults. Like graffiti. Like tags. This was a tag, and tags seem to function the same way as ‘dares’ did when I was a kid.

At boarding school, just for an example, we had a dare to run naked after lights out from the dormitory to Matron’s lemon tree and back. The object of the mission was to collect a lemon: this proved that you had not cheated on the dare but had carried it out to the full. Tagging a lemon had a lot in common with writing a tag on a public wall. Firstly, it had the thrill of avoiding being caught. If you are caught tagging, you will be punished quite severely. But on the other hand, it’s hard to catch a good tagger, so the odds are good and the thrill level is high. In reality, when we did our run from dorm to Matron’s tree, most adults would probably have gone out of their way to not catch us!

Secondly tagging leaves a mark in the public adult world. Whether the mark is the place where the lemon was picked, or the signature graffiti of the tagger, it’s proof that you were there, desperately seeking to be noticed.

I did pass some pleasant time reflecting on these things as I drove to the hospital. When I came back I stopped and examined the tag more closely. It was quite a simple tag, but beautifully executed. It was calligraphy on a large scale, perhaps 40 cms high and 60 cm in width. The upstrokes were uniformly thin; the downstrokes straight and thick. The letters, whatever they were, and I couldn’t read them, were beautifully stylised. I wondered what implement had been used. This tag was not the work of a hastily pointed paint-spray. This tag was done by one who took time to choose the best tools and to care about artistry.

The truth is, it didn’t even cross my mind to report this tag. I knew it should eventually be erased from the front porch of the church, but I thought a Warden or some other official would discover it in good time and have it removed.

Surprise becoming anger

So on Sunday I was surprised that the erased tag was the main conversation as the congregation shook the hand of the celebrating priest. Surprised that people could live such sheltered lives as to be so offended by minor vandalism. After all, there are tags everywhere you go – on bus shelters, advertising hoardings, freeway flyovers – you would have to be really stuck at home in an upper-class suburb not to see them. Well, actually, many of our parishioners do live in the upper-class suburb where the church is situated, and many of them do not need to venture out of their garden suburb.

Even so, had I missed something? Was this tag outside the church such a desecration that I should have been outraged on Thursday?

But my surprise that some parishioners had mistaken the tag for Arabic and then drawn the conclusion that ‘the terrorists are here’ soon turned to anger.

Politicians and media

My anger is directed towards those who succeeded so amply in creating fear. I am angry at the media who fail to report terrorism in its proper perspective: they know better. I am angry at the politicians who exploit fear for political ends. The Labor Party could never have won with Mark Latham as candidate for Prime Minister when people are frightened. No new Opposition leader could ever have won while Howard painted himself as our rescuer from terrorism, our continuity, our sure-point in the storm.

But the storm, as the media knows well, is a falsification of reality. No doubt terrorists are dangerous people. No doubt terrorists are attacking ‘the West’ including West Australians. But there is also no doubt that the risk of being hurt by a terrorist is tiny.

The risk of being killed in a car accident in Western Australia is at least 100 times greater than West Australians being killed anywhere in the world by terrorists. But do we allow the risk of death by car to whip us into a frenzy of fear? No: we keep driving. Some of us drive with caution, but all of us drive knowing that however careful our driving there is still a chance that a drunk, inexperienced, inattentive or suicidal driver will drive straight through the flimsy walls of our vehicle.  We drive even knowing that there are some car accidents which are just accidents and nothing could prevent them.

Our attitude to the road toll has been formed in a very different way to our attitude to terrorists. Our fear of terrorism is out of all rational proportion to our fear of dying in our cars.

Essentially, our fear of terrorists is our very deep fear of people who are different: the Other. We fear the Arab whose language looks so different, whose culture appears so strange, whose mindset seems so alien. This fear is familiar to all of us. It seems natural to fear strangers, and so we do.

The problem with fearing of strangers is that it is unproductive. Fear of strangers leads to creating defences against them and their strange ways. The step from being defensive to pushing strangers away is very small. The media has a ravenous appetite for drama, so it exploits our tendency to deride and exclude strangers.

The media focuses on images of difference. The media presented straightforward images of the Bali bombers. The ‘smiling bomber’ with his white hat and robe shouting “God is great!” in Arabic found his way into every TV and newspaper in Australia. Every aspect of this image screamed “difference!”

