ITS A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Gospel Fatigue & Mythic Interpretations.

I've recently encountered a phase of what I'm going to call 'gospel fatigue'. There is only so much you can read of anything, particularly if one's affections never quite soften enough to touch your soul. There is an additional factor in the literary quality of John's Gospel itself. It is like being served up this very rich high caloried pudding to eat every morning. Some mornings you just can't face consuming it, ever ever again. One has to take a break from being ambushed by the supersized culinary feast John is consistently cooking up.

Out in the definitely esoteric world of biblical critique, there is a sub group of a sub group called 'form critics'. They examine the stories in the New Testament to see if they form a repeated pattern. There are established structural 'forms" to the stories related in the Buddhist Sutras. So form criticism is not something specific to Christianity. It's one of the ways you can observe simple reportage slipping into hagiography. The formalised structures in Buddhism are made consciously, and seem above board and obvious as you read them. In the New Testament they are concealed within the narrative, but once you do see them, they are hard not to notice.

There's a structural pattern to the stories involving the Pharisees, for example. The Pharisees make a criticism of Jesus or his disciples, usually over some minor infringement of religious rules or traditions. Jesus will make some enigmatic response, that sort of answers, but doesn't really answer the issue. Trying to wrong foot or not play their game. The Pharisees walk away humbled, perplexed or angry, plotting to give Jesus his comeuppance later. Jesus may then give a teaching in a explanatory coda.

Patterns in the instances of healings involve someone who cannot get near to Jesus. They are either poor, diseased, a foreigner, or from a forbidden sect or sinful proffession. They have to fight to get close or to touch Jesus. Even the disciples sometimes discourage Jesus or the sick person from approaching them. Jesus insists on them coming closer. Usually healing and declaring them as an example of someone with greater faith in him than his own disciples.

One could get into yet another discussion about authenticity, but that would miss the point. The primary intention in formalising the stories is to make them more comprehensible, as a teaching. Because each of the stories has a recognisible structure that leads up to a point that's repeatedly being made. Often exemplifying a way of seeing, acting or being that is considered either correct or incorrect. And a healing story provides the cogent example of it. John constructs these extemporaneous teachings out of them.

Out of all the many hundreds, if not thousands of instances of healing Jesus is reported to have made, why have a handful or two been chosen to retell? Because they are the memorable ones, that exemplify a doctrinal, ethical or spiritual point clearly. One could almost say they were designed for this purpose. I'm not saying faked, just formalised, because that is different. Their intent is focused on demonstrating a mythic level of truth, through this one 'real'.miraculous story.

This element of formalising exists within the structure of individual stories, but also on the broader span of the gospels too. Such as the way incidents from Jesus early life are composed to prefigure or foreshadow what happens later in his life. The story of Lazarus prefigures that of Jesus's own Resurrection, for example. The use of Old Testament prophecies provides justification forJesus being the Messiah, and Jesus then prophesys his own crucifixion and the ressurection, which then happens exactly as he has predicted. The whole of the New Testament Gospels is stuffed to the gills with a sequence of prophecies being fulfilled. Mutually reinforcing the central proposition of why Jesus is who he says he is. None of this is happening by happenstance, it has to have all been foretold by God or his prophets, somewhere in an obscurely versed biblical paragraph.

Jesus is represented, sometimes simultaneously, on three mythic levels, as the son of man historical figure, as an archetypal Messiah/Saviour figure, and as a more cosmic figure the Son of God. ( Father, Son & Holy Spirit ) There is ongoing debate about whether the grammatical gender of the Holy Spirit is being mistranslated. In Hebrew grammar the word for Spirit is feminine, in Greek its neuter, and in Latin its masculine. Its therefore possible that the Trinity could originally have been an archetypal triad of Father, Son & Mother. 

Obviously this is conjectural, because no Aramaic source for the gospels has yet to be found to confirm any grammatical gender swapping. Interestingly though, in some of the so called 'Gnostic' Gospels the Holy Spirit is represented through the feminine archetypal figure Sophia, regarded as an ultimate authority and dispenser of spiritual wisdom. 

Whoever the true writer of John's Gospel is, they are a master storyteller, inserting believable local colour and human detail into it. The narrative line stays consistent to other gospels, but John memorably, buffs up the mythic form of the story. Highlighting elements of betrayal, tragedy, pathos and heroic redemption embedded within it. He also fully reflects the very real debate at the time, about who Jesus actually was - Messiah, Demon, Magician or Charlatan?

The healing stories have a prologue, story and epilogue to them, and are no longer just the bare factual bones, briefly told. John does what no previous gospel writers has been able to do, to turn Jesus"s life and ministry into one seemless coherent whole. It possesses spiritual clarity, but also a stronger emotional resonance. To do this, the writer of John takes quite a few liberties with time, place and sequence, in order to hold your attention, and maintain the dramatic flow.  The effect is similar to the difference between viewing a factual documentary and a technicolour wide screen Hollywood epic. Same source material, but filmed and edited differently.

The words of Jesus in St John's Gospel, take several strides away from verbatim. Presenting us with fleshed out extemporised teachings that are in the spirit of Jesus, but not necessarily wholy by him. For it is no longer just about the teachings. It's the whole metaphorical infrastructure, the theological underpinning. You are being introduced to and instructed into the Jesus myth.

PODCAST - Seen & Unseen - Re Enchanting Politics

 I've watched a few series of this podcast, and they do have quite interesting guests from Christian and non Christian backgrounds. whilst its central concerns and solutions offered can be Christian, there is often a really interesting rootling about in the issues, as they do on this one. An interview with Luke Bretherton -  theologian and author of books entitled - Christianity & Contemporary Politics - Resurrecting Democracy.  He is so clear on why we need democracy, the role of our faith,whatever form it takes, and the dangers when religions gets co opted by a political party. This is a good one for right now.

CHURCH LARKING - Kelling Parish Church

St Mary's Church today lives at some distance from the centre of the village. Its next door to the rebuilt Manor House of the Kelling Estate. But during the period in which it was first built in the 11th - 12th century it was in the centre of the village. The locus of it having slipped half a mile down the hill, over time.