The UK press showed a subtler image of difference when presenting the London bombers. These were home-grown bombers who looked like many Britishers, so their difference was highlighted by questions about how we (society, the police, the security agencies) failed to notice their differences… and they must have been different to hold values that would lead them to commit atrocities.

The repetition of these images that focus on differences in the Other, in the stranger, makes it almost impossible to respond appropriately to the phenomenon of terror. It may sound shocking to suggest but the place to look for understanding is not ‘out there’ in the stranger, but within ourselves.

What is it about us that compels others to want to inflict pain on us? Phrasing the question this way allows us to discern to what extent we have engaged St Paul’s advice that “in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The little word “all” challenges us to see every person as a fellow human being, equally valued by God. even Ayrabs.

Hospitality to others is the gospel value so easily missed in a world of fear. Hospitality to teenagers in the shape of tolerance of their need to ‘tag’ public spaces. Hospitality to refugees who come fleeing oppressive regimes in the shape of more humane processes for refugees as they arrive. Hospitality to Muslims in the form of initiating or joining inter-faith conversations. Hospitality to our neighbours – and this is hard – by making space for their fears. Hospitality to ourselves in welcoming the stranger inside ourselves, those unknown parts that can blind ourselves to the reality of God’s love – everywhere. Hospitality to our fellow-Christians in our relentless reminders that we can let go of our xenophobia. Christ has broken down the barriers!

Published in the Anglican Messenger, February 2006

The report saddened me, but I was proud to recollect the achievements of “Withgart Blainsmith” at St George’s College (within The University of Western Australia) in the late sixties in reducing the violence and nastiness of College initiations.

In fact, by 1966, “Initiations” had been banned across the whole University campus, but when I arrived as a Freshman at St George’s that year, I discovered that they had simply switched the name, and we were to make ourselves available for a week of “Cognitions”.

These were really a series of humiliations: the first night quite subtle as Seniors and Gentlemen (3^rd and 4^th years) invaded freshmen’s rooms, made them stand on their desk and engaged them in banter designed to cut the freshers down to size.

The second night was the night of the Sophomores (2^nd years). In large groups, they hunted from one freshman’s room to another, shining spotlights and hurling abusive remarks in their faces. Freshers were told to “make love to a pillow”, or “hold hands with your roommate, you poof”. While this yelling was going, other sophomores stripped the beds and festooned the sheets across the front of the main building.

Freshers whose responses were unsatisfactory could be stripped. On one or two occasions (not in my year), freshers were dropped naked from the Narrows Bridge 5 kms down river and told to make their own way home.

For some freshers, this invasion of their intimate lives and the threat of (or actual) violence were quite intolerable. The only support that appeared to be available was that of peers.

On the Friday night – Freshmen’s Task Night – Freshers performed for the whole College by singing or reciting. Again it was designed for the seniors to laugh at – and never with – the freshers. Some of these acts were crude and quite degrading.

I don’t know why Withgart Blainsmith (Robert Garton Smith, Tim Blain and myself) were so incensed with Cognitions. We had withstood the humiliations comparatively easily, perhaps because we understood their crude psychology of bonding through hardship.  But we were appalled at the distress inflicted on some of our fellow-freshers and resolved to use our creative skills to change things. Initially, I suspect, we wanted just to make Cognitions fun for freshers and not frightening, later, we were more intentional in reinventing the whole initial bonding activities.

Firstly, we asked the College Students’ Committee if we could write the skits for the 1967 Task Night.  We changed the words of popular songs to make gentle fun of the College hierarchy. The Warden has just undergone a hip replacement, so the Freshers serenaded him with “Hello, Joshua” to the tune of “Hello, Dolly”.

The seniors – some through gritted teeth admittedly – laughed, and laughed with the freshers.

Then in 1968 we demanded two nights of Cognitions Week to rehearse for Task Night. This had the side-effect of preventing roaming gangs of sophomores molesting freshers in their rooms: they were with Withgart Blainsmith polishing their performances.

That year, we re-spun Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial by Joshry” for Task Night. It was again a success, but required too much exposure for the freshers taking solo parts. They still risked being laughed at.

So in 1969, we wrote the first version of “Everyfreshman”, a morality to be played outdoors in the Quad. The character Everyfreshman had to meet Warden Hardwork, Matron Cleanliness and other partly disguised College notables (all played by freshers). St George himself appeared on Top Balcony and condemned Everyfreshman to be thrown into the pond – and he was duly ponded.