The church is basic in layout. It owes much of this to utilising the original Norman framework, into which tracery of a later 15th century date has been inserted. This is most evident in the blocked up arches above the porch, in the deeply recessed windows, and a certain solidity in its rectilinear Nave and Chancel. The hefty construction of the walls either side of the chancel, when looked at from the nave, appear to be chunkier than they need be. This may indicate it once supported a small central tower. Kelling is a very pared back Church building, no pillars, no aisles, only one of its transcepts surviving intact, the other, in the south, is an ivy covered ruin.

Once again it was up to the Victorian Lord of the Manor in the 19th century to salvage what was left and reform it into a workable Church. But you would be wrong to assume that there is nothing here of much note. First, there is a type of austere beauty to this architecture, with its unfussy rustic lines. Echoed by the Victorian patterned stained glass, and a rather lovely 20th century window dedicated to Francis of Assisi.

It's also in possession of a rare beautiful, survival from the 15th century of an Easter Sepulchre. This is an ornately decorated alcove by the altar to house the blessed bread and wine in. One of only five in existence in Norfolk. Another one nearbye in Baconsthorpe, is thought so like Kelling's it can only have been executed by the same stonemason.

On the outside wall of the Chancel are a blocked up small window and doorway, with a corner stump of an old buttress. During a more recent stripping away of rendering from the walls, they revealed the holes for roof lintels. And whilst installing a French drain, they discovered foundation walls for a small building annexed to the Chancel. They opened up the small square window, to reveal it was in perfect alignment with the Easter Sepulchre. 

These discoveries strongly indicate there may once have been an anchoress living walled up on the north side of the chancel, who received mass and communion through this opening. This was quite a common religious practice during the 13th century. Julian of Norwich being the most well known example. But its unique to find such clear archaeological evidence here, so off the beaten track.

The church exterior is the traditional Norfolk flintwork. With some lovely flush patterned detailing on the tower's crenelations. The tower is quite the most substantial bit of the whole church, and if anything steals the limelight from the rather more workaday construction of the rest. The South East exterior wall of the Chancel is built with a distinctive offset patterning of flint and brick, which is something I've not encountered executed in quite such a pronounced manner before. 

Other details of note are a 20th century wall mural painted in the side Lady Chapel. It also contains above the altar a beautifully carved modern representation of the Virgin Mary and child, made in two tones of wood.

In the Lady Chapel, there is a substantial staircase that once led to the rood loft. If you look outside the Chapel in the Nave, you can see a rather large blocked up opening, which may indicate that the rood loft was probably quite a massive construction. Though it could perhaps have also served as the staircase to a small tower.

Three pieces of medieval stained glass have been inserted into the clear glass of the Victorian tracery. These may not be original to this church. Who they represent is contested, one is definitely St Etheldreda. The others maybe St Withburga and St Seaxburga her sisters. All are Anglo Saxon Saints from East Anglia. Some of whom spent time as an anchoress. So these may point to another influence on Kelling having once had its own resident anchoress.

Whilst it is never going to bowl you over with the flare of its architecture, Kelling has its own particular simple rustic charm, that is quietly unique for North Norfolk.

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - The Full Biblical Baroque

Up to now, the Canonical Gospels have a relatively consistent narrative in the retelling of Jesus's life and ministry. Determining the future shaping of that story, and how it will be interpreted. The accepted order in which the gospels were written is Mark, then Matthew, then Luke, then John.  As for John - well - crikey! - more on that later.

The Apostles as writers of the gospels, as discussed previously, is a mere literary contrivance. But there is, nonetheless, a quite distinct individual authorial voice and literary style to the writing within them all. 

Mark as his travelling companion, is often thought to be the mouthpiece for Peter's account. He gives you the basic kernel of the events with minimal embellishment. No sense of the background, of where Jesus came from. Mark quickly skips over the resurrection as though that were a minor coda. Its short, direct, written in a contained but lively manner.

Matthew, was an apostle who was present with Jesus at the time. Borrows wholesale from Mark, but introduces a preface of stories about Jesus's birth and childhood, and puts more detail on the bones of the ressurection and aftermath. He writes in plain factually perfunctory language, as if he might have to read all this as a police statement in court, so he'd better stick to the exact known details. Even what is 'miraculous' is related in a passive matter of fact manner. Matthew's Gospel, paradoxically, can be a comparatively dull gospel to read. Mainly as a result of the way it's written, but also its compendious length.

Luke, known as the Evangelist, takes less directly from Mark. He writes in a significantly more commited, energetic style. Filled with an engagement with his subject matter, so that his own verve is infectious, lifting the stories off the page. He too, includes fuller origin stories from before John the Baptist, and inserts significant detail on the disciples encounters with Jesus after the resurrection. Its almost as though he looked at Mathew's gospel and thought, you know, I can do a much better job than that. And then he does.

Until John comes along. Reported to have been one of the youngest of Jesus's Apostles. A highly impressionable youth perhaps. But boy, does he take his retelling to another level. Imagine this as the same story as the previous three Gospels, but with the help of hallucinogenics. Intoned by a large theatrical and rhetoric infused voice. It uses big cosmic language, florid and mythic to its very muscles and bones. Its as though, gone is any need for maintaining strict factual accuracy, what we need here is a vivid sense of the importance of it all. The meaning of Jesus bringing God's kingdom to earth lunges at you off the page.

John could have been thinking of the future, to when those who'd actually met Jesus were beyond living memory. What then? Facts, they are OK, but what needs to be communicated is Jesus's significance on an emotional level. John may have been responding to the contentions of his time around the true meaning of Jesus's ministry. When you bring to mind the Gospels today. the tone of St John's Gospel tends to be what you hear.

We are presented with the full biblical baroque from a truly visionary writer. It's meant to knock you for six with its richly embellished vocabulary and style, and it does so in spades. Communicating a vision of the potency and spirit of Jesus's revelation. Aimed more directly at the certainty of your heart, than the doubting, questioning mind.

Sources for those early life stories of Jesus must have originated from within the twelve Apostles. There was at least one brother of Jesus, James, with Thomas* an outlying possiblilty of being another. 

* ( John's Gospel really has it in from Thomas, providing three instances of negative portrayals, after being only a listed name in the previous gospels. Elaine Pagels suggests John may have been writing these directly to dish some dirt on the writer of the Gospel of Thomas, with its self proclaimed 'secret teachings' of Jesus.) 