It was all good-humoured and gentle satire and the freshers had fun making it happen. There were some furious behind-the-scenes battles. St George appeared on the Top Balcony, then reserved to Seniors and Gentlemen. WG BS fought hard for the freshman playing St George to step foot on this hallowed platform. It helped that (now MLC) Philip Gardiner was Senior Student in that year, and he supported our request. For safety that first year, we made sure St George was costumed top to toe in a sheet, so was unrecognisable.

Withgart Blainsmith cannot claim that all the changes that happened in four years were due to them. “The times were a-changin’” with or without us. But I think WG BS recognised that initiation into a new community requires ritual, and includes some ritual hardship, but that the activities should be fun and respectful.

Broughton Publishing, 2010.  Pp.  xi, 416.  $89.00 (AUS). ISBN: 978-0- 9806634-6-4.

Reviewed by Lezlie Knox, Marquette University, lezlie.knox@marquette.edu

Published in The Medieval Review <tmrl@indiana.edu>,  21 September 2011

This volume publishes the proceedings of an Australian conference held to mark the eight hundredth centenary of the founding of the Franciscan Order.  A generation ago that occasion would have focused primarily on the friars and their work.  This collection reflects the degree to which questions about how religious women and the laity participated in the Franciscan movement have become a central concern to both scholars and contemporary religious leaders inspired by the past.  Indeed, the specific organizing theme of the conference considered how the spiritual ideals of Francis and Clare have been interpreted from the Middle Ages up to the present day.

Unsurprisingly, given both this chronological range and the complexity of responses to the Franciscan charism of poverty and simplicity, the resulting twenty chapters offer disparate glimpses at the subject.

About two-thirds of the volume consists of academic analyses of texts and art produced in Franciscan contexts.  The remainder feature narrative accounts including personal testimonies from Poor Clares living in an Irish hermitage, a contemporary interfaith missionary in Egypt, and Third Order Anglican Franciscans in Australia.  These chapters will interest those working in ministry especially.  This assessment, though, will focus on the historical studies of the Franciscan Order through the fifteenth century as fitting the purview of The Medieval Review. [1]

Like many conference proceedings, the essays vary in both scope and depth.  Some chapters offer broad overviews that may interest generalists, while others offer new material for specialists in Franciscan history and later medieval religious movements.  Following the brief introduction, there are two (perhaps three) plenary addresses.  The remainder of the essays are then organized according to the chronology of their subjects and grouped loosely by geography and medium (text, art).  In their published form, there is little dialogue between the authors about the varied uses of Francis’ and Clare’s ideals, which is unfortunate.  Stepping back from the essays, it is certainly true that the “needs of the present” (xiii) influenced the different interpretations of their spiritual ideas, as the editors suggest in the introduction.  However, the essays together raise questions about differences not only of time and place, but also how responses are conditioned by gender and institutional identity.

The plenary chapters address key issues for both the medieval Franciscan Order and modern scholars: Francis and Clare’s relationship and Franciscan attitudes toward poverty.  First Jacques Dalarun emphasizes that Clare of Assisi was a significant figure in her own right, challenging both the idea that she was simply Francis’ follower, as well as the romantic image of the two saints of Assisi as star-crossed lovers (of poverty).  Drawing on his earlier studies of their writings, Dalarun explains how the differences in Francis and Clare’s expressions of their shared spiritual ideals resulted from their own sexual identities and use of gendered categories.  Michael Cusato also uses his work on Franciscan attitudes toward wealth to suggest that the evolution of the friars’ attitudes toward money can be read not as betrayal of Francis’ ideals, but rather as a response to changing economics.  This argument is a clear challenge, interestingly unstated, to Kenneth Wolf’s claim that the Franciscan embrace of “holy poverty” caused harm to the truly poor by siphoning alms and other support from them. [2]  Cusato shows how, for example, restrictions on handling coinage in the friars’ first rule and hagiographic references to coins as dung functioned as a social critique of the contemporary money system which exploited the poor through arbitrary devaluations of silver coinage especially.  As minting stabilized and the market economy became normative, the Order moved away from this social critique toward positive uses of money.

The third chapter, which the introduction groups with the two preceding ones, compares the image of Lady Poverty in the Sacrum Commercium to other poor ladies from medieval literature.

Juxtaposed to Cusato’s essay, Anne M. Scott’s discussion helps contextualize Franciscan interpretations of poverty as an ideal.