If one believes that the immaculate conception is how it actually happened, then the details of The Annunciation story could only have come via Mary the Mother of Jesus. One can imagine how the retelling of the oft repeated family story might go :-

Jesus, yes, he was always a bit of an odd one, that son of mine. But that I had him at all was entirely the angel of the Lord's fault. Well, Joseph was away from home at the time, so I thought why not? Lets try giving birth to the Lord's anointed'

If not this, then we are left with a story arising of the Virgin birth, as a fever dream in the imagination of its writer. In short, someone entirely inventing the whole angelic visitation and pre-nup agreement.

What is noticeable, is that the New Testament stories concerning Jesus and the twelve disciples, are so resolutely blokey. One can sense a lot of youthful testosterone and competitiveness flying around, with a big religiously infused bromance going on right in the middle of it. Young men to this day like to brace a challenge, a sense of testing and pitting themselves against themselves and the world. You can imagine just how intoxicating being around someone they thought of as the Messiah would be, particularly to the macho idealism of ardent young men.

As soon as we delve into Jesus's early life and the resurrection, then those female figures previously kept in the background, take up a more significant role front stage. Elizabeth, John the Baptist's Mother, and Mary the Mother of Jesus in the Nativity story. And Martha and Mary Magdelene at the Resurrection. They have to appear because attending to children and to the bodies of the dead, would traditionally be viewed as a woman's duty.

Biblical researchers suggest that Mary Magdelene may actually have been a central close disciple of Jesus. Someone who also provided money to financially support Jesus and his disciples in their ministry. Also, she is one of the first to see the vision of the risen Jesus, and goes to tell the initially disbelieving male disciples. 

In the Non Canonical Gospel of Mary Magdelene, both Andrew and Peter testily dismisses the validity of her prophetic gospel testimony, largely on the basis of her gender alone. Unfortunately this does ring true. Particularly when you consider the inherent misogyny at the heart of Roman Catholicism, and Peters role in that as its mythic founder.

SHERINGHAM DIARY NO 110 - The Ardour of Birds

One of the joys of watching our back garden last year was the bird feeder. For a brief couple of months from May onwards, it was this never ending stream of young chick's -  great tits, blue tits, sparrows, coal tits, assorted warblers, plus the odd green or gold finch who popped in to check it out. There was this sense of abundance and, obviously, high avian fertility. We were basically providing a free food bank for these broods of warblers etc, and we felt proudly part of their family.

This year, with the long persistence of stormy wet conditions all through Spring, this flurry of fecundity has been inhibited. So here we are in the middle of June, and its still cold enough at night for a winter duvet. More importantly, the bird feeder - breeding interaction is really only just getting going. This year its great tits, blue tits and warblers, who are again leading the field.  Our one new visitor on the block being black caps. One can daily observe how unfavourable weather literally dampened the ardour of birds.

This week, the most enjoyable thing has been observing one warbler, who I call 'Fatty'. Young warbler chick's are small and fluffy, who can end up resembling a fluff ball with a beak. But it was noticeable that 'Fatty' was exceptionally large. Always treated differently to all the others in the brood. An adult would turn up and actively feed it, even though 'Fatty' could demonstrably eat for themselves. No problem there at all, quite the reverse.

Then came the day when 'Fatty' hardly moved away from the bird feeder. They plonked themselves on the floor of it and just ate and ate and ate. Getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Yes, they could still, just about, fly off from time to time, but quickly returned. And so, as the sun began to set, it seemed 'Fatty' was never going to leave, because who knows what might happen over night? The food might run out, and what then? They just needed to be there to consume every last living morsel of it.

One recent alarming occurance has happened to the bird feeder a couple of times, to my horror. One minute there's the usual flurry of early morning birds coming and going. And then when you weren't looking, this massive rat had somehow got up onto the feeder, wrapped itself around the outside of it, and was wolfing the bird fat down.

A baffle for the bird feeder has been ordered to deter this from happening. Being in such close proximity to vermin does rather chill the blood. I know they already inhabit the void in my workshop roof, because I can hear their constant skittering noises. But within a metre or two of our back door? I draw the line at that.

Talking of deterrence. Having erected my scout pattern of sticks, to deter cats from using my trough of beetroots and the rhubarb patch as a defecation zone, I rested too easily on my 'that'll show em' triumphal stance

Yesterday, I came home to find sticks broken and beetroot plants flattened or hoofed out of the earth, yet again. Such was this cats determination not to have its poo palace put off limits. I've now re-improvised a fence with plastic sheeting around the outside of the trough, to act as an additional barrier to any cat using it as a means to an end. 

I know that the trough and rhubarb patch are the only bit of open loose earth in the entire back garden area. I can see how tempting this must be for a cat. But nonetheless, it's hard not to take all this as a conscious act of wanton cat vandalism. If they knew how much this was royally pissing me off, they'd find even more delight in the emotional devastation their poo protest could reek.

On a brighter note, I finally got the revamp of the rotten corner of our patio completed. It looks great. Now we're on to the second stage, the cleaning and repainting of the rest of it. But for that to happen I need a sequence of rain free days, which is just not likely at the moment.

I've begun constructing the third and final stage - making a replacement fence to act as a patio wind break. I'm making this out of random off cuts, painters planks, frame mouldings and furniture hardware. How it will be assembled is still in the intuitive improvisation stage. It's lookin good so far, but admittedly there is a fair way to go on this. I might complete all this before the summer finishes. Depends on how busy we get with making stuff for the business.

LISTENING TO - All The Same by Fat Dog

Having watched this band on Jools Holland's Later, I'm in the stage of repeatedly viewing it. Its driving electronic rythym is a classic one. But then electro almost out of instinct, has lent itself to travelling associations from Kraftwerk and Moroder onwards. So once it kicks in, this moves along at an unrelenting pace. That pushing moment of the chugging opening up, in a club you'd instantly be up and dancing, spontaneously. Fat Dog have recently released their debut album WOOF. I've listened to a few tracks and so far All The Same, has the feel of being a complete one off.

Lyrically the song is vague to the point of ellipticism. What is it about? I'd take a shot at some sort of abuse. But don"t quote me on that. The sax and guitar break bring in a chord sequence suggestive of eastern exoticism. So when the rythym returns its embellished with a still deeper countering grind. 

Its structure is simple, a couple of verse chorus repeats with an instrumental rythym break and then its done. So this track, gladly does not overstay its welcome. Three minutes seven seconds, the exact length to leave you wanting for more.  If you do want more, then good god there are plenty remixes already out there. 

Enjoy the addiction for a fleeting moment. And then.....something else will come along. That's what pop music was made for.

FINISHED READING - A Masterly Murder by Susanna Gregory

The sixth novel in the Chronicles of Matthew Bartholemew sees Susanna Gregory returning to the familiar rivalries and nefarious machinations going on between Cambridge colleges, and of course town with gown.

With the fifth in this series, A Wicked Deed, she took a welcome diversion away from this usual setting. This did seem to prompt a greater degree of inventiveness in plot twists and resolution. It made the return here with A Masterly Murder to Cambridge and environs, seem a bit of a retrograde step.

The plot finds Mathhew worried about who will replace Michealhouse's Master Kenningham, who is about to retire. He is alarmed when the unpleasent John Runham wins the vote, and proceeds to sack or conspire to remove many of the existing faculty, including Matthew.

In a rival college St Bene't's something has already gone 

seriously awry. There have been a sequence of unexpected deaths, they appear on the surface to be accidental or a suicide, but Matthew is not convinced. But before he can more closely examine their corpses the bodies are buried.  

Runham begins an expensive, but hurried, project to build a new courtyard for Michealhouse. This causes tensions with St Benet's, because Runham lures workman from there to work on it. One fateful evening this half completed courtyard and scaffolding collapses, and Runham is found dead in his rooms, murdered by suffocation. Matthew and Micheal have yet another sequence of riddles to resolve.

There is nothing particularly glaringly wrong with this medieval murder mystery. It's quite efficiently written, moves at a pace, has its red herrings and plot twists all cleverly laid out. And even resolves itself with a great deal more effective brevity than previously, thank god. Whilst it holds your attention, there is something about her style of writing that fails to completely grip you emotionally. You are rarely left eagerly wanting for more. I could quite contentedly walk away from it without not knowing what happens in the end. 

Good, but no cigar then.

CARROT REVIEW  - 4/8

THEATRICAL REVELATIONS - United States Parts 1 - 4 by Laurie Anderson

DOMINION THEATRE - LONDON 

FEBRUARY 1983

First there had been that distinctive single- Oh Superman, quickly followed by a one off London performance at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1982. A show mainly a compilation of tracks from her debut album Big Science, interspersed with her characteristicly elliptical monologues. Laurie Anderson returned six months later to perform the whole eight hours of United States Part 1- 4, at the Dominion Theatre over two nights in February 1983. I booked early.

Laurie Anderson had unexpectedly found herself with a cross over career. As both a respected performance artist and a very unique type of arty pop star. Her interest in linguistics, storytelling, gender roles and modern forms of alienation, found a vehicle in the quirky songs and wry monologues, often phased through a vocoder to make her vocal quality more masculine or feminine depending on whatever was required.

The subject matter of her tales spanned visits to her chiropractor, an old couple getting lost on a massive inter state highway, being on a plane that it might be about to crash, returning to your flat only to discover this is not like your home any more, and many others in this ilk. If there was any linking theme this was not immediately apparent. The impression it left, however, was that she was using the title United States, literally, metaphorically, disfunctionaly - all as a paradox.

She'd collected together a whole bunch of short vignettes that imbued this sense of loss, of longing, of dislocation from normal life, simply not knowing what to make of the world, or how to operate in the world that they were now inhabiting. The expectation was that we all live culturally in a united state with each other. But increasingly we do not. Some of the stories were hence sad ones, others oddly perplexing or simply funny social observations.

A favourite monologue is the poetic - Walking and Falling. Based on an observation that as you walk forward you are always catching yourself from falling over. The staging was a single bright overhead light forming a white circle on the stage. She recites the poetic monlogue whilst walking around its edge, niether fully in nor out of the light. Just a beautifully simple idea of the fleetingness of our existence. An existential truth movingly executed.

United States had an unusual quality in its visual imagery too. The threepin plug hole that looks like a ghost. In the piece Heading Out for the Territories which closed the whole performance, Anderson wore these torch goggles. They lookef like the bright headlights of a car. She walks forward along a plank out toward the auditorium. Hands ahead of her blindly feeling their way, as the goggle headlights rake the darkened auditorium.

She plays with our expectations, both visually and in sound. The tape violin, or her whole body becoming an ampified drum kit. It is the pictures painted in sound that strike you most. The poignant songs about families, lovers, existential worries in a world going badly awry. In some ways Laurie Anderson was way ahead of the curve on documenting 

our current metacrisis. 

The effect of this performance on me, was as a huge point of inspiration. Inventive, challenging, but remaining accessible, Anderson's performance work was the start of my appreciation for performance art. Which led to thinking maybe I should be a performance artist myself, and then doing that for a few years. 

Without her pioneering work crossing artistic boundaries between avant-garde culture and popular culture, she made it possible for the work of other female performance artists like Marina Abramovich to become hugely popular. 

FILM CLUB - Swan Song

Pat (Udo Keir) lives in an old folks home. He's bored, under stimulated, and spends a lot of his time being mildly rebellious, smoking cigars with mute residents on landings, and endlessly refolding paper handkerchiefs. He appears to be slowly losing the will to live. Then a solicitor visits, he represents an old socialite customer of Pat's, Rita ( Linda Evans)  who has died, and requested he dress the hair of her corpse.

At first he refuses. She'd dumped him, for a rival hairdresser, Dee Dee Dale ( Jennifer Coolidge ) who used to work for him. There's a lot of troubled history, meaning he just couldn't fulfill the request. But gradually he changes his mind and sets off walking, on a journey ostensibly to buy hairdressing supplies. But this entails revisiting a lot of painful places, familiar situations, and inevitably his relationship with David, his partner who died of AIDS.