These three chapters are rich with examples from medieval texts and readers unfamiliar with the medieval Franciscans will find much to think about in each essay.  Dalarun and Cusato’s chapters also are recommended as effective introductions to their scholarship on the topic.

The rest of the volume’s chapters focus on specific works or figures.

Three essays address the fraternal tradition.  Anne Holloway and Anna Welch evaluate the alter Christus theme in hagiographic writings on Francis (the suffering Christ) and Dominic (Christ as preacher par excellence).  Cal Ledsham and Constant J. Mews use the writings of Duns Scotus and Durand of Champagne to rehabilitate the reputation of Franciscan philosophy from the late thirteenth and early fourteen centuries.  Often characterized as reactionary and anti-Thomistic, they show instead how Franciscan scholasticism, while radically Christocentric, was nonetheless characterized by a diversity of thought as friars engaged with the prophetic tradition descending from Francis and the limits of academic reason.  Judith Collard considers what Matthew of Paris can tell us about the Friars Minor’s reception in England.  She demonstrates how his writings and illustrations show an ambivalent response to the friars with Paris’ respect for Francis and his ideals and a close friendship with a Brother William challenged by institutional rivalries and the Franciscans’ role as papal tax collectors.  Both her essay and Ledsham and Mews’ chapter are especially recommended as they reach outside their specific cases to address larger issues that contextualize the Order’s significance within their society.

Several chapters focus on well-known texts to examine the female Franciscan movement in its institutional form.  Peta Hills and Julie Ann Smith each use the sisters’ legislation to review the ideals and practices of poverty and obedience respectively.  Rina Lahav discusses Gilbert of Tournai’s letter of spiritual direction addressed to Isabelle of France as an example of the friars’ appeal to religious women.  Clare Renkin examines Sybilla von Bonsdorf’s richly illuminated vita of Clare to ask questions about how the sisters would have used the manuscript as part of their devotional practices.  Each of these four chapters addresses a subject with a well developed scholarly literature although they do not engage directly with it, perhaps due to the limitations of a conference format.  This means, however, that interesting suggestions–such as Lahav’s claim that the friars’ combination of reason and emotion made them more flexible ministers toward women–are not developed to the extent that specialists on medieval religious women would like to read.

The most interesting chapter on the female tradition comes from Robert Curry, a musicologist interested in Clarissan houses in Central Europe.  He demonstrates that the model of “double houses” in which a community of friars provided care to the sisters was common through Bohemia, Silesia, and other places where Agnes of Prague and her relatives founded Franciscan houses.  This model goes back to the sisters’ original community at San Damiano.  While there are other examples in Italy, their significance has been overlooked.  As Curry suggests, they may have provided some friars with a means to achieve their vocations.  His article also makes excellent use of newer scholarship in German, Czech, and Polish, and he is to be thanked for bringing this research to a wider audience.

Finally, two articles consider how Franciscan spirituality interacted with lay piety.  Janice Pinder analyzes two early French verse accounts of the life of Francis.  While one was clearly meant for an audience of friars, the other seems to have been used by a community of sisters or laity.  Her discussion reflects on the ways the texts show affinity with urban spirituality.  Hugh Hudson evaluates a diptych by Fra Pietro Teutonico now in the National Gallery of Victoria.  He considers how this piece, typical of the type of work friar-artists produced to sell to pilgrims visiting Assisi, would have been used as a devotional aid by the purchasers (although the Victoria Diptych has some personalized features for a patron).

In sum, these essays on diverse aspects of Franciscanism raise important questions about how the medieval Order negotiated the ideals of their so-remembered founders in varied contexts.  While most readers will likely seek out an individual essay on a subject of interest to them, chapters also could usefully be paired to reflect shared analytical categories including gender, vernacular translation, or medium.

——–

Notes:

1. There are three other historical essays: Maurice Carmody surveys the Order’s institutional history as the background and context for the friars’ coming to Australia, Patrick Colbourne offers a case study of a Capuchin reformer, and Jim Fitzgerald and Dianne Reilly study a Franciscan bishop in nineteenth-century Melbourne.  The final chapter discusses a series of tapestries illustrating scenes from the life of Francis of Assisi designed by the twentieth-century artist, Arthur Boyd.  The authors, Ursula Betka and Margarent Pont, include a brief summary of early representations of Francis and Clare, and also identify textual sources for Boyd’s imagery.

2. Kenneth Baxter Wolf, The Poverty of Riches: Saint Francis of Assisi Reconsidered (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).