There are many ways in which this film is a 'swan song'. For Pat revisiting his former life as a high society hairdresser for one last time, the period when he was a part time drag artist, then a man in a loving queer relationship. The film is unexpectedly grim, particularly about late life care. Pat, throughout the film, you see visually rediscover himself as the flamboyant gay man of old. His journey causing him to reflect on the form of his past gay lifestyle, now that this too is passing. Represented by the local gay bar about to close down. Places that once provided gay safe spaces, collective culture and support, now reach their own 'swan song'. Even how you can be gay having changed beyond recognition. 

Udo Kier magnificently holds the whole film together, for most of its running time. A face like granite, eyes flashing with mischief and a mind filled with waspish banter. You do really feel for him, in his fight, late in life, to regain some independence and meaning in his life

Todd Stephens who wrote and directed it, does so with an unflinching honesty. Never taking the time honoured clichéd route, without throwing you a curve ball. This is at times a sombre movie, with a kernel of stern warm heartedness, that never gets schmaltzy.

CARROT REVIEW  - 5/8

'

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - When Christianty Goes Rogue

I'm making progress reading the New Testament. I've now reached Luke, and yet another reiteration of the life and ministry of Jesus. What has Luke to offer, that hasn't already been said twice over?  

In his preface Luke makes it abundantly clear what his sources are, that his gospel has come to him second hand.

' It's has been handed down to us by the original eyewitnesses and stewards of the word'

For reassurance, and because he thought the accounts written so far were perhaps not written clearly enough.

'I thought it a good idea to write an orderly account for you'

So with Mark and Luke we have accounts written by second generation Christian disciples, with no direct experience of Jesus's ministry, documenting the words of first generation Apostles or disciples who we presume were still alive.

With Luke the quality of the storytelling has hugely improved. Prior to becoming a Christian Luke was a physician, so we have someone here who is definitely well educated, and it shows. He is a skilled, very agile writer, with an ability to compose succinct memorable turns of phrase. Again you have brief windows of him capturing an observation from an eye witness. Here in Luke Ch 5 V15, Jesus has been besieged by people wishing to be healed by him. Just one after another, day after day. And one wonders how anyone would cope with that. How do spiritual rock stars recharge themselves? Well in Luke Ch 5 V 15 he tells us;

' The news about Jesus, though, spread all round, and large crowds came to hear and be healed from their disease. He used to slip away to remote places and pray.'

So, like every good introvert, Jesus needed his 'down time', some solitude, in order to cope with it all. And he made sure he could find that space and time. Now, that is a human detail I relate to.

I find these little snippets of interest in the Gospels. Unfamiliar quotations that colourfully cut through the general textually numbing effect of a familiar story being rolled out. Like this enigmatic statement from Mark Ch9 V49, essentially saying we all need some fire in our belly, that just being meek and mild could just make you passive aggressive. You don't live at peace with one another simply by being submissive, you have to engage honestly and sometimes forceful in discussions with one another. As long as that salted fire is informed by your faith.

'You see, everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is great stuff, but if salt becomes unsalty, how can you make it salty again? You need salt amongst yourselves. Live at peace with each other.'

Jesus's ministry seems initially quite parochially focused. The agenda is directed at the Jewish people; the Old Testament references; the prophecies fulfilled; the sense that God's people need to get their shit in order. Jesus saw himself and his teachings as sitting within the legacy of the Jewish faith tradition. But a faith that nonetheless required renewal, and not just ticking all the ethical boxes generally thought to be correct.

Any long lived religion goes through periods of upheaval. A necessary kicking out of detrimental habits, amid a reinvigorating restatement of its purpose. Jesus appears to have loved confounding people's expectations of him, to the point of being deliberately contrary. The symbolism of him overturning the money makers tables in the Temple, is lost on no one.

If anything, there's rather too much counter reframing,- you thought it would be like this, but I say it's another thing entirely. This is a neat trick if you can pull it off so repeatedly. And yet, If you readjust the spiritual optics too often, at some point people might rightly conclude, well, maybe you're not the true Messiah after all?  Could Jesus be just playing them for fools? But then, we cannot know the effect his presence had, the charisma of him, what it was like to be there and part of it all. That sort of thing can make folk push to one side their cynicism and any doubts.

Jesus used prophetic traditions to authenticate who he said he was, only to often upturn or deliberately reconfigure them later. You can tell that there was this unpredictability about him. Something that unnerved even his own disciples at times. Judas decides he had to betray Jesus because he'd wanted the Messiah to be more than just inspiring teachings, but an instigator of revolutionary action, an overthrower of the Roman yoke. He wanted Jesus to literally become the King of Israel, not just dress up as one.

Luke introduces, for the first time the teenage story of Jesus's parents finding him engaging in discourse with the temple priests. In later stories Jesus's parents appear to view him and his ministry as madness. The Pharisees thought him a pernicious evil, his miracles demonicly inspired. No way was he the long wished for Messiah. He was not welcomed with open arms by his home faith, quite the opposite. His acts of healing are what drive his movement, and make him popular. Yet at what point did he or his disciples decide - you know we are just going to have to go it alone here, let's go full rogue?

This question of whether Christianity was a sect of the Jewish faith or saw itself as something else independent of it, is eventually settled by the circumstances of the place and the time. Its unacceptable outsider disrupter status persists, even after the passing of Jesus. The subsequent diaspora of Christians casts his followers out across the Roman Empire. Oppression and persecution dogging them wherever they go. They are known to be a nuisance, self opinionated, perpetually evangelising, individuals, who can really get on people's tits. The Roman historian Tacitus in the 1st century CE describes Christians as 'abominations'. 

It's not until the conversion of Constantine in 312 CE, when Christianity becomes an established state religion, that this outsider disrupter status begins to diminish. But the persecution of Christians is prevalent in some societies to this day. They can still be seen as a dangerous, provocative presence.

The mythmaker and storyteller Martin Shaw recently converted to Orthodox Christianity. He believes Christianity in the West has lost sight of its radical past, the non conformist, counter cultural instincts, its rougher edges too readily smoothed over. There is a need to rediscover the spirit of wild unpredictability of its founder. And as I read the New Testament I can see why he would say that. Jesus in the Gospels is much more complex contrary individual, divisive and forcefully more direct than our contemporary gently beneficent image communicates. Maybe Christianty might benefit from 'Going Rogue' again.

POEM - An Irreparable Separation

I bear a face that would not want to recognise itself it is not pleasing nor pleasant it can no longer smile nor laugh at your jokes cry along with your suffering my cheeks once jocular are now bereft of colour cold hearted to the affectionate brush of a hand for a while on the surface I look exactly the same but slowly their is an altered state there is a smell about me of a form being eaten away from within a body corrupted inside to out slowly breaching the chill flesh drained of blood translucent and whitening all the signifiers of my former essence these deserted portraits of what was once a gratified soul I am not the face you'd wish to recognise the body the mind the heart and spirit that you may have once romanced that face is now impassively a loveless one a joyless one distressing to be onlooker of one you would not take a selfie of unless you we're rather ghoulish with no respect for the dignity of repose of me ensconced upon my catafalque that final divorce from all affection all memory all you may have once associated with me given my former outline is erased like a chalk drawing in the rain that brief incident of weather when I still contained a vibrancy alive to the precious gift of it all, of friendship a bond to my present state that has been permanently sundered given up to who knows where from whence it can never be reclaimed or re-membered through the face for what you now see is and is not me it bears an unpalatable truth within the ruby cluster of bruises around the sunken sockets and the rictus grin of flaring lips what you imagine still as me always was this necessary fiction, a function of practicality, a useful baroque phantasm that got us through the unfolding exposition of a rather low key drama series where we once tried to ride bare back on the pure bright horse of love.

Written by Stephen Lumb 

June 2024

FAVE RAVE - Garron

My favourite joy at the moment, that cheers up many an under slept morning are these short videos from Garron Noone. He plays almost your archetypal crazy Irishman with an eclectic to weird take on most thinks. Many of his postings are concerned with eating pizza, assessing the relative merits of pasta shapes, and which biscuit is the very best to dunk and why.  Enjoy him - he's delicious.

On Andrew Tate

On Jeans

On Custard Creams

On Fairground

LISTENING TO - Arab Strap - I'm totally fine with it 👍don't give a fuck anymore👍

If ever an album opener told you what to expect from the rest of it - Allatonceness does it in spades. The guitars set a blaring declamatory raunch, the drums hard edged as bullets, whilst Aidan Moffat intones over it all with his recognisable drawl, about the many types of characters who inhabit the internet these days. Reprehensible and otherwise. These have all got our attention.

They've got your attention, the fat and the furious, and your atrophied legs can't run.

They've got your attention, the juvenile jilted, derailing all discourse for fun.

They've got your attention, the slapstick insurgents, with giggles and shits and grenades.

And so he goes on, about the ones who've 

'all done their own research' 'whilst Nazis and rapists sell merch' 

but concludes he has to admit 

'they've got my attention' 'And I think I love it'

I'm totally fine with it👍don't give a fuck anymore👍continues in this analytical vein, exploring the pros and cons of our online presence, and its associated neuroses. The increasing isolation described on Bliss. Where a woman's only way to be herself in the city, is to hide behind an aural defence barrier, whilst out walking wearing ear buds. Bliss has this electronic insistent beat of alarm behind it, with a guitar phrase entering in like a notification alert. 

Arab Strap's recent renaissance, after a sixteen year album hiatus, with 2016's  As Days Get Dark. Is showing no sign of being a one off. I'm totally fine with it👍 don't give a fuck anymore👍 is an excellent follow up. Building on the style As Days Get Dark introduced, whilst remaining close to the urban vampire vibe of its videos on Strawberry Moon.

What makes Arab Strap distinctive.primarily centres around Moffats impressively eviserating eloquence with words. But one must nevrr forget Malcolm Middleton, and the music he generates, the bleak settings and carefully composed contexts in which those poetic visionary nightmares are taking place. These are resolutely urban landscapes created for them to inhabit. There is something of the confessional dark night of the soul about them. What goes on in cemeteries, in the nightclubs in cellars, in the underpasses and subways between two worlds, of one chasing the other? It all takes place neath sulphurous street lights.

The character of some online realms is their discreet non relational nature. They exist outside of the norm, and refuse to come in to be a part of our real tangible world. To keep in touch with terra firma. So the darker and more nefarious impulses thrive there, like fungi growing in the darkened dank places hidden underneath the floorboards. Everything about the work Arab Strap are currently doing digs deeper into this fetid self concealing realm. It's both discomforting and yet all too familiar.

CARROT REVIEW  - 6/8

QUOTATION MARKS - Malcolm Guite

'We have convinced ourselves

that because we can now make 

digital watches that we must be 

wiser than Plato'

Malcolm Guite

MY OWN WALKING - Journal June 2024 ( Ist Entry)

Having reached the end of reading the four Canonical Gospels, with the final archetypal flourishing of the pen, that is St John's. I'm still awaiting the arrival of the Road to Damascus moment.  Ah, those pesky expectations!

In the meantime, I have now moved on, and discovered just how tedious The Acts of the Apostles actually is. It's like being trapped in a room with someone who constantly wants to show you their latest album of holiday snaps. Its not particularly edifying, but it is an endurance.

- This is the day we were in Ephasus, we spoke about Jesus, did a few miracles, upset some of the locals, were imprisoned, angels got us free and in one bound we fled into the hills.

It's the biblical equivalent to the mythic escapades of Bonnie & Clyde, but in the Romano - Judeo - Christian world.

I began this experiment of reading the New Testament, as a means to an end. And that was to discover what the New Testament is actually like, rather than what I remember it is as being like. I'm finding it's too easy to roll out the demolition squad. To poke fun at them, which is generally more my bag. I have to keep pulling myself back from that, because it's very seductive to substitue a considered appraisal with just the making of mockery. 

That I don"t always succeed in resisting that impulse, I do apoligise for. But I also do not wish to completely self censor myself, otherwise the whole project would be in danger of rendering my responses an undeserved affectation of truthfulness. One of my responses, particularly when I don't understand, or feel annoyed, is to head straight for the nearest fallacious statement and mischievously tease it. 

A central question that I keep coming back to is - why Christianity at all? What human needs does the Christian faith meet? And, more importantly -  why is it resisting making much sense to me? Do I need to change or get a new prescription for my spectacles? This is not about my wanting to believe, but just to understand Christian belief. Mostly I feel frustratingly stranded holding my incredulity, like a tool without a users manual.

One of the things I'm currently noticing, because it tends to quite wind me up, is the apparent exclusivity of God's love. That God is often portrayed as a divinity who will help you if you faithfully adore him, and is indifferent or hostile toward you, if you don't. Whatever you do - don't ever be a Gentile. Don't ever incur the Wrath of God because its not pretty. If we are all God's creation, why does he not care for all of us, irrespective of whether we believe in God? Could God really be that petulant? If you're not going to believe in me -  to the back of the queue buddy.

I now understand where evangelical Christians get that, sometimes patronising, sense of conviction from - its there in the Bible - it's there in the words of Jesus - its in the acts of the Apostles. Overt proselytising, getting out there and selling the gospel, is in Christianity's primary DNA. And much as most of us would tend to run a mile the moment you spot a street preacher. That speaker was once St Peter, that was once St Paul. And the outcome for them was often literally death defying.

When I lived in Cambridge, there used to be a youngish guy who'd regularly stand on his soapbox and rail his declarations of the apocalypse and imminent doom down upon the hapless Sunday shoppers outside a shopping mall. You had to admire his courage, the sheer arrogant chutzpah it required to do that. However, I would never ever do such a thing. I think I'd rather die than open myself up to even the possibility of public shaming or ridicule. For not being willing to publicly stand up for what I believe in, curiously, I feel a bit of a whimp, but reassuringly English.

This partly comes out of inhabiting a  democracy in its late stage decline. If it is so, its because of passivity. Not prepared to fight for what we believe in, distrustful of conviction or faith. We are crippled by not knowing or caring what those are for us now. If anything at all. We live in immune, faithless bubbles. We exist because we buy. and post selfies on Instagram. Protected by a veil of shallowness and self deceit. Maybe apathy and atheism are in fact sharing an uncomfortable sick bed together.

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 109 - Troubling Cat Troubling

Craft making wise I have turned my hand to being a pattern cutter. I cut out dozens of bits of fabric, interfacing, fleece and cork for our top selling lines. This speeds up the making process for Hubby, no end. My current goal is to create back up stock of pre-cut pattern elements. I have to ensure I don't get  spaced out whilst doing it. To find oneself on a mission toward achieving self alienation. Maintaining a sense of balance between my sense of purpose and the permission to do otherwise, well, that is the territory I am traversing.

I've started a garden project, one I've been wanting to get stuck into all Winter. Waiting for warmer, drier, less blustery weather, which as you know, has so far been in short supply. A major section of our patio in the back garden collapsed, the decking having completely rotted. Once I excavated beneath, it was plain why. The downpipe from the workshop roof, which I'd assumed had a drain. Turned out to have no drain at all. So all the run off just regularly pooled beneath the decking.

Rotten Decking

I had also, mistakenly, pressumed that the ground beneath the patio would be concreted, or at least be some type of firm surface. It is not, It is loose gravelly earth. This has completely overturned the space I expected to be working with. It wasn't worth replacing the rotten decking. Instead I'm creating a sunken area to be filled with gravel/ shale to stand our plant containers on.

Just waitin on the shale

We bought a 100 Litre water butt to collect water from the down pipe in. It was so persistently raining last week, we quickly discovered that this water butt fills up in less than a day of persistent rain. Thus we really needed to have a length of overflow pipe to take away the excess to a nearbye drain. What I'd first thought would be a relatively quick one stop solution, has become a complex sequence of drainage issues. We have to do this, before we can do that. Though I'm confident we will get there, eventually.

In the darker recess alcove of that same patio is a two tiered trough of plants, with a background trellis. Built by us to disguise a hideous, redundant coal bunker. Its the epitome of the sheltered low sunlight area. Over the years we've discovered precious little thrives there for long. We planted two jasmine plants, which have completely taken over the earth in one trough. Starving anything else of water and scarce nutrients. The jasmines have grown to where the light is, so produce only leaves and flowers higher up. Leaving what is beneath a twisted tangle of dry looking branches. This year, one of the two jasmine's looks near the edge of demise. 

In Autumn 2023, out of despair, I threw a layer of fresh compost on both troughs. Scattered a pack of wild flower seeds over them and hoped for the best. Well, by the Summer approaches, it has so far revealed itself as being mostly lush grass. But that grass is truly going for it. So a small, but limited, success there.

Like most gardeners, I'm constantly playing catch up with the reality that cats exist. Shortly after I'd cleared away the rotten decking revealing the earth beneath, some cat had already chosen it as its favourite poo palace. Cats love to shelter from the sun, particularly by sitting direchly upon ferns or ornamental grasses. Completely flattening some plants by lunging down from the partition fence above. 

There's a small wooden trough by our back door. Currently it has six beetroot plants salvaged from garden centre oblivion. That trough, had previously been a favourite poo haunt for a whole sequence of cats that think they own our back garden. Even though there were miniature iris bulbs growing in the trough.

I'd only put the beetroot in a day or so, before finding one of the plants completely hoofed out of the soil by one feline's undoubtedly very effective judo back kick. So I've returned my sequence of bamboo sticks, unaesthetically arranged in a scout pattern, that pretty much puts an end to any feline desire to defecate there. 

Its nor pretty, but its effective. Age and experience, well, it can be quite telling sometimes.

CHURCH LARKING - Weybourne Parish Church & Priory Ruins

Some time back in 1200 CE, the monastery in West Acre, near Kings Lynn, run by Augustinian Canons, was made aware of a situation in Weybourne. It was a small settlement, with a smattering of Christians. It had a Saxon church built in the early 11th century, that was currently without any incumbent minister. They decided to send a handful of monks, initially on a sort of outreach basis.

This appears to have accelerated into the construction of a small priory, built around the Saxon church that was already there. This was only ever a small scale foundation. Ambitious though that felt, it appears to always have been struggling to thrive. Monasteries in villages or town settings, usually provided some sort of devotional context for the lay population. Either they shared the nave space with the village, or if finances allow, they provided a completely separate lay church.

Weybourne Priory evolved on an adhoc basis. What they chose to do was build a nave for the local population, alongside the fabric of the existing monastery. When you look down Weyborne Parish Church's Nave towards the Chancel, you can visibly see that these two church elements are substantially misaligned.

Internally there is not much left of substantial interest to note in All Saints Church. Its quite a plain edifice, stripped by the well intentioned hands of the Victorian tendency to scrub everything clean. Obviously well looked after, it is nonetheless lacking in intimacy and a feeling of all embracing warmth. The eastern side of the nave I think maybe the oldest exizting part of the nave interior. It looks like an old monastery wall, with no windows in it, to allow you to peer through to the cloisters of the priory.

As you exit the church, look up and left into the roof space of the porch. There you'll see in the roofspace the remains of a spiral staircase, fireplace and shrine alcove of what was once a room above the porch. Often mistakenly thought to be a priestly shrine spaces. These rooms above porches could function as a space for a caretaker to guard the church at night, to deter robbery or desecration. But at Weybourne this room was used as an Chapel for Wayfarers to find sanctuary. That you could get access to the Chapel without needing to enter the church or monastery.

Externally the porch is a beautiful, if worn, example of checker board work, executed in flint and brick. With an empty niche, post the Reformation, and a small window in the Wayfarers Chapel. The tower is mostly 14th century, and the rest Victorian restored late 13th century Early English. 

Ones eyes at Weybourne are always going to be more captivated by the monastic ruins. Half of the original late Saxon church tower remains, still with a suggestion of its belfry windows. The original monastic choir Chancel and side Chapel is either half there, or there in outline. 

The Priory ruins indicate that it had a small scale, ramshakle character. One might hesitate to say cobbled together, but finances was often in short supply. A large high arch just to the right of the exterior Chancel altar window, would have once graced the tower transcept leading through to the cloisters. What survives of the latter can only be viewed if you can get up high enough to peer over the empty window casement into the grounds of the farm grounds next door. Or in my case use my smart phone to take photos blind for me.

The Priory, in terms of the numbers of monks living there, was never high. This fluctuated, in 1422 there was only two Canon monks fighting over who would take the position of Prior. By 1494 there was a Prior and three canon monks. Well before the dissolution in 1513, a visitation tells us there was only a prior and one canon monk. So by 1536 Weybourne was first on the easy pickings list of religious foundations to be dissolved. With precious little left to be closed down, or canons to be pensioned off. One can imagine that it was already be in a semi-dilapidated state. What remained after the Dissolution Commissioners moved on, was left to the local population to make the best of. Which is what you see in this simple Norfolk church, with its more characterful priory ruins on one side.

THEATRICAL REVELATIONS - The Power of Theatrical Madness

A performance conceived by Jan Fabre, given at the ICA in 1984 & The Royal Albert Hall in 1985.

In the mid 80's I would go to the ICA in London, and take in some performance work or exhibition. Often just on hearsay alone. This prompted my first encountered with Jan Fabre's work The Power of Theatrical Madness. I guess, buoyed by Laurie Anderson's recent breakthrough into the mainstream, everyone was on the look out for who the next performance artist might be, to do a similar cross over. 

Fabre's work had shock value. It had its moment of ART charging into the rarefied halls of middle brow culture. Robert Mapplethorpe produced a book of photos of it. But these days I think its largely forgotten, quite how impactful and influential The Power of Theatrical Madness was at the time.

Jan Fabre's The Power of Theatrical Madness, was, as the title indicates, quite a bit more of a 'theatrical' than an art performance event. Large set piece dramatic happenings that evolved into these often bizarre rituals across the stage. This was a collective ensemble presentation, tightly choreographed, executed with devotion, physical stamina and passion. At over four hours in length this performance was not for sissys. Click here to see trailer -The Power of Theatrical Madness

With no particular narrative thread, The Power of Theatrical Madness, had more the air of a lunatic grand opera, with its evocatively lush background of minimalist music by Wim Merton. What the piece celebrates is the strength of grand dramatic events on stage as a window into the soul of humanity. Whilst also showing us its darker Wagnerian shadow side.

One major theme is our desire to think we are in control of our lives, relationships and reality itself. In this we always fail. By falling into habits, we are touching on an air of regret and ennui. The larger this is writ upon the stage, the more powerful it becomes as a theatrical staging. But also more dangerous, as Fabre's work points toward the use by monarchical and fascistic powers, of all our present elite forms of theatre.

This work exploits the drama inherent in  simple human movement endlessly repeated. A gesture, that might start out as banal, changes in our perception as we watch it repeated, into drudgery, irritability, exhaustion, empathy, beauty, pathos, and on occasions, transcendence.

We have a line up of men in black fatigues and shirts, forced to carry and hold up stacks of plates. At the conclusion the plates are deliberately shattered. In a crashing cascade of rebelliousness and creative carnage. There are also naked kings wearing crowns waltzing around  together. Yeah, it's a bit kinky too.

The piece was long, it tested your power of endurance to be sure. But, for me it was entirely worth it for the last plaintive element in the entire performance. This was set to the a beautiful elegiac movement by Merton, called Whisper Me. In it there is a man and woman. The man down stage moves upstage and lifts the woman into his arms, taking her down stage where he places her on the floor. The woman rises and initially with a certain playful coquettish spirit moves back to where she was at the start. 

This scenario is repeated over and over for the duration of twenty minutes. By which time the man is becoming increasingly tired and clumsy in the execution of picking her up and carrying her upstage. Whilst the woman progressively asserts her own agency with more stridency. This one section of The Power of Theatrical Madness, was worth the entrance fee. It was probably the most beautiful moving piece of theatre I've ever seen. Both poignant and profound. 

Such was its success at the ICA. A much larger venue, the Royal Albert Hall was booked. And I went along to see the same piece on much a larger stage, with larger back projections. The power of the grand gesture in a small space, did feel diminished when you placed it in a performance venue that possessed huge size and grandeur itself. Whilst I understood why they'd chosen to do this. The whole piece lost the sense of human intimacy by that transference. A long gallery in a stately home, or a smaller opera house might have worked better. Though it did strike me that it's ironic gloss of the fascistic rally, was made even more unpalatable by the vastness of the elliptical hall context. Over forty years later, it is still something I'm really glad I saw.